Chapter 27 (NEW)
55 months- November- 10 years old
.
“Kitsune, Inu.” Spoke the yondaime hokage, his face blank as he watched his sister and former student come from the shadows to kneel in front of him causing a tick to form on his forehead. He may have addressed them as their code names however he wished they would have at least eased up.
The two ANBU operatives stayed kneeling upon the ground as Shisui, Jiraiya and Orochimaru remained standing.
“I have some important news.” He gave a dramatic pause as he watched everyone’s reaction, true to form they all looked bored but remained attentive. “Kushina is pregnant.”
Silence.
Pin drop silence. And just to test his theory, one of the ANBU who switched shifts dropped a pin, causing the on alert Kitsune and Inu to throw a flurry of weapons his way, Kakashi standing in a protective stance in front of him as Naruto stood in front of Kakashi, her hand on her tonto ready to unsheathe the blade.
Their reactions caused sniggers around the room and Minato could feel Naruto glaring at Shisui and the hidden Genma who had dropped said needle and the latter received a senbon which he dodged, but he didn’t manage to dodge the explosion.
Both Kakashi and Naruto went back to where they had been kneeling but instead chose to stand, clearly still on alert as they were technically still on guard duty.
“Congrats, Minato. When’s the little brat coming?” asked Jiraiya as he put a hand onto Naruto’s shoulder, holding her firmly.
A smile made its way on to his face, “July 25th.” He tried not to frown when he saw Naruto go stiff at his proclamation but then it came to mind she was probably worried about security.
He cleared his throat and stood to look out the window, “The reason I’ve informed all of you is because of her status- you all know she is a jinchuriki and such will require additional protection. Especially when you add up the fact she is my wife so my enemies will try to kill our unborn child.” his hands clenched into fists as he thought about Onooki threatening the life of his wife. The man hadn’t done so but one could never be too careful.
A muffled throat clearing drew his attention so he turned around and saw his masked sister raise her hand, “Do you know the risks of a pregnant jinchuriki?”
Minato, in fact, did not know and as far as he knew, neither did Kushina so he shook his head, no.
“When a female jinchuriki becomes pregnant, the chakra which usually goes into the seal instead goes into the unborn child which in turn weakens the seal. When she gives birth, the seal will be at its weakest and somebody who knows what they’re doing can remove the bijuu from inside of her. The only way to prevent that would be to reinforce the seal as she gives birth and just after.” Her voice was devoid of emotion as if she wasn’t talking about something that could potentially happen to herself in the future should she decide to have children.
Minato seethed at the mere thought of someone touching his sister.
“You know far more about this than Kushina does.” He said.
Naruto shrugged her shoulders, “I know a lot more since I get around more. Blood clones and transformations justsu’s are amazing.” She said wistfully but added, “There’s also the little fact that I get along with my tenant far more than she does hers.”
Just as Minato opened his mouth to reply, she interrupted, “Also, when Lady Mito gave birth her seal nearly completely came undone so as a safety precaution she’d have to give birth outside the village.” she added as an afterthought and Minato raised his hand to stop her from rambling.
When Naruto started it was hard to stop her from going on and on with security measures or fuinjustu. “We’ll discuss the details at a later time, sometime tomorrow. For now, I’d like for you all to go and think over what is written in these scrolls.” He reached out and handed each of them a scroll which he had written up about Kushina’s protection but according to Naruto, he’d need to make another plan for that.
.
.
.
62 months- June
.
“Naruto, you’re fussing over nothing.” Kushina said in a frustrated tone as she watched her student turned sister-in-law fuss about her and her safety.
Naruto turned around and gave her an incredulous look, “You’re due any day now and tou-san isn’t even here!” she waved her hands up as her chakra swirled around inside her.
Kushina gave her a calm smile, “I’m not due for another six weeks. June has only just started Naruto.”
Naruto pointed a finger at her bulging stomach where her maternity tunic clung, “You’re pregnant with twins! You could go into labour at any minute!”
“Not likely.”
She squinted her eyes as she looked at her stomach with her sage mode activated. Apparently she had a shaodwclone which had been absorbing nature chakra. “I knew a lady who gave birth two whole months early, gave her a start especially when she had to admit I was right.”
When Temari had given birth they had been so scared since Gaara had been premature and his mother had passed away. However Sakura was still alive at the time and had healed up the blonde to a point it seemed like she hadn’t even given birth.
Naruto could see with her sage mode the two moving around inside her sister-in-law, both were moving around a lot and apparently were training their taijutsu on each other with the amount of kicks they were dishing each other out.
Honestly, Kushina should take her more seriously when it came to things like this. After-all, Minato wasn’t even in the damn village and was instead in Suna for the time being working on a peace treaty that would benefit both sides and not just a neutral treaty as they had been given in her time.
Naruto had originally been sent as an envoy seeing as she was the sister of the yondaime hokage, back in December last year and had seen Gaara’s mother.
She had requested a meeting with Rasa as a show of good faith said she would create a better seal for him to place on his wife and baby. He had at first been sceptical but when Lady Chiyo had seen her handy-work he had allowed her to put on the seal onto the First Lady when she had been giving birth. With the help of Rin who had been apprenticing under Tsunade, she had managed to help save Gaara and his mother from a cruel fate.
It was strange, seeing Gaara so small, barely the size of and adult hand in his curled up state, as well as seeing him without those rings around his eyes and the love katakana on his forehead.
Seeing him had acted like proof that there was a future waiting for all of them and hopefully, it’d be a bright future for them.
She heard Kushina groan at the false contraction and Naruto prayed Minato would be back in time. After all, if someone tried to take Kurama out of Kushina, they might just take it out of her since she had most of him inside of her.
Hopefully with their joint seals, it should prevent Kurama from being ripped out but one could never be too careful with Zetsu and Madara plotting in the shadows- the perks of time-travel.
The rest of the day was spent fussing over the current First Lady of Konoha before Kakashi came to switch shifts with her.
.
.
.
A few days later.
.
Naruto felt like cursing her good luck.
She just knew Kushina would go into early labour this week but would anybody listen? No. The only good thing was that Minato had returned after signing a new peace treaty with Suna.
Currently she was guarding the entrance to the cave with Kakashi as Shisui remained inside and if necessary he would use his kekkei-genkai on Kurama.
If necessary.
Kushina's water had broken however she wasn't dilated enough to give birth but Rin and Tsunade as well as Lady Biwako said the children had to come out. After putting Kushina under they were performing a C-section which to be fair, was the most logical thing they could do when it comes to twins.
Ouch.
Several hours later of pain within Naruto’s own abdomen, they were finished taking the two from her and were in the midst of healing her.
Naruto and Kakashi were still alert though, making absolutely sure nothing and no one breaches their security.
Which quite frankly would be impossible since Naruto had the leaders of each of her summons outside and her clones sensing for others whilst collection nature chakra.
After two hours of healing Kushina was finally ready to be transported back home and everyone sighed in relief. Everything had gone smoothly, no one had died and no one had attacked, which made Naruto very smug.
Even Kurama was enjoying himself by burning different versions of Madara and other people he didn’t like.
Naruto chose not to ask.
.
.
.
65 months- September
.
Naruto banged her head against her table as she looked at the scroll as if her memory and the scroll were wrong. She understood she messed with history but she really, really didn’t want to learn everyone’s new birthdays.
Especially given there was one person’s birthday not amongst the others.
Everyone’s new birthday went as follows; Gaara on January 19th, Shino January 29th, Sakura April 19th, Chouji June 9th, the twins Arashi and Narumi June 10th, Kiba July 17th, Shikamaru September 8th, Ino September 12th and Hinata October 22nd.
She had messed with history so much that Sasuke had never been born. Well, at least not yet. As far as Naruto understood, Mikoto was pregnant and due in December but the catch was… she was pregnant with a girl.
What?
Jiraiya laughed at her plight which caused her to glare in his direction with her face on the table, too lazy to pick up her head to do so. At the moment her brain was pure mush.
The sound of crying jolted her up and she hastily sealed everything away and went over to the crying red haired boy. Arashi had Kushina’s red hair, the same whisker marks as Naruto, Minato’s blue eyes and Kushina’s pale skin.
Narumi on the other hand had strawberry blonde hair and Kushina’s violet eyes and her pale skin and had whisker marks on each cheek.
For whatever reason it made Naruto happy that neither of her siblings (niece and nephew) looked like her. But whenever she’d feel like that she’d mentally slap herself for being silly.
Something Kurama would often tell her was not petty, stating how she would have been upset if they had looked like her and gotten to be loved in a way she hadn’t been given a chance as a child due to all that had gone wrong- from both her parents and the village.
Arashi stopped crying at the sight of his aunt appearing, cooing at the child before picking him up and rocking him back and forth, smiling as he tugged on her hair with a giggle.
“Ooohh, what’s wrong with little Arashi?” she cooed in a baby voice as he began to cry again and deduced he must be hungry since his nappy was dry.
Warming up the milk Kushina had left for the twins in boiling water, she went around the room in hopes of finding his plushie.
She had made it to be funny and fully expected it to be rejected but she had been entirely heart-warmed when the child clung onto the plushie of Kurama like a lifeline whenever he went places. It seemed to make Kurama very smug for reasons she didn’t dare ask about as he seemed to be getting weirder as the days went by.
Once the milk was warm enough she placed it in the baby’s mouth allowing him to drink it and he readily did so. Naruto didn’t understand why Kushina and Minato said Arashi was hard to feed, whenever she tried he drank like he was in the desert without any water for days.
She looked out the window as he drank, the boys getting back to what they had been doing before Arashi woke up and she closed her eyes, taking a mental break as the baby drank.
.
.
.
A week later.
.
Naruto breathed in heavily as she massaged her forehead with both hands. She didn’t understand why Minato was in such a panic. She was asking to leave the village to continue her work for an undecided amount of time, something she didn’t even need permission for she had reminded him.
“Can’t this… trip… take place after Arashi and Narumi are older? They’re both so fond of you and are attached to you.” He implored her with his eyes but Naruto wouldn’t waver.
She could finally leave the village and sort out things in other villages and not just in her own village.
“There’s a lot I need to do, aniue. Sandaime-sama gave me this rank for a reason and I intend to make use of it. Give me my missions on the go from outside Konoha and I will do my duty, but you cannot keep me locked here. If you really need me, or my help, within the village I can make a blood-clone to remain in Konoha.”
She didn’t want to leave, not when she could stay here and watch everyone grow up but she had her duty to fulfil. Peace wasn’t going to be easy especially since the last war only ended the previous year.
Minato didn’t say a thing so she bowed and left via hiraishin to her apartment, sighing when she saw Iruka and Shisui playing a game of shogi.
“What did he say?” asked Iruka without looking up from the board.
She gave them a small smile but it didn’t quite reach her eyes, “He can’t deny me my request to leave and he can’t deny Orochiamru nor tou-san either. Jiraiya is Konoha’s spy master and can come and go as he pleases whereas Orochimaru is given free reign as long as he reports in regularly. The only actual issue would be getting Shisui to come with us.”
Naruto hadn’t wanted to take Shisui away from the village, she wanted him closer to his clan to keep an eye on them but that wasn’t possible. Despite the years having gone by, Naruto was still terribly addicted to Shisui’s chakra and still required frequent doses of it.
She didn’t want to explain to Minato why Shisui was needed out of the village so she had been hoping they would get away with it, after all, despite how long ago it was no one had told him why she was always near the Uchiha.
“That won’t actually be a problem.” Replied Shisui to her earlier statement causing her to furrow her brows.
“Orochimaru-sama came by whilst you were talking to your brother and said he wanted to take Shisui as an apprentice. He confessed that it was because of our little problem but he also said he could make an amazing student out of him and would teach him properly." Iruka was rudely interrupted by an elated Shisui.
"Ha! I win!” she chuckled as Shisui laughed at Iruka misery of having lost against their teammate, going off into her kitchen to start cooking some food.
An hour later they had to leave as the construction workers began fixing the room, they had removed the two dividing walls but they needed to have a nice finish and sort out the rooms.
Naruto wouldn’t be able to use this apartment herself till she returned from her trip but she managed to bribe Genma to live there as a roommate, him paying the rent for ‘one’ apartment as she paid the remaining as well as the construction bill.
He had offered to help pay for construction but she said it would be fine as she had been taking several high ranking and paying missions as of late.
And on the day Naruto was leaving she made sure she visited everyone, including Nagato, Yahiko and Konan. She left a few blood clones in the village under henge and the only ones who would know their true identity were few.
She also left one that looked like her so Arashi and Narumi got to know her and trust her like one should their aunt.
.
.
.