Chapter 4: Consolation
Kushina strolled through the village streets towards her favorite little bar. She'd just got off a rough mission and a little sake was just what the doctor ordered to help her unwind. Yeah, a little sake and then off to bed for a good twelve hour sleep. Then she'd feel human again.
It had taken a few years, but Konoha had finally been drawn into a full-scale war with Iwa. Konoha was a large and powerful village and its strength afforded its citizens a great measure of security. Civilians were only mildly affected by rationing and shortages; they walked their own streets fearlessly. But their ninja guardians knew better, and suffered for it.
It had been nearly three years since she had come to this village. After her first year of loyal service, she'd been given a Leaf hitae-ate, which she wore on her right arm in addition to her old Whirlpool one that she still wore on her left. During her second year of service, full war had come and she'd been very busy. And now in the beginning of her third year it was only getting worse.
Now young genin teams were being deployed to the frontlines for minor missions to free up the dwindling supply of older, more experienced ninja for other missions. The little kids still usually had their jounin teachers with them to help out, but it was still very dangerous. Kushina didn't like it at all, but she wasn't Hokage and she couldn't put a stop to it.
That just shows how hard Iwa is pushing, she sighed bitterly as the streetlights flickered on and the sun kept sinking. Now they're sending out snot-nosed kids to get butchered. Damn, that sucks!
Worse, Namikaze's kids were no exception—they'd been drafted like all the other kids. In addition to little "lone wolf" Kakashi, he'd picked up two other genin less than a year ago to round out his squad into a proper four-man team. Barely six months after forming his "Team 7" Kakashi had made jounin, fulfilling his sensei's earlier prediction. But due to his young age, even though he was a jounin Kakashi remained under Namikaze's tutelage, much to the kid's annoyance. Kushina enjoyed rubbing his snotty little nose in that fact.
Hatake Kakashi was an arrogant little booger, no doubt about it. Kushina's first meeting with the kid about a week after the little "lesbian comment" had gone about as well as her first meeting with Namikaze. The silver-haired brat did little more than criticize her and scorn her. She retaliated with a wide range of non-lethal threats that ranged from stringing him up by his toes to ripping the little cloth mask off his mouth so that she could see all of his face. And that's pretty much how their relationship continued.
Uchiha Obito was a much more pleasant kid, she found. Unlike most Uchiha, he lacked their characteristic aloof arrogance. He was a fun-loving dork who was always late, gave the weirdest excuses for his lateness, always ran around in orange ski goggles, and was always fighting with Kakashi. Though clumsy, he had some real potential. And once he managed to awaken his Sharingan, Kushina knew that he'd be a real force to be reckoned with. As soon as he joined Namikaze's team, she became buddies with him.
Rin rounded out "Team 7" and Kushina got along nearly as well as she did with Obito. The brown-haired kunoichi was a nice enough girl. She wasn't much of a fighter—her skills with taijutsu and ninjutsu were passable, but not great. Her true talent seemed to lie in medical ninjutsu, and she spent most of her training sessions studying dense medical texts or tracking down a real medical ninja to get some practice in. The girl worked well enough with her team, but whenever she let her little crush on Kakashi get the best of her Kushina secretly (sometimes not so secretly) gagged.
As for Namikaze Minato, the team leader and sensei, Kushina knew him best. Whenever she ran into him and had the time, she'd hang out with him, pester him, whatever she felt like doing. It was fun. She got to know him and his habits quite well.
So when she stepped inside her favorite bar and spied Namikaze already there and drinking she knew that something was terribly, horribly wrong. Namikaze wasn't a drinker. To get him in a bar he had to be dragged there. With pervy old Jiraiya no where in sight, and no boozing friend of his anywhere in the vicinity, it appeared that he'd come all on his own…
Kushina surreptitiously glanced at the ceiling, expecting it to cave in at any second as the sky crashed down in the early stages of Armageddon.
Recovering herself from the shock, she straightened up and marched right up to his back. She draped her arms over his shoulders and leaned on him lightly…and he had absolutely no reaction. Normally he'd at least stiffen up when she did that to him. She noted the nearly empty bottle of sake at his elbow and bit her lip.
On the rare occasion that he did drink, he drank very little. Usually a few shots of sake, maybe a bottle of ale, nothing more. Once Jiraiya had managed to pressure him into drinking half a bottle of sake, and he had laid his head on the table and whined about feeling dizzy for the rest of the night. He had no tolerance for booze. Right now he had to be absolutely smashed.
"Oi, slow down will you!" she snapped and stole the shot glass from his hand and tossed back the contents in one harsh gulp.
Namikaze stared blankly at his suddenly empty hand for several minutes. Then he sluggishly turned to peer at her. His clear blue eyes were glazed and empty. Kushina swallowed a bitter surge of unease.
"Hey, knock it off, Namikaze!" She flicked him in the nose. "What's the matter with you, huh?"
He squinted at her blankly. "K-K'shina-san?" he slurred uncertainly.
"Duh!" she snorted, burying her worry under a shield of annoyance. She slammed down his empty shot glass, tossed down enough money to cover the cost of his sake, and then started wrestling the man off his bar stool. "Get up, Sunshine, we're leaving!"
"W-we're leavin'?" He swayed so badly he nearly pulled her to the floor. "Why?"
"Because you're done," Kushina grumbled and slung one of his arms over her shoulders.
"No 'm not," he scowled childishly and started to dig in his heels.
"Yes you are," she answered firmly. "If you still want sake later, I'll get you some, okay?"
He eyed her warily. "A'right."
"Good," she muttered and began the arduous process of getting him back to her apartment.
Ideally she would've taken him to his apartment, made sure that he got into bed okay, and left him to sober up on his own. Then she'd track him down later and find out just what the hell he'd been thinking. But as she'd never been to his apartment and never bothered to find out where it was, she couldn't take him there. So unless she ran into Jiraiya on her way back, it looked like Namikaze would be sleeping over at her place.
Getting him back to her tiny apartment was an adventure that she really could've down without. He was taller than her and heavier and he was drunk enough to be barely more than deadweight. Maneuvering him and keeping him upright was hell enough. Worrying about him spewing on or near her was something else. To hopefully prevent that occurrence, she leveled many threats against him, most of them involving painful ways of removing his manhood.
The stairs in her apartment building almost defeated them. He just couldn't seem to keep his feet underneath him and climb the steps at the same time. Immensely irritated, she ended up forcing him to crawl up the stairs on his hands and knees to avoid him toppling over backwards (maybe taking her with him) and breaking his neck or something.
"You so owe me for this," she snarled as she shoved him into her tiny living space.
He muttered something incoherent and collapsed face-first onto her bed.
She glared at his back. "Hey, you're supposed to sleep on the floor."
"Mph," he grunted and rolled onto his side.
Kushina rolled her eyes. She pulled off his sandals, his kunai pouch, his shuriken holster, his flak jacket, and his hitae-ate. Then she shucked her own ninja gear and briefly retreated to her little bathroom to slip into a loose T-shirt and gray sweatpants. Sure Namikaze was drunk off his ass and probably wouldn't remember much, but she wasn't about to let him get a peep at her.
"Now," she breezed out of the bathroom and perched on the edge of her bed near his head. "Mind telling my why you've suddenly decided to give alcoholism a try?"
His sulky expression melted into one of pure despair. "Obito's dead."
"Shit." That explained everything. "Shit, shit, shit."
Not Obito. Not him. Not that sweet little gem of an Uchiha. No, no, no.
She had the misfortune to know a lot of dead people. There were a lot of enemies, sure. But there were a lot of family and friends too. And now little Obito had joined their ranks.
Kushina squeezed her eyes shut and hung her head. Scratch Namikaze owing her anything for rescuing him from the bar and public drunkenness. He didn't owe her a thing.
"I left 'em," he whispered. "Thought they'd be okay w'out me for a'while. But there were more Iwa 'round then I though' an…and they kidnapped Rin. Obito wen' after her…an K'kashi wen' after him…an-and—"
"I get it," she whispered, cutting off his slurred story. "Are Rin and Kakashi alright?"
"They…they will be…I think." He half-buried his face into her pillow. "I dunno."
She brushed the hair from his eyes and watched his face for a moment. Gnawing at her lip, she briefly left him to lock her door and turn out the light. Then she nudged him over on her bed until his back touched the wall. Tucking him in, she slipped in beside him and hugged him.
"It's safe now. Your mission is over. Your students aren't around. There's no one that you have to show a strong face to. You can cry now, Minato," she whispered. "I promise I won't tell anyone."
At first it seemed like he was going to ignore her advice. But then she heard the first choked sobs. That was the downside of men's macho attitudes, it was always so hard for them to let go and cry, even when they needed to. She held onto him until his tears subsided and the alcohol and his physical exhaustion made him pass out.
And then she let her own tears leak out as she mourned the little dorky Uchiha that she'd never see again.
His head really, really hurt. And there was an absolutely foul taste in his mouth. And he wanted to puke or die…preferably just die.
For an agonizing eternity, he couldn't remember anything. But then bits of his life and self drifted back to him. And then he remembered…
Obito's dead.
Then he felt a million times worse. One of his students, a treasured Uchiha, was gone forever. He'd left them alone, confident that they could function as a team and defend themselves without him. And he'd been so wrong.
He somehow held it together as Rin told him everything that happened. He kept it together when Kakashi regained consciousness and he apologized to his first student. And all through the long and painful march back to the village he found some way to stay strong and alert to any threats towards his remaining students. But as soon as both children were out of his sight, he couldn't do it anymore.
Jiraiya was off on a mission. So were most of his close friends. Lacking any comforting company, he found himself in a bar testing the claim that alcohol drowns sorrows. Everything was a hazy blur after that point.
I'm hung-over, he realized numbly. Crap. …Where am I?
Minato cracked open one eye and glanced around hazily. He was in a darkened apartment. Sunlight streamed in through cracks in the blinds and left bright spots on the far wall. There was a small pile of dirty dishes in the sink. The shelves were overflowing with scrolls, ninja gear, and various knick-knacks. Dirty clothes were piled in and around the clothes hamper—
—Is that a bra?!
He sat up much too fast as panic struck him and his head exploded into agony. Horror stories of friends and friends of friends about waking up from long nights of drinking with strange women in strange beds swirled in his throbbing head. It didn't matter that he was the only one in the bed or that he was still mostly clothed (most importantly his pants were still on), his fearful imagination ran wild. It made him sick to his stomach…literally.
By sheer luck, he found the bathroom in time and the toilet became his new best friend for a while. As he clung to the cool, white porcelain and retched miserably, he sank into utter shame and humiliation. He really, really wished that he'd never given into the grief-stricken impulse to drink himself into oblivion.
Sometime later the apartment's owner returned and found him in her bathroom. She said nothing to him and he couldn't bear to look at her out of shame. Wordlessly she gave him water to clean out his mouth, then some pills for his raging headache, and then half-dragged him back to her bed where he buried his face into the pillow and prayed for the mattress to swallow him whole.
Oh god, oh god, oh god…
A small calloused hand brushed against the back of his neck. "You'd better not smother yourself, Sunshine. I didn't fish you out of that bar to have you suffocate yourself in my bed."
A jolt of horror arced through him and he peeked up from the pillow with dread. "Kushina-san?"
"I'm guessing that you blacked out last night." She smirked humorlessly at him. "Figures."
"I…" He tried his best to melt into the bed as nightmarish fragments of scenarios assaulted his aching brain. "What did I do?"
"To my knowledge, the only dumb thing you did was go drink yourself stupid without any company." She patted his unruly yellow hair and strode across the room. "Next time wait a few hours for me to get back in town, okay?"
"Okay?" he squeaked uncertainly.
She snorted at him and started to unpack a few bags of groceries; apparently she'd been out picking up some supplies when he'd woken up. Her long, red hair was tied back in a loose tail and she was dressed in casual sweats. It was very odd to see her dressed as anything other than a kunoichi.
Minato watched as she shoved things into the fridge and various cabinets, wincing whenever something clattered loudly and aggravated his head. When she finished that little chore, she returned to the bed and sat down, propping her back against the headboard. Her expression turned sad and her fingers started to gently fiddle with his hair.
Uzumaki Kushina and "gentle" didn't seem to go together. She was bold and loud and rough and aggressive. She was rarely serious, always pestering him and popping up at the most random times to bother him and his students. It was totally surreal for her to be petting his hair. Maybe it was a dream.
"Obito's—"
"I know," she whispered. "You told me last night."
Tears stung at his eyes and his throat ached. "I…I—"
"I know. But Rin and Kakashi are alright, right?"
He swallowed hard. "Yes."
"It's going to suck for a long time, but hang on for them, okay?" Her fingers kept combing through his hair. "They're going to need you more now than ever."
Minato could only nod as something gave inside him and tears started to worm their way out of his eyes. His arms snaked around her waist and he buried his face into her stomach. She made no move to push him away; she just gently held onto him and let him wear himself out.
He didn't know why he left himself break down in front of her. It was a stupid thing to do. She probably marked him as some kind of cry-baby. But it felt good to let go, just this once…
Late that afternoon, Kushina shooed Namikaze off to his own apartment to finish recuperating from his hang-over and then made a break for the training fields. It was mid-autumn and cold and raining, but she didn't care. The miserable weather kind of reminded her of Uzu and in a twisted way it was kind of comforting. But nothing would make her feel better than bashing wooden posts into oblivion.
She made a beeline for the field that Namikaze's little squirts usually monopolized with every intention of blowing off a lot of steam. But those intentions were thwarted when she spied a hunched figure at the field's memorial stone. It was a small block of gray stone and it bore the names of those killed in action who had begun their ninja careers on that particular field. Obito's name had probably just been added only hours before.
Kushina wouldn't have been terribly surprised to see Rin there, holding vigil for her fallen teammate. Although the girl was usually annoyed by Obito's antics and generally took Kakashi's side in arguments, she bore the Uchiha no ill-will. She was a caring girl, a healer by nature, and Obito's death would no doubt hit her very hard.
But it was little Kakashi who sat vigil before the stone, not Rin. The silver-haired boy who hid the lower half of his face behind a cloth mask knelt underneath an umbrella as the rain poured down around him. At his feet sat Obito's favorite pair of ski goggles (the ones with orange lenses), cracked and battered.
She watched him for a while, idly wondering just how long he'd been sitting there. Clearly it had been a long time, and he showed no signs of leaving anytime soon. She sighed softly and trudged through the rain to crouch beside him and pay her own respects to the names of the fallen.
"Have you come to tell me how bad I screwed up?" the boy asked bitterly.
"No. Do you want me to?"
His little shoulders slumped. "No."
"Good, 'cause I didn't feel like it anyway."
He slowly turned to look at her with a mournful look on his face. But her attention was instantly fixed on his eyes, specifically his left eye. A fresh vertical scar bisected his eyelids and a blood-red Sharingan inhabited the eye socket instead of his natural eye. And the Sharingan eye—Obito's eye!—was crying while Kakashi's natural dark eye was sad, but dry.
It made Obito's death all the more tragic. The kid had finally awakened his legendary kekkei genkai, only to die. Little medical prodigy Rin had probably done the surgery moments before the young Uchiha had expired. And the girl had pulled it off nicely, her field surgery looked successful.
Damn it! The Uchiha clan's gonna shit a collective brick when they find out about this…
The Uchiha clan was full of secrets and arrogant pricks. Obito hadn't been like them. He was a breath of fresh air, and giving up his eye to Kakashi—his fierce rival—was something that the sweet kid would do. But once his clan got wind of it, there'd be hell to pay. The fact that an outsider—it didn't matter that he was a fellow, loyal Konoha-nin—possessed even one of their precious eyes would be unacceptable to them.
"How long have you been out here?" she asked.
Kakashi looked away. "I don't know."
Kushina frowned at that answer. "I assume that he made you promise him something before he gave you that gift."
"Yes," the boy nodded. "He told me to take care of Rin."
"Well, you can't do that if you sit out here in the rain all day and get sick," she snorted and stood up. "Come on, I'll buy you some lunch."
He hesitated for a minute before getting up to join her…and then he almost fell over.
"Whoa!" she caught his arm and kept him from collapsing into the mud and took hold of his little umbrella. "Lose feeling in your legs?"
"No," he muttered. "I…I can't turn the Sharingan off, so it keeps drawing on my chakra."
"So you risk chakra exhaustion just by seeing," she frowned.
"Yes," he nodded sluggishly.
She gnawed at her lip thoughtfully before getting struck by a flash of inspiration. "Close your eyes," she instructed and balanced the pole of the umbrella on her shoulder, freeing up her hand.
The boy eyed her warily before complying. Kushina grasped the blue fabric of his hitae-ate and tugged it down over his scarred left eye, creating a make-shift eye-patch. Not only would it keep the Sharingan closed and drawing on much less chakra, but it would keep the Uchiha in the dark about it for a little while longer.
"There you go," she grinned, "how's that?"
He cracked open his right eye and glanced around with it. "It's…okay."
"Sure it kills your depth perception, but I'm sure that you can work around that." She flashed him an encouraging smile. "And it cuts down on the chakra drain, right?"
"Yes," he nodded slowly. "I…Uzumaki-san, I thought that you didn't like me."
"It was more that I didn't like your attitude," she corrected. "You're not a bad kid. And I've always thought highly of your talent."
Kakashi ducked his head awkwardly in embarrassment. "Thank you, Uzumaki-san."
"Enough with the 'Uzumaki-san' stuff. Call me 'Kushina,' I promise that I won't be offended."
"Alright…Kushina-san."
"That's better!" she laughed and held the umbrella over his head. "Now let's get some lunch, eh?"
At his nod, she led the way to Ichiraku's for some nice bowls of hot ramen soup. And after that, she probably would track down Rin and see how she was doing. She'd already worked on two broken pieces of Team 7, she might as well take care of the third piece too…
