Secrets

Kushina has two secrets. One was the Kyuubi. The other was something much, much worse. And then Minato came along and loved her anyway.

UPDATE: 18/5/2014

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

Prologue

"No, wait, Kushina-san, you can't just go in there –!"

"I don't care!" she snarled, pushing past the woman. She barged into the Hokage's room in fiery rage, which dimmed when he looked up.

"Hokage-sama," she said, bowing. Paper crackled in her clenched fist. She drew it out. This was it. She took a deep breath and stepped forward.

"I quit."

"Kushina, what –"

She slapped her resignation form down in front of the blinking Hokage. Slowly, he removed his tobacco pipe, glancing at the form to check that it was the real thing. It was.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked finally. "I thought you loved being a ninja."

She swallowed. She did, very much so, but she had other priorities now. "I did," she said. The Hokage's face turned grave.

"Kushina, you just came back from a year-long mission. I understand that it may have tired you –" Kushina snorted, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear "– but resigning is a serious matter. Maybe you should take some time off to think it over?"

"No," she bit off, frustrated. There was no other way. Why couldn't the old man see that? "I can't, old man. I have a kid now."

"What!" She startled when the Hokage grabbed her shoulders, having shunshin-ed past his desk. His grip was strong and firm. "Kushina, this was supposed to be an infiltration mission," he said in a strained voice. "What have you done?"

"Achieved the mission objective," she replied quietly. It was so out of character for the hot-blooded teenager that the Hokage pushed her away from him to look at her. "Hokage-sama," she begged, "Please don't take her away from me." She's the only family I have.

The Hokage understood her unspoken words. His eyes softened. "I won't," he said. "Where is she now?"

"At home, in bed." Her bottom lip was beginning to tremble from the strain of her choice, from the comfort her father figure was giving her. It was too much. Her breath hitched and she began to cry.

"What'm I gonna do, jiji?" she wailed, clutching at his arms. He pulled her into a comforting hug.

"Hush, hush, don't cry. It's all right." He petted her hair, ignoring the stink of travel that was packed in it. His mind was whirling with questions, but now was not the time to ask them. Kushina's crying slowed down to sniffles.

"I don't know what to do, jiji," she sighed. "I'm sixteen, being a ninja is all I know! And yet," a growl formed deep in her throat, "she's just a kid. I don't want her to end up like me."

This, he understood. Kushina was a spare child, a speck of dirt in the shadow of her siblings, the heirs to her clan. She had been…ah, donated, to Konoha when they required a fresh container for the Kyuubi, once Uzumaki Mito grew frail. It was determined that a blood relative would be more effective, since Mito had jailed the beast, the greatest of the nine, for decades where other jinchuuriki had lost themselves to lesser tailed beasts much sooner. And so the Kyuubi in her gut became Kushina's first secret.

It put her in the limelight. It also slashed her fragile ties with her family in Uzu, so she had no one left by the time she woke up in a sterile Konoha hospital crying for her mother. The Sandaime Hokage had become her closest family figure ever since.

So he understood her sentiments, from a historical standpoint. He couldn't, however, in good conscience leave her adrift with a baby in tow. Options raced through his mind.

"Kushina, take half a year of paid leave," he said, holding up a hand to forestall her resistance. "You are a capable jounin, and it would be a waste to let you go. So take a break, and once it's over come back to me and we'll figure things out. There are many ninja duties that do not require you to leave Konoha."

"Jiji…you mean it?" Tears threatened to fall again as she hugged the Sandaime tightly. "Thank you thank you thank you!" He chuckled.

"Of course I do, Kushina. Go along now, your baby must be hungry."

Nodding, she wiped her snotty nose on her sleeve, rubbed her eyes, and left. The Sandaime watched her go through his window.

What a cruel world it was, to have children bearing children before their time. He puffed his tobacco pipe regretfully.

He'd failed her once, but he wouldn't fail her again. He would protect the Leaf and everyone in it as much as he could.

….

Everyone knew her. The Useless Jounin, they called her, because she never took missions that were dangerous, out of the village, or anything that lasted more than a few hours, really. That left her with D-ranks and a few C's. In a village where even chunnin ventured out for missions, she was a miserable failure.

It wasn't unusual for chunnin to stagnate and fall into administrative duties, but it was very rare for a young, able-bodied jounin to do it. She shook off all their hostility like water off a duck's back. Long, red locks of hair swished behind her as she ascended the steps to the Hokage's office, balancing a stack of papers in her arms. She scrunched up her nose in disgust.

She remembered the day the Sandaime offered the job to her. His assistant was getting old, he said, and he needed someone to help her. Kushina hated paperwork. She ranted, scowled, and snapped, but in the end she took up the job. The cold shoulder his secretary gave her right after told Kushina she was none too pleased at being called 'old' – not that she blamed her for that.

So here she was, a kunoichi in her prime, sticking her ass in a chair like a stupid paper-pusher. It was too much for the twenty-two year-old who constantly thirsted for action. It was a trigger-happy whip that lashed at her heels every morning. Especially Mondays. She really hated Mondays.

Today, unfortunately, was Monday. Her sole consolation was that the Hokage hated it too. She bit back a grin when she saw him looking forlornly at the stack of papers in her hands. She slapped them down on his desk with a vindictive chortle.

"Have fun, jiji," she teased. His shoulders slumped in defeat.

"Why did I ever hire you?" he said in mock despair. (The despair at his paperwork, though, was very real.)

"Aww, you know you love me," she said, still grinning. "Jii-chan, can I ask a favour?"

The Hokage eyed her warily. "Nothing good ever comes when you call me that."

Kushina pouted. "I'm not that transparent, am I?" At the Hokage's cocked eyebrow she sighed and relented. "Fine, fine, I am. It's just that it's Rika-chan's first day of school today and I want to be there when school ends. That's all."

Ah, Rika. The Hokage stroked his beard, remembering the precocious child who scared the living lights out of the Hokage Tower on a regular basis. Quite literally, once. He still winced at the thought of the kid going through the forest of wires to get to the generator unsupervised. Kushina almost had an apoplectic fit when she found her child near a sparking live wire.

She was the little terror her mother had been as a child, and somehow the resemblance there was striking where physical looks were not. She was six now, old enough to enroll in the Academy, and old enough to show that she didn't look like her mother. It broke Kushina's heart. The Hokage knew this, although his young assistant never said a word about it.

"Hmm, I suppose I can think about it…" he said, faking a frown. Kushina groaned.

"Just let me go already, jiji!" she whined. "I'll get you ramen later, my treat. Okay?"

"Well now, why didn't you say so earlier? Be off with you!"

Kushina face-faulted. "You're so lame, jiji." Then she brightened up and gave him a brief hug. "Thanks."

The Hokage smiled at her. "Go on now, before I decide to sic some of my work on you. Rika-chan will miss you if you're late."

She flashed him a look of horror and shunshined away. The Hokage chuckled and returned morosely to his pile of paperwork.

Oh, what wouldn't he give to get rid of them?

….

She reached the Academy five minutes before school let out, panting with the effort of continuous shunshins. Must train harder, she reminded herself as she got her wind back. She didn't want to give haters any more reason to call her The Useless Jounin – not that anyone called her that to her face. She'd punched the last one who tried.

"Hey, Mikoto!" She waved and grinned, loping over to where a young woman stood leaning on a stile, eyes searching for her charge to come out of the Academy. Mikoto smiled and waved back.

"Kushina, it's been a while," she said, nodding. "Waiting for Rika-chan?"

"Yeah. How's Itachi-kun? And the bastard?"

"Itachi-kun's fine," Mikoto said with a faint smile. "And you should really stop referring to Fugaku like that, Kushina."

The redhead snorted. "I will once he stops acting like a pompous jackass. Oh, hey, Rika-chan, over here!"

"Mama!" a child squealed, detaching herself from the crowd of kids swarming out of the Academy. Kushina opened her arms wide, catching her daughter in a leaping hug.

"How many times do I have to tell you, it's dangerous to leap like that!" she scolded, but she grinned hard. "Had fun in school today, hon?"

"Hell yeah! I learned lots and lots and lots, and I made new friends too! Hi, Itachi-kun!"

"Hello, Rika-chan," Mikoto's brother replied, a little unnerved by her enthusiasm. Mikoto crossed the stile to pick him up.

"You should really watch your language around the kids, Kushina," Mikoto said. "I don't remember you saying something so crass that young." Kushina stuck out her tongue at her.

"She turned out just fine, haven't you Rika-chan?" She rubbed her nose against Rika's affectionately. "Come on, let's go to the park for some ice-cream, okay?"

"Yay, ice-cream!" Rika cheered. "Itachi-kun, want some?"

The boy perked up at the sound of his name. "Um," he said, looking up at his siser, who smiled and nodded. "Okay?"

"Whoopee! Mama, let's fly there, fly now!" Laughing, Kushina did just that, swinging her little girl onto her back and jumping over rooftops in the direction of the park.

"Race you there, Mikoto-chan!" she cried. Mikoto shook her head and took her brother's hand.

"Let's walk there. Aunt Kushina will wait for us, don't worry." Itachi nodded and fell into step beside her.

Sure enough, when they reached the park Kushina was waiting at the gates with two cones of ice-cream in her hands. Rika's face was a chocolatey mess.

"Come on, you two took forever! Let's bring the kids over to the playground, huh Mikoto? Rika-chan loves it!" Rika brightened at the thought.

"Yes, playground!" She swallowed her ice-cream in one great gulp and started to choke. "C-c-cold!" she stammered, shivering. Kushina rolled her eyes and smacked her back until she stopped choking.

"Silly girl, of course it'll be cold if you eat it all like that. And no, my ice-cream's mine." Rika turned on her best puppy-dog eyes, and Kushina relented, shoving one ice-cream into her daughter's hands. She beckoned to Itachi to take the other.

"It's for you," she explained, when he looked up dubiously.

"Thank you, Kushina-oba-san," he said, smiling a little when his mother nodded her encouragement. The two children ran off to the playground while the adults settled on a nearby bench. Kushina grinned when Rika immediately began to bully other kids around. Mikoto watched too, with much less excitement.

"Hey, Kushina," she murmured once she was sure no one could hear.

"Hmm?" Kushina said, keeping her eyes on her daughter. Mikoto took a deep breath.

"Why don't you tell them that Rika-chan's not yours? You know what they're saying about you in the shinobi ranks."

Kushina scowled and tucked her hair away. Her earlier mirth faded away. "I don't care," she muttered. "Besides, better me than her. She's innocent." Fists curled at her sides.

And so are you, Mikoto wanted to say, but she kept silent.

- Prologue: End.

Yep, that's her not-so-dirty secret. Got the idea when I was working on my first fic, Absolution, so I just fleshed it out to see if it'll work.

Feedback will be greatly appreciated. Should I continue this story?