Naruto's breaths came in shallow gasps, they racked his tiny frame, causing his bare chest to rise and fall in fast succession.
Minato pressed two fingers to the lower half of his newborn son's breastbone, and gritted his teeth in concentration. He proceeded to make three compressions every two seconds, gently pushing down Naruto's chest in an attempt to force enough oxygen into the infant.
Usually there were more resources when dealing with Asphyxia during childbirth, but here Minato was forced to rely on the basics.
Not for the first time Minato had to thank his incredibly sharp memory. With both of the nurses bodies lying discarded several feet away, he'd had to rely on an infant parenting book he'd read when Kushina first told him of her pregnancy.
Just thinking about his wife brought new waves of panic, and he risked a glance up from Naruto to see how she was faring.
Kushina gave him a pained smile from where she was awkwardly propped up against the cave wall. A dangerous amount of blood was pooled around her, Minato could see that her arms were slick with it up to the elbow.
"How are you feeling Kushina?"
"Can't remember the last time I felt this good."
Minato chuckled weakly at his wife's attempt at humor, but Kushina spoke again a moment later, this time much more quietly, "Don't worry about me, just save Naruto, that's all that matters."
Minato wiped his sweaty brow on the inside of his sleeve, and pumped two fingers against Naruto's chest with renewed determination.
"I'll save you both, then I'll go save the village from the fox, and while I'm at it I'll beat the crap out of the masked Uchiha who dares threaten my wife and son."
Kushina huffed and leaned her head back until it was resting against craggy rock.
"Typical Minato, always trying to save everyone." Kushina's eyes drifted slowly closed.
"Kushina, don't fall asleep on me now. How are you going to tell our son that his first moments alive were so boring you decided to take a nap?"
Kushina blinked her eyes open, and let out a wheezing breath that blew crimson tendrils of hair away from her face.
"You'll have to tell him. After having the Kyuubi ripped out of me it's a miracle I've survived this long."
"I'll protect you. I always have before, haven't I?"
"This is more than a flesh wound Minato, besides you need to join the third on the battlefield." Kushina's voice came out slurred, her eyes slitting closed once again.
Naruto started crying, tears running down pink baby cheeks.
"Kushina, I think he's breathing easier!"
She managed to lift her eyelids enough to smile at Naruto bleary.
"Thank goodness, I really didn't know it was possible to love someone so much."
Where Naruto's breath had improved, Kushina's seemed to become much more laboured.
"You'll have to tell him that I love him every day." She didn't seem to be able to keep her eyes open any longer, and they fell shut almost immediately.
"You can tell him that yourself, Kushina." Minato turned towards his wife and saw that she failed to look at him, "Kushina?" He tried tenively, waiting for her to respond. Yet she did not stir at all, even her chest made no noticeable rise and fall movement.
Minato would have done anything for her to blink up at him with cobalt blue irises and offer him a familiar crooked grin, but this wishful thinking was to no avail.
He was usually a man thankful for his genius status, but in that moment all he could do was curse how quickly it took him to figure out that her eyes would never be open again.
Across the battlefield the Sandaime stood amongst the tangled limbs of his fallen comrades.
He accepted the pink haired baby from the ANBU Captain, carefully holding her in the crook of his left elbow.
"Who is she?" He asked the gathered agents quietly. When he had requested his ANBU find an infant, he never expected them to work so quickly.
"A civilian." The Captain replied.
"And her parents?"
"Alive but injured."
"How?"
"Building collapsed nearby, they were both knocked unconscious."
Hiruzen nodded solemnly. "See to it that she is returned to her parents once the sealing has taken place."
The sandaime stepped away from his subordinates, and turned to bravely face the fox. It's nine tails lashed wildly in the air, as it tipped an orange head back to the night sky and let out a bloodcurdling roar.
Hiruzen felt himself go weak at the knees; never had he felt fear like this before. He had been in incredibly dangerous situations many times in his life and escaped relatively unscathed, yet now it seemed death had finally caught up to him.
Taking a deep breath, The Sandaime prepared himself for his final stand. He would do this for the future of Konoha; for Minato's baby, who was currently struggling for breath, and for his own sons who had joined the desperate attack against the Kyuubi.
The Sandaime looked down at the baby in his arms.
"I'm sorry little one, that we may burden your generation with our monsters."
The chubby infant blinked her inquisitive green eyes up at him and smiled slightly, as if in encouragement.
Strength found its way into Hiruzen's heart, and a raspy battle cry clawed out of his throat.
"For Konoha!" He cried, his right arm fisted in the air. The sealing would surely kill him, yet his feet did not falter as he charged the rampaging fox.