Naruto was not expecting the flying tackle, and was subsequently bowled over by the red blur that took him in the chest. All he saw for a few moments was a veil of red hair before glistening violet eyes leaned back, although not far enough back to stop squeezing the life out of him.
"My little Naru-chan," Kushina murmured as she finally let him go, somewhat awkwardly straddling him as she held his face between her hands. Her brow crinkled slightly as she turned him this way and that, the novelty of the situation managing to keep Naruto quiet during all of this. "Well, not so little now…" Her gaze softened as she leaned back in, wrapping her arms around him and just holding him there. "I missed you growing up."
"Hi to you too mom," He finally managed, glancing past her to where his father looked on, smiling at the scene. "Hey dad."
The Yondaime nodded, looking somewhat awkward as he shuffled in place, as though worried about approaching any further. "Son."
The monosyllable seemed to trigger something in Kushina as the woman suddenly sat bolt upright, glaring at the man. "Is that any way to greet our Naruto after all this time, you big damn flake?"
Minato wavered in place, looking far from the fearsome Hokage the world remembered him as. Naruto was okay with that though; this was the father he remembered. "Well, I don't know how he feels about me… after what I did." He gave a weak, sheepish smile. "I don't want to get punched or some-"
The breath was taken out of him as his wife suddenly launched backwards, burying her fist into his stomach and doubling him over, hair splayed out around her like the fox she had once housed. In an all-too-sweet voice – that Naruto found disconcertingly familiar – she whispered, "there, problem solved. Now man up and come greet our son, dattebane!"
A significantly more winded Minato lurched over just as Naruto was picking himself up off the ground, smiling fondly at the tableau right out of his memories. "For the record, I probably wouldn't have hit you… I've sort of gotten over it by now."
Minato smiled, stepping forward to wrap his son in a hug, only to grunt again as another fist lodged itself in his stomach.
"Sort of."
"I… deserved that," the older man gasped, only to find his voice muffled as Naruto suddenly pulled him up, wrapping the man in a hug.
"I missed you dad." When they both heard a distinctive throat-clear, Naruto simply opened one of his arms, admitting Kushina into the hug. "I missed you both, so much."
He wasn't sure how long they all stayed in that embrace, but it was Minato who eventually pulled away. "I have to ask son, how did you know about… well, us?"
Naruto put on a bit of a tired smile at that; he hadn't forgotten why he was here, but he couldn't help but feel a small swell of pride. "I didn't drop my studies after you guys were… you know. Seals have been my life for the last twelve years, and I've had a lot of time to examine this one." He motioned to his stomach. "So it was only a matter of time before I figured out what you had done."
Minato's brow creased. "But to mess with your own Jinchuuriki seal, even for this, seems a bit…"
"Dangerous?" The redhead pre-empted. "Probably, but trust me, I know my own seal inside out. I've even made a few modifications to prevent too much of the fox's Chakra leaking into my system. Still not completely sure why you did that by the way."
The blond rubbed the back of his head, purposefully avoiding the pointed stare from his wife. "I was hoping you would use that power to become stronger; clearly you, ah, didn't need it."
Naruto shrugged. "Can't say it didn't come in handy a few times. I've never lacked for energy."
At that Kushina gained an expression he would have thought more appropriate on Jiraiya. "I imagine any lady friends you might have had certainly wouldn't have complained." She only allowed the awkward pause that followed to languish for a few seconds before busting out laughing at the identical red expressions on her husband and son's face. "Oh, you two are just too alike!"
Both only realized that they were rubbing the back of their head in identical movements when they caught each other doing it. It really was strange; Naruto was almost twenty, so his parents, as they looked here, were only a few years older than him. He and Minato could be brothers.
"So people tell me," he admitted, his blush not quite dying down as he reached into one of his pockets and threw a hiraishin kunai at his father. The man caught it deftly, barely giving it a glance before smiling proudly at the younger Namikaze.
"In more ways than one it seems."
Naruto felt another upsurge of pride, before something darker settled in his stomach. "You guys had no idea how long I've waited for this moment, ever since the first time I realized exactly what you had done with the seal. I… I was saving it, knowing this could only happen once." His parents quickly mirrored his melancholy. "I wasn't going to use it so soon, I wanted to wait and make sure I could tell you everything. I could have told you about my wedding, let you know the name of your grandchild… or grandchildren. I wanted to make sure I had done everything that I could have to make you proud."
He nearly flinched as he felt Kushina's smaller hand slip into his own, glancing up into eyes almost identical to his own. "Naruto… my Naruto, I don't care what you do. I don't care who you chose to love, I don't even care if you didn't become a shinobi. I would always be proud of you. Whether it was today, or decades from now you would still be my little sochi, and I would cherish this moment just as much."
He felt something shift deep inside of him as he griped her hand tightly. "I… I don't know how much I deserve that. I came here for a reason, I've never felt so lost in my life and I just didn't know where else to turn."
Still, even though he felt exactly that way, one look into his mother's face seemed to put all of that aside for a moment. It was an expression that had lost nothing from nostalgia; it was just the way he remembered, so full of warmth and unconditional love. She gently pulled him to the floor – he hadn't noticed but at some point their surroundings had shifted from the dank room in front of the Kyuubi's cage, to a strange, glittering void of floating lights – and, still holding his hand, sat across from him with his father.
"Tell us about it."
So he did. He explained everything he could, from the sealing of the Sanbi, to the theft of the scroll, to the discovery of his sister and the impromptu Jinchuuriki ritual. He explained how he thought Sukoru had been dead this whole time, something that seemed to trouble them deeply, and shared his uncertainty with how to move forward. His parents seemed impressed by his various exploits, but respectfully held their silence until he began to wind down, having vented quite thoroughly.
"It's just… I've had a whole life to learn everything I need. A lifetime of being a shinobi, with guidance from the right people at the right time. A lifetime coming to terms with the woman I love, and how to go about showing her that. I've even been eased into having a team, learning how to deal with subordinates from ANBU, and children from memories of my own genin days. Everything came at the proper time." He hung his head slightly. "But… I don't know how to be a brother, I feel like that opportunity was stolen from me, and from her."
He paused, taking in the thoughtful looks of his parents; at least until his father smiled suddenly and without warning.
"Naruto… life just isn't like that." Before the redhead could argue, he carried on in that soft, attention-grabbing tone that had always seen him as the centre of any room he was in. "I remember when Kushina first told me I was going to be a father… we were both still so young. I was thinking about my career, about where I stood in the world. The war was just winding down and Hiruzen had begun to take personal interest in me; Jiraiya-sensei was hardly subtle with his hinting that I was being groomed for the hat."
The blond leaned back on his hands, staring up at the featureless sky with a strange expression. "Then you came along, a little bundle of chaos that seemed purpose-built to throw my life as off-kilter as possible." He glanced down, still smiling. "Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled. I had never really had anything like a family before; you know your grandparents passed when I was very young. But that didn't change the fact I felt wholly unprepared for anything like… well, you."
He sighed. "What you've told us about Sukoru… I thought she had died too, but don't let the unexpected situation distract you from the fact that, yes, while an opportunity was taken from you, that doesn't mean the one you have been presented is any less significant. You have your sister back, our daughter is still alive, and while the circumstances aren't ideal…"
Kushina nodded emphatically. "If I wasn't just a chakra imprint, I'd be out there strangling that old one-eyed bastard myself!"
Minato allowed himself a bemused smile before continuing "…you can't treat this as anything less than it is. An opportunity to reclaim something you thought you would never have." He shuffled until he was in front of his son, quickly wrapping Naruto in a hug. "From everything you've told us so far, I have no doubts you'll handle this as splendidly as you have everything else." He leaned back, propping both hands on Naruto's shoulders. "Have faith in yourself Naruto, because we certainly do."
When he leaned back he could see he had left the redhead a lot to consider.
"It's going to be really difficult, isn't it? She'll be like a stranger, with who knows what put in her head about me. I think… I think I'm most afraid that she'll wake up and hate me. I'm not sure if I could deal with that."
"You will," Kushina reassured him, sharing a nod with her husband. "And besides, when has anything worth doing been easy? You think raising a rambunctious kid like you was a walk in the park?" That at least earned a chuckle from all three of them. "Naruto, she's your sister. There's a connection there, no matter how buried it might be." She glanced up briefly in thought. "I'll tell you something Mito-Baasan once told me. She said: 'Uzumaki is more than just a name, it's more than just our red hair, or our ability with seals, or our longevity. It's an understanding, that family means more than blood, that it's a connection.' She told me that as long as another Uzumaki lived, I would never be alone in anything I did. It got me through a really rough time in my life."
"I think you told me that story when I was a kid," Naruto mused, almost ponderously. He had forgotten about it, it was so long ago. "I… understand, I think. It's just so hard sometimes without you guys, there were so many times in my life that I could have used advice like this, and the knowledge that this will really be the last time I see you."
He nearly jumped when Kushina put her hands on his. "Not the last time." He expression shifted quickly to one of rebuke. "But I certainly don't want to see you again any time soon, I want my baby to have a long, happy life so you have so many more stories to tell us when we see you again." She was glad for the weak smile that earned as her voice turned soft again. "But in that vein, let's not waste the time we have now. I want to hear everything."
She sat back, making a big show of making herself comfy despite the ground having no discernible features. "Now, you mentioned grandchildren?"
Time didn't seem to work properly in whatever pseudo-space they inhabited. His senses told him he had been here for barely a few minutes, and yet they had spent hours now just… talking. It still wasn't nearly enough. He had made it through what he considered the most important moments in his life; Anko, Itachi, Shisui, ANBU, his Genin, the War, Haya, his child, becoming Hokage, the various enemies he had made, faced and defeated, and even a brief recap of the situation in Mizu with more emphasis on his worries as the Hokage. In return his parents told him some of the stories they had never managed while they were around, including their individual perspectives on that fateful night.
By now he was just regaling his parents with as many anecdotes as he could; training with his first team, moments spent with Anko, particularly noteworthy missions, messing with his students, those rare moments of clarity with Hiruzen… and none of it seemed to be enough. He wanted to tell them everything, to assuage that little voice that told him this was it, this was all the time they had to learn what they could about their son.
But the march of time was as inevitable as it was unstoppable. It started out as a vague sensation in the back of his head, and even when it became impossible not to notice he pressed on, ignoring it as long as possible. Eventually though, they too had taken note, glancing down at their bodies with worry. This wasn't what they had been left here for; they were supposed to be emergency failsafes for the seal, used up mostly in one go. Drawing them out like this, minimizing the limited energy they used up, just prolonged the inevitable.
His parents were fading away, the Chakra they were composed of slowly burning out.
Abruptly, Naruto quietened, not even bothering to finish the story about Shisui managing to get them fireworks that nearly ended with them burning down a training ground. His mother had been clearly amused, but by this point Naruto's heart wasn't in it. Minato and Kushina were semi-transparent now, little more than ghosts clinging on to the few precious seconds they had left.
"I don't want you to go," the redhead said, barely able to get his voice above a whisper.
"You knew this was coming son, and even this much was more than most get," Minato informed him, no less saddened by the revelation but putting on the stoicism that had made him so fearsome as a leader.
"I'm so happy with the man you've grown into, I couldn't have asked for any more, or for a better son," Kushina said, not bothering to hide her emotions as tears streamed down her face. "Please, tell Anko that she has our blessing; she sounds like a wonderful young woman. And tell Sukoru that… that her mother loves her."
"Her father too," Minato added, struggling to keep his features straight now. "And let Hiruzen and Jiraiya know, I don't blame them."
"And you better dote on your child doubly for us!" Kushina warbled, trying for a smile but failing somewhere in the attempt.
"More importantly…" Minato started, looking worrying down at his hand as it gently faded away.
"…Remember that…" Kushina joined in.
"…we love you," they said together.
Naruto leaned forward, to pull them into the last hug he might ever have with his parents, only to stumble forward, with nothing there to catch him.
He looked up, but they were gone.
When he opened his eyes, he was back in the hospital room; although it was more appropriate to say he had never left. It had felt like hours, and the experience had screwed up his internal clock, but a quick glance at a nearby window told him only a few minutes had passed. It was so surreal, like a twisted genjutsu, but the tears he could feel on his cheeks were all too real.
He took a moment to recompose himself, slumping bonelessly into a nearby chair to stare up at the ceiling. His eyes raked over the speckled paint for a few seconds before he breathed out a single, long exhale. The constricting vice that had been tightening around his heart since finding his sister was still there, but it had relaxed tremendously. His parents words had gone a long way in comforting his more personal anxieties.
When he finally stood again, his features were neutral and his head clear for the first time all day. Resolute on the path forward he crossed to the bed, lighting his hand up in warm, green chakra. He was no med-nin, but he knew enough about battlefield first aid to wake someone up from an induced sleep. Tsunade would rant at him endlessly for this, and he was subverting a few protocols by doing this alone but… it was his sister, he needed to do this now, while it was just the two of them.
It took a few moments for her to awake, a few more to do so visibly. She didn't start, or look around confusedly, she simply sat up and surveyed the room with a clinical detachment before staring at him emotionlessly, face carefully arranged.
Having her stare at him so blankly was off-putting and he lost track of what he had planned to say, instead settling on, "do you know where you are?"
It was disturbing how she made no indication of hearing him, but answered all the same. "The Konoha hospital, private ward…" she glanced at the window, where the early morning sun made streaks of light through the blinders "…room 4-E." Her voice was toneless, lacking in inflection. The precision too, it was unsettling, as if she had no understanding of the gravitas of her situation and was used to giving nothing but clean, factual reports her entire life.
Naruto had to quickly clamp down on a surge of anger that welled up in him directed at a certain old bastard. "And do you know who I am?"
Again, it didn't even seem like she heard him; no tilt of the head, no blink, no physical tells whatsoever. "Of course, Hokage-sama." Strained through the emotionless filter of her voice, the title sounded more like an insult.
"I'm your brother, Sukoru," he said softly, the first hint of earnest emotion beginning to break through as the full weight of what had been done to his little sister finally began to dawn on him. "It's me, Naruto."
Finally, the girl moved, tilting her head up ever so slightly so her eyes met his. "My name is not Sukoru, my most recent designation was Kei, and my brother is dead." The stark way she said it, as if stating the sky was blue, or kunai are sharp, threw him completely.
"Your name is Sukoru Namikaze; why do you think your brother his dead?"
He had been expecting one answer, so he was not prepared when she intoned, "because I killed him."
"From what we were able to gather, it seems she, and agents like her, are committed to quite a monstrous course of training," Inoichi said solemnly, staring at the passive blonde through the one-way mirror that divided the spartan interrogation room. "I would hesitate to put elite ANBU through the kinds of things I saw being done to kids in her memories. The specific instance she was referring to though…" the Yamanaka patriarch grimaced "… it seemed to have been somewhat of a graduation ceremony akin to the old bloody mist, although taken to a grisly extreme."
Naruto didn't look at him, he just stared resolutely through the mirror. He hated seeing his sister like this, kept like a criminal; but it stood to reason that until they found out exactly what had been done to her, this was the safest path forward. "Don't hesitate for my sake."
Inoichi nodded. "They seem to be partnered with another operative at a young age, encouraged to be as close as possible, operating in two-man cells for the duration of the training. A failure by one is seen as a failure for both and, well, the punishments are not light. Under different circumstances I would consider it an effective, if not barbaric, method of promoting exquisite teamwork. Shimura-san, apparently thought otherwise. At the end of their training the… they're pitted against one another in a fight to the death. From what I could surmise it is all in an effort to force a traumatic break on the surviving operative, making them more malleable to certain conditioning."
"So she was brainwashed," Naruto surmised, his face not betraying the roiling anger that sloshed around inside him.
"In a sense, but not quite. Brainwashing implies conditioning a subject to act in a way they normally wouldn't. What Danzo did… well, it's more akin to programming from a blank slate. The operative either suffers from a severe breakdown, after which I can only make educated guesses as to what happens, or they repress their emotions as an extreme coping mechanism. There are other aspects of the training that promote this outcome too, which leads me to believe it was the intended effect."
Naruto's lips twisted slightly. "Hiruzen told me the main point of contention between him and Danzo was emotion in a Shinobi. Hiruzen believed it empowered people, allowed them to go beyond what they were normally capable. Danzo believed it inhibited them, constrained them from their true potential as a weapon. Apparently, he decided that a theoretical debate wasn't enough."
"If I can be candid?" Inoichi broached hesitantly, earning a stiff nod. "I've never seen anything quite like this, or… if I can fix this."
Naruto rounded on him quite suddenly, forcing him to back up against the wall. "My sister isn't something to be fixed." He didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to.
"And I understand that, but…" the words nearly caught in his throat from the look the Hokage gave him "…this isn't simply a case of reversing psychological damage, this is all she knows. Even if we treated the trauma that caused her to repress her emotions, there is still the fact that all she has known, her entire life, is a brutal regime of training, total subservience to a sociopathic tyrant and a complete disregard for typical human morality."
A great deal of the fire drained from Naruto's eyes at the frank summation of the situation, leaving him much more delicate than the Yamanaka had ever seen the vibrant young Hokage. "Then we do what we can. For now, I'm releasing her into my custody."
"I have to argue against that Hokage-sama, the first few days could be the most crucial in understanding how to…" he trailed off at the glare sent his way.
"I will be bringing her back here every day, so that you can do what you can in helping her. But she is coming home with me, where she belongs."
Inoichi hesitated a moment before nodding. "Very well, in which case I need to tell you that it is very important to maintain a comfortable, non-hostile environment around her at all times. Too much stimulus could evoke reactions that I'm currently not prepared to diagnose."
Naruto nodded. "She's my sister, I would give her nothing less."
"Not to cause any offense Hokage-sama, I was talking about Anko."
The redhead managed a humourless smile. "Anything else I should know?"
"Actually, there was one thing. From the examination of the other root agents you brought in we were able to identify a particular seal inscribed on the back of their tongues." He brought out a piece of paper that one of the ANBU more versed in fuinjutsu had copied the seal onto.
"Naruto only gave it a brief look. "Curse seal, based on the location, probably designed as a kill-switch if the operative said the wrong thing. I'd have to examine it to know for sure."
Inoichi nodded handing the paper over. "We presumed as much. The funny thing is, Sukoru doesn't seem to have one; any thoughts why?"
Naruto sighed, looking back through the glass at his sister; she hadn't moved so much as an inch. "Because an Uzumaki is too valuable to waste, we're perfect Jinchuuriki hosts." Even saying it left a bitter taste in his mouth, as if you could measure the intrinsic worth of somebody based on such arbitrary characteristics.
Inoichi seemed to share his opinion, clearly thinking of the agent that had been revealed as a Yamanaka previously thought dead. "We still have a few tests to run, but we should be able to release her to your custody tonight. I'm not sure if you want to-"
"I'll wait," Naruto pre-empted without hesitation.
"Well, in that case… Ino-chan!"
"Daddy," the girl whined as she poked her head around the door, "I asked you not to call me that while I'm working."
"Sorry honey, I need you to show the Hokage to the waiting room."
Ino started at the realisation she was in front of the village's leader, but recovered admirably. "Of course, this way Hokage-sama."
Despite the circumstances and the matters weighing on his mind, Naruto was who he was and couldn't help but smile at the sight of a father intentionally messing with their kid. He briefly wondered what his own team were doing at the moment as he was lead through the T&I complex. It was a surprisingly nice building for what went on inside, all pastel walls and nicely carpeted floors. Eventually Ino lead him to a pleasant room with a few comfy couches and a counter along one wall that held plates of food and a coffee maker.
He only realised the silence had dragged on a little too long when he noticed Ino shuffle awkwardly on the spot.
"So, you're working here now?" He clearly wasn't at his best if that was all he could come up with. He remembered field-promoting the girl to Chuunin a few months before and it wasn't uncommon for children to follow their parent's careers once they'd graduated past genin.
"Shadowing my dad, yeah," Ino replied brightly, taking the conversation like it was a life-preserver. "I would prefer to go more into therapy, you know, helping people, but…"
"But the best study for psychology is in T&I," he filled in for her.
"Right, it's a lot more, uh, hands on than I thought it would be, but I'm learning a lot."
"That's good." And Naruto meant it, the genuine enjoyment he could see from Ino when she talked about her work was strangely soothing. It was nice to just have a banal conversation after having his world upended. Seeing a pretty girl smile was a nice bonus, although she was a bit young for his tastes.
"You know," she started, "you're nothing like Sakura describes you; I thought you'd be a lot more… I don't know, intimidating?"
The redhead gave a weary smile. "I try to save that for the people who deserve it."
"It's nice," she amended quickly, clearly conscious of offending him, "I mean, growing up with Sandaime-sama, you start to see the post of Hokage as… kind of unattainable. He was always the impossibly wise old man that would visit the academy, always knowing just what to say. Seeing somebody so…" she was good at hiding her emotions, her father's work no doubt, but she couldn't disguise the faint hint of red that entered her cheeks "…young, as the Hokage. It's encouraging, like the bar isn't so high, you know?"
"I've never really thought about it, the job sort of snuck up on me."
"Really?" The blonde seemed genuinely taken aback. "But you're Naruto Namikaze!"
"Last time I checked," he quipped with a wan smile.
"Sorry," she quickly backpaddled, visibly abashed, "but when you meet somebody so famous, you just don't expect them to be so… so…"
"Human?" He offered, thinking back to the first time he had met Jiraiya and how quickly the well of respect for the man's sealing abilities had evaporated.
"Yeah." She finished a little lamely. "At the same time though, I suppose it is kind of intimidating. When the teams were announced…" she looked up as if just realizing how long ago that was, nearly making him chuckle; she should wait until she was his age "…I made it a priority to know who everybody's sensei were. The more I found out about you, well, sort of brings your own achievements into question, doesn't it?"
"As Hir… As the Sandaime keeps reminding me, I'm a product of a slightly different time. The more I'm reminded, the more I think you guys are better off." He smiled. "He has a way of doing that."
Ino mirrored his expression. "That's more like what Sakura said you were like."
The redhead sank onto one of the couches, motioning for her to sit opposite him. The girl clearly considered the offer, glancing towards the door and weighing up whether she should get back to work. But then, how often does the Hokage invite you for a private chat? Ignoring his outstretched hand, she cheerfully settled in next to him; at a respectable distance, she knew he was engaged after all.
Slightly bemused, Naruto wasn't put off at all. "So, what do my cute little students say about me?"
When Inoichi came to get them, nearly an hour later, Naruto was a great deal more relaxed, laughing and talking with Ino easily over aimless little things that had completely put his mind off the pressures mounting on his shoulders. He could definitely see why she wanted to go into therapy. Even when Inoichi cleared his throat, reminding Naruto of what he had to do, his grin only faded into a small, resigned smile.
"Thanks Ino, it's been very nice talking with you."
"No problem Naruto-sensei. Oh, when your sister recovers I'd love to come visit some time, help her get acclimatised with some things; you know, girl stuff."
The redhead nodded; he had gotten a good feel for the girl over the time they had spent talking and could tell the offer was sincere. "I think that would be nice."
She waved brightly as Inoichi led him out and back through the complex do a different, smaller waiting room. Each footstep seemed to pull at Naruto's regained good mood until the uncomfortable weight settled in his stomach once again. It only worsened when he rounded the corner and saw his sister sat there, perfectly still with her hands folded over her lap.
"Come on Sukoru, it's time to go home."