614 days since the Uzushiogakure Massacre

Uzumaki Kushina

Kichiro's voice woke me in the middle of the night as he babbled in his strange language, periodically thrashing.

I sat up and looked over at Kichiro's bed on the adjacent wall. I could barely see the outline of his body through the gloom.

He shouted something, distressed, begging for something. I quickly crawled over to him and laid beside him. He held tightly to my shirt and started sobbing.

I held him tightly, murmuring reassurances, but he continued to plead for something. I heard my name several times. It only lasted a few minutes before he fell silent and his grip slackened.

"I don't want you to die, Kushina," he murmured quietly, just as I was about to fall back asleep.

"I'm not going to die," I reassured him

"You can't die—I don't think I would survive that."

I felt like I had a giant rock in my throat. "I won't die."

"Promise me, promise me you'll never become a Jinchuuriki. Please, you have to promise me!"

"I promise," I said quietly. He was fast asleep, locked in a dream I knew I couldn't wake him from, no matter how hard I shook him, but I made the promise anyways. Maybe it would give him some comfort in his dream. I hugged him tight and pulled his arms around me.

Every few days he had a dream like this. Once or twice I asked him about the dreams in the morning, but he denied them, he never remembered them. Usually, they were worse—Kichiro would confess things I knew he didn't want me to know. Many things I didn't want to know either, but I held him tight and didn't let go until the dream was over, no matter what he said. I always listened because I couldn't bear to ignore him when he was so obviously hurting, even when I knew he couldn't hear or feel me.

Whenever he fell back into true sleep, I stayed behind him. Kichiro didn't like it very much when I crawled in his bed at night, but I couldn't tell him about the things he said while he was asleep because I was scared he would no longer forget them in the morning.

Instead, I told him it was because I didn't want to sleep alone. Although, he never said anything when Minato spent the night or when I knew ANBU were watching us closely during the night. I loved my brother no matter what.