“Hold me,” she asked in a soft voice, the silent request tearing at Naruto’s soul. The reason he had to go was the same reason that he could not leave her side. He had been sabotaged, and in the middle of the night, one week after the birth of his first newborn, and his wife had been the only one to suffer the consequence.
“H- Hi-chan,” a cracking voice called out to her, bordered with the promise of things breaking inside. A lone tear cascaded down off Naruto’s cheek and unto hers before his facial features started twitching. His eyes flashed with barely contained rage and a bit of defeat. The combination was a deadly one at best and not at all acceptable in the least.
“Naru, No! Don’t you dare!” his beloved hissed out at him, or at least she attempted to hiss at him. Her energy lacked any expendability and she caused a coughing fit as a bout of blood erupted from her mouth from overexerting herself with too much effort.
Naruto gently turned her head, making sure to hold her hair back so that she could spit up the remaining blood unto the floor, lest she choke on it. As she rolled her head back around to look at him, she was met with the image of Naruto with a face half clouded in rage.
He began to stand up, gently laying her down as he did, leaving mixes of butterfly and harsh kisses all over her fair face, and only hesitating in removing himself when she clutched at his collar. His heart, mind, and soul were in a three way war inside his body and they were ALL losing. He hated that his own inner turmoil was causing her to cry even more than the fact that she was dying. Dy-ing, her fair skin already losing some of its complexion, her body radiating less heat. He spoke a little loudly, knowing that it would be harder for her to focus, though his voice came out in a weird combination of clipping and cracking. Once again displaying his inner turmoil as his kisses had done.
“I loved your hair,” he said, and she didn’t have to reply because they both knew that he wasn’t talking about the red. He was talking about a time before everything had changed. Her hair had not been red when he had met her. He knelt down besides his son and scooped him up who was now wailing again from being disturbed, having cried himself back to sleep during the initial attack. He carried the babe, not quite yet a full week of age, back to his mother.
“And I still love your smile, your laugh.” He continued, and she sobbed, fighting against the only pain that she could still feel.
“Naru...”
“Shh now, Hime. Little Inari-kun needs his mother. Watch over him Hi-chan.” His voice leveled a little as he neared his statement’s end, and he placed the babe on his mother’s chest, smiled wistfully as she wrapped her arms around him, and lifted her up, allowing a clone to pop into place to hold her. He knew that she would not know the difference and he did not trust himself to be so close, should he lose his control. He backed away slowly, as his clone whispered to his sweetheart that he loved her. As her eyes closed the real Naruto told her that he’d see her soon.
“I’ll be back, love.” His last coherent thought as he erupted violently in a blaze of power and chakra, wordlessly entrusting his clone to protect his wife’s body and his still breathing baby. Then Naruto disappeared, noticeable only by the blazing yellow cloak of surrounding chakra that he hadn’t used in years. Then he was gone, too far for even that flaring light to illuminate him, though only his clone was around to see. Already he had dispatched two clones to take off in the opposite direction with only one thought process: find someone to stop me. For all hell was about to be wrought.
Naruto hadn’t really thought about which direction he should be running in so it was fairly fortunate for him that the incensed chakra came with area abilities such as chakra sensing and differentiating between good will and malicious intent. He naturally followed the path that his instincts told him were the right direction. His mind, however, had been racing through the events of the night.
Naruto had a clone constantly impersonating him as Hokage on a twenty-four hour basis, even going so far as to go back to his home where it was greeted by a henged clone pair of his wife and child. He had gone to the utmost extreme to make sure his plan had worked, even starting the week of impersonation with a clone of he and his pregnant wife entering a shielded room where only Tsunade–Baachan had been allowed to enter, for “birth giving” purposes. The real babe had already been born earlier in the day, so when a third clone was created inside the room by one of the prior two, it knew which form to take.
The clones had been in character for almost a week, the basement being ideal so the third clone could stretch its legs a bit, in a manner of speaking. But somehow his attackers had seen through his deception and without having to dispel a single clone to know, something that surely would’ve tipped the real Uzumaki off. Instead they had found them inside of a decently sized apartment that Naruto had moved into after being awarded the rank of chuunin.
It had actually been Kurama who had woken Naruto, screaming at Naruto to “protect the kit!” despite Kurama’s friendlier disposition in recent years, the urgency had been startling. Even in their own life or death situations, the demon fox had never been so incensed and had he not otherwise been preoccupied, Naruto would’ve been amazed that Kurama hadn’t just broken out of the seal to do his own bidding, he was so passionate of the situation.
A splash of water caught Naruto’s attention, and he realized that he could smell the victims of his hunt, and that they were now sloppily trying to erase their scent. He could taste their terror and was oddly pleased with himself. Up ahead he saw a lake surrounded by a fair amount of trees. Taking one huge bound, he leaped into the air and centered himself in the middle of the lake. He knew that his opponents had not left the area, and vengeance would be his. He promised.
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