Tick

Tock

Tick

Tock

The clock on the wall was getting on Mito's nerves. She'd been sitting and listening to it for 2 hours now, and it sure hadn't faded into background noise yet. Her siblings were being distracted by the nurse, but Mito had rejected any attempt she had made to approach her. She was too worried about her only older sibling, currently behind god knows how many walls in the hospital, while she was stuck in the reception listening to the clock.

Her younger siblings probably had no idea what was happening, as it had all happened too fast, but Mito had fully noticed how her mom had come out of the burning house with a bundle of charred orange, before her dad had taken him and disappeared in a yellow flash. After that she and her siblings had been picked up by their mom, as she rushed towards the Konoha hospital in a speed Mito had no idea even ninja could reach. Her siblings thought it was a fun ride. Mito did not. She'd recognized the charred orange bundle.

"Miiito!" Mito turned to her little sister that was walking over to her, an annoyed expression on her face. "When can we leaveee?"

Mito had taken on the role of surrogate-parent for the two children currently in his presence, as it seemed her parents were having one hell of a time controlling them. Unfortunately, at times like this, it was hard for Mito to fulfill her role.

She didn't know what her parents would say, so she simply said, "Soon, Natsuki, just a couple more minutes!" In as cheerful of a tone she could. She realized herself how fake her voice sounded, but Natsuki seemed happy and went back to play ninja with her brother. Mito returned her attention to the door her mother had disappeared into.

Tick

Tock

"He's alive." Tsunade told them. A huge weight on Minato's heart was lifted, although the majority of it remained. At least he had lived through the ordeal. When Kushina decided to run into the house to save their photos, the last thing he had expected come out with her was his son. He knew that Naruto enjoyed spending his time alone on the Hokage Monument sometimes, and he had been absolutely sure that was the case this time around as well. He wasn't home when they had returned from their light training after all, and he hadn't come back either. At least to his knowledge. But apparently Naruto was sneakier than he had known, and that had led to this whole mess.

When Kushina trust the child into his arms, he couldn't help but gag at the smell. Minato had seen his share of death during the third shinobi war, but the seeing his seven year old son almost charcoal black and feeling the smell of burned flesh emanating from him was just too much. Luckily, he had placed one of his seals in Tsunade's ward at the hospital, and he had just barely caught her as she was leaving for work.

After the terror came the guilt. It was his fault that this had happened. What if Naruto got scarred for life because of this? What if he hated him? What if he die-

Minato hindered that thought, but it never left the back of his head. Not until two hours later, when Tsunade had left the room of healers. He was overjoyed at the fact that his eldest had survived, but Minato was a war veteran. He knew what would follow after that statement.

"But?" He prompted.

Tsunade looked down, for a moment before continuing.

"While we managed to save all his major organs, his lungs are a bit damaged. He might get breathless quicker than others. He might also sustain a constant cough throughout his life." Minato wanted to punch himself for the injuries his son got because of him, and he wanted to cry out with joy that it was nothing more severe than that. Before he could do either, Tsunade continued.

"There is, however, one major injury." Minato felt his heart stop beating. "Naruto's chakra core. I'm not if the fire caused it, or if it flared out of control because of the pain, but it is undoubtedly damaged beyond repair. The chakra still flows throughout his body, but he'll have no control of the output."

Minato froze. He knew what Naruto wanted more than anything. Naruto wasn't as vocal as his three siblings, but he was quite vocal about one subject: He always spoke of how he wanted to be the hokage. Just like his dad.

Now he never could.

Because of his dad.

Mito walked into the quiet kitchen, where Menma and Natsuki were silently poking their food around their plate. The house had quieted down a lot since the sudden hospital visit one week ago. Their parents hadn't told any of them what had happened, and Mito suspected she was the only one that had any idea, but her siblings had quickly picked up on Naruto's mood.

The three days he had to spend in the hospital were the most normal of the week for the Namikaze family. While all three children were worried, it didn't seem out of the ordinary for the youngest two. They had also ended up in the hospital due to overestimating their ability to follow their brother up the hokage monument. Mito however, was beside herself. Her parents were acting weird, being overprotective of the three children in the house. They didn't let the children train, or even play outside the estate. She worried that something severe had happened to her brother, but didn't want to question her parents, as they seemed more stressed than they had ever been before.

When Naruto returned from the hospital, the sour mood infected all family members. All the children had been happy at first when he came home, but it merely took one dinner together for them to realize something major was wrong. Naruto, while the quietest of the bunch, he still pretty much always took part of the conversation. This time he didn't say a word. When Mito questioned him about his cold (He would cough every now and then) Naruto simply shrugged his shoulders.

As the week progressed, Mito noticed that mom and dad started doting on Naruto. They woke him up first, tucked him into bed first, and pretty much always kept one eye on him. At first Mito thought that this would end up annoying Natsuki, that couldn't go five minutes without the full room's attention, but even Natsuki seemed worried about her oldest brother. He skipped dinner more often than not, and sometimes Mito even heard him sneak out of his room during the night. Mito tried to talk to him, but never got anywhere, as he obviously didn't seem very interested in talking to anybody. She did, however, notice that the few words he spoke everyday were very raspy sounding.

Mito knew that whatever had happened to Naruto that night, one way or another, broke him.

And she was determined to fix him.

Yes hello, next episode will be Naruto focused. I don't want to put too much focus on this part of his life, as that's not really what I wanted to explore with this story.