Chapter 2
A warm, lilting lullaby floated through an almost completely abandoned nursery.
Uzumaki Naruto, the healthy baby boy, lay sleeping in his crib with a thumb half in his mouth. His hair was golden like the sun, his eyes the blue of the sea under it, and the chakra in him was strong and vibrant.
His mother and father lost their lives that he might live, and that vitality shined through him, everything they had prayed for.
Everything Uzumaki Kushina had prayed for, as she screamed in childbirth, demanding the gods let her child survive, hale and whole.
And the gods of Uzu listened, attention called down, and they obeyed. They watched as the woman who’s plight caught their attention survived childbirth, the extraction of the most powerful demon from her soul, and somehow managed to find the inner strength to fight the beast alongside her husband and die with him in defense of her babe.
So full of love for them was she that her determination never wavered, her step never faltered, and she didn’t hesitate once. Uzushio had fallen before her birth, but it’s spirit so clearly lived on. And, just as clearly, it passed through her to her son.
How could it not?
Such sacrifices were not made lightly.
Especially not before the gods.
So it was that Ame-no-Uzume swept the last of the main Uzumaki line into her arms and sang to him as he slept; a high, lilting lullaby that floated through an almost-empty nursery.
She sang to him of an island under a bright summer sun, a city on the sea, with azure waters all around. A city in white and red and shining gold, built on terraces climbing from the edge of the ocean and up into the surrounding hills.
A city painted with colours of her dawn, open to the sun and wave, and half as beautiful as Ryūjin's palace. Inari was deferred to in the market and a sea breeze always washed in from the shore.
Children ran laughing through the streets.
“This is your legacy, little one.” She told him, as she allowed all five of his fingers to curl around one of hers.
The morning light spilled through the curtains of the nursery and the goddess of dawn with long crimson hair held him close and swayed to and fro as his mother never got the chance to.