Mothers Rayemars ============================|+|============================ Kakashi His mother cleaned the room that his father killed himself in every morning. The paper on the doors was replaced long ago, and the wood had been sanded down and varnished, even, but in the early hours of the morning he heard her in there, wiping down the floor. "Don't insult your father like that," she told him, the first time he refused to put incense on the shrine, and gripped his wrist tightly until he went through the motions, harshly and without respect; but the next morning he could hear her in the room again. Kakashi eventually started taking a path through the house that let him avoid the room altogether. Sakura If they're home at the same time, her mother makes her favorite tea when she returns, tired from chakra use and worn down from Tsunade's training. She massages her neck and back until most of the tension and knots are gone, and hums old songs that Sakura only half-remembers from being very little. "The Hokage's own student," her mother says warmly, rubbing the area along her spine at the base of her skull; and even if she's so tired that she can only smell the tea instead of working up the energy to drink it, Sakura smiles faintly at that. Her mother also says she was the one who turned out right of her former team, who turned out best--but she's kind enough to only say it when Sakura's out of hearing. Hanabi When she asked, her father said her mother died giving birth to her. Other relatives said the same thing, except with enough changes that it made Hanabi curious, and, when she was old enough, suspicious. She received vague comments about complications, weariness, and something called 'post-partum syndrome' while never really getting answers. She used to hear more from the branch family, but once she turned four and then passed it and turned five, the branch family didn't speak to her as much, their children didn't train with her as often, and sometimes the adults would nod faintly when starting or ending their conversations. After Neji told her about the seal, Hanabi went to her mother's grave and cursed her for not dying after Hinata instead. She liked being alive, though, at least so far. She liked life in the main house. And she didn't hate her sister, not really--it would be easier if she did, Hanabi knew; and she'd tried to--but if it had to be one of them. . . . Hinata Their mother had died not long after Hanabi was born--Hinata never quite understood the details, but she remembered that the coffin was forbidden to be opened and she knew all the plants in the garden--so she had tried to take care of her sister in her stead. Their father didn't object at first. He was a busy man, with both a heavy mission load and a clan to run, and the less his second daughter troubled him, the better. Hinata figured out how to fix diapers and asked one of their aunts to teach her how to prepare the milk properly, and got another aunt to tell their father when Hanabi and she needed new clothes. But after Hanabi activated her byakugan at three, two full years before Hinata had been able to do it, she could feel him paying more attention to both of them. By the time Hanabi was four, their father didn't let her sleep in the same bed with Hinata anymore, and instead put the girl in her own room. Hinata sometimes checked on her through the walls, even though it was very rude to use the byakugan in the house, but Hanabi only slept restlessly the first few nights. By the time Hanabi was six and still not moved into the branch house, the scandal had talked itself out. When all the grade reports came in for the semester, their father barely glanced at hers and then sent her out of the room again before calling for Hanabi to enter. They passed each other in the hallway. Hinata nodded faintly, but Hanabi walked by without acknowledgment. It wasn't fair, she thought; but then in class the next day she reminded herself that Naruto had never even had any family to be taken away in the first place. Sasuke All of the women born or married into families high enough to be privy to the knowledge have headed to the Takano shrine to hide their children in the basement there. Mikoto sees Fugaku and Itachi head out to the fighting and then does the same. They tuck the children into a corner farthest from the stairs, setting the infants together so they'll stay warm and telling the oldest--a three-year-old girl, daughter of one of the cousins on Fugaku's side--to keep them all very quiet and not to leave until either someone comes back for them or the ground stops shaking. One of the women rigged a lantern to hang from the roof by some wire looped through a kunai, so the children will have light without risking the chance of the ones who can crawl burning themselves. The women are subtly shunning Mikoto--she told her sister about the basement, even though by birth and a marriage to a lesser family within the clan Mina doesn't have the right to know. She knows Fugaku will be angry when he learns, but she also knows it won't matter if one of them isn't alive by the end of the night. Or at least, it won't if he isn't--if she dies, and he lives, he'll either do something to wipe Mina's memory or force her to divorce her husband and marry him. Mikoto isn't sure which idea she finds more distasteful. The ground shakes again, while they're still calming the children. One of the women nearest the stairs looks up and asks with flat desperation, "It's getting closer, isn't it?" "They'll be safe here," another replies. "The shrine's dedicated to Inari; it won't come near." Mikoto smoothes Sasuke's hair back down one last time, tucks the blanket around him a little more, and makes sure that another baby is between him and the wall, so he won't be in danger of hurting himself rolling against it. "Mina, let's go," she says, and then tugs her sister away by the arm when all she continues to do is stare at the engraved stone in horror. Naruto She hits him when he tells her, several times on the chest, but it's weak and far below her skill--she's still feverish, and he is dying. "Our son," she says, and keeps saying it and can't stop even when she sees the look on his face, "our son. . . ." "He was the only compatible one," he whispers in reply, and "I'm sorry," over and over again. They ask her what the baby's name should be, later. The two of them had picked one already, but it doesn't seem right anymore. She makes a list, adding to it when she can't sleep--some of the names are good, some are cruel, and some, in memory of him, are whimsical. She can't bring herself to choose. She tries to feed him, once. Not breast milk--she knows she's too sick for that--but from a bottle. One of the nurses, who lost half her relatives in the wars and none in the fox demon's attack, and who understood the need of Konoha for a purer weapon, has taken the majority of responsibility for the baby's care. It's her that she asks, for the bottle and the baby. The baby has eyes in her shade of blue, and hair that looks like it's going to be his bright blond; but when he sucks on the nipple of the bottle happily, the scars on his cheeks undulate and she thinks This is not the child I gave birth to and drops it in her lap. It starts wailing, which at least means she didn't break its neck; the nurse steps in and picks it up, saying she must be tired and that she would return soon with another cold compress for the fever. She calls the woman back long enough to hand her the list of names and tell her she never wants to see it again. She dies a few days later--with so many people in the hospital, being treated for wounds from minor to critical, there's just not enough medicnins for anyone to get to her in time. books. fin ============================|+|============================