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Love's Labors Lost

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The sounds and tremors of the Kyuubi raging in the forest carried to the Hokage where he stood in a hallway at the hospital, so lost in his own thoughts that he couldn't even bother to wonder what part of his beloved village was being destroyed. He raised his hands in front of him, palms up, and stared at them with wide eyes. There was still dirt caked in the creases, and there were traces of blood. There were also memories invisible to every other eye but his own: he had killed countless nin with these hands. These hands had thrown thousands of kunai. With these hands, as a genin, he'd once held a wound closed on his teammate's chest, twelve years old, begging all the gods he could think of for help to show up – enemy, friend, healer, Jiraiya-sensei, anyone. These hands had held his wife's hands the first time they spoke to one another – she wasn't his wife then, she was a genin, and she was helping him up a tree. Years later, these hands had held her body, these fingers had dragged down to the tender skin at the small of her back and made her close her eyes and smile.

He looked at his hands and thought of his wife.

He was not guiding his own course anymore. He had let go. Fate was leading him.

He had sensed it this morning. A deep feeling of premonition had woken him out of sleep before sunrise, and it cut through even the distant noise of battle and the pulsing wrath, the killing intent of the beast's chakra. His guards had told him to rest longer, reminded him that he wasn't fully healed, but instead he went to see his wife. She was at the hospital, helping to care for the wounded, and when he reminded her that she was supposed to stay off her feet she turned on him and asked sharply, "Can you sit still at a time like this?"

Nonetheless he had somehow convinced her to return to a safe house. And then it was back to the battle, where every advance made against it was erased by the demon within seconds. Its path of destruction followed no rule. Even the Hokage was losing hope. He would not let it show to his subordinates – he knew they would have hope as long as they thought that he did – but he was praying that fate would guide him toward an answer. His village was slowly disappearing. As a genin and then a chunin he had led a charmed life – every time he lost hope in the midst of battle, he kept the smile on his face, and fate, luck, whatever you wanted to call it, always came to his rescue. The answer always presented itself. The right path was always lit. He knew that if he wanted to find the right direction all he had to do was read the signs.

He stared at his hands. They had stopped shaking; even though the hospital was being shaken by the footsteps of the beast, his hands had stilled. Everything was still to him now, even if the village was falling apart around him. The path had suddenly become clear, everything had presented itself in perfect lucidity – he had only needed this moment to see it.

They hadn't even needed to tell him that his wife was dead. As soon as he'd seen the look on the chunin medic's face, he had known.

There was no logic, no reason to the demon's path. Why would it attack one area, leave it half-destroyed, and then move on?

It was fate, he knew.

Realizing this, he had listened to the medics pour out their news to him with a frozen mind. She was dead almost upon arrival. They had tried to follow her last request and save the child, but the damage was too great – he wouldn't live more than an hour or two. His lungs were underdeveloped, his body too weak, his birth too traumatic. They had asked the Hokage if he wanted to see his son, before…

And that was when he had realized where fate was guiding him.

He stood in the hallway and stared at his hands. Slowly he closed his eyes. His mind was calm, now that everything was clear. He couldn't even feel grief yet. That would come soon enough, he knew. He could tell that his body was in shock, but his body wasn't a concern to him now that his mind was made up.

He wouldn't live through this anyway, if it went the way he thought it would.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw the Sandaime standing not far away, a look of depthless sorrow on his face. "You remember," the Hokage said, "when we were first searching for a way to stop this thing, the idea of a Jinchuuriki?"

The Sandaime shook his head. "The sealing requires death, and we agreed, we cannot sacrifice a member of the village, no matter how unimportant they may be…"

The young Hokage raised his head to the old man. "Promise you won't stop me," he said.

A few moments later he had entered the room. He watched his actions as if watching an actor in a play. He saw the medics back away from the child they were trying to keep alive when they saw him approach. He saw his hands, palms up, reach down around this infant, and as soon as he lifted it the first stabbing pains of grief were in his chest – but he pushed them away, subdued them. He would see her soon enough.

The child didn't open its eyes. Far too weak to cry, barely strong enough to breathe – the Hokage was not certain it would live five minutes without the medics keeping it alive. He moved too quickly for anyone to stop him. Only the Sandaime would know where he was headed.

As he flew, his wife filled his thoughts. They had grown up together. He remembered the years of her life better than the years of his own. He remembered the exact color of her eyes. He remembered where the mesh bodysuit stopped on her legs. He remembered watching her pin up her hair in the morning. He remembered a thousand things that had once seemed too trivial to remember.

He remembered everything he and the Sandaime had discovered about Jinchuuriki – but most importantly, the healing powers of a Jinchuuriki's chakra. How the demon was unwilling to let its host die.

He remembered what the medics had said about her last request.

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When the sealing was done, he opened his eyes again and realized he was looking down at his own dead body. Nearby, the child who had been too weak to breathe only moments ago was now screaming and kicking away its blanket. Nothing else in the woods was moving: everything around him was dead, destroyed by the demon. The Hokage listened to the child cry as the world began to dissolve around him. He will be a hero, he thought. Fate will show him the way.

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