Chapter Text
The series of events that’d led to one of the happiest days in Namikaze Minato’s life becoming the absolute worst was short. He could probably fit it all on one page of a report with lines to spare, with how quickly things had gone from perfect to bad to worse to absolutely catastrophic. He wondered if this was what it felt like to fight him, to blink and see that somehow, in that time, the situation had spiraled irrecoverably.
The night had started stressful, of course. When Kushina’s water broke and he was struck with the crippling realization that the baby was coming, he’d never panicked so hard in his life. He tripped-honest to go tripled-running around the house trying to get everything ready before Kushina reminded him he could literally teleport, and Hiruzen had specifically prepared a facility for this exact day months in advance.
From there things had been a bit of a blur. He’d gone to Hiruzen’s first, because Biwako had less promised and more ordered that she’d be the one to deliver the baby, then there were the moments it took to assemble the ANBU and trigger the right protocols, and then they finally went to the sanctum where the delivery was even supposed to happen, all while Kushina fought through contractions and did her very best to turn the bones in his hand to dust.
It’d all only taken minutes, but it felt like hours. And if getting ready felt long, then the actual delivery may as well have been an eternity.
See, there were a lot of reasons so much care had been taken with Naruto’s birth. Minato may have been a hero to Konoha, and a useful monster to her allies, but the rest of the world feared him, hated him, or both, and there was no better time to hurt him then when the two people he cared for most in the world would be at their most vulnerable. And then there was the fact that he was the Hokage, and a newborn Naruto or Konoha’s jinchurki would make for an excellent hostage.
So there they were, in a bunker outside the village proper, deep under a mountain with ANBU guarding the entrances and patrolling the perimeter. Minato was trying his best not to puke from nerves, tuning out Kushina’s anguished cries and Biwako’s sharp orders to push as he poured his focus into keeping the Kyubi down. He could almost feel the tailed beast thrashing in his hands, railing against the chains of the seal even as he dove another spike of chakra into the containment matrix. He was sweating almost as much as his wife as the demon fox’s burning chakra pressed against the seal, grinding his teeth so hard he feared they might crack.
Time ceased to have meaning as his entire being was devoted to this one task, the only thing he could do to help his wife-the one thing he had to do for himself and his village. It could’ve been a few minutes or an hour, he didn’t know, but eventually Kushina’s cries gave way to labored breath, and he felt the bright stormy chakra of the women who held his heart surging back to subdue the beast. He let out a long, relieved breath, nearly stumbling back. It was over, it was finally over and suddenly Minato couldn’t ignore his stomach’s attempts to eject its contents.
One of the ANBU in the room was kind enough to direct him to a trashcan, which he promptly puked into. He heaved once or twice more to make sure there was nothing left before he stood up, ready to face his newly born child.
Biwako was holding him, and he could see the slightest tuft of blond hair peaking from the blanket he’d been swaddled in as the women approached where Kushina lay. Minato could already feel the grin splitting his face, the overwhelming love budding in his chest, so it was only natural that that was the moment everything went wrong.
One moment, Biwako was holding their baby Naruto, ready to give him to Kushina, and the very next moment, blood was spurting from her neck, her body falling limp alongside half the ANBU in the room. Minato’s stomach sank right to the floor as he took in the masked man cradling his son, hand held dangerously close to the boy’s face.
He didn’t remember what exactly he said, or what the dead man holding his son did back, all he knew was that the very moment the opportunity showed itself, he was in motion. He had Naruto in his arms before he’d even reached the top of his arc, and the both of them away from the explosion tag before it’d run through a tenth of its fuse.
It was only when he was standing in the relative safety of his home that he looked down at his son, and actually took in Naruto’s face. He was only a baby, but he could see himself and Kushina so clearly already. He had her nose, and in a few years he’d probably have the shape of Minato’s face seeing as he inherited his more tan skin. His hair was the same golden blond he had, but his eyes…
Minato had expected a deep sky blue like his own or Kushina’s soft lilac, or perhaps some indigo shade between them. What he gets instead is a bright burning red as though his color had been subtracted from Kushina’s, not added. It was almost the same crimson his wife’s eyes went when she taped the kyubi’s power, and between that and the whisker marks on his cheeks, it couldn’t be more clear that he was the child of the Kyubi no Kitsune’s jinchuriki.
His son was also…looking at him. Not in the barely cognizant sort of way babies usually did, but really looking at him, like he was actually seeing Minato. There was a light of intellect behind those red eyes as they scanned Minato’s face, mouth twisted into a scowl that may have been intimidating if Naruto were 20 years older, but in the moment just made the yellow flash want to coo at how adorable it was.
“Hello Naruto,” Minato whispers, because the fondness in his chest is overwhelming and demands an outlet. He sets his baby down gently, tucking him in with the same hands he’s going to use to murder the man who endangered him in the first place. Naruto watches every motion he makes keenly, eye tracking his hands before boring back into his face, and even through the grimness, Minato manages to smile. “I’ll be back soon, I just need to go save your mother.”
And then Minato is putting on his coat, and checking his kunai, and then he’s off again. It’s around that time things went from bad to worse, because the Kyubi had been unsealed and Kushina is dying and now he was on an unbelievably strict time limit, and the bastard who threatened his wife, child, and village all In the same night is in front of him.
So naturally, Minato fights, and as the Yellow Flash of Konoha, feared across the Shinobi world with most having standing orders to flee at the first flicker of his presence, he wins.
But not fast enough.
Not before the Kyubi can devastate Konoha, and not before Kushina’s time runs out. It’s when the tailed beast tries to kill Naruto that things hit catastrophic. That’s when he decides that even if he failed to protect his village and his wife, the very least he absolutely must do is protect his son. Kushina, of course, has the same thought, and that’s how they end up skewered on the Kyubi’s claw together, and Minato can’t help but meet his son’s eye over his wife’s shoulder. His baby is looking at them, eyes wide and comprehending, tears welling up in his eyes, and Minato realizes with a start that Naruto hadn’t cried once since being brought into the world.
“Ah, sorry you have-” he’s interrupted by a wet cough, blood running down his chin as his lungs try to empty themselves of the fluid. “-to-to see us like this, Naruto. Your Kaa-San and Tou-San are supposed to be the strongest in Konoha…”
“But we’re your parents too, you know,” Kushina manages, even though Minato can feel the heat of life leaving her body faster than his own as she pours her all into keeping the Kyubi still. “That means making sacrifices for our little boy. Just make sure you grow up and make friends, alright? The sort you can trust.”
“And don’t forget to have a dream,” she adds, heaving another breath as the first tears slide down Naruto’s cheeks. “It doesn’t-it doesn't have to be big, just make sure you grab it with both hands,”
Kushina says more, after that. She says everything, really, but Minato still finds something to pass on before he completes the seal.
“I don’t…I don’t know how-how much of this you’ll remember, Naruto,” he starts. There are tears in his eyes too now, and Kushina’s, but even their son was quiet rather than sobbing. “But I’m sorry, for what I’m leaving you with. The world won’t make it easy…the village won’t make it easy…”
Minato recalled when he’d first met his son’s eye. It was less than an hour ago, but it felt like it’d been an eternity since then. He still remembered the vivid intensity in them, a light that burned even now like twin suns, energy radiating out to touch everything around him, like an explosion.
“But I know you’ll succeed-that you’ll win, no matter what you choose to do. Do your best, Naruto.”
And then Minato makes the final hand seal, and the fading embers of his chakra leave him. The last thing Minato sees before his world fades to black is Naruto’s tiny hand, reaching towards him as though that alone might let the infant save him. I love you, Naruto, he thinks, and then, Namikaze Minato is no more.