A/N: Sorry that this one is only 2100 words! It was a natural point to leave off at, and I hadn't really planned past that part in the story, so this would be more efficient. For now, at least.

I also made some changes to the first chapter due to things I and some reviewers disliked. You can go back and read it if you want, but the only major, plot-significant change is at the end.

Before I continue, I want to thank you guys for the incredible support you've given me so far. I was floored by the response, so thank you! While I do find it rather amusing/odd that some 200 people Favorited it, "only" 82 reviewed. I'm not complaining, but I did have to chuckle at that.

Without further ado, enjoy!

Chapter 2: Breaking Point

For most people, the sight of a legendary "boss" summon was a rare one indeed.

But the sight of a boss summon facing off against a bijuu—a tailed beast of immense power and size—was almost unheard of.

Almost, because it had happened once before, twelve years prior.

But for Minato and Kushina, it was a few minutes ago.

"Gamabunta?" Minato idly wondered, thinking of the same giant toad he had summoned for aid in the past.

"It seems Jiraiya-sama has taken on Suna's jinchuuriki," said the distinctive voice of Maito Gai, one of Konoha's most renowned jounin.

An ANBU agent landed on the rooftop, turning to the Third. "Hokage-sama! We have confirmed reports of a full retreat of the invading forces!"

Hiruzen regarded him with a nod, merely saying, "Good." Something else demanded his attention, in the form of the last remaining major threat to Konoha.

They watched in awe as the giants clashed, their maneuvers shaking the ground. Bullets of water, each the size of an apartment building, slammed with similarly-sized blasts of air.

The ANBU agent walked unsteadily towards Hiruzen, speaking up in a tone that held a hint of panic. "H-Hokage-sama...Jiraiya-sama was reported to be leading the defense at the Northeastern sector of the village...so who...?"

Hiruzen, along with everyone else on the rooftop, turned their heads to look at the ANBU agent, lines of confusion and worry etched into each of their faces. As if all following the same train of thought, they shifted their gazes to Gamabunta, hoping for answers.

They didn't have to wait long. Gamabunta charged at the One-Tail bijuu, until a large pop filled the air along with a gigantic cloud of smoke. A giant red claw emerged from it, followed by a sight that had not plagued Konoha for a dozen years: the Kyuubi—the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox.

All who remembered that night felt their blood running cold and shivers down their spines.

Kushina's mind numbed, unable to process what she was seeing. For most of her life, she had lived with that beast sealed inside of her. It was a part of her identity, even among family—even to her.

Seeing it free and rampaging directly after Naruto's birth had been surreal and unsettling enough. Now, it was too much to deal with.

The Kyuubi look-a-like dug its claws and teeth into the bijuu and grappled it onto its knees. Moments later, another loud pop sounded, and the menacing form of a legend was replaced with the noticeably less menacing form of Gamabunta.

"No way..." Kakashi whispered. Heads turned once again to face the source. "Jiraiya-sama offered Naruto the summoning contract?"

The sound of that name broke through everyone's confusion. Even Kushina was pulled back into the moment, the very familiar face of Kakashi forcing back the memories.

"You mean Naruto summoned that toad?" said Genma, the proctor for the Chunin Exam Finals. His signature senbon was loosely hanging from his mouth. "He—but—but he completely exhausted himself fighting Neji!"

"It's definitely Naruto," Kakashi said, his voice resolute. "He's the only one who would do something like that." The confusion was completely gone from his face. He stepped forward to the edge of the rooftop before looking the Third in the eye. "We need to get there, now."

The roaring sound of colossal amounts of sand crashing to the forest below punctuated his suggestion impressively. Hiruzen nodded, stepping forward as well. "Minato, Kushina, you're with me. The rest of you, secure the village."

Kakashi met Minato's gaze with uncertainty. As much as they needed to sort this whole situation out, there was a more pressing matter that needed attending. "Later," he said, receiving a nod in turn. "Let's go."

Minato set the pace, which meant that the others were hard-pressed to keep up. He was unconsciously moving forward, letting muscle memory take over as his mind wandered.

Naruto. His son. His baby boy. The baby he had sealed a demon inside of.

The baby he had, however unwillingly, abandoned.

Between the guilt, the stress, and the confusion, his mind was a jumbled, overworked mess. Nearly all of his effort was put into pushing his feelings aside and react to the situation automatically.

He was only mostly succeeding.

When they had nearly reached their target, Minato called for them to stop just short of a small clearing. He enhanced his senses with chakra to a degree that most were incapable, allowing him to see and hear everything, in detail, with ease.

He identified his son almost immediately. That kind of hair tended to stand out, but the bright orange jumpsuit made missing him impossible.

He also saw the strangely dressed redhead laying a short distance away. The boy almost immediately began shouting in a pained, panicked voice.

"My existence will never be extinguished...it won't be extinguished! I won't let it disappear!"

But the boy's yelling was clearly out of desperation. Minato knew that something about it all was wrong, but couldn't identify how.

Kushina could, all too easily. He was a jinchuuriki that was treated as a weapon instead of a person: the embodiment of one of her fears, a could-have-been that used to terrify her.

She was too shocked by that understanding to notice right away, like the others did. The other boy—Naruto, my god...NARUTO—was still moving towards the downed jinchuuriki.

Using, she noticed, nothing but his chin. Were it not for the surrealism of the entire situation, she would have been extremely impressed...and proud. But as it was, she could only notice the whisker marks on his chin, the blood on his forehead, and the way his face gradually contorted into a specific kind of pain.

But he kept moving. She couldn't understand why, or what getting closer to the other boy would accomplish. She didn't understand what was going o—

A sudden cry interrupted everyone's thoughts. "Don't come any closer!" His panic was clear now. It was not malice, but fear that underlined the demand.

Naruto stopped his efforts at movement and brought his head up, tears falling from his eyes. "The hell of being alone...your feelings...do you know that I understand your pain? I could have been just like you..."

Kushina's already diminished ability to process and understand new information still managed to get the gist of the meaning through. It cut straight at her heart to see one of her worst fears made reality in her son—however much—chilled her to the bone.

"But..." Naruto's voice interrupted her thoughts. "I have people who are important to me now...and I won't let you hurt them."

The look of sadness on his face was replaced by one of anger and ferocity—a look she was intimately familiar with. "It doesn't matter what you try...I will stop you."

She finally looked at the other boy, now seeing the complete, genuine shock on his face. "Why?" he whispered, as if the question was coming straight from the deepest parts of his heart. "Why do you go so far for the sake of others?"

Naruto settled into a more subdued, fatigued look. "Because they saved me from the hell of being alone. They acknowledged my existence...they care about me. They would die for me...and I would die for them. My bonds with them are everything...they make life mean something..."

The other boy's face very gradually shifted from shock to understanding. For the first time since Kushina saw him, he looked away from Naruto and stared blankly into the sky. "Love..." he whispered, his mind in far-off places.

A black blur leapt from the trees to Naruto's side. Seeing that he bore the crest of the Uchiha clan on his back, she relaxed. Still, she was very curious about the black marks covering half of his face.

"It's over, Naruto," he said. "Sakura's fine. This guy probably ran out of chakra a while ago. The sand holding her collapsed."

For the first time in her life, Kushina saw her son smile. "I...see..." he said, the exhaustion he obviously felt finally catching up with him. "Good..." With that, he promptly passed out.

Two more people jumped into the clearing, clearly taking defensive positions in front of the red-headed boy. Kushina tensed—despite her misgivings, she would kill them if they made one wrong move...

"Enough."

All eyes turned to the boy, confused. "It's over," he said, sounding almost tired. His eyes were still blankly gazing skyward. "There is no point to fighting them anymore."

One of the newcomers—a puppeteer, she realized—hesitantly pulled the boy's arm over his shoulder. "Okay, Gaara." The kunoichi next to him moved to do the same.

"Temari...Kankuro...I'm sorry." It seemed that the vague apology was the most shocking thing those two had ever heard in their lives, if the expressions on their faces were anything to go by.

A few moments of unusual silence later, Temari spoke. "I-It's alright. We'll get you home."

They turned to leave, but four new arrivals stopped them. Temari and Kankuro easily recognized the legendary Third Hokage, and didn't exactly bother trying to identify the rest.

Kushina might have found their expressions comical if the circumstances were different.

Kakashi was the first to speak. "Surrender and you won't be harmed."

Temari and Kankuro looked uneasily at each other, and then both at Gaara, before they seemed to reach some kind of decision. Temari unsteadily stepped in front of them, hand reaching towards the fan on her back...

"Wait!" the Third shouted, giving everyone pause. "This is unnecessary," he explained. "Suna was deceived into war by Orochimaru. He impersonated the Kazekage after assassinating him. I can explain the rest later."

Once again, Temari and Kankuro had looks of utter shock. "F-Father is...?"

Kushina's eyes widened in realization. They were siblings, all of them. Temari had been planning on sacrificing herself in an attempt to buy time for the rest of her siblings to escape.

"He is dead," Gaara said, as if he were simply bored.

"Your father is the Kazekage?" Minato blurted. She could see his face contorting between horror, sadness, and guilt all at once.

"Yes," Gaara stated.

Oh. Kushina wanted to whack herself for not making the connection sooner—the Kazekage, their father, had allowed (she didn't even want to think about the possibility of "encouraged") Gaara to be treated as a weapon. As something less than human.

An awkward silence settled over the group as they each sorted out the revelations themselves. None of them had figured out what to do yet.

She did. "Do you love him?" It was a simple question, but it was the most important one to ask.

Kankuro stared into Kushina's eyes, held captive by her hard, blazing gaze. "Yes," he answered with little hesitation. As much as they feared him, he was still their brother. And, importantly, someone who had no say in what he became. Temari nodded resolutely.

"Then take care of him," Kushina ordered. She tried to quell the tears and the pain in her chest at the irony of her words. "Don't ever let him be alone again."

They stared at her blankly, but she could tell they understood. "Go." They only hesitated briefly before complying.

She watched them go as they leapt into the trees. And then, with nothing to distract her, the mental barriers she had erected by necessity started to crumble. She turned around to face Naruto, who slept soundly on the ground. Tears were already spilling from her eyes as she knelt by him, and pulled him into a crushing hug. All of the stress, pain, fear, and confusion of the past hour of her life came pouring out in the form of uncontrolled sobs. It said a lot about how exhausted Naruto was that he didn't even come close to waking up.

Minato bowed his head, not bothering to keep the tears in check. Though he remained standing, he looked far worse than his wife. It was a quiet, resigned grief; his posture reminded Kakashi of a man who felt cold in a way that weather could never produce.

To a much lesser extent, Kakashi felt the same way. Perhaps later, there would be time for joy and reunion. But right now, there was only grief and guilt...for every adult in the clearing.

At some point, Sasuke had brought an unconscious Sakura back to the group, and Hiruzen examined Team 7 for injuries. He gave a nod to Kakashi and Sasuke to assure them that the two sleeping genin were alright and dismissed Enma from the scene.

A short time later, Sasuke pulled Kakashi to the side. Though Sasuke spoke at a whisper, it carried the tone of an exasperated shout. "What the hell is going on?"

A/N: So, what did you think?

I tried to better convey Kushina and Minato's mental state in this chapter. In the past hour, from their perspective, they've been put through the wringer AND THEN SOME, and then they're brought into THIS situation. They're just trying to remain functional as long as they need to. And as you saw, once they didn't need to...well, hence the chapter title. I also want to reiterate that NO ONE who went after Naruto is in a position to think very clearly; it's too much to deal with, and they're just getting by.

No, I'm not going to angst the issue to death. But I AM trying to deal with the situation as realistically as possible-being brought back to life a dozen years after your death would be jarring and hard to deal with even under the best of circumstances.

By the way, am I the only one who thinks that Naruto trying to further defeat Gaara with nothing more than pulling himself with his chin is one of the most awesome and heartwarming things he's done?

Please review! Your response to last chapter really got me in the writing mood for this one. I'm enjoying this to the point where I think I'll put chapter 3 up this weekend.