Hold On | A Naruto Fanfic

2| A Death

The sounds of desperate panting and huffing filled the silence of the dense forest. Leaves swished with the sudden disturbance of a grey haired blur before it passes just as quickly as it came, and soon, as Kakashi followed the path that played in waste due to his mentor, the sounds of fighting filled his ears.

Gasping for breath, Kakashi stood in the trees on the outskirts of a clearing. The orange frog that he had seen Minato on just moments ago was nowhere to be seen, but the 9 tailed fox still blazed with ferocity unlike anything the 14 year old boy had ever witnessed... and he'd witnessed a lot in his short life. He resisted the urge to cry out in alarm as his eye passed over a pale woman, drenched in sweat and weak with exhaustion and pain... a woman who had blazing red hair.

Kushina, he thought, his own words whispering in desperation through his mind. Why was she here? He thought she had just given birth to Minato's twins earlier that night before they had sent him home? Where... Where are they then?

With a sudden shock of horror, he realized a small bundle was wrapped in her weak arms and another... another was in Minato's. He was too far away to see what they were saying, but with one glance at the previous hokage, an old man named Hiruzen Sarutobi, who had clear remorse and desperation in his aged eyes, he knew what they were planning.

Golden chains unfurled from Kushina's back, strong and thick and glowing with chakra, covering the Kyuubi's body, restraining it. With a single push off the branch, his speed enhanced as much as he could with his lightning chakra, Kakashi blitzed under the chains just before they reached the ground.

With wind rushing past him, and the sound of a million birds in his ears, he just barely slid under the dome before it closed off, making it impossible for someone to enter. Fear bubbled up in his chest more fiercely than he had felt in a long time as he watched his fellow anbu and ninja pound on the golden dome, their faces streaked with horror and tears. In Kakashi's confusion, he simply stood where he was, shocked by how quickly everything was going.

As Sarutobi leaned against the dome, his eyes boring down on the two adults behind him with an emotion so deep and profound, Kakashi couldn't help thinking, I only saw you a few hours ago. Waiting beside me for news of the Uzumaki twins. How did the night end up like this? Bathed in blood, in fear, in tears, in...chaos?

Kakashi clenched his fists, and had too look away lest despair each him alive. For years after this very moment, Kakashi would be forever grateful that he did. For just as he turned, he saw a single talon aimed at the twin bundles on an alter.

He didn't know what had happened, it was blur the very next moment. One second he was standing at the edge of the dome, bathed in a glow that came from golden chains, and the next, lightning surrounded him and suddenly he was crouched over the twins, covering their tiny, so so LITTLE bodies with his own, prepared to lay down his life for those of which he loved already.

He expected a flash of pain, a moment of blinding white as his life was ripped from him, a moment where his life flashed right before his eyes... only that didn't happen. None of it did.

Instead, the sound of the talon piercing flesh flooded his senses, piercing flesh that wasn't HIS.

Slowly looking up, his arms surrounding the twins who blissfully slept, unaware of the fact that they were losing the two very people who were suppose to guide them in life, to protect them, to teach the, to LOVE them... to be their parents.

Tears, the first in years welled up in his grey eyes, both open wide to take in the full scene of what laid before him. Numb, his body slid from atop the twins, landing on the floor behind them as a single mantra ran through his mind.

NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo.....

Minato, a hokage loved by his people with hair as golden as the sun and eyes as blue as crystal; Kushina, a wife both admired for who she is, and isolated for what she was with hair blazing the reddest of fires and eyes as muted as cold stone... two people, young in age, old in wisdom, impaled through the stomach with a talon drenched in blood, THEIR blood.

Small smiles lit up their faces, small trails of blood leaking through them amidst the bruises and scratches on their face, making Kakashi's head swim, making the world tilt, making everything go so off kilter, that his hand whipped to his mouth to contain the contents of his stomach that threatened to escape at any moment, salty trails of water pouring over his palm.

Buzzing, a constant, loud buzzing so different from his lightning filled his senses, blocking everything out. He watched their lips move, first Kushina's, her eyes shining with a watery glow as she looked down at the children she'd never get to see grow. Slowly, ever so slowly, the tears spilled down her cheeks, mixing with blood, before dripping to the floor in a faint pink mixture. The words she said, went straight over him, blocked out by the buzzing.

His eyes, slowly moving over to his beloved mentor, the man who he had looked up to since he was a child, the man who took care of him like he was his son, the man who he loved so dearly and purely in his heart. His lips moved as well, and Kakashi suddenly, DESPERATELY wished the buzzing would leave, so he could hear his voice. He watched in silence as Minato tilted his head towards Kushina, a fond, soft, regretful look in his own eyes as he stared down at the wiggling twins.

A sudden cry brought everything crashing down on the grey haired teen.

Tilting his head down, he saw the bundles, naked and squirming in the cold. A choked sound escaped his lips at the sight of their hair. The baby closest to his most precious people squirmed uncomfortably, his chubby limbs stretching and pulling as cries left his tiny lips. The baby's hair was a startling blonde, resembling his father's in a way that the child would never know. And the baby closest to Kakashi, writhed naked as well, his finger's curling around the blonde baby's wrists. No sounds escaped from him, the baby with hair as fiery as his mother's is. A color unique to the village of Konoha, and a color that would forever mark him the child of two of the greatest people to ever walk the earth.

Sobs choked Kakashi, his hands covering his mouth to contain them, but it was futile in every sense of the word, for they still rang out in the silence of the dome.

"Kakashi..."

The grey haired teen looked up, eyes blurry with thick tears.

NoNoNoNoNoNoNONONONONONONONONO!!!!!

Kushina reached over, his hands sweeping his sweaty hair from his face, exposing the eye he always kept hidden. Her hands were soft, just like they always were, but sticky and wet and RED.

"Precious boy... Kakashi, we love you. You were like a son to us though we don't share the same blood. You were ours, and we were yours no matter what anyone said. And you'll always be ours...", Kushina's voice cracked, choked, watery, and her hand slipped from his face to cover her own mouth, a mimic of his ongoing actions.
Kakashi hunched slightly, his body shaking, convulsing, choking in a whole different way from anything he'd ever experienced.

Minato gazed at him with eyes as soft as they had with the twins, and though the action visibly exhausted him, he grabbed Kakashi's shoulder and weakly pulled the boy to them.

Kakashi sobbed openly now, leaning over the twins on the alter, his forehead resting against both Kushina's and Minato's in their final moments.

"Kakashi, please take care of our sons. Love them as if they were yours. Teach them everything we've taught you and everything we haven't."

Kakashi pulled back, his face a wet mess of tears and blood, despite the lack of injuries to his own person. He watched Minato and Kushina noth reach a hand between the three of them.

Kushina's hand fell upon the blonde boy's cheek, "Naruto...Our golden love."

Minato's hand reached for the red haired boy's, falling short in exhaustion. The baby whipped out a hand as if it could feel who was trying to reach him, and curled it's finger's tightly around his father's weakened one, "Hikaru... Our blazing fire."

Their eyes traveled up to Kakashi with a smile, a smile that never seemed to leave them in life...

"Kakashi...our storming soul."

...as which went with them as the light faded from their eyes.