Chapter Text
It hurt. Far more than he’d thought it would. Realizing that his friends were actually dead was of an entirely different level of mental anguish than the mere thought of It had been back when such thoughts could be ignored. The emotional agony was sharp as it tore through his heart leaving only shreds behind as he laughed with tendrils of insanity clinging to the harsh sounds as he was led through the atrium of the Ministry of Magic with his arms bound behind his back and an escort of aurors surrounding him. Laughter trickling to a slow halt as he was shoved roughly into one of the high level security detention cells he crouched with his back against the cool stone wall and leaned his head back as he furiously blinked back the tears threatening to cloud his vision. A few moments were all he had to allow himself to grieve for the loss of the man he’d loved like a brother and for the woman who’d been like the older sister that he’d never had and truth be told, one that he’d never wanted. Breath catching in his throat while biting fiercely on the inside of his mouth he looked up with over-bright grey-blue eyes as the door to his cell was opened.
“Sirius I know that you would not have betrayed James but without young Harry it will be difficult to convince anyone of this.” The older wizard said after ensuring that the proper eavesdropping wards had been cast his somber dark blue robes contrasting with the shimmering silver strands of his beard. “I understand that you may have felt that you were acting in Harry’s best interests by hiding him but Sirius, surely you cannot believe that he will be better served by living a life hidden away from the world that he was born into.”
Looking at the silver-haired wizard with a keen eye that he’d not possessed until after Harry’s birth he marveled at the fact that the man before him could keep his intentions so well hidden that even the darkest of families would have trouble discerning his true motivations. “Harry’s dead.” Sirius winced at the harsh croak of his voice as he finally broke his silence. “Harry’s dead. Lily’s dead. James is dead and now all you’ve got left is a prophecy that was wrong.” White teeth flashing from beneath the curtain of his hair as he bowed his head to stare at the ground Sirius smirked at the old man’s momentary loss of composure as Dumbledore blinked at him in a stunned manner before quickly regaining his senses. “Leave the dead to rest in peace. Your prophecy is what killed them so let them find their peace in death.”
“My dear boy, believe me when I say that I regret that James and Lily died last night but it is thanks to their sacrifice that Harry was able to defeat Voldemort. However, it is my belief that he is not fully gone. Voldemort will have made preparations against death.” Dumbledore said as he conjured a chair to seat himself in. “And that is why it is so important that we know where Harry is so that we can protect him because he will become the first and most important of targets once Voldemort regains a mortal form.”
Sirius snorted in disbelief, a cold anger burning in his chest at the wizard sitting so calmly in his cell as though he had not a care in the world. It was because of him that he’d been forced to lie to James while Lily grew sicker with guilt as the days passed and they were forced to use his own innate skills in the art of ritual magic to put James’ face on Harry so that no one would know the awful truth. It was this man’s fault that Lily had been forced to come to him the day after Harry’s birth to beg for help in hiding his godson’s heritage because she knew in the way only a mother could that Harry’s life would not be one worth living were his true parentage to be made known. If the man called the Light’s leader hadn’t urged Snape to take the partial prophecy to Voldemort then his little godson would be here with him right now instead of in the arms of what amounted to little more than a stranger with the compulsion charms woven into his blankets urging him to trust those around him whilst at the same time bringing those caring for him to fall in love with the toddler sooner than they would have otherwise. “Harry’s dead.” He said again, his soul crying for the child he would likely never see again with mortal eyes. He would pay dearly for this but in a way, perhaps it would serve as atonement for the sin of allowing the man he’d once called brother to take another’s son as his own. “Harry’s dead.”
They were all dead but it was a price he would pay to keep his godson hidden he decided as he let go of the sanity that he’d been clinging to and let the carefully constructed insanity wash over him. After all, a broken mind can give no secrets away.
-:-..-:-..-:-
Gasping she threw the covers away and was already up and in the hallway before they’d fallen back to cover the futon. Something was wrong. Grim faced as she threw herself into the tatami room with a kunai in hand her eyes searched the room desperately for the toddler she knew should be there. Her ears strained to hear the sounds of his soft snuffling breaths before her eyes tightened with pain as her fuuin wards began to scream and there!—turning around to run down the hallway to the living room she came to an abrupt halt at the sight of Shimura Danzo standing there with her sleeping child cradled in his arms. Taking in the ANBU flanking the man as he turned to face her she felt herself freeze for a moment in pure terror as the thoughts of what could happen to him in the seconds it would take her to reach him flooded her mind.
“He is truly a beautiful child, Kushina-kun.” Danzo spoke his eye focused on the toddler sleeping in his arms. “One need only look at his face to know who fathered him but for those who know how to look for such things his chakra leaves questions. Questions that are best not answered by those outside of our village. Uzushiogakure was a village renowned for its fuuinjutsu knowledge and masteries.”
Tucking her kunai away into the holster she wore on her wrist she stretched her arms out, “Please give him to me, Danzo-sama. He’ll be waking soon and I think he would be scared to wake in someone else’s arms.”
“Yes I imagine that he would be.” Danzo replied as he turned to place the child into her open arms. “I do not imagine that either Minato-kun or yourself are yet comfortable with him being out of your sight.” Stiffening as Danzo leaned forward to lay a hand on the child’s forehead she watched with wary grey eyes as the man smiled softly at the toddler. “You and Minato-kun-kun have done very well in hiding the child away. I wonder how long it will take the fuuin on the child to fade because I cannot imagine that such a child would have green eyes when no one in either of your clans has ever had eyes of any shade matching his.”
Feeling the blood drain from her face she watched as Danzo moved back to stand with the ANBU before using shunshin to leave her apartment. Knees weak she sank down to the floor with Kisho held tightly to her bosom and remained there until the room began to lighten with the sun’s rays peeking through her curtains. Pushing her hair away from her face she stared down at the still sleeping toddlers face with a look of indecision before it changed to one of determination as she stood and moved back to the tatami room to place him back onto his futon to sleep. Once the toddler was settled she closed the sliding door behind her and moved back into the bedroom where she bit her thumb and smeared the blood across a seal hidden behind a wall scroll above her futon.
Grabbing hold of the scrolls that the blood activated seal produced she moved back into the tatami room where she pulled an empty scroll, ink bottle and brush from one of the higher shelves in the room before sitting down with her back against the wall. Danzo was right in that the eye color would make others wonder about her baby and whether he was truly hers or if he was the result of an indiscretion on Minato’s part. She would need to make it look as though she’d had a fuuin on him hiding his true features so there would have to be a delay in the full activation of the Ichizoku Fuuin or it would only serve to draw attention to the very things she was trying to hide. Squinting down at the scroll as she began the painstaking process of making the necessary adjustments to the seal she chastised herself for being so foolish as to think no one would wonder about her child’s eye color when neither the Namikaze nor Uzumaki clans had ever had green eyes.
Working through the day with breaks taken only to change the baby or to feed him she only realized how late it had become when she looked up to realize that the room was slowly darkening as the sun dipped below the horizon. Glancing down at the nearly complete seal she stretched before standing and picking the dozing toddler up from the futon to take him into the bathroom for a bath before bed. Scrubbing the fussy toddler down before quickly scrubbing herself she sat down in the bath tub and let Kisho begin to splash around as she thought about the seal she’d spent the better part of the day adjusting. Once added to the heel of the toddlers foot it would effectively claim him as an Uzumaki and while it would be an undoubtedly long process his features would change so they would look as though she were his mother in truth and then he would truly be as safe as she and Minato could manage. She would need to ask Minato before applying the seal of course, but since Kisho’s mother had severed her clan ties to protect him she doubted that he would deny her permission to apply the seal so that she could offer Kisho her clan to replace the clan he’d lost. With Minato’s permission she would apply the blood based seal and allow it to slowly begin the process of adding her genetic imprint to the boy which would provide the proof they would need to show in case they were ever challenged to do so.
It was the best solution available she decided as she noticed that Kisho had become tired out enough to try drying him off and putting him to bed. Drying the squirming toddler off she clothed him in a pair of pajamas that Jiraiya-sama had bought for the boy because they had orange frogs decorating the dark blue cotton. Dressing quickly she scooped him up into her arms and made a quick stop in the kitchen to get him some drink of water before going to the bedroom and placing him under the covers with her. Her shinobi reflexes should have had her terrified to sleep with him as she remembered her parents doing with her but the security in knowing that he was next to her outweighed the cost of worrying about him startling her in the middle of the night. Wrapping one arm around the toddler whose eyes were beginning to drift closed from the need to sleep she closed her own eyes and allowed his breathing to pull her into sleep herself.
-:-..-:-..-:-
“There’s still time for you to change your mind, you know.”
“When are you going to introduce Kisho-chan to your team?”
“You know you’re not very good at subtle subject changes.”
“Baka! I’m not going to change my mind so I don’t need to be subtle since subtle doesn’t seem to get me anywhere when I’m stuck dealing with you.”
“If you go through with this then you really will be stuck with me.”
“As long as you keep complimenting my hair then I don’t suppose I’ll mind too much—ttebane.”
Minato laughed softly as a soft flush crept over Kushina’s cheeks and the red head kept her head bowed over the small heel she was carefully inking with the inactive seal. “Hopefully Kisho won’t have that same tic otherwise all of your hard work will have been for nothing.” He teased her before wincing as she hit the back of his head with a blow he was sure was supposed to be playful but Kushina had a bad habit of forgetting her strength. “That hurt, you know.”
“It was supposed to.” Kushina answered flatly while glancing at him from the corner of her eye. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you still haven’t said when you’re going to introduce him to your team.”
“They’re going to be hurt.”
“They’ll be hurt less if they can hear the news from you versus the alternative which is hearing it from someone else. That might be something they won’t ever forgive you for because your genin team is supposed to be the strongest bonds that you build as a shinobi. You should take Kisho-chan with you tomorrow to meet them. He’ll be a little fussy because of the pain from the seal being activated and it wouldn’t hurt if you were there with him so he’ll get to spend time with you and meet your team at the same time.”
“I’ll take him with me but you’ll need to tell me what I’ll need to take for tomorrow so I can get it all in a scroll tonight.”
-:-..-:-..-:-
“What is that?”
“Are you blind or just stupid? It’s a baby.”
Minato sighed as his two boys started squabbling while Rin crept closer to the toddler sitting on the ground and watching her with wide green eyes. Seeing the way that Kisho’s face was beginning to crumple as the argument grew louder he swept the toddler up into his arms and began to bounce him lightly while clearing his throat. “This is my son.” He said softly after the sounds of the argument had died away and bringing his team’s attention to focus onto the toddler in his arms. “He was born just after the war started and Uzushiogakure fell. Kushina-chan and I decided that it would be safer to hide him until he was a little older but now he’s old enough that we can take him to the shinobi day care and soon he’ll be old enough to begin training. I wanted you three to be the first to actually meet him because I don’t think he’ll be kept secret for much longer now that I’ve had to bring him before Hokage-sama.”
“How old is he?”
“He’s just over a year old. He was born August 3rd of last year.”
“So a year ago you had a kid and you couldn’t trust us?” Obito asked as he leaned back against one of the training logs. “We woulda kept quiet if you’d told us, sensei.”
“Why do you never listen? He just said that he’d brought him before Hokage-sama which means that he hadn’t even told Hokage-sama about the kid.”
“It had nothing to do with trusting you and everything to do with protecting you. If word had gotten out that the Uzumaki clan had a new child in Konoha how long do you think it would have taken for the assassins to come looking for this child? How long would it have taken for them to go looking for my team knowing the relationship that I have with Kushina-chan the logical thing would be to assume that I’d already told you about the child and even more introduced you to the child so that you would be able to give them a description of what they needed to look for.” Shaking his head as Obito opened his mouth to no doubt say something about torture not working on them Minato adjusted the toddler in his arms before continuing. “Everyone has a point in which they must break. It doesn’t matter how strong you are because given enough time anyone will break. Taking him into hiding was the best option that we had so we waited for Kushina-chan to heal and for the other nations to become focused on the country again.”
“So if you wanted to wait until he was older why not wait until he was old enough to train?”
“Because he won’t have much longer before he’s old enough to train and Kushina-chan wanted time with him before he started training.” Minato smiled sheepishly at the three in front of him before stepping forward and placing Kisho into an unwilling Kakashi’s arms. “Now he’s not so young that you need to support his head—.”
“Sensei!”
“—But you still need to hold onto him tightly because he likes to squirm. He’s learned to walk and if you let him down he’ll be gone faster than you can follow.”
“I don’t know anything about kids!”
“That’s why you are part of a team. You need to learn to rely on them and there’s no better time than now. I’ll be sitting over here so for today consider your mission learning to take care of your sensei’s child without physically or mentally scarring the child.”