Hold On | A Naruto Fanfic

1| A Memory

The night was silent. Not even the sounds of bird wings flapping, or trees swaying in the wind. Nothing, save for the brilliant light that the moon gave the village of Konoha. It was peaceful in all aspects of the word, but one boy, a young teen with too much on his shoulders, was anything but.

Sheets rustling as he tosses and turns beneath them, the constricting cotton that was supposed to offer comfort instead became a cage that kept him locked to the bed. The young boy was fretful in his sleep, a sheen of sweat, cold and icy with the wind blowing through the window, was slowly coating his face. Nightmares had been an almost nightly occurrence for the past year. Always the same one, and always the same fear that choked him as he relived it.

As to what that nightmare was... would have to be explained another day,

The boy woke with a start, the ground beneath him shaking from something in the distance. His white hair was matted to his face, and one of his eyes were closed from a scar that he got long ago. Ignoring the way his heart pumped in his chest with fear, he jumped out of bed and ran to his window as fast as he could,

In the distance, he saw a large cloud of smoke unravel through the air, and over the sudden cries of fear, a deep, guttural growling eliminated from it. With a widened eye, Kakashi watched as the smoke slowly disappeared, showing a snarling blood red fox with 9 tails stand to its full height. As various Konoha Ninjas swept past his home in pursuit of the beast, Kakashi made the mistake of looking at its face. In one split second, a grey eye met that of a glowing red one, and without another moment, Kakashi threw himself back and behind his bed just as the 9 tailed beast roared deafeningly and threw out of its tail.

Screams of terror filled the once silent night as houses were destroyed in a single instant, cement, earth, PEOPLE flying through the air.

Kakashi cursed, covering his head as his own home was bombarded with that of other buildings and earth that had never been moved from its place before. More crashes and screamed filtered in through the window and the boy only looked up once before leaping to the side when part of the ceiling caved in where he had just been.

He rammed into the opposite wall for only a second before shooting off of it and out the semi broken window just as the 9 tailed beast roared. The young anbu leapt between the trees with a deadly accurate swiftness just as the vibrations and general force of the roar destroyed a path that his own home was in.

He stopped on top of a particularly large tree, his eye swiveling as he surveyed the damage. Blood splattered everywhere, bodies -ninja and civilian- crushed under homes and earth or broken in impossible ways with just a swipe of the beast's tails or paws. The area around the beast was already dismantled beyond compare, and people ran from under the tree he was in with screams, trying to survive. He growled and bunched his muscles, prepared to jump from the tree to fight alongside his fellow ninja. He wasn't an anbu for nothing, and it went without saying that he'd do anything he needed to protect his village and the people in it.

A sudden memory ripped itself from some confine of his mind just before he could leap into action.

"What's that, Kushina?", Kakashi asked, pointing the swirling black mark covering most of her stomach.

The woman, a young girl with blazing red hair and kind eyes looked at her husband's Genin in surprise before looking down at her stomach. She has used the end of it to wipe the sweat away on her forehead after their small sparring session, and she hadn't thought about the action showing the Seal.

Kakashi knew it wasn't a secret. He, Rin, and Obito had seen it plenty of times before, but none of them ever asked her about it. They tried asking Minato, their team leader, about it, but whenever they did, he simply brushed it off or simply told them to ask her about it instead.

Back when he asked this, her stomach had still been flat for Minato and Kushina's children were yet to be even a thought. Now, it was bulging with the twins growing in it, and Kakashi knew they'd be born soon.

Kushina laughed, a hand going to her cheek to hide a small blush from the boy who stared at her with his lower half of his face hidden by a cotton cloth. She turned back to Kakashi, smiling at the boy who looked at her with lazy eyes and emotionless eyes. She'd known this boy since he was a small child, so she knew he was genuinely curious despite what it may look like to someone outside their little circle.

Kakashi watched as she struggled for a way to explain before she said slowly, "Well it's a Seal, to keep the 9 tailed beast inside of me to protect people from it's power. Before I became the 9 Tailed Beast's Jinchuriki, one of the members in my clan, Mito Uzumaki was it's holder. It was only when I was around your age that it was sealed inside of me for if I was any younger, it's overwhelming about of Chakra would've made it impossible for me too live."

Slowly, Kakashi's eyes widened in surprise at her words. He'd heard of Jinchuriki before, after all, how could he not when they were usually a Village's prized possession. He turned his head away in thought. He's heard from many people that even though Jinchuriki were prized, most of the time they were feared and ostracized from their peers and fellow villagers if only because they were stronger and more mysterious than those around them. Not much was known about each of the Tailed Beasts save for generic information, hence the uncertainty many had around them.

Kakashi's gaze swivel back to Kushina, and he blinked when he realized she had been watching him think. Despite the small smile on her face, and despite the way she handled herself on a daily basis, suddenly the reason why Kushina seemed a little distant from those in the village and just a tad bit too reserved around those she was around, hit him like a bag of bricks. She was liked enough and respected enough as the Hokage's wife, but because she was a Jinchuriki, no one in the village ever tried to befriend her themselves. The realization saddened him, but did nothing to deter him from asking, "And if the Seal breaks?"

Kushina's smile fell from her face for a brief moment, "Chaos."

A shiver ran down his spine and as Kushina got up and teased him into another sparring session, for just a split second, he understood what the sudden dullness in her eyes meant even if she didn't saying anything more.

Kakashi was suddenly ripped from the memory when the ground shook once more with a heavier vibration. He cursed once more as he felt from the tree, before pushing off it's bark too land on a large building. Using Chakra Control, he ran up the side of the building before flipping up and over the edge, landing in a crouched position on the sturdy cement. Whipping his head up, his single grey eye widened as he saw a dull orange frog, easily the size of the Tailed Beast itself, standing between it and the rest of the village.

The tailed beast opened it's snarling mouth to deliver another catastrophic roar at the defender, before the large reptilian suddenly kicked the beast with enough force that a sudden gust of wind blew throughout the village.

Kakashi grunted, covering his eye with his forearm before he looked up once more. With a sudden strike of horror, he saw his mentor standing atop of the Summoned Frog, his white cape billowing against the darkness of the night like a beacon, before the Frog crouched and leapt into the air and after the Tailed Beast.

One second there was a boy with grey hair in his nightclothes crouching a top an unharmed village, and the next, a loud deep crack sounded, and all that was left was deep crater.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Sooo.... Whatcha think? XD Decided that I wanted to give it a go with the whole "Kakashi takes care of Naruto" trope, and I'm hoping I can do it justice. This idea came to me suddenly even though it's been months since I've last read a Kakashi is a father fanfic, and even though I have like 8 other new works in the making WITH the ones that need updating, I honestly have no regrets.

Let me know what you guys feel about this and if you have any hopes for future scenes and such. I already have so many written down and so much planned, but I like seeing if you guys have the same ideas as I do XD