Chapter 15: Illness and Revelation

Sunrise held the entire clan up. Mist rolling around the buildings, warm and jarring, from the gloom in the atmosphere was almost telling. Nature in her cruelty pelted rays of sun onto all within the district, as a mockery for mourning minds. Crumpled against the well pipe shaking in grief, smothered by her own sorrow her quacking breathing, moist and torn from hours of the same had all members wanting to provide source of comfort. That a daunting thought to all, for there were no words of consolation that could be properly spoken. Not without a form of deflected anger directed to all present.

Naruto had insufficient experience with such a situation, emotionally he couldn't empathize, that didn't coil his mind however. No, instead he swallowed down the uprising guilt soaring so high from his abdomen. This was new to his mind, all the refractions of such a life were lost to him with time. Though death never did cease itself for convenience. So instead of watching speechlessly from the sidelines hoping to be of some help he pushed through a throng of shell shocked Uchiha alphas.

He pressed on until he sat leaning against the painful pipe right next to the emotionally tormented woman. Her gaze looked to him briefly, a shocking wideness to her eyes of caution, fear gipping her face like a mask that was crudely formed. To this he said nothing, his eyes spoke now, tears beginning to spring forth as the rain, free and true in his disposition. His mind was not screaming to him, nor was he shaking with a grotesque sensation of loss. No, just sorrow plain and easy to recognize.

"No! No!" The woman shrieked above any pitching of her cries. Her hands became white clutching the fabric of her clothes, her head so painfully tilted to the sky. At this point of her grief, her sensations must be near numb, the struggle of pain she had been displaying before all but leaving her, as wrecked pitiful versions of those same sobs escaped her as she quivered numbly. Falling horizontally, into his shoulder fixated on something no one could see in her great heave of emotion. He was hardly going to push her off. Although in an equally distraught state were a small group of children, all red faced with sore little cheeks and unstoppable tears, staring at him with hiccups carrying their shoulders.

What a horrid day.

Naruto gestured to the children and they all ran without hesitance, looking for something he could likely not provide. He opened his right arm for them, his left busy holding and comforting the mourning omega resting on his shoulder with the collapse of her world. He was bombarded by three small children clinging to him, wetting his haori in sniffling, opened mouthed sobs he was so long unfamiliar with. There was nothing for him to do with each person so stricken by the unexpected loss.

Mustering strength from a root within he knew charred by now. In the slightest voice he could, he spoke to her with no particular thoughts in mind, avoiding the grieving woman from thinking him implicating. "Wakaba-san."  White painted knuckles grasp into his haori pinching fabric and flesh in tandem. Yet, still aware she manages a struggled upsurge of sound from the bottom of her throat unable to speak. So nearby the children huddled close underneath his arms try to keep their loud voices refrained. "Where is Bou-san?"  Did her fragile mind conclude the depth of his words? No, indeed could they not hear the pleas of a concerned comrade, for all illusions of reality having been cast onto her were shattered by one moment of imperfection.

Perhaps it followed not polite manor to concern oneself as a 'lowly' omega the trials of an alpha's mind. Regardless of belief to how each of their own fought, Naruto could not consider for even the barest of moments that whether one was a mother or a father mattered to how the heart betrayed the emotion of its own destruction. What a mother and father felt in reflection to each other could be no different.

To lose one's child in sickness was a burden that no parent should bare upon them.

Bou-san would be drowning not unlike Wakaba following the loss of their son. Of this he knew, and in his remembrance of solitude he sought to never again allow it to be prominence into his own nor another's life. This conviction drove him to action, and in a move of cavalier nonchalance, he spoke loudly to the assembled moral support standing guard. To him stuck children and a grieving Mother who lost her son to a tragedy not easily adverted, yet unmarked by blade. Herewithall his mind spun in possibilities, strength intact had never been of his possession. Action to energy, morale to rule provided him well.

"Madara!" Experience was a hardened crust still not invulnerable to mistakes of his own variance. What he could imagine gave her pain now was the weight of the death, pressure so dense gravitational as a landing from a high cliff. This was the best he could presume, it was not due from shock, nor anger from enemies unseen. However, he knew not all the proceedings of mourning, each clan to their own had multiple acceptable forms of comfort, for a clan as formal as the Uchiha he could only assume that they would need a certain decorous approach which he could not provide for the woman.

Emerging quickly from the strand of persons now sitting with heads bent came the Patriarch standing at his insurmountable height. Underneath his pristine posture, his face was covered by his lengthy bangs, a shadow rested almost tranquil over his back. He held with him a single stock of a barely bloomed flower, with a leaf a locust tree. He near sat to grasp her attention, Naruto rubbed a little fierce at her shoulder to draw her gaze. Crumpled as she was it took a moment for her to regain her mind, focusing on Madara in silence, no tremors or shakes in her shoulders, only a wobble to her lip.

To Naruto it was as watching a type of private bond of love he should not be privy to. The gain in her eyes as he presented her with the plants, the tilt of his grieving frown as a comfort was intimate. Admiration, Naruto reconciled, they truly loved their leader, trusted his judgement, mind, and morale, implicitly, nothing as the books he had read. They brandished a lie of falsehood, betrayal and a clan of cowardistic fools. The state of this understanding made him embarrassed to have been hesitant in knowing the man, history was a lore of the winners, that was not a tomb penned by one of the Uchiha.

The children, twin girls, and lone orphaned boy gripped him tightly, no longer weeping for the parting of their friend. Naruto gained an epiphany that he was insufficient. His lessons coached and realized by Kou and Naori gave him little of what he must know for the betterment of this clan -indeed, this was too be his clan. He could no longer distance himself by white lined words of deceit. There was comfort in memories well lived, but it bought him nothing with this currency, what he needed to acquire now was to live the life of a man local. A master's understanding of this clan he would be marrying into. They were in need of a Matriarch not a clueless number of the masses with improper upbringing.

Perhaps a weak man would have lingered their gazes on their future Hoomupawa  and borne within that moment a momentous pressure of perfection. No, in spoke the Omega, holding the young warriors close to him he would raise to this challenge, for he knew himself capable. Feat or no. 

Upon his space Wakaba was regaining herself, not completely for the sunshine blond was aware that she would remain plagued for a long while yet, her firmness was pure bravado, nevertheless commendable. On him still, pressing their small hands into him the small children got up, and each grasped the others hands before bowing in the stance that Naori had first done when they had met. An Uchiha bow Naruto could surmise, he felt touched by the gesture but he had merely given into their lonely expressions so near a remembrance. With their departure came a deep embracing of sorrow, not a want to cry per say, more in a growing dread in his abdomen. Near the sensation of sickness holding him in a more intense bind then normal.

Then there was a scarred large ivory hand before his eyes, and he knew to whom it belonged without so much a glimpse. The offer was appreciated, his legs felt far to heavy to hold him properly. Instead he put faith into Madara's ability to hold him steady. In swallowing the tense set in his throat he found himself and Madara to be the only persons by Wakaba. True to nature he almost turned to check on the woman, but he doesn't dare disturb her privacy.

The Uchiha must've known his intent for he gently nudged his arm to interlink with his own, and they moved away. Naruto felt the weightful pressure of uselessness, he hardly aided the woman. Knowledge failed him, he knew nearly nothing of his own clan, and that had possibly pained the other omega more. Humans relied upon stability in this type of situation, he was inadequate.

"I couldn't help her." He let his guilt slip lose, something crackling in his voice a hint of upcoming tears. Hands gripped his inlocked hand tightly, a wisp of a sigh echoed with the silence of the morning atmosphere. It was that, which had his withhold emotions to nearly escape, however, in a warm rush of pleasure he felt the most light of kisses pressed onto his finger tips. With this he looked to the man with flustered mind not clearly perceiving the gentle ghosting smile upon Madara's mouth. A delicate breath on his hand warming it in soft brushes of air onto his fingers as the man hissed his hand again, this time the back, then the wrist. So intimate without sexual inclination, and it brought flush onto his cheeks so fastly one would believe it to be an aphrodisiac.

"You were wonderful. Perhaps not conducted, yet sympathetic, wellminded and beautiful. Wakaba-san required a companionship without her husband to see to her comfort. You did provide what many could not."  In place of his previous warmth at the man's actions grew a tender affection for the sweet phrasing and faith held words. Naruto was aware of what he need accomplish, and he knew then that this man was the perfect husband to stand by his side as change weaved through the clan. With this, he moved his hand to hold the man's cheek in his plan, cold to the touch as he expected.

A contentment seemed to respond to his touch, shoulders dropping slightly. "What did the Locust tree mean?"  The man stared down at him not with a tempered glare as was so commonly was perceived.

"You noticed. It carries with it a silent comfort, onto mine clan a green and budding locust blossom means 'affection beyond the grave.' it is a flower only used for those burdened with a child's passing." A darkened pitch deepened his tone, gravitating the softened expression with the depth of feeling, a nod to whatever grievances scourged the past so vehemently. "The children adore you." Madara mentioned breaking from himself, and working in his favour Naruto felt himself flush at the concealed compliment, quickly brushing it aside with his own penchant for escapism. Kagami had spoken cryptically of his friend's condition but hadn't wanted to speak largely on it, but it was a mystery to the young sixteen year old just what the child had died from.

Coughing as to deair the previous conversation he methodized his words to be of plain coherence for someone within this era. Conduct riding along with ambition in this instance as he became more keen to the certainty that formality would be required for his future role. What better time to put that into practise then when speaking to his intended? "May I ask: What illness befell him? Kagami-chan said that it held a persistent fever along with spotting." They walked forth once more, and with the few nodded acknowledgements from Uchiha still in mourning Naruto tried to keep his stance proper.

"Indeed, It near escaped me, how keen Kagami makes himself." A quick cough from the man eluded to amusement, and in looking to his visage Naruto was near surprised to see an easy smirk plastered on his face. Were he not in such a dampened mood it would have been cause for a gentle taught. Circumstance clogged his own humour. "Our omega's refer to it as the Zels. It has a rash breakout on your body, with the itch of poison ivy and the fever of midday sun. So far it has been lethal, and highly contagious. The medics have found a way to isolate the contamination to the recipient only however, still it would be a good investment to further research its cause and demise." Having never practised the art of healing ninjutsu Naruto struggled to conjure a coherent diagnoses for the disease.

When he recalled a long lecture from Tsuande of his own risk of the measles should an epidemic break lose. Not a large concern as they had the ability to kill the disease at gestation in the Konoha he knew.

It had not been a detriment he considered strictly speaking he had never been largely involved in the field of medicine so its inconsistency in this time hadn't occurred to him. A true tragedy then should such a young boy die of such a curable disease. It was not something he could weight onto himself however, the treatment required was simply nonexistent or non conceived in this time. Perhaps sensing his apprehension of the subject his escort instead brought forth a more pacifying topic for conversation, mellow yet lively as a spring of cold water to the senses.

"A nickname hast been bestowed unto you, did I mention?" He pondered at that, biting and peeling at the loose skin upon his lip, in previous his very own name had been used as an expletive among many other coloured insults shaming mothers of all, and a damning of his own though he had met her not. It followed implication, surely here where his past remained tightly held they could not have attached to him a slur. "Does the name; Naru, appeal? For the children seem to have great love for it." The children, he had all but forgotten that they took to calling him that, he couldn't say it was a wrong development, in fact it near delighted him to have something for his own that could not be tainted by those of his past.

Although he had to laugh, as he turned to his companion. "Fitting don't you think?" Not a laugh or near one, but there was an amusement gracing in the man as he snorted so very quietly, a tipping of a smile lingering.

"Children are ever the wise are they not." He stated and Naruto had no other option then to agree. Then in a moment so separate from banter a sincerity peaked through in the form of a flirtation. "Indeed, you have many things 'to become.'"

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