Tsunade sighed as she shut the door behind her. The depressing image of her former friend lying so pale and fragile upon the white hospital bed was something she could only stare at for so long. She was still in the danger zone after losing so much blood, but she had more of a chance now that she'd had a transfusion. Shizune would come soon, along with Naruto, and then she'd have to explain what had happened. She didn't know what would the boy's reaction would be, and only hoped that Naruto wouldn't have any serious relapses. Thinking on the subject, she made a mental note to get the boy more of his medicine. He needed it, whether he said he was getting better or not.
She knew no matter how twisted Kyuubi's logic was he'd always done things to help the boy, whether Naruto ended up hurt by the decision or not. Although this time he went too far, Tsunade saw what she should have seen before. No she saw what she'd always seen, but had ignored only because of Naruto's pleading.
She knew Yumi was unstable, and so did Naruto. She'd asked countless times to let her call social services, to let him live with her, yet he refused to be removed from her care. He didn't want to lose his mother, just as Yumi didn't want to lose her 'daughter'. They'd already lost Arashi, and she doubted they'd last very long if they lost each other. Besides that, Naruto had led her to think that Yumi was actually getting better when the exact opposite was happening. He should have known better than to lie to her about that, but she guessed he might have been scared she wouldn't keep her word. Even if he had said she was the same, Tsunade never would have thought that she was as bad off as this. No matter what Naruto said, she couldn't stand to leave him with her any longer.
Before Snake came back Yumi was good to him, besides the whole girl thing, and Tsunade knew that. She didn't abuse him. Naruto did what she said out of love. He'd told her once when she asked why he didn't go back to being a boy like he wanted that he couldn't stand to see her so sad at losing the daughter she thought she had. So he played along with her, and pretended to be her perfect little girl, like she'd always wanted. She reminded him that he could live with her and then he could be himself, but he refused. He said he'd play the girl if that was what kept him with his mother.
Tsunade sank down into the chair in the hall near the room, not even aware that her feet had led her there. She brought her hand up to her face and rubbed her tired eyes. She didn't know how long she sat there like that, but it felt like only a minute before she heard Shizune call her name, catching her off guard.
"Tsunade-sama!" Shizune said again as she stopped in front of the blonde with Naruto not far behind her. She gave them a tired smile to cover up her previous frown. "What happened? I was wondering why you never came back, and then-"
"Shizune-san," Tsunade said in a soft, commanding voice, immediately silencing the brunette. "Please."
"Yes, Tsunade-sama," she said, bowing her head and keeping the rush of questions inside her head for the time being. Naruto stared at the blonde woman in confusion. He didn't know what to think.
"Tsunade…" he said slowly. She sighed.
"It's Yumi, Naruto-kun. Yumi-san is the reason I called you here, the reason I'm here," she said, hoping she'd pick the right words to explain all of this. She saw Naruto's eyes widen visibly.
"Why? What happened? Is she alright?" he asked, questions coming out a mile a minute. She grimaced.
"She…stabbed herself. She suffered a lot of blood loss, so she's still at risk, but the doctors done all they can do at the moment. As long as she doesn't move around too much or do anything strenuous, she'll be fine," Tsunade told him grimly. Shizune's surprised gasp could be heard. Naruto's head was bowed and his fists were clenched. He wasn't taking the news very well, and she dreaded what she'd have to tell him next, no matter how much she didn't want to. "I'll take you to her. She's unconscious right now and she'll be out for a while longer, but you can visit her."
Naruto nodded, head still down and said quietly, "I want to see her."
She nodded. "Shizune-san," she said as she turned to the other woman who stood there apprehensively, "you can go home. I need to talk with him alone. I'll call you when I return home, alright?"
Shizune looked hesitant, but she agreed with the woman. She trusted Tsunade to keep her word. So she gave a hug to Naruto and then to Tsunade before leaving the hospital.
Tsunade got up, and they walked down the hall until she stopped at one of the doors. She let Naruto enter first, and followed after. He stopped for a second, taking in the sight of his mother lying pale upon the white bed before forcing himself forward again. The bandage poked out visibly from underneath the hospital robe that garbed his mother, and silently, in the back of his mind, he wondered how deep it was, what it looked like. But he didn't want answers to things like that. They were trivial, if not disturbing to think about, compared to the when and why questions screaming about in his head. He thought he heard quiet laughter, but he guessed it came from outside in the halls. He turned to ask Tsunade his questions when he found himself speechless and pinned by Tsunade's stare.
"Have you been taking your medicine, Naruto-kun?"
He threw her a confused stare, not quite seeing the relevancy between his medication and his mother's near suicide. But Tsunade wasn't one to pull random thoughts of concern out of thin air very often before coming the real problem. She was just one of those straightforward kinds of women. Thinking of this, he knew the question had relevancy in some way or another, and so thought about it for the sake of figuring out how it was connected. He frowned.
"I don't remember taking it anytime recently," he answered truthfully. "It's been a while I think, but not too long."
She 'hmmed' thoughtfully and mumbled something to herself that sounded suspiciously like, "So he was telling the truth…" She looked at him, pinning him with her stare again, though not as harshly this time. He sat down in a chair next to his mother while Tsunade opted to stand.
"Naruto…you…" she started hesitantly. He furrowed his brows, and she closed her eyes, her mind still racing through all the ways this conversation could go. She took a deep breath and started again.
"Naruto-kun, do you remember fainting yesterday when you heard Yumi-san and I talking?" she asked, opening her eyes. He nodded, confused on how this was relevant as well, although he had an inkling of an idea in the back of his mind. "Do you remember that it was Snake we had been talking about when you fainted?"
Naruto clenched his fists until his short nails were digging into the palms of his hands. That name burned his ears every time he heard it. "I remember you saying that he was back…then it went black. Tsunade, is he really…is he…?"
He wasn't able to finish the sentence, and all she could do was nod grimly. His fists clenched tighter. He was trembling, but Tsunade had to continue. It would only hurt him more to keep it from him.
"Naruto…when you woke up next…Kyuubi came out. You pushed your other self out after you fainted, I'm guessing, from shock," she told him. He stared at her wide-eyed in disbelief. He heard the quiet laughter, but there was a more demonic sound to it this time. He realized the laughter from before had been from Kyuubi as well. Damn it!
"What did he do?" Naruto asked through gritted teeth. He couldn't expect Kyuubi to answer him outright, or even answer him at all. He seemed content to bother him whenever he felt the need to, and almost never answered him when he wanted him to.
"I'm not exactly sure what happened this morning. He didn't really do anything so much as say something. He said something to Yumi-san, and then came straight to me."
"What did he say, damn it?" He was trembling again. She was reluctant to give the answer to this.
"From what I gathered, he told Yumi-san that…she was a bad mother, that she should stop living in her own world and let you be a boy," she said. "When he came into the office, he hinted at it, so I went to go check on her. She was upset by it all, and then all this happened."
A heavy silence came over the room. A nurse entered the room suddenly, making both of them jump. She checked a few things, and wrote down a few notes before smiling at the two somber figures. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you both to leave for now. We need to run a few more tests. Are you going home after this?"
"Hai," Tsunade said.
"Alright. I'll send the agents you requested to your home then. Have a nice day," the nurse said in a kind voice. The blonde woman nodded, said her thanks and led Naruto from the room.
They left the hospital and were at Tsunade's house before Naruto knew it. For some odd reason he'd expected her to take him home, but thinking on it he berated himself for the stupid thought. No one was at his house now…no one was home…
"You can use the same room you use every time you come here. Come get me for dinner later and we'll go get some ramen, okay brat?" Tsunade said, hoping to cheer the blonde. He gave her a weak smile at the name, but other than that, nothing. He trudged up to the spare room she'd mentioned and closed the door.
Tsunade left for the living room, but not before she stopped to call Shizune like she had promised, and then went to the kitchen for a little refreshment. She frowned the whole time. How could she expect to cheer up her nephew if she was just as depressed about this as him? She wasn't so sad about Yumi's near death, than about having to tell Naruto he was the cause of it. Although it wasn't really him that had said those things, she knew he'd convince himself that it was and it'd just go down hill from there. She took a long gulp from the bottle she'd acquired from the kitchen, not even bothering to get a glass. What was the use if she was just going to drink it all anyway?
It wasn't long before she finished that bottle, having been half empty in the first place, and was on to the next one. Not long after she was drunk and sobbing.
Naruto came out near dinner like Tsunade had told him to and saw his aunt crying. Silently, he took the empty bottles and placed them in the kitchen before returning for his aunt. He pried the bottle of sake from her hands and she fell into a sobbing heap on him. He helped her to her room, having done it many times before. He'd only escorted a crying Tsunade back to her room once before, and he wasn't even sure why she'd been crying that time. He brought a trashcan for her if she threw up later and then left the room. He put the half finished bottle of sake back where the rest were after closing it.
Sighing, he went back to his room, not feeling hungry anymore. He flopped back onto his bed and closed his eyes with a frown, trying to sleep even though he had yet to change into the extra pajamas that were always there for him. The whole time he was helping his aunt to her room she'd been mumbling and crying on him, about him, for him. She shouldn't have to. She shouldn't be sorry. It was my fault mom's like that, and my fault she did it.
She deserved it brat, we both know it, Kyuubi chimed in sounding utterly satisfied.
Shut up! She didn't deserve that! You didn't have to come out and say those things to her either!
She was going to fall off her rocker at some point, I just gave her a little nudge. You can't honestly believe that she'd just magically get better…oh wait, I forgot who I was talking to.
Shut the fuck up you demon. You have no right to say that, Naruto growled in his head.
If you say I'm a demon, you're only talking about yourself. I am you after all, Kyuubi answered. Naruto could almost see the smirk on his face.
He gave out a frustrated sigh and turned onto his side as thunder crackled outside his window. Rain started coming down slowly, and then increased rapidly until large drops were splattering into the windowpane, making it blurry and almost impossible to see out of it. He snuggled into the pillow his head rested on, frown still set. Lovely.
Tsunade woke to the doorbell piercing through the silence. Groaning, she realized that the ringing in her head wouldn't stop like the doorbell had. She got up with a slight wobble and waited for a slight dizzy spell to pass from the headache. The doorbell rang again causing another groan to pass from her lips. She heard the door open before she even left her bedroom. She wondered in her hazy mind if it was a burglar. But a burglar wouldn't ring the doorbell certainly…or would they. But then her memory came back to her. She'd brought Naruto home with her, gotten drunk, and then Naruto must have taken her to her room when he came down to dinner. She didn't remember, and the splitting headache told her she drank more than her usual portion of sake. She frowned, mentally noting that she owed the boy ramen.
Figuring that it was Naruto who answered the door, she also figured he would deal with the visitor, whomever they were, until she went downstairs. She changed into jeans and a loose fitting blouse. She went into the bathroom and splashed water on her face in an attempt to wake herself up. It didn't work that well. She decided tea would be better, but felt that taking a painkiller would be best to do first, before she had to deal with the people downstairs that Naruto had obviously invited in. Hopefully they weren't his friends.
Then again, it was still a school day and they would still be in class. She'd called Shizune the day before and asked her to take over the office for the day and mark Naruto absent for that day. His friends shouldn't be visiting unless they were skipping school. But they couldn't have known that he was at her house now either. Blurry as her memory was, she didn't remember anyone making any phone calls other than her own to Shizune. And she was fairly certain that Naruto left his cell phone at his house since he had been Kyuubi at the time he left and didn't come into school with anything.
She walked down and saw two grown men before her and Naruto was in the kitchen making tea. She was confused for a moment before even more memories dawned on her. They were, presumably, the agents she'd asked for at the hospital.
"Good morning gentlemen," she said as she crossed to Naruto to help him with the tea. They nodded at her politely.
Naruto said he could handle it, and that he made some toast for her since she would need something in her stomach to make the painkiller work. She nodded, silently wondering why the boy was doing more to take care of her than she of him. She sighed, took the piece of offered toast and a cup of tea, and then turned to the men who were waiting patiently for her attention.
"Are you Uzumaki Tsunade?" asked one, a toothpick hanging out of the corner of his mouth.
"Hai. And this is Naruto-kun," she replied, motioning to the blonde boy. Naruto handed them their cups of tea and then took his own. She didn't realize until she looked at him that he was still dressed as a girl. She shrugged, deciding not to correct herself in front of the men.
"Ah, yes. We met at the door," said the other with a raised brow. A large scar adorned his face, yet seemed to fit him. "I'm Raidou, and my partner is Genma. We received a call from the hospital about your request?"
"Hai," she replied. "Why don't we move to the living room? I'm sure it will be more comfortable for all of us in there rather than standing around here."
And so she took her painkiller, and then they all settled down in the living room. The grown ups discussed and read and wrote signatures on papers that were passed around. Naruto said not a word the whole time, causing Tsunade to worry despite the fact that she needed to concentrate on the matter at hand. She'd have thought he'd put up a little more resistance than this, but she decided to wait to question the blonde until after the two men had left.
When the annoying doorbell had awakened her, it had been around 10:00. They didn't finish until nearly 3:00 in the afternoon. Even after they left, Naruto had yet to make a noise. She'd left the boy in the living room, escorting the men out of her house. She returned now and looked at her nephew from the doorway. He looked tired and oddly expressionless, if not, a little forlorn. She frowned sadly at his appearance. She approached him slowly, sitting down by him and put an arm around his shoulders, pulling the boy to her in a hopefully comforting manner.
"Naruto, I…" she said, leaning her head to rest upon his, "I'm sorry. I never imagined any of this would ever happen. I'm sorry about your mom, your dad, everything. I know you don't want to leave your mom, but you and I both know she's not capable enough to take care of you, let alone herself. I don't want to see you hurt anymore. You've been hurt enough in your life."
She felt him shaking under her arm, and suddenly his head was buried in her chest while hot tears poured from his cerulean eyes. She embraced him and let him cry. He deserved to be able to let it all out.
She squeezed him tighter, hearing him mumbling, "I'm sorry, it's all my fault," and things of the like at intervals between his ragged breathing. She shushed him, comforted him and held him. She told him everything would be all right, that it wasn't his fault. She rubbed circles on his back in a soothing way and kissed his forehead and stroked his hair.
They wouldn't have to deal with school the next day either if needed. If Naruto wanted to stay home, she would gladly let him, but she hoped Naruto would be all right soon. She couldn't let his education be neglected much more than it already was. But that was the least of her worries.
While she was mostly preoccupied with calming the sobbing blonde boy in her lap at the moment, her mind still wondered at something concerning him. What would he do now if he wasn't living with his mother anymore? And how would he adjust if he changed back?
A/N: Omg, I'm soooo soorryyyy! This is such a sucky way to update, and it wasn't any better than the last! I wrote and rewrote this as best I could and I still don't like it! Graaah! Gosh, there's enough angst and depressingness here for a while. I hate how depressing this has become, but it needs to be this way for plot's sake. Yumi's not going to come in much more, well obviously since she's in the hospital, but just in case that went over your head. Yeah.
I thank you all dearly for all the reviews, and if you don't review, then I thank you dearly for reading anyway. I truly don't deserve your love for this chapter. It's the crappyist thing I could have made for you all, but I wanted something out there. Please excuse my selfishness in that decision. Hopefully I'll be able to make the next chapter a little happier. I made a one-shot too while I was neglecting this chapter, and it's very cute. So go read that for something happy if you didn't like this, please. Again, reviews, as much as I don't deserve them right now, would make me very happy. Flames are thoroughly accepted for this occasion. Thank you everyone for reading or reviewing and I'll see you all next chapter whenever I happen to get it up.
Disclaimer: don't own it, never will