Naruto x Digimon

Alive - Team Minato's Digidestined

Chapter 044

Song: Teflon Sega - - Beretta Lake (feat. SAINt JHN)

Originally Written: Wednesday, March 29, 2023 436AM; 1059AM to 1205PM

. . . . .

At Kushina's and Minato's safehouse, music played on a little record player that was far beyond anything Kakashi was used to. Kushina spun and twirled him around. Despite her visible weight gain, she never seemed to tire. Currently, she was trying to teach Kakashi and his team a dance from Uzushiogakure. Kakashi stumbled. Kushina laughed, alongside his squad. She also forgot that Kakashi had two left feet.

"Are you okay?" Kushina asked over the soothing music.

Kakashi ducked his head. "I'm fine. I won't forgive you if you go after her."

"I know. I won't. You told me, dattebane. I'm just asking." She twirled him around again. "That wasn't your fault, y'know."

Kakashi didn't trip because he was looking at his feet. "I know." He murmured.

Kushina stopped, lifted up his head and smooshed his cheeks together in resemblance of a smile with her hands. She beamed, then dissolved into snickers.

Kakashi blinked in confusion while he held in a chuckle of his own.

"I've got a name for ya!" She poked at his cheeks some more.

Unable to speak, he hummed in acknowledgement.

"Kurama!" She sang, suddenly spinning him around again.

Kakashi was pretty sure having the individual you were supposed to protect swinging you around because they wanted to dance was against Anbu protocol. He wondered why he was letting her do it. Then he looked at his squadmates laughing. Kushina swung him around like a ragdoll as he tripped over his feet again.

He gave her a questioning look with his eye. "Is that your son's name?" He looked at her stomach for just a moment. For some reason, he learned from Mikoto that women didn't like when you stared at their stomachs while they were pregnant.

Kushina laughed. The sound filled the room with her joy. "No, dattebane! It's his!"

"Pardon?" Kakashi looked at his team in confusion, but they looked just as confused as he was.

Matadormon was the only one besides Kushina who understood. "The fox." He stood in the light next to the record player.

"The creature that created half of the Valley of the End?" Kakashi asked.

"That's the one!" Kushina nodded so intensely her hair flared like the fox's tails were said to when Madara fought the First Hokage, Hashirama. And what a feeling he experienced when she had told him that. She couldn't go into too much more detail, but he could get that much.

"Right…" Kakashi was grateful Kushina stopped moving so he could gather his own thoughts. "How did you learn that?"

She pulled him aside after he returned. Though he had sworn not to tell a soul, she slowly coaxed what happened between him and Rin out of his lips. The same way he and his team slowly revealed bits and pieces of information concerning their Digimon to her without her needing to ask. Almost on instinct, she found the information woven in between the threads of their lives.

When she was satisfied, she stopped asking him about the event. She looked at him, winked and said 'I've got a built in lie detector.'

Now she looked at him, a finger pressed to her chin as she thought. A far away look reached her eyes. "I was inspired by you and your team's camaraderie with your summons. Y'know, you got everyone thinking they're all different summons of the same species?"

Kakashi stared at her, because he could not say that was the point, just in case someone was listening or something. Or he didn't feel comfortable enough to say it. He found himself nodding, unsure exactly what he was nodding in response to.

"I didn't know they had names. They all do. All nine of them got names. Never occurred to me." She clasped her hands, like she was asking for forgiveness or praying. "He asked me to tell you something. I'm not sure what it means though."

"..." Kakashi wasn't sure about hearing the advice of a fox as tall as a mountain and capable of destroying one with a single swing of a tail. On the other hand, Gabumon through Matadormon gave him and others tons of advice and they listened, despite knowing the digimon could kill them in a heartbeat if Kakashi gave the word. "Okay. What does he want me to know?"

She looked at him again, swaying back and forth to the music. "He says, 'If you can't go back to the start from the finish, thank the Sage for beginnings'." Her gaze gained that far away look again, "Yea, that's about right, 'ttebane"

Kakashi nodded, though he didn't have a clue what that meant either. From the looks his team were giving him, they didn't have a clue either.

"Understood. Thanks, Kurama." Matadormon spoke up for Kakashi.

Kakashi nodded again.

"Oh good!" Kushina cheered right back up again. "He says 'you're welcome'!" She grabbed Kakashi's hand again. "I really liked that book you were always readin', Kakashi. Minato's always saying I should give it a chance, but Jiraiya's a perv, ya know. Didn't know what it was about."

Kakashi let his laughter bubble from his throat, though he wasn't supposed to when he was on a mission. He listened to Kushina tell her about the name she and Minato chose for their first born. Naruto.

"You're naming him after a ramen topping?" A member of Kakashi's team asked.

"You know what our Captain's name means, ma'am?"

Kakashi worked with them long enough to tell that they were playing. Kushina's stiff posture and slowly rising hair told another story. "She means maelstrom. How it's spelled in the book. That's why she started off with it."

Kushina's hair slowly dropped. "Thank you, Kakashi."

"We're just messing with ya, ma'am." His squadmates laughed anyway.

"Ah, I see." Kushina smiled a mischievous smile. She looked at Kakashi. "Put them through the ringer for me the next time you're training, would you?"

His teammates groaned.

"Of course." Secretly, Kakashi agreed with them. He'd take his name any day of the week. Kushina swung him around into another spin.