a/n ; chapter 366 + 367 spoilers.

apologetic silence ; PG13 - gen/angst/romance - Yondaime x Shisui + Kushina

Her heart was beating rapidly against her rib cage, pounding, and she wondered with it did the baby’s heart pound as loudly too? Crouching in the darkness of a pew in an old abandoned church to an older god than this country knew off, it was weird. Made of rock and stone, not like the wooden shrine of intricate sliding doors, paper. The shadow of a brush and the smell of ink.

She had met him. On a night where like this one she had runaway from home, tired of her family’s gripes over the future of their daughter, the first born of their dying race. With the Great War going on, too many families of noble cause or diligence were dying out, not only the families with kekkai genkai were ceasing, but establish business powers, eating the other. An excuse. Always an excuse for destruction. That was why they had immigrated here, to this land that carried the will of fire. They had not been the only ones either.

It was in a drab bar, and she had hid her bright hair under a shawl, trying not to let her erratic character get the better of her, but how easily it had been, how she could not help but tell the figure to her left to cheer up! To drink with her, to know that the glass was always half full and not half empty. But he had replied, and she thinks he is not usually this somber, that sometimes the glass really wasn’t half empty. Because it was entirely empty.

She knew who he was.

Beneath the dark dye of black hair she knew it was supposed to be that yellow, this person was- “The Yellow Flash.” And they are the words she only say, to herself, hunched, and hands tucked under her armpits, cold as snow fell through the openings of the near gone roof.

It wasn’t an illusion, and she could only wonder why he had gone for a more lasting way of disguising himself than using genjutsu, unless that there was a change that such genjutsu could easily be spotted, dispelled, she could only think of one connection.

A red parasol that turned languidly. It was no hidden secret that a woman of the prestigious Uchiha clan was meeting him fairly often. Kushina did not know what it entirely meant for either side, other than that it was mainly talk. And still knowing that she had- her hand curls over her perturbing belly, wondering, wondering what battle he fought now, and that if she hadn’t maybe she could be fighting for the village too. But she couldn’t tell him, and her family would not let her leave the house, blaming illness and trying to hide their shame from the world. Some thing like that left her subdued within herself, she couldn’t easily bicker with her sister any more on who got the sweeter omelets (they averted their eyes from her) her childhood friend refused to speak to her (“Sorry I have to go- another time right?”) and frustrated, she would yell at them like she always did, loud, brash, ready. Thinking it would be all right, she was herself and they- even still. Did not act as they had with her any more.

It had only been one night but.

And she didn’t want to tell him because she knew what kind of person he was if she told him he would take full responsibility despite that he loved another, despite that that woman with fluttering black hair would-

She doesn’t know what kind of people they are entirely but she would like to know, snow builds up around her, she is covered but remains cold, alert for hours. When faulty steps ring out and she resist to bolt. Determined she would run? She would fight, if need be. But the figure carries the heavy scent of blood and under dim light of becoming morning through every crack within the roof does Kushina see- “Uchiha.”

Red, red blood a trail behind the woman, barely, as if outlining the longest journey, this church was on the border of the outskirts. How far, how far this woman had walked like that, on a stumbling leg that looked broken, her insides tense up and it takes every thing to not jump out and assist this woman all because there is an air, something fearful, menacing, and utterly hopeless. It is the light, the way that under the falling snow, the white of her bloodied and bruised skin blends in all despite those red, grey areas. And Kushina now feels that she is looking into a world immaterial to her own, those red eyes, looking up, beseeching, this Uchiha collapse upon her knees before a stone figure in this odd shrine that is a church, upon the stone floor, the only sign of her pain the gritting of her teeth and the sweat upon her brow (but it could be melted snow), she clasps her hands, back straight, the blood still seeping discreet, hard to tell against the black of her torn clothing.

Faintly Kushina thinks she hears the chime of a bell.

And the woman does not speak, saying her prayer through tears as they run unabashed down her cheeks, and Kushina breaks free of the spell that has held her looking into that gaze as the woman falls over, catching her with her sweating palms, hot crimson blood staining over them, the wounds around the woman’s torso the most serious and Kushina yells out to the quiet of this holy place, “Hang on!”

This woman of Uchiha, reaches over and tugs at Kushina’s sleeve, shoulders resting against one of her arms, Kushina thinks this woman is too light, too thin with her tall figure (graceful even in torture and upcoming decease), too weak feeling to be the strong kunoichi Kushina has always thought the Uchiha were (steps that rivaled the yellow flash they had said, being in many places and seeing every thing, if she were a tarot card, could she not be the priestess but the world?) and Kushina knows this woman is dying, Kushina’s hot tears cooling down her cheeks, she does not know how long or when she had started crying, she knows that she can do nothing to help this woman, the red of sharingan strong and piercing, but the strength of grip fading quicker than the flame blown from a candle.

“If I were to be reborn…”

A voice tranquil, like deep water, something flows upward within her heart, the tears still escaping the edges of her eyes, glossy lash. Kushina could see what Minato had seen in this woman.

“…do you think my love would be fulfilled...?”

Grip straining, the last moments, the last regret, the last acceptance. “Do you think it would be allowed?”

Kushina does not want to break and steal the woman’s last words but she must reply, she must convey her confusion; she wants to help dispel this longing coming from the soon dead. And it is so hushed coming from her that she does not realize it is her voice that penetrates the morning air, “Why? Why can’t your love be accepted?”

And the woman smiles, a smile Kushina has never seen when she spotted the two; that red parasol and his ducking head to bend over, whispering something in this woman’s ear Kushina had presumed. It was a smile unseen because it was unthinkable that an Uchiha could smile in such a manner to any one. Not like this. Not with tenderness, not with weakness, not with something like a human gratefulness that someone out there in the world recognized this pain and that- she was not alone.

“…it’s fine,” a hand slick with red, Kushina realizes a finger is missing from them and her breath chokes, the woman continues, “You are a kind person. I-“

Sliding from her face, those elegant fingers, another trail of red that is too dark to match her hair. Fingertips barely touching at her belly as if blessing the child within (cursing.) on approach, so delicate, and gentle, Kushina wonders if she could be this refined in movement. A silver bracelet with twin silver bells, clinking with disease. (This deadly gentle. A poison underlying such a soft touch, dangerous yet-) she wonders how any one could be. And it must be, this misery, it must be some kind of horrible compensation.

Blood from and on her lips, “- I wish your child the greatest happiness this world has to offer.”

And the woman closes her eyes, the breath she exhales the last one. All the while Kushina’s heart feeling like it rose to her throat. The one woman that Minato had loved was dead, and all that was left was her, a woman with child. When she cannot see the swirling comas, the red as dark as the blood that stains her all across, Kushina decides she will not allow weakness any more, she would bear it. Their harsh stares, her parent’s knifing words, she would bear his sorrow and shoulder any blame. She would stand on her own two feet and fight tooth and nail against this world. As this woman had; because Kushina’s confines were of a thinner wire and her name was Uzumaki, not Uchiha. It was not a matter of blood being thicker than water, it was individual worth. And she rises, holding the dead body of this Uchiha in her arms (but not entirely for trying to fight her eternal aspect, the lock of that name, the inescapable hold that you are born into your family because you are and you cannot change it- you cannot escape being what you are), gripping to take upon responsibility and to not let this crime go unnoticed.

She carried the body from the church, through the snow, carrying along the bloodied path that had been covered by new snow.

Strong enough to carry herself, her child, and the woman the father of her child love. And ready to carry all the more.

All the way back into Konoha do the bells ring, with every step.

--

They tell her the woman died of over exposure and excessive internal and external bleeding.

She had been filed a few weeks ago as mentally unstable and had recently escaped from the facility she had been kept in; it was probably the work of ninja they were warring with. Probably caught her in a dense area or she had even wandered onto some battlefield.

Kushina told him no shit about how the woman died and how she didn’t believe a word he had said after about these “files” and stability.

--

Shisui is in a room full of photographs.

They are photographs of his dead kin, from over the time that war has ragged and when the camera had been first invented and put to use in this manner. All aligning in chopped rows, their surname all the same and the first all different, carved into the wood before the frame, black funeral ribbon hanging over. A large shrine this was.

Shisui looks over them, some dustier than others, he stretches his neck by titling his head left and right, mouth nearly dry as his mind picked out names to play shiratori. Cautious movement. The ruckus this morning starting to fade, there had been some mention about a child coming in from the main village into the district and he did not want to be bothered by the noise, only the least bit curious. There is a sniffling as the end of the table, a quarter empty as it waited for more pictures. Shisui starts to walk in that direction before he catches sight of his name, a very dusty frame with a picture of a woman looking back, a dark spot beneath her right eye. He pauses to look into it as one might a mirror, before shrugging and scratching at the back of his head, disturbing dark curling locks of his short hair. A flippant attitude displayed, while the ambiguous undertones laid beneath even more skin. Hands on his hips, he stops to look in the corner.

A child with bright yellow hair, rubbing at his eyes looking no more than 6 years, odd lines marking his cheeks, Shisui gives an abbreviated smile, “Are you lost?” when he receives no answer he continues, thinking of all the times he swept the floors around the graves and more some, of his father looking older and haggard than most fathers should, and clutching that rosary every day, every day praying. And Shisui knows he is asking for forgiveness he won’t ever receive. “Do you know where you are?”

And the boy nods, looking up half glaring with presumed reason, almost like he is not used to such fearless talking, cheery that is not faked for him. It’s like feeling warm despite the cold air, despite being soaked to the bone with rain, Shisui gives that sort of feeling and for that reason- “The Uchiha district… this is it right?”

The boy ends his sentence with a peculiar sort of ending and Shisui smiles broadens in bemusement, “Of course, what business do you have here?”

The boy does not relax his legs in the last, or his tense arms, and the way he is hunched over is almost like from a winter night and dawn- “I… I wanted to see why there were so many people who…” he does no continue as if embarrassed.

Shisui hunches down to his level, gaze bright but eyes dark, the underside of his arms resting upon his knees. “…who looked all alike?”

The older boy gives a small laugh shaking his head, “What a weird reason, are you sure you didn’t come here because you wanted to feel it? Even if it wasn’t yours… this default unity?”

The clinking of silver bells is enough to be an answer and- “What’s your name?”

The boy looks at him in a little surprise, a little start, finally relaxing his knees, his small hands, but a loud mumbled “Uzumaki Naruto.”

Shisui raises the pointer finger of his left hand, “Interesting name. I am Uchiha Shisui. But you probably already knew my surname Uzumaki-kun.” The syllables of the name rolling out not like he knows them, but like he has always said them.

“You are alone aren’t you? That was why you came here.” The smile fading as autumn will and Naruto pays attention to being addressed solemnly, yet understanding. Shisui rises and beckons Naruto to do so, who does not begrudgingly but like (this person is a companion in-) “But you should understand that even when you have a family as big as mine you can be all the more alone, can you remember that?”

And Naruto did remember, he just did not understand as he looked on at Itachi only thinking that Sasuke wanted to kill Itachi so badly because it was Itachi who had taken away that family to begin with, had destroyed that little world with so many people. And Itachi’s smile is not like Shisui’s. (But faulty similarity drives him forward) And Naruto had attacked.

--

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