"Hokage-sama, please pay attention to my words" Shikaku Nara spoke up loudly when the Yondaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato once again spaced out, in the fifth times during his report.
"Oh, my deepest apology Shikaku-san, please continue" Minato Namikaze was snapped out of his own thought, quickly straightened himself up on his seat and smiled to his advisor.
Shikaku nodded his head while continuing the report, thought he knew better than anyone else that the blond Hokage's smile was totally a fake one and it didn't take him to be a genius to know what he was thinking about.
Two months had passed since the tragic accident of Namikaze Family, their son Naruto Uzumaki was still in a deep coma and didn't appear to wake up any time soon. The poison, which was the handy work of Orochimaru, affected him in a way that no one, not even the specialist in Medic Ninjutsu like Tsunade Senju could do anything to help him. Granted that she could take most of the poison in his systems out of his body, but most of it was absorbed into his body and put him into a coma.
That poison was made special for his daughters, to stop their healing system from working properly and yet...his son was the one who took it, straight through his thin and small body.
His son...
After Shikaku finished the report and left the room, Minato opened a drawer and pulled out a picture frames from it. It was the picture of his family, taken at Minami and Naruko's tenth birthdays. He was putting his hands on Naruko's sister, as the girl gave her twin sister a big present while Minami was wearing a colorful hat, putting on her head by their mother, Kushina Uzumaki who was also smiling happily at her children.
At the corner of the picture, standing right behind her sister with a soft smile on his face, was Naruto Namikaze...his son...
The Yondaime Hokage dropped the picture frames and buried his face into his hand to stop the tear from falling from his eyes. How could he call Naruto his son, when he was an absolute failure of a father? He never realized it before, but now he could see the sadness in his son eyes whenever he looked into the picture.
It was the sadness of being forgotten by his family. Minami and Naruko was twin, but Naruto was the one who was birthed just nine minutes after his older sister Minami...October 10th was not only Minami and Naruko's birthday, but also Naruto's birthday.
And Minato...he couldn't remember he had celebrated any other birthday other than his two daughters.
Life at Namikaze Residence had changed dramatically, other than the servants of one of the biggest clan of Elemental Nations, no Namikaze other than himself returned to the place more than half an hour. The place no longer held happiness, no longer filled with laughter...only sadness was left inside.
Kushina, his beautiful wife, was now nothing but a wreck. She lost twenty pounds at the first two weeks, another five shortly after because she barely ate anything these past two months. His wife was now very thin, her brown eyes dulled and her hair lost its brilliant color of red. She refused to leave Naruto's side no matter how many times the doctors told her to do so, Kushina could always be found there, holding Naruto arms and praying for him to wake up.
She cried a lot, cried every single night, every single time she was with him to the point Minato doubted that there were any tears left inside of her eyes for her to cry. Kushina blamed herself for Naruto's condition, even lowering herself down to the lowest kind level whenever she was talking about herself.
She said she didn't deserve to be his mother.
About Minami, she had come to Minato a week after Naruto's accident and told him everything. From all the pranks she pulled and famed it on her younger brother, to the punches and kicks she gave him whenever he pissed her off, she was also the one forbidden Naruko from playing with Naruto, as she was the only one in their family still care about her brother...to say Minato was angry was an understatement. He punished Minami by grounding her for two weeks in her room and took away her forehead protector, saying that she didn't deserve to be a Kunoichi of Konoha. The girl silently gave her hitae to her father and grounded herself into her room for two weeks, if anyone who looked like more of a wreck than Kushina, it was Minami.
The only chance for her to ever get her forehead protector back was Naruto.
Naruko was a Jounin now, the youngest member of Namikaze family had completely shut all the ties between her and her family after Naruto's accident. She also blamed herself for Naruto's condition, saying if she was braver and stronger to stand up to Minami, she would have come and play with Naruto and none of this would happen.
His family was falling apart, if not wanted to say already fell apart. It was only luck that he could still in his right mind to keep Konoha going at the strongest village of Elemental Nation, he wanted to do nothing more than come to his son's side and stay there.
Stood up from his seat, Minato summoned a shadow clone to do his job for him and used Hirashin to teleport to Konoha's hospital. His wife and eldest daughter was there taking care of Naruto, while Naruko already out of the village to do missions with her team. All he could do right now, was keeping his wife and daughter alive and praying for his son to wake up, because he was the only one that could put this fallen family back together once again.
Mean while with Kushina...
Kushina Uzumaki walked into her son's room with her eyes hollow.
Her eyes almost tear up when she looked at the state he was in but for a woman who cried so much that she once passed out, no more tear was able to form from her eyes.
Minami was sleeping on the chair next to Naruto's bed, with a thin cover covering her body. Her daughter was one of the persons that were affected the most by Naruto's condition. She came to Minato one day and told her father everything.
Before, Minami hated her brother, because he always tried to 'steal' the attention away from her. For a young teenager, Minami loved to be in the spotlight, she loved to be acknowledged by everyone, especially her parent who made a mistake of spoiling her too much during her childhood.
Because Minami and Naruko were the ones who got the most attention from their parent, Naruto tried to copy everything the elder did in order to gain the same amount of attention from his parent. This put a thought in Minami's mind, making the girl think that Naruto was doing that just for pissing her off; she started to hate Naruto from there.
She drew a picture about their family and was praised by her, Naruto immediately tried to do the same but all he got was being compared to Minami's picture, which was way better than him.
Minami ate a lot of ramen and was praised by her mother that a young child should eat more in order to grow into a big girl. Naruto tried to do the same, but because in term of physically, Naruto was weaker than his sister, he ate so much that he had indigestion.
Minami got her first lesson with ninja tool, taught by Minato. She managed to hit the dummy in the first try. Naruto tried to do the same later that day, but because he wasn't taught or watched over by adult, all he did was cut his hand because of the shuriken blade.
Minami pulled pranks, Naruto pulled pranks.
But that was the day everything changed, when Minami famed everything on her brother in order to dodge their parent's wrath.
But after everything, she didn't blame her daughter...she blamed herself.
Even from the first day of their life, physically Naruko and Minami were both stronger than Naruto. That was the reason why Minato decided to seal Kyuubi's chakra into their daughter, while Naruto got nothing but its soul. Because of this, the twin was taught Shinobi skills at a very young age, in order to help them control the powerful chakra of Kyuubi. Her entire focus stayed on the twin and she had completely forgotten about their son.
As Minami and Naruko grew in strength, both physically and mentally, they became the top Kunoichi of the Leaf with the help of their parent, Naruto quickly fell back and faded away from their mind.
She was so proud of her daughters, boasting so much with her friends about how smart they were, how powerful they had become.
And yet, all that time when she was talking so proudly about her son, she left her son at home starving.
She was the worst mother in the world...scratch that, she didn't deserve to be called a mother, after the neglecting she had done to her son.
"Kaa-sama" Minami woke up from her sleep and looked at her mother "you're back"
"How's Naruto, Minami-chan?" She asked, even though that she knew the answer.
"He...still like this" the blonde girl said sadly, lowering her face.
"I see" Kushina whispered and sat down the chair at the right of the bed, shakily taking her son's hand into hers "Naruto..." she whispered softly.
The door of the room slowly opened and Minato walked in, holding a bag with three cups of Ichiraku Ramen.
"Hey Kushina, Minami..." Minato called out for his family.
"Minato"
"Tou-sama" Minami greeted her father with a weak smile.
"I brought some ramen" he said, closing the door behind him "You two should eat something" he walked to the table at a corner of the room and took the cups out of the bag, opening them.
"I'm fine Minato" Kushina said weakly as she was still holding her son's hands "I don't need that now" she said curtly.
"No you're not Kushina" Minato turned around and gave his wife the cup with a pair of chopsticks "you need to eat to stay alive Kushina, there is nothing you can't do to help him if you get sick"
"I..." her stomach growled at the smell of ramen.
But before she could let go of Naruto to take the ramen, Kushina's eyes snapped wide open as she suddenly feel his fingers move within her hands.
"NARUTO!" She shouted, making the other members of Namikaze family flinched in shock.
A smile made it to their face when Naruto's body stirred slightly and he slowly opened his eyes.
To be continued...