So, I know that this is really late. But to compensate, I've already uploaded the next (and last) chapter. Unless you're reading this within the first five minutes of uploading, or something goes wrong with the site, it should be up and ready to read.

Ah, it's drawing to a close. So sad.

You know what else is sad? That 'great authors' like JKR and Kishimoto must make their characters (Harry, Shikamaru and Naruto) grow up by killing off their mentors (Sirius, Dumbledore, Asuma and Jiraiya). Honestly, there are other ways, ways that don't involve tears and sadness.

Chapter 22

The hospital room wasn't exactly the best place for a joyful celebration, but considering Jiraiya's condition, they really didn't have much of a choice. Tsunade was already about to burst a blood vessel because he'd dragged himself out of the hospital and halfway across town. The only reason she hadn't ripped him a new one was because he had saved Minato's behind. Besides, if Minato had actually been sent away, Tsunade was sure that she wouldn't have been able to stop Kushina and Naruto from busting him out and that would have led to a whole world of trouble.

She knew that she needed to talk to him soon, mostly about his arm. Had she been able to get to it just a few weeks ago, she could have done something. There were medical jutsus for that sort of thing—the black book that Naruto had received from Kabuto mentioned that one of the Akatsuki members had lost both his arms, but they'd been repaired. Unfortunately, it had been seven weeks since Jiraiya's arm had been blasted off. The chakra pathways had reformed, reconnected. To do any sort of reattachment, she would need to sever them again and connect them to any new limb. She'd spoken with the Hyuugas, the masters of the chakra network, and they'd said that because of the delicacy of the network, even if she managed to successfully attach any appendage, the odds of him being able to use it in battle were negligible. The connection sites would be too fragile to handle the mass amounts of chakra.

The deadline for any reattachment was fast approaching, and if Jiraiya ever wanted to unscrew a bottle lid again, the operation would need to be in the next week. They needed to discuss options. If he decided on another human arm, from a ninja who'd signed as a donor, they needed to find an arm of appropriate size and coloring.

Despite the time crunch, she just couldn't make herself break up the reunion in front of her. It seemed as though if Naruto gave Minato focus, Kushina reminded him of his gentle, loving side, and Jiraiya made him smile. Tsunade watched him interact, thinking it was almost like having the old Minato back.

"It seems like I'll never be out of your debt, sensei," Minato said with a smile.

"Damn right you won't," Jiraiya chuckled weakly. One of the nurses brought pillows in and adjusted them behind his back. Tsunade nodded at her gratefully. She had purposely sent all of the nurses under fifty to the opposite side of the hospital. Even laid up in the hospital, missing an arm, Jiraiya was still Jiraiya.

"I taught him everything he knows," the sage preened. He leered at Kushina and winked. "I mean everything."

Naruto guffawed as Minato's face turned a most vivid shade of red. The former Hokage's lips twitched. "Yeah, by getting me drunk and throwing me in brothel when I was fourteen."

"Brothel?" Kushina snapped. Minato's eyes widened as he realized his mistake. "And how many of the ladies of the night did you . . . get to know?"

He scratched the back of his head. "Ah, well . . . ahem, uh—"

"Give the guy a break, honey," he said, a terrible grin splitting his face. "Despite his past sins, he hasn't had any in sixteen years."

Minato and Naruto buried their faces in their hands in identical expressions of embarrassment, while Kushina raised an eyebrow. "You think I have?"

"Oh, dear god!" Naruto cried. He sank down in the chair, as if trying to melt into the floor.

Kakashi, who had entered in the last five minutes, snickered. "He does the same thing when I do this." Kakashi flipped his little green book open and stuck a page in front of Naruto's face. The teen went into mini convulsions, slipping completely out of his seat and flopping onto the floor. A mix of anguished groans, disgusted gagging sounds and shuddering 'no's.

Frowning, Tsunade grabbed it out of his hands. "There aren't any pictures in this."

Kakashi's eye curved happily. "I know. That's why it's so funny."

This sent Jiraiya into a fresh bout of laughter. Minato frowned and reached out to grab the book out of Kakashi's hands. "What is this?" he demanded. A single golden eyebrow raised in bemusement. "Icha Icha Violence?"

"Best-selling sequel to Icha Icha Paradise," Jiraiya grinned.

Minato paged through it and his eyes slowly widened. His head tilted as he stopped and read one page in particular. "I—I don't think that's physically possible, sensei."

"Oh, did you get to the part with the peanut butter and blow dryer?" Kakashi asked excitedly. Minato nodded uncertainly as Jiraiya chuckled. "Yeah, I love that part. Wish it was possible."

Kushina chewed her lip, considering the scene she was reading over Minato's shoulder. "I think it's almost possible, except that the peanut butter makes things too goey. Maybe with whipped cream instead."

Tsunade interceded on Naruto's behalf. "I'd suggest you direct the conversation elsewhere if you want the brat to live much longer."

Kakashi sniggered as he checked his student on the floor. "He'll have to get used to it. With Jiraiya, myself and Kushina around, there'll probably be no stop to it."

"Please don't kill my son," Minato pleaded, smiling.

Jiraiya rolled his eyes. "Oh, you won't be saying that in a couple of days, when you get a taste of how annoyingly persistent he can be," he said.

Naruto dragged himself up off the floor and shook an accusing finger at Jiraiya. "Hey! That persistence got me the Rasengan in a month, and it's what got my dad out of the Shinigami's stomach! Don't knock it!"

He pulled himself all the way back into the chair and glared at his teacher. "And I'm not that annoying."

Kakashi, Tsunade and Jiraiya all laughed uproariously at that.

Minato brought Jiraiya out of the hilarity with a simple question. "How did your other book do? The one with Naruto?"

"Eh?" Naruto made a confused face. "When did Ero-Sennin write a book about me?"

Kushina laughed. "Not about you, honey."

"Oh, so it's a coincidence that the old pervert wrote a book with a character that had my name?" Naruto demanded. Feeling very proud of himself for that incontrovertible proof of something, Naruto sat back, folded his arms and waited for someone to acknowledge how clever he was.

"Actually, we named you after that character," Minato revealed. "We hoped you'd grow up to be like him."

Naruto stared blankly at his father. His eyes drifted to the side as he contemplated this, the origin of his name. Minato waited expectantly, and although Jiraiya would never show it, he, too, wanted to see Naruto's reaction.

"Augh!" Naruto suddenly cried, clutching at his head. "I'm named after one of Ero-Sennin's pervy novels!"

Minato and Kushina laughed, but Jiraiya was pretty miffed. "What? You think that's all I've written?"

"Yeah," Naruto answered immediately.

Jiraiya huffed and started to fold his arms, but stopped as he only had one arm. "That's going to take some getting used to."

"I actually need to talk to Jiraiya about that," Tsunade said, stepping forward. "And he needs rest."

Jiraiya whined. "Aw, but I've been laying around for . . . how long?"

"Almost two months," Tsunade answered.

"Two months!" Jiraiya cried. "But I've missed the deadline! I was supposed to send in the plot outline for the next Icha Icha installment."

"If you'd like, I can send it in," Kakashi volunteered casually.

"Ha!" Jiraiya said. "You'd just read it. Over and over and over again. You wouldn't send it in."

"Alright, everybody out," Tsunade ordered. She folded her arms and glared at the other inhabitants of the room. Quickly, they filed out, flashing the bedridden man grins and encouraging smiles.

Jiraiya watched them go and was struck with how lonely his room was. Four white walls, a bed, a nightstand. At least he had a window. He chalked the funny feeling in his chest up to medication, rather than a desire to see flowers from a loved one at his bedside. He knew Naruto wouldn't think of it, and Tsunade wouldn't admit that she cared enough. For three years, they had been his only family.

"Hey, you couldn't even bother to bring me some flowers?" Jiraiya demanded, faking anger at Tsunade.

She snorted and closed the door firmly. "Wouldn't you rather get flowers from some young, beautiful woman who'll have sex with anyone during a sake-induced stupor?"

Jiraiya reached out and tugged on her hand. "You think any of them would send me flowers? They don't care."

"Oh, so I don't care because I didn't send you flowers," Tsunade snapped, pulling his chart off the end of the bed.

Jiraiya waggled a finger at her. "I didn't say that."

"You know I worked on you," she continued, apparently not having heard him. "When we found you, when that silly little frog showed up in a pond with your limp, bleeding, mostly-dead body, do you know who found you like that? I did!"

Jiraiya frowned as Tsunade continued her rant. "So despite the fact that I found you and I saved your life and I've been researching ways to get another arm for you, since you managed to get yours blown off, you're angry that I didn't get you goddamned flowers!"

She slammed the chart down on the end of the bed and glared at him. Under normal circumstances, Jiraiya would have quailed and fled from the room, but that wasn't going to happen for two reasons. One was that with his injuries and the trip to the trial, he wouldn't be going anywhere for a while. Besides that, he'd have to pull out IVs and heart monitors and things from very sensitive places. The other was that he had known Tsunade for the majority of his life. He knew when she was annoyed, when she was angry enough to smash things and when her anger was a mask.

He had a snarky comment ready, but it died as he took in her overbright eyes, flushed cheeks, and white knuckles. This was his Tsunade, his former, temperamental teammate and eternal, unattainable love.

So he just sighed and smiled and said, "It's just nice to see that you care, even if you never wrote me that love letter."

Tsunade snorted and folded her arms, remembering their first meeting as preteen genin when he'd given her his name "so you can send me a love letter." She shook her head. "I still say you should have called me for backup."

Jiraiya frowned for a moment before remembering their last conversation. "No way. Absolutely not. This village needs you. Besides, he was too strong for just me. The only reason I'm alive is because he thought I was dead."

"Yeah, well, when you get out of here, I'm going to beat you right back in," Tsunade threatened.

Jiraiya sighed again, his eyes slowly drifting shut. His injuries and the day's events had taken their toll on him. "When I get out, we're going to have a nice, quiet dinner followed by a long night of—"

"Still think rejection makes you stronger, huh?" Tsunade asked, unfolding a blanket and tucking it around him.

"Mm-hmm," Jiraiya confirmed, half asleep.

"Well, you're gonna need to find another way of getting stronger, Jiraiya," Tsunade informed him, closing the blinds. "Because you're paying for our date."

Turning off the lights, she detected a small hitch in his breath before it settled into the deep rhythm of sleep. She'd have to come in early tomorrow morning, but short of pumping him full of amphetamines, there wasn't much she would do to keep him awake. With a small smile, she closed the door securely.

Naruto, Kushina and Minato earned a lot of stares as they made their way to Naruto's apartment. It wasn't exactly large or clean and the three would be cramped, but until Tsunade could cut through all the red tape concerning Minato and Kushina's 'deaths,' it was really all the three had to their names. Still, the sight of two famous, dead ninja (Kushina had dyed her hair back to red, to help Minato feel at ease) strolling through town, flanking the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki garnered more than a bit of attention, but the trio didn't notice, as they were too wrapped up in each other.

"And that old geezer-rat-bastard almost had everybody convinced you were nuts, when Ero-Sennin walks, actually limps, in, and he verbally bitch-slapped Ho-whatever and made everybody see that you weren't nuts at all because you were just doing what any good person would do—"

The smile faded from Minato's face as the first part of Naruto's neverending sentence sank in. "Wait."

It took Kushina and Naruto a minute to realize that Minato was no longer with them, and they spun as one to see him standing frozen in the middle of the street.

"Wait, what was this trial about?" Minato asked, his eyes narrow and distant.

Kushina glanced around. As if they weren't getting enough stares, it seemed people were even more interested when things didn't go well. Like moths to a flame, villagers began to edge toward Minato.

"Let's discuss this at the apartment," Kushina said, wrapping an arm around on of his. "Come on. Let's get out of the street."

"No!" Minato shouted. The gossip vultures made no pretense of doing something else now. They stared openly and hungrily. "I want to know what happened! Did he go back on his word? Did he?"

Kushina alternated between glaring at the ring of villagers and tugging on Minato's arm, but he was doing an excellent impression of an Immovable Object. Naruto came to his father's other side and gripped his bicep.

"Come on, Dad," he coaxed then bared his teeth at the closest villager. "Come on, let's go home, come on."

They began half-dragging, half-steering Minato through the village. Naruto stopped for a moment to create twenty clones, which cleared their path and kept the rubberneckers back. He figured there would be some sort of rumor about how the Kyuubi brat was kidnapping the Yondaime to get revenge, but it really didn't matter. He'd been dealing with bad press all his life.

Finally, they arrived at Naruto's apartment building. The trio went up the stairs and Naruto could feel his father trembling with rage. He was running low on self-control and each step seemed to bring him closer to exploding. Without even realizing it, Naruto was chanting 'hold on' under his breath into his father's ear.

The front door slamming shut seemed to open the floodgates.

"That son of a bitch! That dirty, rotten, stinking, yellow-bellied traitor!" Minato roared. He picked up a scroll and hurled it across the room, embedding it deeply in one of the walls. Naruto opened his mouth to protest—the landlord wouldn't be too happy about that—but Minato wasn't finished. "He has no code of honor anymore! That bastard! I'll show him how ninjas deal with a back-stabber!"

"Are you talking about Homura?" Kushina asked.

"Who else?" Minato shouted. The people to the left started banging on the walls and Naruto slammed right back.

Kushina blew out a breath. Minato had started to flip out when Naruto was talking about the trial—if she wasn't mistaken, the parts where Naruto had mentioned the determination of insanity. And Homura was the person . . . oh shit.

"What deal did Homura make with you, Minato?" Kushina asked slowly.

Minato spun to her and smashed his fist into the table, turning it to splinters. ("Hey!" Naruto cried.) "He said, he swore that he wouldn't push it through, he wouldn't try me for insanity, he wouldn't push it through! But he did! How dare he!"

"Minato. Minato!" Kushina snapped, drawing his attention. "What did you promise in return?"

The elite Jounin snarled and kicked remnants of Naruto's table across the floor. "A favor."

"Did he say what kind of favor?" Kushina inquired.

Blond spikes swayed back and forth. "Just a favor. But it doesn't matter, since he didn't keep his end, I won't keep mine."

"That's fine, that's fine," she soothed.

"Why did you agree to that?" Naruto demanded. "You know that Tsunade could have appealed or something."

Minato ran his hands through his hair. "But that would take time, time where you would be vulnerable. I can't protect you—"

"Protect me?!" Naruto exploded. "I don't need your protection!"

"The hell you don't!" Minato shouted. "From what I've seen—"

"Oh, yeah, you've known me, what, a week?" Naruto bellowed. "I got on just fine for sixteen years without you! I can probably keep it up, thanks!"

Kushina stepped in and held her hands out. Never thought I'd be the sensible one. "Okay, okay, both of you calm down!"

"I don't need either of you!" Naruto shouted, glaring at his mother. "Neither of you were around for the last sixteen years, you have no right—"

Minato got, if possible, even angrier. "Don't talk to your mother that—"

"What kind of mother gives up on her own child?" Naruto demanded. His eyes and throat were burning, but he refused to let the tears fall, turning instead to anger. "Orochimaru told you that I was dead and you just accepted it and lived in the valley without even trying—"

"That's enough!" Kushina shrieked. "Don't you dare talk about what happened then! You have no idea what was going on, what I went through!"

"What you went through?" Naruto roared. "You abandoned me!"

"Don't shout at her!" Minato snapped.

"I did not give up on you!" Kushina cried, her hands clenching into fists.

Naruto stomped forward. "Oh, really, cause it sure seemed that way to me! I lost somebody, too, Sasuke! He was like a brother and he left and I didn't give up on him! I trained for three years to bring him back! That's not giving someone up! Rolling over and not even trying to find me sounds like giving up in my book."

"I did not give up on you!" Kushina screamed,tears streaming down her face. "Orochimaru showed up with papers, pages of notes on that goddamned seal in your father's handwriting. He showed me experiments, from a facility in Lightning, about Areah Broah—what had supposedly inspired Minato.I sent people to Konoha, but all they could find out was that Minato had defeated the Kyuubi."

Her breath hiccupped and Minato moved forward to comfort her, but she waved him off. "Once I had recovered from the birth—have you ever had a baby, much less twins? You're not up and running in a few days—I came down to Konoha myself. I tried talking to Sarutobi, but he was out, negotiating with Sand because we needed allies. I searched everywhere for you," she whispered. Her eyes drifted to the side into memory. "You were nowhere to be found in Konoha. I did find Minato's grave, though. What was I supposed to think?"

She sank into a chair, her face buried in her hands. Naruto and Minato were silent, unsure of what to say in the face of her sobbing. "D-do you know what it's like?" she moaned. "To lose a child?"

Kushina raised her head and met his eyes. "You have no idea how much I love you, Naruto."

Naruto's throat clogged. He shuffled his feet and stared at the remnants of most of his furniture. Guilt wormed its way into his body, even though rationally, he had no way of knowing that she'd tried. "Is—is there anything I can do?"

The redhead sniffled and wiped at her eyes. "I know it might be uncomfortable for you," she admitted. "But could I just have one hug?"

Naruto must have made a face at what he considered an odd request, because she bit her lip and explained, "I never got a chance to hold you."

With a sigh, Naruto slowly knelt down in front of his mother. He tentatively opened his arms and she did the same. It was far from the comfortable embrace of mother and son; Naruto had rarely really been held before and the sensation made his skin itchy.

Kushina closed her eyes and curled her fingers in his hair. Sixteen years late, but she finally had her baby boy back. She could sense the unease in him, and though she wanted to keep him in her arms forever, she squeezed him once and let go. "So, tell us about this surrogate brother of yours—Sasuke, was his name?"

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, just let me fix my stuff."

He crouched down in the pile of rubble and started to sort out what was table and what was chair. It wasn't hard—all of his furniture was mismatched to begin with and in a fit of decorating, he'd painted everything bright, horribly contrasting colors. The table was orange and the chair was neon green. Of course, the ugly ones were the only ones he was able to afford at the time. He'd sorted them out in a few minutes and standing, did the repairing jutsu that the Minato of the other world had taught him.

"Where'd you learn that?" Minato asked as the furniture molded itself back together.

" . . . while traveling," Naruto evaded.

"So, this Sasuke sounds like an idiot," Kushina noted. "Or at least as stubborn as you."

Naruto chuckled. "Yeah, and he called me the moron."

"Is this by any chance Uchiha Sasuke?" Minato asked. "Fugaku's younger son."

Naruto nodded and settled into a chair. "That's the one. Biggest jerk in Fire country."

"How did Fugaku and the Uchiha clan take it, when he left?" Kushina wondered. "Did they disown him?"

A grimace stretched across Naruto's face. "Ah, well, see at that point, Sasuke was the Uchiha clan. When he was seven, his brother, Itachi . . ."

Naruto told them the story about Itachi's betrayal, Sasuke's vow of vengeance, Orochimaru's cursed seal, Sasuke's betrayal, Naruto's training, Sasuke's capture, and the results of the trial. He finished and took a deep breath.

"Wow," Kushina said, then threw her head back and laughed. "You're as stubborn as a brick wall, aren't you?"

Naruto laughed and grinned. "Kakashi always called me Konoha's number one knucklehead ninja."

--

So, that's it. See? Kushina didn't give up on him. And yeah, she's ubertough, but I can't imagine she would be immune to the pain of losing a child.