Chapter 9
Konoha was celebrating.
Party to celebrate the defeat of the nine-tailed demon and the lives of those who didn't make it through that night a year ago.
In the Uzumaki-Namikaze house there was a sense of lack and sadness that afflicted all its inhabitants.
The lack of a certain red-haired person.
But there was also time to celebrate the latest addition to the family, a little demon who was turning one on that day.
The year had passed faster than expected for Keigo despite everything that had happened. It seemed like yesterday that he held his little brother in his arms for the first time.
The baby who once did little more than sleep and stare at him with big blue eyes was now laughing, smiling and babbling endlessly. Not to mention the crawling.
Keigo found himself sitting in front of a familiar stone, little Naruto sitting between his crossed legs.
It was quite early, the sun had just risen and the air had not yet begun to warm up. This is why the cemetery was still empty.
He had chosen that time precisely for that reason
.
"I swear it was not my fault, well not the fist time, right Naruto? Tell mom that your Kei is innocent" It wasn't Keigo's brightest moment asking a one-year-old to prove his innocence.
"Kego" Naruto said seriously scrunching up his little face. His facade fell as he gave him a gummy smile.
That was another new thing. Naruto got up one morning and started calling Keigo loudly, well Kego, but he wasn't going to complain.
The first people had started to show up so he decided that their lingering had been long enough. He didn't want to argue and take the dirty looks people would give him.
"Alright, say goodbye to mama Naruto" he said as he stood up and placed the baby on his hip.
"MAMA" Naruto shouted while waving his little hand to the tombstone.
Keigo couldn't believe his ears, he never thought that word would ever leave his little brother's lips like his had.
"Yes, Naruto, that's mom!"
His face broke out in a smile, he couldn't contain his happiness as he lifted his brother above his head and spun him around.
"mama mama mama"
They were both giggling when Keigo tried something, "Can you say dada? Da-da"
"DADA"
His father was a wreck when he left for the office that morning and Keigo knew this was going to make his father's day.
The birthday dinner would be in the evening.
When the sky was starting to darken the only ones home were Keigo, Naruto and Obito.
Keigo had set him and Naruto up at the kitchen table to draw. He was drawing circles to let Naruto erase them by scribbling them with his crayons.
For a toddler he had a strange obsession with neon colors.
Obito was in the kitchen with one of Kushina's old orange aprons finishing cooking dinner.
They were waiting for the two missing members before starting to eat. Kakashi was returning from a mission and Keigo knew his father wouldn't return home until his student was safe within the walls.
It was a warm evening and the windows were open. It was too quiet.
The sound of the door opening didn't distract them too much from their activities.
It was the sound of footsteps that alerted Keigo to the danger, no one who lived in that house made a single noise when they walked.
One moment Obito was cooking and the next his body was hitting the floor unconscious.
Keigo had no weapons on his person, the sharpest thing at hand was Naruto's orange crayon.
He enclosed his little brother in his arms as he took cover under the table.
A person ducked under the table stretching their arms out towards them and Keigo poked his eye with the crayon as hard as he could.
Screams of pain could be heard from the shinobi who was now holding his face with both hands. Keigo used the moment to kick him as hard as he could.
"Hurry up to take the baby from the brat" another voice came from the entrance.
With renewed strength the shinobi tried to drag Naruto out of his arms, taking Keigo with him.
Without the cover of the table his body was open to hits, two well placed kicks to the kidneys his grip on his brother widened and he was carried away.
His little brother's hysterical screams were getting further and further away as Keigo could only catch his breath on the floor.
He was scared but he was even more angry.
Keigo had always described his chakra as having water flowing through him and pooling like the sea in the center of his chest. Since he had sealed the fox inside him the water could sometimes boil when he got angry.
That evening the water inside him boiled and evaporated from his anger.
His vision turned red and a blanket of warmth seemed to envelop him. Everything around him had become insignificant except for Naruto's screams, he had to find him, that was all that mattered at the moment.
The red blanket obscuring his vision remained as he began to run after his captors.
His formidable speed increased even more and before he knew it he was scaling the border wall.
"How the hell the brat followed us"
Blurry screams was all Keigo could hear but he had his sights set on his prey.
Beyond the wall were the shinobi who had breached his home and taken Naruto away. His leap led him to land directly on top of one of them, who remained on the ground.
His quest for revenge was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of several masked figures.
ANBU.
Keigo couldn't care less, not with the red clouding his vision and thoughts.
A figure stopped his attempt to reach the enemy by standing in front of him, with a quick blow Keigo hit his mask and sent him to the ground.
However, he was unable to continue because his body was immobilized.
The red didn't let him think about anything and the heat was eating him alive.
"Naruto's safe, you're safe, I know you can keep it chained bubba"
A familiar voice cut through the red.
His father.
Keigo thought about the chains. The Fox. Feeling the water boiling inside him and the chains melting, he understood what his father meant.
With all the strength he had left in him he tamed the monster he was holding back and made the red retreat.
He was exhausted his knees tried to give way but something was holding him up, looking down he saw a shadow trapping him.
"I think it's enough Frog" Minato said to a masked Shinobi.
"Yeah, sorry lord hokage"
Keigo was freed and before his legs hit the ground he was captured by his father.
The next thing he knew he was being placed on a large futon and Naruto was being placed next to him. Keigo wrapped his entire body around him, a hand making its way to his small chest and feeling it rise and fall.
Alive.
"He's okay?" He asked in a muffled voice as his eyes closed.
A hand was stroking his hair.
"They didn't touch him, they wanted me" his father replied "Sleep now, I'm here to protect you"
They were moving.
After the birthday party fiasco his father had decided that their house wasn't safe enough and that the apartment in the hokage tower was better.
Keigo couldn't believe it, he had lived in their yellow house his whole life, Naruto had said his first words in there, his mom had lived in there.
They cleaned the house, cleared the drawers, mopped the floors. Like no one's ever been there before or at all.
The walls had the marks of the numerous photos that had hung there and near the entrance were the notches of Keigo's heights over the years.
When he took his first steps, learned to swim, entered the academy, graduated, became chunin, when Naruto was born, joined a team.
His entire life was marked in those walls.
And he had to leave them behind.
He closed the door behind him as he left without looking back, the key had been hanging on a necklace that he would always wear from then on.
He reached his new apartment shortly thereafter.
His father was making Naruto laugh by dragging him around the living room in a box, he had already hung up all the pictures of Kushina.
His mother was already watching over them.
"I'm home" he said as he reached his family. It left a sour taste in his mouth to say that that was home.
" 'ubba, 'ubba" Naruto greeted him.
"Yes, Naruto, he's our bubba, isn't he?" His father smiled.
Maybe the apartment wasn't home but naruto and his father sure were.