Heyyy! I know it's been a long time, but college kicks ass and with some very bad summer courses and equally bad normal courses, I've had my hands full for the past couple of months. There might be some delay before the next chapter because the courses this year are all very frustrating to say the least. Anyway, ramblings aside, enjoy the next chapter!
Kushina strode into the hospital with all the purpose of a growling lioness on a hunt and everyone within a hundred foot radius knew right away not to obstruct her path. They knew without a doubt that Kushina's rage was something they absolutely did not want to incur. So when they saw her coming towards the Subject Savior's room, they knew it was the best idea to look away.
She passed the room with barely a nod to the ANBU standing there and closed the door shut behind her, a second later they couldn't hear anything else as the sound absorption seals took effect. It was only Kakashi's presence from inside the room that stopped them from breaking the door down to protect their beloved Hokage's wife, the Uzumaki Clan Head.
! #$%^&&^$# !
Kushina activated the seal she made with Minato- the seal that would completely hide her chakra; make her seem like a void in space, unnoticeable but present. There was a good chance the boy would notice the void, but she was damned sure he was too exhausted to. She glanced at the kid that had saved her life and Minato's all those years ago and she very quickly tried to call up on her blurry memories of that day. It is him; she thinks but tries to keep her emotions at bay. She knew Kakashi was in the room with her so she tries her hardest to keep her memories and emotions at bay; no need to scare away her surrogate little brother-come-son combo.
But the sight on the bed holds the major part of her attention. There the boy was, in all his Uchiha glory. When she visited with Minato on the first day she was admittedly more occupied with her un-cooperating memories of that night. She knew that she had felt that chakra before, knew it intimately as the boy had forced his chakra and his consciousness into the seal to snap the Kyuubi out of its-no, his- idiotic rage.
The boy had seemed ethereal that day with all that chakra and power but now on that bed he seemed more human. More like the rest of them. He barely even seemed to retain a jounin chakra level now. What had once been equivalent to a Kage's or multiple Kage level now reduced to barely a Jounin. She walked over to the side of the bed, raising a hand to hover over the boy's face but Inu stopped her uncertain hand and held it away from the boy.
She snapped her gaze to the Dog-masked ANBU and followed him to the corner of the room when he tugged at her arm.
When he turned to face her, she had an eyebrow raised, waiting for an answer to Inu's actions.
"Don't touch him, Kushina-sama. Tsunade-sama swore to smack the first person to wake him up," he muttered quietly, irritated at the thought of Tsunade's threat.
The eyebrow she had raised, rose even higher at the boy's answer.
"He only just fell asleep a couple hours ago after Tsunade-sama's morning check-up and he's been up all night."
"Up all night?"
"Nightmares," he answered and the Uzumaki winced, looking away. An Uchiha's nightmares were full of color and surround-sound thanks to the stupid eidetic memory the Sharingan gives them. Mikoto's nightmares from back during the War were-
"He the one?" Inu asks quietly taking her thoughts away from her best friend's nightmares.
"He is, although he looked cuter in my memories, cuter than you did when you were that age," she says, pouting. She could practically hear the ANBU roll his eye at that statement and knew to stifle her smile.
"Not funny Kushina-sama, I'm never cute."
"Sure Brat, tell yourself that if it makes you happy." She smiled happily, looking at the boy, the sole student left from Minato's team. But the atmosphere changed instantly, she watched as he turned to look at the boy on the bed. She waited knowing Kakashi was about to vent to her and knew it was the least she could do to listen. There was a grim look in Kakashi's eye as he watched the boy. He was stewing over something and it was definitely bubbling out now.
"He doesn't look like much- average jounin chakra-level, good reflexes- but every ninja has that- and loads of bad memories like any other Shinobi," Kakashi murmured, looking at his charge.
Kushina knew not to interrupt her surrogate son/brother when he started talking like this. She waited for what she knew was coming. And she wasn't disappointed.
"But he does have good chakra control. He also seemed good at lightning transformations, good enough to nearly fry my nerves, and being an Uchiha he's bound to have a Fire release. He seems pretty good at breaking genjutsu too. I've never seen Mikoto-sama's genjutsu be broken that easily, and by someone in his condition. Even Itachi has trouble breaking out of her genjutsu on his best day's ."
"There's a certain feel to him," he says quietly," the kind that makes my skin crawl."
"Is he really all that bad, Kakashi?" she asked as she pulled his ANBU mask away, one of the only two people who could get away with such a stunt.
"Maa, he is hiding a lot," he says," I don't like the idea of you or Sensei spending a lot of time with him."
"Are you suggesting that Minato and I can't take care of ourselves?" she asks narrowing her eyes at the boy beside her. She knew Kakashi got over-protective at times, their near-deaths that night enough to fuel that fire. But they both made sure not to encourage Kakashi's over-protectiveness. Kakashi was their charge, not the other way around.
"I never implied that," he says, sulking.
"Oh then what were you implying, genius?"
"Nothing," he says sulking and looking away.
"It better stay that way," she says.
"So you don't like him, and yet you agreed to watch over him?" Kushina wasn't fooled in the slightest. Kakashi remained silent as he gazed at the Uchiha.
The thing with Kakashi was that not even Minato could make him do something he doesn't want to do and that was saying something since most people think Kakashi would do anything to please Minato. Ah, the beauty of having a brat for a surrogate brother, or son depending on how much of an infant Kakashi wants to be in the middle of tantrums. Tantrums that are immense fun to watch, because they were the boy's way of getting back at Minato for making him do things he didn't want to do.
And if he truly hated the job Kakashi would have millions of excuses already to skip it. But considering how he's still here, Kushina knew what kind of bullshit he was spouting.
"Is it because of what he did that night?" Kushina asks, keeping her tone neutral.
"I don't want to talk about it, Kushina-sama," he said falling back on formalities the way he always did when someone had him cornered.
"Sure. For me though, Kakashi-kun, I'm- I am extremely grateful he saved my life that day," she whispered. Kakashi, turned to look her straight in the eyes, and said, "I am glad he did too."
"Is that why you're still here?" Kushina asks.
She sees the question in Kakashi's eye, as he tilts his head to understand her statement.
"You want to figure him out. That's why you're here, isn't it?"
"Figure me out?"
They both startle slightly before freezing. The Uchiha they'd thought asleep until then was sitting up in bed, slowly, cautiously.
"It's rude to talk about a person and not acknowledge his existence especially when he is in the same room," Haru spoke in a raspy tone, indicating disuse of his voice.
"Well, we did think you were asleep and trusted you not eavesdrop on us," she said with a smirk on her face.
That got a reaction out of him.
Haru tilted his head back at the ceiling and did his very best not to roll his eyes, or that was what Kushina thought the Uchiha's actions spoke of. She had her fair share of encounters with the Uchiha of course, and she thought Fugaku was an honest to God open book when most considered him a stoic fool. That man was neither a fool nor stoic, you just had to know where to look to get the real feedback when you spoke with him. Well that applied to all Uchiha of course and the only one it didn't work with was Mikoto and she didn't have to worry about that as Mikoto told her everything.
"So you know who you're talking to, Kid?" she asked as she walked over to him, Kakashi quietly fallowing her.
She observed the way his face screwed up in distaste at the Kid part. Interesting.
"Did you really think I'd forget?" he asks quietly. But he never waited for the answer and asked her another question. "How is little Naruto?"
Kushina could feel Kakashi tense behind her and even release a bit of Killing Intent. Screw your overprotective motherbear bullshit, Kakashi-kun she wants to say.
"He's doing well, recently pranked his father by pouring ninja glue on the Hokage hat and made it stick to his head, so he's really, really well," Kushina says like the proud, prankster mama she was.
She heard the choked snort she was looking for and smirked. That had been the best day ever.
"So how much do you remember from that night, Haru-kun? Do you remember everything?"
She asks quietly, needing to know what happened. All Minato and Kushina together remembered were bits and pieces of the night and they had a pretty good estimate of what could have happened. The silence from the Uchiha is telling, but for once she has no idea how to really understand it.
"I don't remember much either," she hears him say after a couple of minutes.
"What do you remember?"
"I remember a blond wailing menace and woman with bright red hair," he says in a deadpan tone.
"Aren't Uchiha supposed to have photographic memory of whatever they see with their Sharingan active?" Kakashi asks snidely.
Haru grunts a little and there is a telltale sign of irritation on Haru's face.
"I don't have the brain capacity to think or process any information when I'm down 95 percent of my chakra. I'm not that much of a genius, ANBU-san."
Kakashi freezes and Kushina levels a look at Kakashi that says, 'don't bait him.'
"I'm not here to interrogate you on what you remember from that night. I'm here to thank you for saving our lives and saving the lives of hundreds of Konoha Shinobi," Kushina says.
He doesn't react to the statement, his face a familiar blank slate.
"Minato and I, we were ready to die that night, to save our boy, at least for a moment in know we called you Subject Savior? We had no idea of who you were and that was the only name we could come up with," she says looking for any kind of signs to see what the boy was thinking, "If you hadn't saved our lives things could have been very different in Konoha and we are very happy that those incidents had not taken place."
Haru, contrary to what the people in the room were thinking, knew exactly what would have happened had he not saved their lives that night. He'd experienced it of course, knew exactly what would have happened. The Uchiha Massacre, the shunning of the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, Hyuuga Hizashi's death, the pain his older brother resigned himself to suffer through, the Akatsuki, Orochimaru, his own betrayal of his teammates, Kaguya, genetically modified clones that took on the form of his older brother to kill his wife, and the list went on and on.
The bandages over his eyes prevented him from seeing but he definitely knew what Kakashi and Kushina-sama were thinking. They had no idea what would have-could have- happened really. The Kakashi of his timeline did but not this Kakashi.
He had to get out of here. He had been very annoyed with the chakra seals, and he knew he could break them if he wanted to. Haru knew that because he spent the entire night looking for vulnerabilities in the seal and he'd found some surprising amount of them. All he had to do was bite his finger, make some seals with his blood on the areas where the seal was applied and the seals would be gone. The conversation with his mother- no, not his time line, not his mother- had messed his head up. He had to get out of here- the crippling amount of claustrophobia he hadn't felt since the day his daughter told him about the abort- he shook his head slightly unable to think of that time. That time always made his skin crawl and his bones ache with exhaustion. He suddenly felt his true age again.
"Is there anything else you'd like to talk about, Kushina-sama?"
Kushina felt Kakashi tense once again behind her and she grabbed his arm before he could make another one of his blunt remarks. Because Kushina had been conversing with enough Uchiha, she truly knew what he'd truly meant with the question.
"Please change the topic or I might bolt regardless of my condition."
"Well, Mikoto told me you'd like to have a seal on your eyes?"
"Yes, they'd recover a lot faster without the random chakra flares," he answered.
"Fair enough. Well why don't we get started?" she replied before placing her hands on eitherside of his face.
"I just need to get a feel of the chakra pathways, need to know how many of them I need to seal away," she says as she works through the pathways with her eyes closed.
"Done!" Kushina exclaims before walking back to Kakashi.
"Haru-kun, I was going through your things-"
The devious look in Kushina's eyes has Kakashi flinching backward and the man on the bed barely even looks offended.
"-and I found a sword there; a very beautiful chokuto. I am a bit of a kenjutsu fanatic, so maybe you could spar with me sometime, after you recover of course."
Haru seems to be fighting a muscle in his face, because Kakashi can't classify what he sees on the man's face. He could be grimacing or smiling and Kakashi was none the wiser.
"So what do you say, Haru-kun?"
"Fine," he mutters.
"Just like that?" she asks, confused at his easy acceptance.
He grunts an acceptance to the statement and Kushina is even more confused.
Kushina then pouts in a way that would have sent shivers down the spines of the Clan Heads had this been a meeting. It was a pout that said, 'someone is going to get it.'
"Oh and I also found some beads in your belongings, seriously Haru-kun what kind of a fashion statement are you trying to make wearing beads – the kind that are actually worn by monks? People will start wondering what you are!"
"What I am?" he asks a little confused now with Kushina's very disturbing mood swing that sent her mind into thinking about fashion and fashion statements.
"People are going to think of you as this weird 'shinobi-monk-samurai-wanderer' hybrid!" Kushina says heatedly.
Kakashi has to stifle a snort at that title, 'shinobi-monk-samurai-wanderer?'
But what was more entertaining was Haru's reaction to it. He merely raised an eyebrow that even one uneducated in Uchiha-speak understood, 'So, do I look like I care?'
Kushina looked scandalized.
"I refuse to let you wear that!"
"Why?" he asks bewildered.
"Because you're going to get bullied!"
"…bullied?"
"That's right! I refuse to have someone in my family get bullied!"
"…family?"
"Yes family! You saved our lives, so Minato and I, and the rest of the Uhciha have adopted you, so you're family and I refuse-"
There's a pause in her statement when she notices Haru doubled over on the bed, with his shoulders shaking, his hands fisting the hospital sheets in a white-knuckled grip.
"Haru-kun?" she asks concerned. Then she remembers that the boy actually lost his entire clan only a few months ago and here she was saying things like family when she knew how well people need time after something like that.
It takes a few minutes but Haru's shaking does stop and he slowly raises his head, his bandaged eyes covered by his bangs.
"Why," he asks choking on the word, "Why do you think someone's going to bully me for wearing beads?"
Huh, Kushina thinks, and Kakashi has to hold his laughter in and when he can't he immediately pinches himself hard to make sure the pain keeps him from laughing out loud.
"Why wouldn't they?" Kushina asks with child-like confusion coloring her tone.
"Why would they, Kushina-sama?" he asks, the tone of his voice providing the kind of familiarity and comfort and hidden amusement that she only gets from Minato and Mikoto, and in a few years from Naruto's.
"Aren't monks supposed to be bald? If you wear beads then you are a monk and monks are bald and your hair's beautiful and I refuse to let you-," Kushina says, looking quite pleased with her deduction.
"But I am not a monk."
"You wear beads, so you are one!"
"No, I'm not."
"Yes, you are!"
"No."
"Yes."
Haru sighs in that exasperating way that only the people closest to her do that it makes the hair on the back of her neck rise.
"Kushina-sama, please cut it out," the Uchiha says quietly.
"What, Haru-kun?"
"You're being annoying," he growls out thoroughly unhappy.
Kushina and Kakashi gape for a moment before Kushina's raucous laughter fills the room.
"God, I like you. We're keeping this one, Genius. Don't scare him off," Kushina says before removing the seals and walking out of the room, leaving a gob smacked Kakashi Hatake and thoroughly annoyed Uchiha Haru.
! #$%^^%$# !
The minute Naruto's Mother leaves, Kakashi, his-former-sensei-but-now-a-complete-jerk-ANBU vanishes without a hint. Not that Haru doesn't not have any idea where he is: he is leaning against the far corner of the room which was at a 58 and half degree angle from his position on the bed.
Not that thinking about his former sensei was bad thing- it wasn't, even though it dredged up all kinds of memories of his timeline that Haru could barely even comprehend and work through half the time- but Haru seriously needed to come to a decision on leaving the Village.
What do you think I should do Sarada, Boruto? Stay or go? He asks them.
Thank you for all the response for the story. If you can take a minute to review!
