I've been working on this on and off for the better part of September (usually when I should have been prepping for Econ 371.) The idea for this one-shot had been bouncing around in my head for a really long time, but it didn't occur to me until recently to actually write about it. The ending still needs some tweaking, but I was anxious to publish, so I didn't wait my customary three weeks for revision. I will revise over the next few weeks as I feel inspired.
There was a time, many years before, when the riptides of life might have dissolved the sand beneath Sarutobi's feet and pulled him under into the whirling vortex of unpredictability otherwise known as life. But a lifetime of war - that perilous song and dance he'd rehearsed over and over - had taught him the virtue of adaptation. The murky waters might suck at your knees, but you just learned to adjust your balance.
Tonight was no different. It couldn't be different, he told himself, although no battlefield had prepared him for the wasteland of uncertainty that now stretched before him. The Fourth's body was still warm, the wounded scattered like autumn leaves, as he once more raised his right hand, fingers knotted and calloused, and swore to nurture and protect Konoha with his life. With the lives of his soldiers. With the lives of their children, those left to the burden of rebuilding, of living. Hadn't he done this before?
It was still raining when he finally made his way to the makeshift tent hospital on the western edge of the village. Demon fire burned like unholy beacons in the dark amidst piles of rubble that were once Konoha proper. The air tasted like ash. His advisors had insisted they start making plans for the reconstruction immediately - how best to fortify the village against attack in its weakened state; which teams to assemble to search for survivors among the collapsed buildings; who - or what - to blame for this catastrophe...
When to bury the dead.
Sarutobi excused himself before he forgot what it meant to grieve.
"Sandaime-sama." The chunin medic nervously guarding the small tent on the periphery of the encampment bowed low as Sarutobi approached. The old man dipped his head in acknowledgement.
"I'm here to take charge of the child." Sarutobi gestured at the tent entrance. The chunin nodded, relief visibly etched across his sooty face, and pulled back the canvas flap so that Sarutobi could enter. The tent interior was bare except for an oil lamp in the corner that cast flickering shadows across an apple crate placed in the center of the earth floor. From within came a tiny, broken squall, and Sarutobi was suddenly reminded of nights spent rubbing gentle circles on small colicky backs, soothing similar pitiful cries. There would be many new Konoha orphans in need of such comfort in the coming weeks. He wished this child was just one and the same. But the inky seal swirling around the infant's bellybutton spoke otherwise.
Sarutobi lifted the babe from its makeshift bed and cradled him in his arms. He'd half expected to feel the molten weight of the demon - of raw memory - on his forearms, but the Kyuubi vessel was no heavier than you would expect a healthy newborn baby to be. And healthy he was, with a brass set of lungs that had splashed a broad grin across his father's face despite the grief and horror of the previous two days. Sarutobi couldn't help but marvel at how perfectly exquisite new life was. Sadly, he smoothed a broad hand over the soft, blonde fuzz carpeting the child's head and tried not to think of the devastated determination that had graced Minato's handsome features as he held his newborn son for the first and last time. A life for a life. Ninja always traded in absolute terms, but the old maxim only made Sarutobi feel his age more keenly.
The child - Naruto. His name is Naruto, named for that silly book of Jiraiya's, Sarutobi remembered with vague amusement - had settled down, nestled in the crooks of Sarutobi's bony elbows. He smiled tenderly at the rounded pink bow-tie of Naruto's mouth as the infant slumbered, extending his knotted pinky-finger for a curling tendril of a hand, like a new green shoot unwinding, to grasp. One day this child would know and understand the dream he had been bequeathed. He would bear the burden; he would live the legacy. But for now Sarutobi was content to watch him sleep, this new-lit flame amidst the ghostly smoke of those gone beyond. He didn't expect absolution or a miracle or a light at the end of the tunnel. All Heaven had given Sarutobi tonight was a broken village and one more orphan to add to Konoha's hundreds. The best he could do was start here. Outside the tent the village smoldered, but, inside, this moment, this precious blonde bundle of pink flesh and fluttering heartbeat, was his center of gravity.