He awoke screaming, twisting, twining, his sheets and ripping at his night clothes. Above him the brightened hair of his son shining in sunlight, glittering in the wrong colour and illuminating him in the wrong tones. But his posturing, his eyes were familiar, the hands near grasping at his shoulders were hesitant and calloused in scars of battles, Naruto recognized he should have seen. For now however, his own eyes watered for the knowledge of the history he had just caused, Kyuubi stirred beneath his gut at the consideration, above him Jiraiya burdened by the pains he had cast onto him from his own death Jiraiya still carried. Tears began to fall from his lids as he stared at the man, his hand resting against the tanned skin so similar to his own, but lightened alike his father.
"Jiraiya-chan…" Guilt ate at him, as all remembrance of the past knawed at his mind, Madara's legend of attacking the village, his own doing. The realization stinging at the very depths of his core. Thus there was shared a sweetened moment of respite before the genin shot away from his dwindling lazed comfort, all left within him from meals previous bolting out of him as if he were diseased. His eyes shut to a clasp, great heaves of breath escaped as his hydration left through his eyes in disjointed sobs, claws of his own make ripped into the fabric of his abdomen as blood bleed freely from the tares they created in earnest horror. He hardly came to the comprehension that it were his sons much larger graspings pulling at his frightened movements.
"Okaa-san!" For a seasoned veteran to sound panicked in concern, one he more deeply valued then any within his village, it startled Naruto into a complacency. Yet still, the knowledge remained, that for all his careless wordings he had just managed to cause his homupowa's death. The disgust came pronounced in the abhorrent sobbing he let loose to the ground, for all the protection he wished to bestow upon his grown son, his mind could not come to fathom the concept of motherly protection. It came unto him, the wonderence, if he too were the cause of Madara leaving the village as it were, if his death had sparked the ember into kindling. Jiraiya was at his side, his hands clearly trembling in nerves and uncertainty, and Naruto regained some mind to sit proper, to stop his vomit, to stop his clawing like a madman into his own flesh.
Naruto breathed as deeply as he might, calamity running about in his disjointed mind as he considered his own dogma. Yet still, he saw through the corner of his iris his son hurry to the kitchens, he knew not what for, he was attempting to calm his hyperventilation. The rivelets still came from his eyes, his mouth still tasted salt, but now in recognition as denial faded from his thoughts. It was not in his ability to stop this past, for it had already been written as a truth within his textbooks as a child, even priour to his unexpected journey. Yet, the comprehension pitted his stomach, as Jiraiya came back with a glass of cooled water; Kyuubi burned, healing at his own self-inflicted wounds.
He drank, the liquid soothing, yet foul upon his tongue as guilt fermented into his core. How idiotic he had managed to be with simplistic words of question, what a fool. Naruto found no solace in the presence of his son by him, the truth weighed as no one man's fist could. He knew reasoning, he knew the man whom he had married in full joy, he knew the man yet the comfort was lost to the scourge of comprehension, to the knowledge that his tenderized husband; a man whom had known the strain of war and never had broken, was now plagued with a simple secret he should have kept to his own breast. He bit into his lips as he stood.
He faced Jiraiya, anger at himself falling to brush at the recesses of his mind, as he stared at the much matured face of his child. He knew that the Uchiha was a grown man, a capable shinobi, a renowned shinobi, he needn't offer apologies or excuses, condolences for his father's mistake; yet his mind still beheld the urge. He knew Mito had not been kilt by the man, so he wondered at what exactly had occurred.
By all the margin of comfort it would service unto their minds, Naruto took his sons hand into his and held it in his own, praying over it as he would at the shines before.
Within him for a reason he did not comprehend, a voice filtered through his mind. That of his husband and others he knew well:
"My bride is dead Hashirama, I do not deny."
"Yet, you expect us to take into possibility that you have been speaking to more then an illusion of your own mentality?" Naruto knew that scowling voice speaking well, Tobirama in deep baritone, questioning all that might be sceptical upon him or the normality of the village. Naruto found the condicention even in knowledge of what the man had plagued unto his clan, a somewhat unbehath comfort.
"Yes. I do. For I have. Comprehend this young Senju-" The blond came near to a laugh at the tone his husband maintained, not in joviality, but in restraintful ire, as he spoke in condescension unto Tobirama's nary scornful tone. "-I did not know of my bride's assassin, perhaps a vague comprehension brought forth by bias, but not the understanding. Naru spoke to me in assurity, in clarity. He is certain, my mind was not." He heard no reply, but Naruto could easily come to imagine the grumble following as the albino man crossed his arms and swung his head to the side of the room in dejectful agreement.
"In a way I believe you Madara, but do listen to rationality upon mine own consideration. For what purpose, besides disagreement and discomfort, what reasoning would Mito harbour to kill Naru? It would gain her nothing, other then your -and the clan's mourning." Hashirama's filtered voice came through then, Naruto knew not of his own sanity, yet the conversation did bring speculation unto him if what he was hearing was present, or indeed true. He understood his own words unto Madara would hold a damaging effect, though now he stood in confusion for the words spoken in his mind. Naturally however, he could fathom the sympathetic empathy expressed in the Hokage's tenderized soft oaken visage.
"Nary nothing, yet, I would be expected to marry once more. Is it not peculiar unto you, Hashirama, that Maiko and Mito know each other so very well? In spite of their clan history?" The conversation held there. The silence, demanding an answer Naru knew he could not place input.
That was where he came to ponder, why was Madara within the village once more? Was he not in the midst of preparing for attack? The cold hand of his son surrounding his fingers, became a calming balm upon him.
