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Uchiha Household - Night
After several hours of being dragged around the entirety of Konoha's shopping district and being brought along on the most grueling shopping spree that may have ever taken place within the walls of Konohagakure, an exhausted, beaten, and half-dead Naruto, laid sprawled out on the living room couch next to Mikoto as Satsuki was using the hallway as a runway for the fashion show that was currently taking place. He now understood why Shikamaru always referred to women as 'troublesome'. It would take over an entire months pay to replace all the money he had spent during the girls' 'celebration'.
If he never saw another pair of shoes again, it would be too soon.
Naruto looked up to see Satsuki spinning around in one of her new outfits as Mikoto squealed in delight at how cute her daughter looked. Mikoto had a much more girly side to her than he had ever imagined.
"That looks absolutely adorable of you Satsuki-chan." Mikoto praised cheerfully, but with a weak tone that only Naruto was able to notice. It made him worry.
He had noticed over the last few months that Mikoto's body was slowly weakening. It was slow-going, but the rate at which her body was weakening had picked up substantially over the course of the past few weeks. She was forcibly suppressing the symptoms, but it was still noticeable for those who had a background in medicine or that had special eyes.
Naruto belonged to both of those categories. While he was younger and still training under Shisui, the elder teen had always referred to them as 'the eyes of the hawk' not to mention the Sharingan that was now implanted into his right eye socket. Then there was the fact that he trained under Tsunade for around a year while he was still in the academy. That was mainly to achieve perfect control over his chakra so that he was able to access Haki, but he learned quite a lot about medicine and medical ninjutsu during his time with her.
Still, the weakening of Mikoto's body was alarming. Ever since he had known the woman, she had never been sick a day in her life and now this happens? It has been especially bad over the last week, where she had secretly been making visits to the hospital when she hadn't been injured in the least during the invasion. This meant that she knew that her body was quickly deteriorating, so why was she acting so carefree and cheerful?
If her disease was this serious and hasn't been healed yet, then it means that not even Tsunade was able to cure her. Konoha had the best hospital within all the Elemental Nations, they had seen and cured every injury and sickness known to man. Did this mean that her condition was something that they had never seen before, or was it simply incurable?
Has she been torturing herself for them all this time?
She smiled whenever he smiled.
She laughed whenever he laughed.
She cried whenever he cried.
She shared his pain, whether it was physical, mental, or emotional.
She had always been there for him, but what is she were to no longer be there. No, he couldn't think like that.
She had even trained together with him whenever she could. She tortured herself, with her weak little body, just to spend whatever time she had left with him and Satsuki. She did this to herself just for them...
Naruto knew he didn't deserve someone as wonderful and selfless as her.
And it seemed that the God watching over this plane agreed with him.
Perhaps this is what they meant when they said that the Clan of D. was the natural enemy of God...a cursed clan where everyone close to their heart was ripped away from them...a clan where happiness was still a mystery.
Truly a clan with a cursed fate.
Mikoto seemed to notice that Naruto was staring at her suspiciously, so she offered him a weak smile in return.
Satsuki had just left the room to change into another one of the new dresses that she had bought today, leaving Naruto and Mikoto in the living room alone together.
"You've bought Satsuki-chan an adorable new wardrobe, Naru-kun. She seemed happy to finally be able spend the entire day with you with how hectic everything has been." It was true, a the chūnin exams started over a month ago, then they had the entire month to train, then the finals and the invasion. There wasn't much time to spend with their little family.
Though she may have been just trying to get him to join the conversation instead of how he was eyeing her body. It wasn't one of love or lust, but one of deep concern and worry, perhaps even a bit of fear. If she had left him to his thoughts, things would have taken a path that she would prefer to have left unexplored.
"Yeah, her and Hana went on a rampage in the shopping district. Not a single clothing or shoe store was left untouched." Naruto smiled right back at her, but his mind was still on the condition of her body. If he had a Byakugan he wouldn't have to be guessing at what kind of state her internal and cellular condition was in...Perhaps he could ask Hinata for a favor later. A shiver went down his spine as he thought about the pale-eyed girl who he had caught staring at him with her Byakugan active more than a handful of times. She was definitely out of the question.
"Those two may not be like the rest of the kunoichi who are fresh out of the academy that focus on dieting and clinging onto their crush's arm, but they love shopping just the same." Mikoto sighed as she remembered the times she had taken her daughter out shopping when she was younger. Ever since she was a child, she had rather expensive tastes...Mikoto started to feel a little bad for Naruto. Though, her love for high-end civilian and clothes didn't translate over to her shinobi-wear. When on missions or during training, she usually dressed like a tomboy or wore rather tight and revealing clothing. The girl just couldn't stick to one style.
"...Mikoto-chan...are you having problems with your health...?" Mikoto noticeably froze at that question. Naruto had always been too observant for his own good. It seemed that he always found out about every secret she was trying to keep hidden, first it was the Uchiha Massacre and now it was her body's condition.
She could easily lie to him right now to advert this topic altogether, he wouldn't believe her and would be able to see through any lie she spat out, but he would play along and understand that she wanted to deal with this on her own...but there was no dealing with this. She could lie to Satsuki because she would undoubtedly be crushed by the truth, but she couldn't lie to Naruto. For some reason the thought of hiding something this important from him made her feel more sick than her actual sickness did...but that didn't mean she had to tell him the whole truth.
"You were always too smart for your own good, Naru-kun...This isn't like the last time I tried to keep something from you though...This time, there's no simple solution, no easy way to make everything go back to how it's always been...So just this once, could you leave everything up to me?"
Mikoto looked over her shoulder and gave him a small smile, it was a smile that he had only seen a few times before in his life, and it was never worn by her. The first time was the day before the Uchiha Massacre when Itachi had given him one final genjutsu lesson. The second was when Shisui refused to be taken to the hospital on the cliff that night, just before his death. It was a smile that Naruto despised with all his being.
It was the smile of already accepting the inevitable.
Naruto wouldn't let her leave him the same way Shisui and Itachi had.
"What exactly is going on Mi-!" Naruto stopped mid-sentence when he saw the pleading look in her eyes. It was a look that he had never seen before, the tears threatening to spill from the corners of her eyes only added to the pleading feel that it expressed. He sighed as he made a decision that went against his better judgement. Actually that was an understatement, every fiber of his being was telling him not to say what he was about to, "...Just this once...but don't do anything stupid, okay?"
She didn't have a chance to respond, as Satsuki came running down the hall in the most beautiful white sundress that complemented her pale skin and dark hair perfectly. It seemed that the fashion show would be continuing after that brief intermission.
Naruto sent one last worried glance over to Mikoto, who was now staring at this new outfit with stars in her eyes. It appeared that she was no longer concerned with their previous agreement and was going on as if nothing had happened. Women were so damned troublesome.
Though seeing Mikoto act in her usual manner did raise his spirits a bit and lift the weight that had been placed upon his shoulders by his previous worries.
As if nothing out of the ordinary had happened that day, the evening deepened into the night as usual for this little family.