NARUTO SI: A Burdened Soul (Elder Brother to Itachi SI)

USHINA UZUMAKI

Uzumaki Kushina did not have a lot of friends. Being a jinchuriki and an outsider tended to do that to you in Konoha. And so, the few friends that she had, she treasured dearly. Though each was now busy in their own life, with the war going on. Most of her friends were out there fighting, while she stayed behind in the village, given her strategic importance as the jinchuriki of the Nine Tails.

There was a time when she had wished to be a Hokage, to be the first female Kage and to declare to the world that the demons of Uzushio were not as gone as they would have them believe, that though they may have destroyed Uzushio the Uzumaki still lived, and yet she had learned to let go of that dream, to entrust it to someone dear to her.

She had come to this village as a vessel for the Kyuubi, a prisoner for a power so vast that few could presume to control it, let alone tame the ancient beast. In reality, she was a prisoner to the beast, and ironically, she was a prisoner herself, locked up in the sealing tower built by the Shodaima and Mito-sama to help stabilize the seal on her until she learned to fully control the Kyuubi's chakra.

She was like a butterfly entrapped in a gilded cage, with few allowed to visit her, of which fewer did so with the Third Great Ninja war raging on outside.

"Kushina-sama, you have a visitor," the ANBU guards keeping an eye on her informed her as she sat in a room going over her clan's archives.

"Who?" she asked, excitement bubbling in her gut at the notion. Minato had told her that he was going away on a mission a few days ago. Had he returned so quickly? She thought. Yet the masked ANBU's answer was not what she had expected.

"It is Mikoto-sama," and her eyes widened, hearing that name. Mikoto Uchiha, she had been her friend from genin years. Being a badass senior, Kushina had looked upto the Uchiha kunoichi a lot. She was amongst the few kunoichi who respected her and her dream, though it was a shame that she had passed it on.

And immediately she rushed towards the door, jumping from her chair as she made her way to the entrance, and there she saw her. Her hair black as the night skies, similar in coloring to her eyes as she stood there flanked on the side by two Uchiha police members looking around with utter disgust.

"Mikoto!" she greeted with a smile, and the Uchiha clan girl smiled as well. She flung herself at her friend even as the Uchiha guards suddenly screamed.

"NO!" and yet before she could wrap her arms around her, Mikoto jumped to the side, making her stumble on the ground as she winced in pain.

"Ouch," she grunted as she rubbed her chin, and Mikoto chuckled.

"How many times have I told you to be more careful?" Mikoto admonished her, and she offered her a hand as Kushina complained.

"I would have been fine if you hadn't jumped away," she rebutted as she took her offered hand, as the Uchiha clan girl smiled, and helped her up and she finally noticed something different about her, or more importantly about her abdomen, which was protruding a bit, and she found her eyes lingering for too long as her brain tried to make sense of it

"Kushina, Kushina," she was so lost in thought that it did not register to her that her name was being called out when suddenly she looked up and shouted at the top of her lungs.

"You are pregnant!"

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"Hahaha," Mikoto chuckled as they both sat at the dinner table while she flushed in embarrassment at her earlier behavior, though that had done little to curb her excitement at seeing her friend.

"It has been quite some time, Kushina," Mikoto began, and indeed it had been. The war had kept much of the village busy, and unlike her friends, she had to take on the mission, leaving them little time to return back home.

So that is why, for some time now, Minato and the two ANBU guards had been her only company, alongside the secrets of her clan.

"Indeed, it has," she replied, her eyes still trailing back to the protruding belly of her friend, her mind refusing to believe that she was indeed pregnant.

"So how did that happen?" she asked as she raised a brow as Mikoto's face flushed in embarrassment as she raised a brow.

"I doubt you are that stupid, given the rumors about you and Namikaze," she rebutted, and Kushina turned her head sideways.

"I am not the topic of this accusation," for yes, she and Minato were close friends, yet they had yet to confirm their relationship. Or at least put into words, she thought that the blonde boy cared for her enough, just as she did so for him, but yet there were simply too many hurdles for them to cross.

"Well, believe it or not, this was a surprise for me as well," Mikoto replied, and she remembered that her marriage was set years ago. She was set to marry that stoic-faced Uchiha senior, Fugaku something.

"Because of the war, me and Fugaku did not wish to bring a child into the world so quickly, especially with both of us getting deployed to the front lines constantly," that statement made her fists ball up.

It was embarrassing for her that she was here, safe and sound, in this gilded cage, while her friends, while Minato, were out there fighting for the village.

"But what can one do in the face of God's plans? I suddenly began to feel ill during my deployment, and the iryo-nin told me the news. The clan had me pull back from the mission, and after a short ceremony, Fugaku and I were officially married." Her eyes widened at that.

"You are married," she gasped, and Mikoto nodded.

"Yeah, though it was hardly a ceremony. Only elders from the clan were present. We did not make a spectacle out of it because of the war," and yet this did not settle well with her.

"The marriage was set to happen in three years, right," she remembered their conversation from all these years ago.

"Yeah, but the child is a blessing, and I was getting rather tired of all the fighting myself," and the raven-haired senior's eyes held the pain of lost friends as she said that, for that was the cruelty of war. The Uchiha clan was stationed on the Northern front facing Kumo and had taken heavy losses during the initial days of the war, including Mikoto's parents, who were rather powerful clan elders.

"So, you are retiring?" she asked, for that had been the plan, something she remembered the black-haired girl raving against in her youth, believing it all to be nonsense as she aspired to avenge her parents.

"I am," Mikoto replied with a small smile, and Kushina could see that the decision had taken much out of her friend, just as it had on her.

People believed it hard to be dream big, to aspire to greatness to work hard for it. Both herself and Kushina did not. To them, greatness and dreams were something that drove them, that made them better than anyone else. For her, for them it was more difficult to give up on that dream, to compromise, to realise that they had another purpose.

"Yeah, I never thought I would leave the field until the war would come to an end," Mikoto-san added as she shrugged.

"But here I am, with child and ready to retire," the Uchiha girl said, rubbing her swollen bulge as she looked him in the eye.

"And when I thought about it, I somehow felt that you and I were quite alike in many ways," she added, and Kushina nodded.

"Yeah, I can see that," she replied remembering her own time when she had desired to be a kage, wished to avenge and restore her clan. And yet here she was, trapped in a sealing tower, reduced to a jailor of a bijuu.

And yet was she content. Somewhat. She had Minato now, someone to share her burdens and dreams with. Someone with whom she had entrusted with her dreams and aspirations.

"We were both casualties of our times, our dreams and aspiration to be entrusted with those of our choosing," the raven-haired girl added softly, looking out the window.

"For you, it is Minato, and for me, it is my child," she finished as silence lingered on, both of them content with just the other's reassuring presence.

There was no sadness or need for any sympathy. She could tell that Mikoto was happy, and in ways she was as well. Yet despite the happiness, and the ambition, the dreams still lingered on.

"Speaking of that, I came here with a request of my own," Mikoto began as she looked her in the eye.

"What do you need?" she asked.

"I was hoping that...."

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Days later, a haggard blonde Minato Namikaze walked towards the grand sealing tower near the village border. Despite his tiredness, a smile adorned his lips as he walked through the seals, his senses not oblivious to the ANBU signatures surrounding the tower, both guarding and imprisoning the person inside.

It was a shame truly, but a precaution believed to be essential by the upper echelons of the village given the nature of the person inside the tower and the danger she held entrapped within her.

And with that, he thought about his own plans, about how he planned to rise up above the ranks to bring an end to all this. It was his motivation, and before he could knock on the door, it burst open as the red-haired love of his life came running out, her face flushed and her eyes glistening in a way they had not for months, as she bickered.

"I am going to be aunt."

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