Shadow Flame

by fiesa

She dreams of fine lines and broken things, things that were and never will be. OneShot- Uzumaki Kushina and a life lived in bits and pieces.

Shadow Flame

Summary: She dreams of fine lines and broken things, things that were and never will be. OneShot- Kushina and a life lived in bits and pieces.

Warning: Seems this will get angsty. And horribly cheesy at the end. And I'm incredibly proud of this – not only because it is one of the longest stories I've written since long. I think it took me 2 weeks to finish it, and every minute was worth it.

Set: Story-unrelated, pre-Original. I tried to keep close to the few known facts about her. Oh yes, and the path for this story was prepared by the last one shot I published – which dealt with Uzumaki Mito. Don't say I haven't warned you!^^

Disclaimer: Standards apply.

---

Kushina dreams.

She dreams of her mother and her father, sitting at the kitchen table and smiling at each other in between jibes and jokes. She dreams of her siblings and her aunts and uncles and her grandparents. There is always someone there, someone and more. From the kitchen, sweet scents waft through the house. In the living-room, voices discuss and talk and tell. The earliest memories Kushina has are the ones of sitting on someone's lap, listening to melodious voices. Of stealing still-hot cookies from the window sill. Of running and climbing and sneaking, of sunshine and wind and rain. Of brushes and the scent of ink on her hands, of the rustle of paper, of her parent's warm arms and her siblings' loud voices.

She dreams of old photographs and of faces that slowly vanish. She dreams of happy days, days full of love and laughter and warm eyes.

She is full of them and empty.

…

Hidden Leaf is not her home.

How could it be, Kushina thinks when she watches the genin laugh and train and play on the Academy grounds. She watches, always watches, from behind the cover the great trees' crown offers. The tree is high and old and its leaves hide her well. Nobody knows she is up here, nobody cares, and she is glad for it. This place belongs to her.

She doesn't have much besides that.

Kushina has a few changes of clothes, a few spare kunai and two books she found somewhere and appropriated them. She also has a small room, a roof over her head, and someone who watches over her. Sayaka-San is kind and old and always has a warm meal waiting for her. The way the old kunoichi's hands touch her hair when she brushes it in the evening is soothing. It reminds Kushina of the way her aunts used to brush her hair, a long time ago, when she still was home in Whirlpool, and how her mother used to sing her to sleep. But she's not at home anymore. Neither her many aunts nor uncles, neither her cousins nor her siblings are here. She is alone in a place where nobody takes notice of her except for the ANBU that follow her wherever she goes, the Hokage, who smiles at her once a week when she is taken to meet him but who looks at her with sad eyes, and Sayaka-San, who holds her when she cries but cannot do anything against her pain.

And Mito-Sama.

Their secret meetings are what keep Kushina going. They give her strength when she doesn't know how to continue forward. It is something she looks forward to, every week, every Friday night. She waits until Sayaka-San has fallen asleep on the sofa in the living-room and then climbs down from her window. It's a simple task for a girl that grew up with six elder brothers and who could climb trees before she could walk properly. Konoha's streets are silent and dark, at least the ones she passes. On those nights, for once, Kushina doesn't mind her silent shadow as it follows her across the village and right into the main house, the Hokage's Tower. Her little legs climb the stairs, all the way up to the top, and she always finds the door open a crack. When she pushes it open completely night lays calmly over a sleeping village underneath her and a lithe, tall figure waits for her on the far side of the roof. On those nights, Kushina abandons pride and stubbornness and runs towards the woman, wraps her arms around a slim waist and buries her face in soft fabric. And her great-grandmother wraps her arms around her and holds her tight.

Her life isn't bad here.

Kushina is a young girl alone in a foreign village. She has a place to stay and someone who watches over her. She attends the Academy in the morning and trains by herself in the afternoon. She practices drawing the seals her father taught her, the seals that have been family's inheritance for ages. The Seals of Power. If she concentrates hard enough she can hear her father's voice – Careful, Kushina, even the slightest shift can change the meaning of one seal and make it turn on you – and repeats and repeats until she can draw them in her sleep, until they are a part of her so strongly she can feel them press against her skin from the inside, begging her to be released. She wanders the forest of Hidden Leaf on weekends, watching deer and birds and flowers, and she likes being by herself. Only that doesn't mean she likes being alone all the time. Like every child her age, Kushina would like to have friends, only she cannot seem to make them. She watches them from far and wonders what it would feel like to talk to the others, to laugh with them and play with them and train with them. In class-assignments she is always the odd one out. Nobody seems to want to talk to her, nobody seems to want to have anything to do with her, and she hates herself for it.

Hates her hair.

They mock her, the children. The genin. Her classmates. They look at her and shout things like "Fire! Fire!" and laugh at her name. Kushina is too young to understand complexion and hair like hers are foreign in the village. She, who grew up with her family and her siblings all around her, cannot understand why people would avoid others because of their hair. But she hates it for making her different and she falls asleep many nights crying into her pillow.

On other days, she hits back.

"Where did you pick up such words," her teacher scolds her.

"What do you expect of someone who has nobody, just an old nurse," another one says.

"Bad-mouth," the children call her, keeping a safe distance after having witnessed Kushina taking on a fight against two elder genin. They walk away limping and bleeding, but Kushina doesn't walk away at all. "Tomato face! Bloody hands and bloody hair, little wonder your family never wanted you."

She launches herself at the others at that.

She is too young to understand what it means to be a hostage. She is too young to understand what envy means, or distance, but she feels it in her heart. Sayaka-San sighs and brushes away her hair from her swollen face as she carefully applies salves and bandages and Kushina stays in bed for one week. On Friday night, she climbs the steps to the roof of the tower with shaking legs and a pounding head. Mito-Sama waits for her.

"You are special, Kushina," she says.

But Kushina doesn't want to be special, doesn't want to stand out. Not here, not anywhere, not ever again. She wants to be just like all the others and she does not want to be. She feels empty and lost and angry at everyone and herself and she wishes she could change. Them. Herself. Anything.

"What happened to your hair, little one?"

Mito-Sama laughs and sighs and brushes her hands through the short, ragged strands that are all that are left or her long, red hair. Then she gets a pair of scissors and Kushina sobs as even more strands fall to the ground, thin and red.

"Your mother would weep if she saw you like this."

Mito-Sama is tall and beautiful, and her red hair is wrapped into artful braids on top of her head. Nobody laughs at her, Kushina thinks. Nobody dares.

"Yes, you are right. Children can be cruel. Be strong, sweetheart. Walk proudly."

Soft moonlight, pale stars – nothing compares to Mito-Sama's beauty. Not really. Sometimes Kushina wonders whether she will look similar someday. Probably not.

"You are special to me."

How many dreams are necessary to color a life?

…

Time passes and faces fade and Kushina starts dreaming in names.

They float through her mind like birds, too-fast and too-afraid, and sometimes she cannot catch them. The names of her parents, brothers and family dance through her dreams like faces through other peoples' dreams and she cannot grab a hold on them. They vanish faster than they come and leave her behind empty and a little bit colder. She repeats them, nevertheless, because the faces become fuzzy and her memory hazy and on mornings when she wakes up and cannot remember the face of her mother she does not want to wake up anymore. Ever.

She dreams of endless oceans and far horizons, of names and names and names. She dreams of watching water being sucked into a whirlpool. It takes a village with it and she wonders what it might mean. She dreams of distant pasts and near futures and of warm hands holding hers.

Most people bend. Kushina refuses to.

…

Her hair is almost back to the length it had when she first came to Konoha the summer she graduates from the Academy.

The same summer, coincidentally, spies from Amegakure are discovered in Sunagakure. Hidden Sand, in retaliation, sends spies to Ame and to other villages, too. Ame reacts by slaughtering the inhabitants of a small village in Kawa no Kuni who was allied with Suna. And so it goes on and on while other countries and villages watch and try to determine what will happen next. Hidden Leaf, as a close neighbor, feels the stirrings. Everyone does. Everyone reacts, as well, even if nothing seems to change on first glance. Adults walk faster on the street, not stopping for anything. The old men and women who sit on benches in the park and who walk down the streets slowly have serious, sad expressions, and even children are quieter, almost subdued. War is slowly stretching out its skeleton hands towards Konoha, slowly but noticeable. Teachers concentrate on genjutsu and ninjutsu rather than on mathematics and biology. Children graduate early.

Kushina graduates along with a batch of genin-to-be that summer.

They are an odd number, thirteen kids, and she knows what is going to happen. It always was that way, always will be. She is selected into the third team, as the only girl, and for six months she pretends she does not hear their taunts. Naoki, Tasuku and Hidetsugu create an art in ignoring her and she ignores them right back. For six months, they dump the boring jobs on her, laugh at her attempts to create genjutsu, give her a wrong meeting time or meeting point. For six months, Kushina grits her teeth and fists her hands in the fabric of her dress and hateshateshates them, them and all the other stupid idiots this stupid village calls its genin. How often is she tempted to use a seal to trip them when they run in front of her, to make them lose their balance, to wipe smirks and condescension of their faces when they look at her. She clenches her fists and tampers down the fire inside her because she promised her mother she would never use the seals deliberately against other people if not in a fight for her life. But oh, how is she tempted! Every time she hears them laugh behind her back, every time she is stuck with searching for cats and collecting garbage and running errands while they refuse to acknowledge her and pretend she does not exist.

Then the mission that changes everything.

During the seventh month they escort the heiress of a foreign country through Hi no Kuni. The girl is roughly her age, perhaps a bit older. She is strict, and closed up, and she never seems to smile. But she does not mind red hair at all. For the first time, Kushina spends time with a girl, unsure of how she is supposed to behave. But Hinatsura isn't the average girl, either, so maybe they get along so well because they both are outsiders. Kushina never spent an evening by talking and laughing before, and she finds she enjoys it. She is proud, too, because the princess chooses her and not Naoki, whose dark eyes follow them wherever they go, or Tasuku, who never misses a target, or Hidetsugu, whose laugh is infectious as long as he isn't making fun of Kushina. Hinatsura chooses Kushina, poor, orphaned, outcast Kushina, and for four days Kushina gets to know what it feels like to have a friend.

The pirates' attack comes seemingly from nowhere, while Sensei is away meeting a messenger from Hinatsura's father. They have made camp on the coast for one day already, waiting for the boat that will bring them to the One Thousand Islands the princess calls her home, and her three team members have spent their day either moaning in the heat or dying of boredom. Kushina likes the warmth, and she loves the scent and the sound and the sight of the sea. And she sees them first – ten pirates, heading for their camp, not even trying to hide between the rocks and dunes that separate their camp from the open shore.

"Alarm!" One of the soldiers that accompany the princess screams, and then they are there.

"Tasuku!"

It is probably the first time Kushina ever calls her team mates by their names. There is no time for surprise, no time to think. She launches herself at him and they tumble to the ground and for a horrible second none of them moves. The pirates go after the soldiers first, too realistic to see anything in them than just a bunch of kids, and all around them there are screams and wails and the clanking of steel meeting steel. And then Naoki pulls them up and Hidetsugu asks "Are you alright, Kushina?" And then they fight for their lives.

They don't fit together seamlessly. Kushina moves too fast and Naoki's attempts to guard Tasuku's left side hinders Tasuku and, in effect, Hidetsugu, who hasn't got enough space to wield the two daggers he is so expertly handling. But they fight together, side by side, and when they realize there is nothing they can do they tumble backwards into the princess's tent. Hinatsura looks at them with huge, frightened eyes and Kushina doesn't like to see her calm friend like that.

"Where's Sensei?" Hidetsugu pants and lets loose some really bad curses when they all realize the fact that Sensei is still gone can only mean one thing. Kushina is sure the princess blushes at the sound but in the dim darkness of the tent it's not easy to tell. Naoki is checking the outsides through the entrance. "They're almost done with the guards," he says and he would like to sound calm but his voice shakes slightly and his hands grasp the hilts of his kunai too hard. Tasuku wraps a bandage around his arm, a piece of cloth that looks like it once was a royal towel. "This is bad," he grumbles darkly.

"They want me," Hinatsura says, her eyes wide. "I just have to go outside and…"

Team Three looks at each other. This is their first real mission and they just found each other. They refuse to give up, but their situation is bad. Sensei still is gone. There are pirates outside who will soon have killed all the guards and soldiers Hinatsura had with her. There is only one thing she can think of at the moment, and she doesn't like it much. She's a shinobi, not a heroine, Kushina thinks. She fights for a village she cannot call her home. But this time it is not the village she thinks of but the three boys at her side, and the one girl who showed her what friendship can be like. Four heads start shaking vigorously as she explains her plan. Kushina wins.

They know it's the only way.

So, minutes later, a heavily veiled princess steps from the tent and offers herself up to the pirates, and they laugh and shout and curse. Kushina thinks she never was more afraid before, never, but she holds her head high and waits and waits. They grab her roughly and dump her on a horse and off they are and really, her team mates were right – this is a stupid idea, oh so stupid, she will never see Hidden Leaf again, never see Mito-Sama and Sayaka-San and Hidetsugu and Naoki and Tasuku and Sensei. The men all around her shout and leer and she is so scared she barely can move – but she can think. And Kushina thinks that nobody – not the pirates, not the villagers, nobody – has the right to judge her for what she is and what she believes in and as long as she just holds herself together she will be fine, somehow. She catches herself drawing seals with her fingers onto the insides of her wrists. Her skin burns.

Only months later she realizes what could have happened at that point. It's a thought so scary the blood inside her veins freezes to ice. She runs from the Hokage's Tower when she hears what has happened to two other girls who were kidnapped by a Daimyo's soldiers and runs and runs and runs and doesn't stop until she collapses. She cannot breathe, cannot think, and relief curses through her veins so hotly she feels sick of herself. Detestable, she thinks, and laughs and feels like crying. Naoki, Tasuku and Hidetsugu find her first and take her home and talk about random things, too embarrassed to just keep silent like they do on other occasions and she is very, very glad to have them.

But that is months later.

Kushina spends a day and a night and another day with the pirates while they, too, wait for the flood and for their ship, and on the second evening there are shouts and screams everywhere again and pirates die in numbers. Soldiers of the Islands kill every single one. It is a blood bath. Nobody takes notice of Kushina, huddled under a tree, until quick hands untie her and pull her into the shadows. She stares into Naoki's, Tasuku's and Hidetsugu's white faces and starts crying, and they just hand her back her gear and help her get rid of the many veils and layers of her dress, and then they return to Hidden Leaf.

Kushina has a team from that day on, and three friends she loves more than anything.

…

These are hours of happiness while everything else around her is coming apart.

Kushina dreams of sunshine and ice-cream, of laughter and cheerful banter as summer passes. Dreams of climbing trees with chakra only and of solving riddles Sensei gives them when there is nothing else to do. They chase cats and dogs and even geckoes, sit babies and collect garbage and run errands. It is one summer only, really, but she never felt that safe before. Kushina dreams of Hidetsugu's laughter and the way sunlight shines in Tasuku's hair when he and Naoki argue, and how they are exact mirror images of each other, only one black and one golden. Sensei takes them out for dinner and they watch the stars from the roof of one of the guard towers and honestly, she wants to stop the time. Here and now, she is happy, happier than she ever was before, and she dreams of freshly baked bread, of dust dancing in the sunlit training grounds and of a soft voice that whispers her name. She dreams of home, of a place worth staying in. And, most importantly, she dreams of people who accept her the way she is. Of people who know her and trust her and who let her love them back.

Kushina dreams in a world she knows has no space for dreams. But she fervently hopes there is a space for her somewhere, and sometimes she thinks she has found it.

It tastes like warm sunshine and golden honey.

…

On her fourteenth birthday she returns home.

Kushina barely remembers the streets and houses of Whirlpool, the village she lived in until she was brought to Hidden Leaf. Still, coming here feels like returning, a sweet, unbearably sad feeling mixed with a pain so great she cannot breathe. Her team mates behind her are silent as they look over the roofs towards the sea, beautiful and intimidating in its majesty. The laughter of children rings in their ears, the hustle of villagers on the market, the vendor's cries. They can see old people pass by, walking slowly, stopping to watch and to talk, and for once, even Hidetsugu is silent.

The ruins stand unmoving, grey against a beautiful sunset.

Here and there, thick columns of smoke still rise into the autumn sky, last remainders of the pyres that burned for days. The houses stand empty and lost, bereft of all its life. Nothing is left: no tree, no animal, no human. No soul.

Mito-Sama told her, in the Hokage's office, three days ago, and Kushina never had seen the beautiful woman look as old as she looked right then. It was as if every ounce of power the woman she called her grandmother had possessed had left her, had been swept away with the everlasting tide that had taken everything they knew and loved. Behind her the Third had stood, hands clasped on his back. He, too, had looked old, but Kushina only realized it later. At that moment she had screamed at him, accused him of not having done anything, of having killed her family. He hadn't said a word. She had pleaded with him to say it was a lie – had begged him to laugh it off – and then, when he had just looked at her, she had turned around and walked out of the room without a single word. Mito-Sama had called after her and Sensei had run after her but Kushina hadn't cared. She dreamed of the sea that night, for the first time in months, and of a huge whirlpool that sucked in every last man, animal and house of Uzushiogakure.

What affects her most is the fact that although she recognizes her family's house, she does not feel anything.

Her father's house. Her aunt's, her family's home – there ought to be at least some sadness, some regret at seeing the entire village razed. But she feels nothing. She looks at the ruined buildings and houses and knows her family died here, her entire clan was wiped out. She knows – but she doesn't feel it. Somehow, the pain of having lost her family forever mingles with the pain of already having lost them years ago. What she feels, though, is guilt. She cannot help feeling guilty – terribly guilty – even though she, intellectually, knows nothing of this is her fault. On the inside a voice stirs, telling her that there was a very good reason why Hidden Leaf took her from her family and let her grow up far from her home. She tries to push it down, but it continues on persistently. Now she regrets not having listened to Mito-Sama fully. The woman had looked worn and sad and Kushina had, after hearing the first explanations, refused to listen further. But Mito-Sama had been taken from her home, too, even if she hadn't been as young as Kushina was, and she vows to talk to her again as soon as she is back.

They have a lot to talk about

She uses seals, there. For the first time in years she not only draws them but forms the arches and lines with her hands and her mind alike. They glow, silver and gold and red and white. She seals memories into stone and ashes while her team-mates watch, awe-struck and open-mouthed. Behind them, the sun sinks into the ocean and takes with it the last pieces of her childhood.

…

Kushina dreams of a conversation.

"So the only reason I was brought here is to become the next vessel for this… thing."

"You have to understand. We cannot let the kyuubi loose again. The costs were too high the last time."

"You've planned this all along."

Eight years – a lie or an illusion? She has never been welcome in Hidden Leaf but she would have thought that it she was the village's only chance, people at least would remember this. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn't.

"When?"

"In a few years, perhaps. The current vessel-"

"Mito-Sama."

"The current vessel's chakra still is strong enough to contain the kyuubi. But the chance of her failing grows with each year we wait."

"Do it now."

"What?"

"When I return from Whirlpool. Do it."

The Elders stare at her. "But…"

"Just do it. You've trained me for this, didn't you?"

What she says and what she thinks are two different things. Let them think she is eager to contain the monster. Let them think she is over-confident. Let them think what they want, because the Elder's opinion doesn't matter to Kushina. What matters to her are two hands, slender and warm, and the way Mito-Sama's fingers had trembled when she held the brush to show her how to form the seals, and how even the few stairs from the roof to the little apartment had seemed too much for her the last weeks and months. Senju Mito still is the most beautiful woman Kushina knows but for all her beauty she seems to wither away more quickly with every day. It isn't visible – Mito-Sama doesn't look a year over twenty-five – but Kushina feels it, feels the way the woman's presence has become brittle and breakable. So now she has her answer but she finds she doesn't like it very much.

Placing both her hands on her hips, Kushina stares down the two Elders.

"When I return from Whirlpool."

When she came back, nothing much would matter anyway anymore.

…

They do not return soon.

On their way back to Konoha Kushina seeks out some silence in the evening, a few meters away from the camp Naoki, Tasuku, Hidetsugu and she have set up. She follows an invisible path into the forest and sits under a tree, tries to think, to set her thoughts straight. She has been running since she got the news of the attack on Whirlpool, hasn't had the time to stop to consider anything. The message, the talk with the Elders, then seeing her old home in ashes – it has been too much, far too much, and her mind is whirling. She cannot think straight anymore. With every step they had taken that day, a voice had screamed in her head. You can't do it. You can't do it. Who does she think she is? Just a clan-less orphan from a village that doesn't exist anymore. A fourteen-year old girl believing she can take it up with a monster that even Mito-Sama only could seal away. How does she think it will continue? Does she really believe Konoha's Elders will transfer the kyuubi without another thought? Kushina just sits there, in the midst of thorny bushes and cold ground, and her hands press against her temples. She doesn't hear the steps, doesn't catch a glimpse at her attackers. When she wakes up the next time she is bound and gagged and being carried away, thrown over the shoulder of a man in a shinobi uniform she does not recognize. They move fast, travel north and only stop when it is late night. One of them mutters something as he touches her head, her chest and both her arms in short succession and as the men take off the gag and loosen the binds around her hands she tries to use her seals. Immediately, pain curses through her like raging fire, so hot and blinding she cannot see anything. That way, she learns the men have ways to seal her chakra.

They carry her by day and leave her bound by night and as soon as the effects of their jutsu fade they renew it. Her chakra reserve is drained again and again and again. What good does it have to have exceptional chakra control if she has no reserves left? As a result, she feels bone-weary and exhausted and only gobbles down the little food they give her because they force her to. They feed her with impersonal, uncaring glances and she knows she is just another parcel they have to deliver. Deliver it intact. They cross the border and put on their forehead protectors and she suddenly realizes she has been kidnapped by a group of Kumo nin. They watch her every second of the day, even when she is granted a minute to relieve herself. It is not for the lack of determination that Kushina does not try to flee. It is for the lack of opportunities. These shinobi are far from amateurs.

She does not cry because she is too exhausted.

She tries to stay awake at night, tries to find a moment in which no watchful eyes follow her, no abductor takes notice of her. It is impossible. After a time that feels like a life but that really only has been one week (her senses tell her they are moving towards the mountains, even if she never saw mountains before, she just knows its farther and farther away from the village and if she had the strength to wonder she would wonder how Hidden Leaf had become the place she wants to be right now) she cannot stay awake at night any longer, falls into an exhausted sleep as soon as they have thrown her some scraps of ANBU provisions and some water. She wakes up when she is being pulled up roughly. Her knotted and dirty hair catches in the vines on the ground, in the branches of the short, stout bushes and ground vegetation. It hurts.

She starts yanking at her own hair when they put her down.

She cannot even say what she thinks she wants to achieve. It is highly unlikely someone will notice the golden and red strands of hair which the wind sweeps away so quickly. What she thinks of are her team mates. She thinks of them so often their names become a mantra in her heart. Be alive. Be safe.

Sayaka-San believed in God. Kushina finds herself praying.

Don't let them be killed.

Far into enemy territory – the mountains are so close it seems like she can reach out and touch them – a kunai hits the leading shinobi right between the eyes and all hell breaks loose. He snuck around the group at night, unheard and unseen, and three trained Kumo nin are no match for him. They are dead so fast Kushina later would think they just dropped to the ground and pretended to be dead in order to escape their leader's fate. In a matter of seconds another kunai slices through the ropes of her wrist and calloused but gentle hands untie her blindfold. Until Kushina gets used to the sunlight and can feel her hands again her rescuer already has hidden the corpses and urges her to move quickly if she does not want to run straight into a border patrol.

He carries her away from the clearing in the end because she cannot use her legs. Her joints sting and burn as blood returns to her hands and feet and she feels sick and exhausted to the bone from the lack of rest, food, proper movement and chakra. Nevertheless he has to put her down soon because she struggles so much. Kushina doesn't like being carried, she decides that moment, doesn't like it at all. The first thing she wants to know is what happened to her team mates.

"They did the only reasonable thing: one of them returned to Leaf to call for reinforcements, two started tracking you. I passed them a day ago. They showed me what you did – leaving a trail with your hair was rather brilliant."

He smiles – a wide, bright smile – and she cannot understand how he can smile like that when he just killed four people and still is covered in their blood, enemies or not. She cannot understand much about him: he's too cheerful, too far-away, too important to be sent after someone like her. Namikaze Minato graduated more than five years before her and the only reason she knows his face is the fact that almost every girl who is her age is woefully and eternally in love with him. Although she knows the answer, Kushina asks the next question that has been on her mind since he unbound her and took away the blindfold.

"You're a member of Hidden Leaf," he tells her. "Anyone would have come to your help."

We couldn't afford to lose the next jinchuuriki, she translates bitterly.

That way, Kushina gets to know Namikaze Minato.

…

Kushina dreams of faces again.

Faces of dead. Faces she never saw before and faces she did see: on tapestries, on book illustrations, on paintings. On the Hokage Mountain above the village. She dreams of fights and war, of blood running down her hands and staining her clothes, the taste heavy on her lips. Stomach-churning, coppery-sweet and metallic. Hot, scorching red chakra burns her from the inside, sets her nerves aflame and wracks her body in spasms. Fever takes turns with periods of extreme cold. More often than not she wakes up with black shadows in her room, dark images in her mind, pictures of fire and destruction, war and terror, and the strength of a million memories engraved into her little body makes her lay stiff and shaking, unable to move. Unable to even cry.

The nightmares do not end.

While waking, she can feel the malevolent presence of the kyuubi inside her, raging and testing and howling for its freedom. And like her ancestor, like Mito-Sama, Kushina contains the beast. Every time she wins a fight against it, every time she opens her eyes and barely can move from the combined efforts of fighting the kyuubi and subduing it, she thinks that this is the reason she has been trained so thoroughly.

She just hadn't expected it to hurt quite that much.

…

Mito-Sama dies a week after the kyuubi is transferred to Kushina.

Whether it was the strain of the ceremony or the final relief at not having to fear closing her eyes anymore, nobody can tell. Hidden Leaf's First Lady dies quietly and almost unnoticed, is cremated the same way and receives a special marble plaque next to the one honoring the First Fire Shadow of Hidden Leaf. She had spent her last week secluded in her small rooms of the former Senju quarters, the one Kushina had visited her in so often, and had only received visits of her closest friends. She had a secret conference with the Third, talked to the Council of Elders, and, finally, spent every hour of free time with Kushina. The public never sees her again, not even on the day of her funeral. There is a reason for it and a small part of Kushina is glad that she has been one of the chosen to be allowed to meet Mito-Sama as whom she had become.

With the kyuubi, her youth seems to have been stripped away entirely.

Her hair is white and thin and yet still held up in the elaborate braids Kushina knows. Her skin is grey and wrinkled, her hands knotty and trembling, and her proud figure is bent and gnarled. But she still excludes the exquisite authority she always possessed. While Kushina's entire body is on fire, tearing her apart from the inside out, and she screams screams screams because she is being burned alive, Mito-Sama sits by her side and holds her hand. The kyuubi breaks all her bones and mends them again, threatening screaming howling to be freed, not to be caged inside a woman's body again. Kushina can only endure and endure and wait until it realizes this vessel, as well, will be a cage and a prison. The pain is so great she sees and hears nothing else and because the kyuubi's chakra mends what it breaks in order to survive there is no relief in unconsciousness. Every second, every minute is agony, hot fire burning her alive. It seems to last eternities. Finally, when she can draw in a deep breath and finds her vocal chords raw and aching, when she forces open her eyes and tries to feel her legs and arms, she feels someone holding her hand. The hand is old and wrinkled and for a second her still-groggy mind tries to piece together the implications. Then her sight returns slowly, as if to spare her from what she is about to see, and she recognizes the person.

"The transfer was too draining," she says as she sees Kushina's panic. "Don't worry, sweetheart. This is just an old body, nothing to fear. The kyuubi's chakra lent me strength and prolonged my already exceptionally long life. It preserved my youth. No matter how I look like, I am only myself and no one else. My fate was set the day I sealed the kyuubi into my body. Not I am free."

Kushina's fate, it seems, is mapped out for her as well.

She will grow up in Hidden Leaf as the container for the kyuubi. She will learn to control the monster and she will fight for the village. She will grow old without looking her age, a bitter reminder to the Clan she hails from combined with the power of the being she houses and, one day, she will transfer the monster to another young, innocent child who will take over her role. She won't be needed anymore and she will grow old from one day to the next. She will die alone and silently.

Still, it is not the prospect of her future that scares her.

What scares her is the tall figure behind her. Wherever she goes, whatever she does: when she turns around she sees her grandmother (she only starts calling her Baa-chan during her last days, and even then, the name sounds foreign in her ears). Kushina stands in the shadow of a strong, beautiful woman she knows she never will be able to beat – and she does not want to, either. What scares and angers her is that people expect her to best her – Mito was able to hold four tails only for one and a half minutes, Kushina, you're amazing! – that people can so easily expect her to be what Mito-Sama was to them. What scares her is that Mito-Sama was grown-up and strong and beautiful when she sealed the kyuubi in herself and Kushina is neither. She doesn't feel strong. She doesn't feel beautiful. She feels like a small, scared child – and she is one, nothing more.

Nothing less, either.

And she is considered an adult the day she loses control of her chakra – she, who always had a chakra control better than some jounin shinobi – and blows to pieces a great part of the training grounds. Nobody dies and only one boy is hurt but from that day on she feels the glances of people on the street, sees the way parents tug their children behind them when they pass her on the street.

She holds her head high when she walks through the street and pretends to ignore the whispers that follow her. This is not my home, she tries to tell herself. The truth is that Hidden Leaf became her home when they buried Mito-Sama here and that somehow and inexplicably the place has snuck up on her, has wormed a way into her heart and stayed. She has started to love the dusty streets and shadowy places, the wind in the trees, the wide river, the rainy fall. The truth is that Hidden Leaf became her home when three genin accepted her as their fourth team mate and that somehow she has grown accustomed to the feeling of just being there, of belonging. Memories of a shattered village mock her when she tries to think of Uzushiogakure as home and the pain is so strong she stops the thoughts in their tracks. It is not love she feels for Hidden Leaf, not the love she holds in her heart for Naoki, Hidetsugu, for the noisy girl named Anko she sometimes meets on the training grounds and who is a year older than her, and Anko's friend Kurenai. It is not the love she feels when she looks at Sayaka-San. But it is something new, something malleable.

Something with a potential to grow.

…

Kushina dreams of a war.

For three years it has been hanging over Konoha like a dark, threatening cloud. Now that it spills its innards over the world, she finds, she isn't afraid of it anymore.

They leave on a beautiful summer morning, rows and rows of shinobi clad in green-and-black, vests and forehead protectors, and civilians line the street and cheer. "Stupid," Naoki murmurs but cannot help looking proud in his new uniform. Next to him, Tasuku and Hidetsugu are almost bursting with pride of having won the title of chuunin. Kushina feels the weight of the green shinobi vest and feels like she is detached from everything. She floats above the heads of rows and rows of children, newly promoted or even still genin, who march from Konoha with songs on their lips and springs in their steps. They know nothing, she knows nothing, either, but she feels the heaviness of fate. Feels it in the weight of her vest, sees it in the worried glances of mothers with tears in their eyes, hears it in the birds' songs and the marching rhythms.

In her dream she stands in front of a charred plain, burnt and empty, and listens to someone cry.

…

Two years later she is still out there.

"Make shelters, prepare some provisions and get rest," the commander of her troupe says and everyone obeys. Naoki and a girl named Mika, who does not dare to look at Kushina since she saw what she and the kyuubi did to a platoon of Ame nin, prepare a scarce meal while a few others, including Tasuku and Hidetsugu, scout the area, collect fire-wood and put up their small tents. Kushina does what she can do best: she walks around the camp site and draws seals. Protection. Repulsion. Misdirection. Kill. Every seal is familiar, every brush, every stroke. The action could be calming if it wasn't for the blood she sees on her hands and with which she draws.

They are getting good at this. This: Fighting, trapping, sneaking, spying, hiding, moving stealthily, planning. And killing. Kushina has become really good at killing.

There are few noises besides the rattling of the pots, the rustling of movement and the song of the wind. They all are weary, tired, exhausted and without illusions and the routine they drown themselves in is one of the few things that keeps them together. Two months prior, Hikari Futaba sat up straight in the middle of the night, trashing and screaming wordlessly, and they had to knock him out in order to shut him up because the enemy was too close. Their team has no medic and there was no time to bring Hikari to one, either. Not that it mattered. In the morning, when everyone was busy preparing for the next assignment, Hikari escaped his bonds and ran out into the plains, screaming and laughing madly. A poisoned arrow, show from seemingly nowhere, silenced him forever.

It is not the only death they have witnessed. There are many more they have lost. Hikari, who went mad, and Oribe, who didn't make it out of a fight, and Kohane, who sacrificed herself so they could make it, and Kyo, who received a horrible wound and died three days later, and Yakumo, who ran into an enemy trap and bled to death, and Chitose, who died in a fight and whose brother, Chiaki, refused to leave her body and died as well. Segusa-Sensei is dead, their first commander. She was replaced by Morino-San who lasted half a year but who was replaced because they needed him elsewhere. Not one of Kushina's command team shows a sign of surprise when they meet their next commander. Fame is something nobody pays attention to and nobody can afford in times like these. Namikaze Minato sleeps on the ground next to them, goes on recon missions with them and crawls through dirt and rain next to them and if anyone of them ever had a serious issue of hero worship for the man – boy – who is responsible for them now it has been seriously diminished. They see him sleep. They see him eat. They see him bleed.

Though, of course, the latter is rare.

Perhaps Kushina should feel a bit more respect towards him, perhaps she should still be thankful that he saved her years – worlds – ago. But while the list of dead grows longer and each name grows more and more heavy on her heart she cannot find the strength to see anything more in him that a soldier, like the rest of them are.

"The stars are beautiful tonight."

How can he say something like that, she wonders. How can he even think of something like that when they lost Ichigo only days ago and when the air still tasted like charred ashes and burnt human beings. Kushina feels sick, like every time she uses the kyuubi's powers. Her seals are not enough to bind it; everything she learned from Mito-Sama and from her father seems to be mocking her because it is never, ever, enough. She runs and sleeps and fights and bleeds. She draws seals – so many seals she cannot even remember the last one she uses, they become routine, habit, and it does not matter as long as she uses the right ones at the right time. She transforms into a horrible monster every time she lets the kyuubi loose and only Tenzo can stop her, the boy that is far too young to be with them but who has to be because he is the only one who can control the seal on her stomach.

"How can you see beauty in the world when you know what it is like?" She bites back sharply one night. Minato turns his head and smiles. His smiles are mixtures of apology, charisma and sheepishness and she wants wipe it out of his face. Her stomach rolls painfully. After using the kyuubi's chakra she cannot eat anything. Her stomach revolts at the bare thought of food.

"The world is not cruel. Human beings are."

A dreamer, Kushina thinks. Minato is a brilliant fighter, strategist and leader but he is a dreamer, an idealist, and as such nothing but an idiot. She tells him so.

"Maybe." He smiles again and she hates his smile. Too sad, too wistful, too forced. Like he is hiding everything he is behind his smile. Blue eyes, blond hair and a young face and he seems artificial from head to toe. Perfect shinobi, perfect leader, perfect fighter, perfect man. Kushina turns away her head. It's her turn to keep watch. She wants him to leave so she can be alone but of course he is oblivious to her bad mood. Oblivious to her, too. Sometimes she thinks Namikaze Minato is oblivious to the entire world.

"Eat something," he tells her and offers her a ration bar. She does not even turn her head.

"No, thanks."

"You have to eat something. You haven't eaten the whole day."

"I'm not hungry."

"You can't live on soldier pills alone."

He is stubborn. She gives him credit for that but she is not hungry. She feels sick only thinking of the dry ration bars and the thought of eating when others won't ever open their eyes again. And it is her fault.

"Look at me, Kushina."

His voice is soft, suddenly, sounds different than the voice he uses when he urges them onward or when he talks to the wounded. When she still does not react he gets up, walks over to her and kneels in front of where she is sitting on the ground, her knees drawn up to her chest.

"You have to stay alive."

"For what?" She asks him and tries not to sound bitter. "For the past? For the future? I don't care about either. For the village? For…"

He silences her with a finger to her lips and she freezes. There is something in his eyes that unravels something deep within her; that suddenly makes her feel small and scared. Moonlight reflects from his pupils: his face is a dark shadow against the night.

"For them," he tells her softly. There is no pretense in his voice, nothing of the encouragement he shows when he is talking to them. No bravado, no strength. "For the people you love. You have people you want to stay alive for, don't you?"

His finger is warm against her lips.

"What about you?" She asks him instead. "What is your reason for fighting?"

He turns away from her again, leaving the ration bar in her hand and the warm feel of his finger on her lips. She never saw him look that tired before.

"If I only knew," he says quietly, so quietly she almost does not hear it. Anger flares up in her again.

"Then don't you dare give me lectures!"

He actually flinches, then chuckles. "You're right. Who am I to tell you what to do? After all, you are strong."

He is gone in an instant, as is his habit, and she stays where she is, trembling with rage. She cannot say why his last sentence has upset her that much but somehow, it has. She clenches her fist and notices she is gripping something tightly: the ration bar Minato gave her. She toys with the idea of throwing it after him but then tucks it into her pocket. You have to eat something. His voice resounds clearly in her head.

His haunted eyes follow her into her exhausted sleep. Why, of all the people in their camp, did he choose her to talk to?

…

Kushina dreams:

Of burnt and charred plains.

Of children screaming for their mothers, pleading and sobbing.

Of mangled limbs and deep injuries and blood, blood, so much blood everywhere. Most of it is on her hands. In her face. She looks into a river they pass and sees herself covered in red liquid and the sight scares her so much she freezes for a second. She wakes up at night, staring down on her hands in the light of the little camp-fire or the moon and sees the blood, feels it, even smells it. Tastes it on her lips, and the kyuubi howls gleefully in triumph. It might not be free but as long as she kills just enough people it remains quiet. One or two times she went so far Tenzo barely managed to pull her back. Every time she looks down on her hands she expects to see claws, sharp and red.

Mika isn't the only one who does not talk to her anymore. In fact, only Tenzo, Naoki, Hidetsugu and Tasuku still talk to her. And Minato, of course.

Kushina dreams of tearing and killing and burning. Where, she wonders, does she begin and the kyuubi end? Because the lines are getting terribly blurred and she does not know how to stop the process of losing herself. She dreams of fine lines and broken things and gags on the ration bars her former team mates try to make her eat. She can barely keep anything down.

The kyuubi laughs.

…

The war ends before she breaks down completely but Kushina doesn't care about much anymore.

To the place she might once have called her home she brings back an endless list of names, a collection of faces, blurred images, screams and bloody hands and the memory of watching herself tear apart enemy shinobi through other peoples' eyes. The scent of burnt wood seems to cling to her. She scrubs herself down four times the day she returns to Hidden Leaf, stands under the scalding hot water until it grows cold. It is not homecoming, it is punishment. Everything is like she left it, her few possessions, the one potted plant on the window ledge, her sealing scrolls carefully stacked and locked away in a hidden drawer of her desk. Every ordinary thing reminds her of where she comes from, of how far a battle field is from ordinary and normal, and the fact that nothing has changed while so many people have been killed makes her sick again. She stumbles from the shower to the toilet, leaving wet foot prints on the fogged floor files, but her stomach is empty. She passes out on the cold floor, and when she wakes up nothing has changed but her.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is not a term used often in a shinobi village.

In fact, the term is not used at all in Konoha. There is no shinobi who would like to have the letters PTSD affixed to his name and for the simple fact that the number of medics simply is too small to take care of every broken and battered soul there is nothing that can stop them from returning to work. Life goes on. Missions are taken and executed, work is done as usual. From the outside it looks like Hidden Leaf, who didn't suffer architectural damage in the war, goes on as it always did. New people, new leaders, many, many dead – it is not like Konohagakure cares. Who cares are the people. And the people care about the big difference between war heroes and what they call jinchuuriki.

Suddenly Kushina is bitterly aware of what she is again. The looks she receives range from angry to scared. Nobody thinks about the things she gave – she hates herself when she thinks like that because it sounds weak and pitiful and selfish and it's not like she wanted to help Hidden Leaf, she wanted to help Mito-Sama. People look at her and see the monster inside her, not herself, see the nine-tailed fox, not Uzumaki Kushina. Every Konoha nin she saved is forgotten in the face of how many people they lost and she is at fault for every single one. If she couldn't save them, they say why couldn't she, she has the power of the kyuubi. If she uses it they say she is a monster, she is horrible. There is no way Kushina can do even one thing right.

"You look like you haven't slept in a week," Hidetsugu tells her and even in his fake-cheerful voice she can hear silent reproach. "You shouldn't take that many missions."

At that, she normally laughs and answers something like "Look who's talking, who had five B-rank missions this month?"

But in the way her friends look at her she can see their worry. She cannot decide whether to hate them for it or to love them even more. These are the people that know her, people who see if she's feeling sad, if she's tired and nervous and way-too-thin. At the same time she hates herself for making them worry. She cannot help it. She barely eats – she isn't hungry, feels sick at the thought of food again. She sleeps but her dreams are twisted and strange and she prefers long and high-ranked missions because she returns so exhausted she falls onto her bed and simply blacks out. Whenever she has no missions to run, she trains. Tenzo and she are a rather perfect unit already, trained in the fields and out during war, but she corrects and manipulates his seals, twines their chakra together more strongly and experiments as much as she dares. Better. She has to become better. Stronger, faster, better – more perfect than before.

She becomes skilled in lying, too. In acting. She always was a good actor but she finds she needs to work harder on her mask.

It goes like this:

"Kushina, are you coming on Thursday?"

On that day, all shinobi of her generation meet, the small rest of the ones that survived what Kushina's Team only calls Winter Days. The restaurant they gather in is small and comfy and has the best desserts there are to find in Hidden Leaf.

"Of course! Who else is going? What, only eight? Well then, let's ask a few more, the more the merrier, right?"

Or:

"Kushina-kun, your report was due last week! Kushina-kun! Where are you going?"

"I apologize, Takahashi-San, I was so busy! I'll file it in as soon as possible! See you!"

"Kushina-kun! I'll need your report until tomorrow! Have you heard me? Kushina-kun!"

Or:

"Kushina-chan, did you hear? They say Uchiha Fugaku proposed to Mikoto!"

"WHAT? That old man? Mikoto blew him off, didn't she?"

"First of all, Fugaku isn't old, and second: no, she didn't!"

"He is! I don't know what she sees in him, seriously. But maybe it's because he always looks serious. Serious men are so much more attractive, aren't they? If I ever get married, I won't pick a man who freakin' smiles the whole time!"

"You're weird, Kushina!"

Or:

"What's the matter?"

"Youju is dead."

"… How?"

"Friendly fire. Hiroshi will be devastated. Can you talk to him?"

"Has anyone told him?"

"No."

"Why do I have to do it?"

"Because you're strong, Kushina. Everyone says so."

Or:

"Waah! There he is! Kushina, Kushina, look – Namikaze-San is coming out – wahhh! He's looking at us!"

"So what? He's just another man."

"Don't be so cold! He's really good-looking! Those blue eyes are deep as the ocean! And the rumor goes he will be the next Hokage… Even though he's still only twenty-two! Look, he even smiled at you – you should be nicer to him, Kushina!"

She learns to mask herself. But a voice always resounds in her mind.

After all, you are strong, Kushina.

…

I am not, she wants to scream. Look at me. At me, Minato. I. Am. Not. Strong. She does not care what people think – does not care whether they love her or hate her, fear her or mock her. Not anymore. Only months ago it would have been important but she finds it is not what matters. She does not care whether they think she is stupid, hateful, annoying, strong or weak. But she cares about what Minato thinks and she is not strong. If she was, she wouldn't be this pitiful, wouldn't beg for his attention, albeit silently. Kushina never was a selfish person; what she had she shared without a second thought. Perhaps it was because of the way she grew up, all by herself and with no one to share anything with. Perhaps it was her nature. Seeing Minato, she does not want to be friendly. She does not want to be strong or kind or ready to share. She wants to be selfish. She wants him to see that she is only a small, weak child, that she is afraid of the dark and that she fears the angry glances of the people all around her. That she longs for his gaze on her and the soft chuckle that signals he is being honest and embarrassed because of it.

Look at me.

…

"Are you angry because Sandaime-Sama didn't send you on that mission?"

Minato materializes from the shadows and the light next to her, a tall silhouette against the slowly darkening sky.

"Of course not!" Kushina bites back. "Why would I want to go on a mission that takes me through the plains at Monsoon season for three days and across a pirate-infested ocean only to deliver some stupid diplomatic news?"

"Because…" Minato leans onto the railing of the roof next to her. The distance between them is carefully calculated from his side, she knows. "Well, I'm not yet sure about that. Why don't you just spare me the guessing and tell me?"

"I don't want to go to Hundred Islands," Kushina repeats angrily. A blatant lie, of course. She badly wants to go to the small Island country. She wants to see Hinatsura, wants to talk to her friend. They haven't seen each other for years.

"Yes you do."

"I don't."

"You do."

End of tether. Snap. "Well, I'm obviously not going, so why don't you spare me the show?"

Minato blinks into the sunlight lazily and she is momentarily stuck by how golden his hair is. She pulls her gaze away by force and wonders whether her friend still looks like the girl she knew. She probably wouldn't even recognize Kushina. Too many things have changed. It probably is for the best she hasn't been sent.

"Why wouldn't who recognize you?"

Blushing furiously, Kushina realizes she has spoken out loud. "A friend of mine who lives there."

"Ah." Non-committal. "And why wouldn't she?"

"Never mind."

Minato is silent for so long Kushina hopes he has dropped the topic. But then, he turns his head a fraction to look at her. His gaze is piercing.

"You want to hear what your friend would see if she saw you?"

"Enlighten me." Kushina is mildly amused. Her amusement falls away and shatters when she realizes he has no intention of playing fair.

"Your friend probably knew you as a child or genin. He knows you as a strong and kind and, especially, as a proud person. Now you're whiny, broken, and wallow in self-pity for most of the day."

"What?" She is so upset even the one word is a huge effort. Minato smiles cryptically again and turns back to the sky. His voice takes on a wallowing sound she hates even more than his smile.

"So the villagers hate you. So you do carry around a monster. So your family is dead."

It takes her at least thirty seconds to close her mouth again. Anger burns inside her – red-hot and so bright she feels the heat wash through her. Red chakra, searing and drowning – and she forces it back with everything she has, everything she is. Draws seals in her mind to calm down.

"It's the truth! And it's not like I tell everyone and ask him to pity me!"

"What happened to you, Kushina?"

"What?"

"What happened to you?"

You, she thinks. "War," she says. "The kyuubi. Uzushiogakure. Isn't that enough to change a person?"

And how does he know she has changed?

"I've watched you for a long time. You were always alone but you never were the person to let yourself be pulled down by this. You never lied before."

"I still don't lie."

"Not with words. You lie in the way you look at people. In the way you talk to them."

"I don't!" She laughs, throws her head back. "You're sprouting nonsense. Why should I?"

"I can only guess it is because you're lonely."

Somehow, the words – said in his silent voice, without his ever-present smile – are enough to make her fall utterly still. There is no way out here, she realizes. She can't laugh him off or accuse him of being an idiot. He knows he's not. He knows he is right and he knows she knows. For a long, long time, everything is silent. Even the birds seem to have fallen quiet. The sweet scent of cherry blossoms wraps around her. It's spring but the air still is cold. Kushina embraces herself, wraps her arms around her middle to keep herself warm. And perhaps to keep herself from falling as well.

"Why do you care?"

They have known each other for a long time but their paths never crossed much. Then came the abduction, then the year they spent out on the plains. And Kushina will deny with everything she has that she thinks about Minato more than often, that she hears his voice and feels his gaze. He's five years older than she is and light-years away in everything else. Now-official future Fourth, brilliant shinobi, seasoned commander, even teacher of a genin team. Kushina is seventeen, almost eighteen. If there is one person in Konoha that shouldn't be associated with the future Hokage, it is her. But, she guesses, as the future Fire Shadow Minato is somewhat bound to worry about her. She is a threat, after all. She is the jinchuuriki, the vessel for the ninetails. She is the last member of the fallen Uzumaki clan, the last Sealer of Uzushiogakure. She is a shinobi of Konoha and, at the same time, a constant threat. She is Uzumaki Kushina. She is…

"You are strong."

Something inside her goes cold. She turns away. "Of course."

"But you are weak, too."

He catches her arm, turns her around to face him again. His smile is gone, gone is the charismatic shinobi, the future leader, gone is the experienced commander. What remains is a man with blonde hair and piercingly-blue eyes, and he looks at her in a way that makes her unable to move.

"That's nothing bad."

Minato looks at her with pleading eyes.

"I am weak, too, even if nobody believes it. But to protect Hidden Leaf, I have to be strong. You want to be strong, it's the same. Only being strong all the time is impossible."

For a long time, Kushina just looks at him. There is something stuck in her throat that won't go away no matter how often she swallows. There is so much he says without saying it. And only because of the words he does not say, she believes him.

"Okay."

"Okay?" He repeats her, hope in his voice.

"Okay," she repeats. And as she smiles it feels like the first true smile she has shown since… Since forever. He hasn't banished her worries, hasn't taken away her fears. But…

But.

"You're terrible in fixing things like this," she tells him and he laughs sheepishly. The cherry blossoms' fragrance hangs in the air like tangible pink ribbons and she wishes she could box them up, fill it into bottles and line them up neatly so she can go back to the memory of this day whenever she wants.

…

Question.

Is it okay if I draw my strength from your weakness?

Counter-question.

Is it okay if I take solace in your pain?

…

"Oh my God!" Hidetsugu groans. "You're in love with him!"

Kushina blushes to the roots of her hair. "I am not!"

"She is," Tasuku counters and rolls his eyes. "You only notice that now?"

"Now? Why? How long has this been going?"

Naoki shrugs. "A year and a half, maybe."

"A year and a half? Since we…" Since we came back hangs in the air. Since the Winter Days. They all hear it, Hidetsugu does not need to finish the sentence. One year and seven months since the war ended, one year, six months and twelve days since they returned to Hidden Leaf. Snow is falling onto the streets of like a warm, white blanket and darkness coats the houses with their flickering lights in the windows. Their boots leave deep prints in the snow but the white swallows every sound. Even Hidetsugu's voice sounds soft in the cold winter air. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"Because it's none of your business," Kushina snaps at him.

"Of course it is!" He protests and walks before her, backwards, to see her face. "We're your best friends!"

"So what are you going to do?" Naoki asks mildly. Hidetsugu hesitates. "I dunno… Maybe we should go have a talk with that guy?"

"You're willing to walk into the office of the next Hokage and tell him what exactly?" Tasuku inquires in a tone that makes his whole proposal sound like the absolutely ridiculous idea it is. Kushina has no doubts he would do exactly what he just said – walk into Minato's office and tell him to mind his own business. But Hidetsugu, even if he is the loudest and most easy-going of the four of them, has a certain limitation for how far he is willing to go.

"We should ask him to meet us somewhere in the forest," he thinks out loud as he jumps over a little snow bank gracefully without turning around. "Nobody would see us beat him up."

"Hidetsugu!" Kushina doesn't know whether to cry, to laugh or to be angry. "There's no need for that. Nothing has happened and nothing will."

"You mean you're not in love with him?"

"I mean," Kushina says desperately, "We're not a couple. He doesn't know how I feel."

"Give him credit," Tasuku says. "The man's the future Hokage."

"Even if he knew," she insists. "There would be nothing between the two of us. He doesn't even have time to take a break during the day. He has his duties as the future Hokage, as a shinobi and he teaches a team, too. And… He's the future Hokage."

"Hmpf," Naoki says and she is thankful, for her face feels so hot she feels like her head must be steaming merrily. "I'm hungry."

"You won't be for long," Hidetsugu immediately jumps in. "My grandmother makes the most fabulous Christmas Dinner you've ever seen, complete with…"

As he starts to enumerate the dishes his grandmother would serve them, Kushina catches a glance Tasuku gives her. "What?" She asks, silently. Her friend gives her a thoughtful look.

"It's nothing."

Because she is busy wondering whether she has packed all the presents for her boys, Kushina lets it go. They spend a wonderful evening with Hidetsugu's grandparents and she returns home warm and happy. The next day, the team called Team Yondaime by the entire village pays her a visit, obviously being propelled along by their overly enthusiastic teacher.

"Thanks for the gifts!" Rin-chan says shyly, Obito shouts and Kakashi mumbles.

Minato gives her a smile that makes her heart speed up (When did it change, this feeling she got whenever she saw his smile, change from hate to something entirely else) and coaxes his students into clearing the few meters from her door to the street from snow. Then, Rin and Obito start building a snow man while Kakashi practices targeting and Minato sits in her tiny little kitchen and talks and not talks about everything and nothing. His smile is enough to warm her. She manages to thank him for his visit by insulting him semi-consciously and blushes as she realizes it. Minato, thankfully, seems to have gotten used to her and laughs it off. She counters with even worse insults and, for a fleeting second, wonders why he never gets angry. Then she remembers days he was and she is glad they are over.

It's a strange relationship they share.

Minato visits her whenever he has time, sits with her for a few minutes for tea or coffee until he has to leave again. He appears right out of nowhere when she walks down the halls of the Hokage's Tower. She cannot do so anymore without wondering where he is, behind which door he is bent over a table and a million important papers. Entering a room for a meeting, her eyes immediately search for him in the crowd of shinobi. She gets to the point in which she can make him out in seconds, as if his silhouette is burned into her memory and her heart. A room in which he is feels different: more alive, more… whole, somehow. She returns from long missions and has to stop herself from rushing to the main house in order to hand in her report – and, in the process, see him as she passes his office on her way to the mission office. He seems to have become a permanent fixture in her life.

"I am scared," she whispers one day. Kurenai's red eyes mirror pity. "I am loosing myself to a shadow, am I not? He's the future Fire Shadow."

The sun outside mocks her by standing so high there are barely any shadows visible.

"What happened?" Her friend asks.

Instead of answering her question, Kushina buries her face in her hands. Kurenai knows the answer.

"I thought you wanted him," she says carefully.

Kushina laughs out hopelessly. "I did! I still do. I want him so badly it feels like I'm bleeding out slowly. He's a stupid idiot and God help me, I love him more than anything, but how could I just for a moment believe that this was a good idea?"

"What do you mean?"

"He's the damn future Hokage, Kurenai! Everyone keeps telling me and only now I've finally registered. How can he even look at me, knowing that? How can he tell me he loves me when he knows what I am?"

Kurenai is very, very silent. "Kushina," she finally says. "You don't think he shouldn't love you because you're the kyuubi's vessel, do you?"

"That's exactly what I think."

Her friend gets up slowly. "So do you believe Anko and I shouldn't be your friends because you're the jinchuuriki of Konoha, either?" The coldness in her eyes and voice make Kushina fall silent.

"Yes," she says finally. "I do believe me being the jinchuuriki isn't good for both of you. But you're my friends and I don't want to lose you, no matter how selfish the thought."

"Where's the difference to him?"

Kushina lowers her head in defeat. "I know it's not rational. Still, I'm terrified of the idea. Falling in love, having someone to come home to… It's too normal, and I don't do normal. As soon as I reach out for something I really wish for, it disappears."

Kurenai sinks down into her chair again, her face and voice soft. Something sparkles in her eyes. "Kushina, you're the strongest person I know. And you're telling me you're afraid of the future Hokage?"

Kushina laughs. The way Kurenai has phrased it, it does not sound irrational. It sounds plain stupid.

"There," Anko says as she slips into the free chair on their table. "I have no idea why Kushina should be afraid of that Namikaze guy but I agree the entire idea is hilarious. Have you ordered already?"

"Anko," Kurenai greets their friend with a glare. "You're two hours too late. Of course we already ordered. We have, in fact, already eaten."

"Hmpf", says the menu behind which Anko has disappeared. "Had some business with Ibiki-idiot."

"You played pranks on him again!" Kushina grins. "What did you do?"

"Hid his glasses. He's probably still searching."

"He'll exchange them for contact lenses one day and your fun will be over", Kurenai prophesies. "You'll see. Now place your order, otherwise Kushina and I are leaving…"

Anko orders Odango.

…

Interlude: Kushina dreams.

Minato can see it in the way her eyes move behind her lids, in the way her hands move over the sheets of the bed. He knows she sleeps restlessly, knows she has nightmare more often than not. He has stopped counting the nights in which he woke up to find her sitting on the edge of the window, staring off into the dark. It's not that she screams or talks or cries. She just stops moving when it gets really, really bad, becomes so still and rigid he wakes up because he senses something is wrong. Even her breathing seems to stop on those nights and it takes all he has not to panic. He holds her, instead, because she says when he does so she remembers it is only a dream. He holds her so tightly he is afraid he will hurt her even though he knows she is – damnit, the word again – strong. Kushina is strong in so many ways. She is a brilliant, amazing woman, astounding him with her wit and her tenacity and vulnerability again and again. At the same time he knows she hates the word. Hates to be called strong. He will forever believe she is, in the depth of her heart and despite all her fears and insecurities. But he knows she does not feel strong, does not feel like she can do everything. And he understands what it means to feel helpless.

Is it okay if I draw my strength from your weakness?

Because it is what he does.

He wants to protect her. Kushina is five years younger than him and still more than capable of taking care of herself. He has seen what she can do. It has scared him – and only strengthened his decision to be there for her. It hadn't been supposed to end up like this but somehow it has and he does not regret anything. His fascination goes back to the day he met her for the first time, propelled along by curiosity to see the strange girl with her strange, strange hair. He had then forgotten about her and met her again on a clearing at the border of Kumo. He has watched her more carefully but again had to take care of more pressing matters. Then he has fought next to her for a year and has taken home something he couldn't define. She irked him, the girl with her red hair and red chakra who called him names and ignored him like few others did, who seemed so hostile towards him and so kind towards others. He has watched her draw seals into thin air with only her fingers and has watched lines and colors swirl around her, float up her hands and twine around her arms like lovers. He has seen her raze an entire platoon of enemy shinobi and watched her empty eyes afterwards. He never saw her cry even once, not when he rescued her from her abductors, not when Hikari Futaba's mother spit at her, accusing her of having killed her son, not when she was being shunned and hated. He saw her smile only a few times but these times have dug their way into his memory in a fascinating way. He can recall those moments at any time: her smile when she told him she understood, her smile when he told her the mission planners had changed their minds and that she would be sent to Hundred Islands for the mission, her smile when he told her he didn't care what the people thought about the future Hokage falling in love with the jinchuuriki because it was what had happened and he wasn't planning on changing it.

The only thing that matters to him now is that she is here.

In his bed, actually, and she dreams but otherwise sleeps tightly. He knows it is an open display of her trust in him that she relaxes enough to let him see her asleep. He knows it won't ever be easy for the two of them. But he's willing to fight for what they have. He is willing to do anything to have her by his side.

Hopeless, Kakashi had said, this brat with insight sharper and clearer than many adults had. His student is right. Minato is hopelessly in love with Uzumaki Kushina, this woman that is a whispering well of secrets. (One secret he has already discovered is the fact that she only insults the people she really, really likes. Others, she treats with a cold indifference that awes him even now.) And from the way she looks at him he gets the feeling at least a fraction of his feelings are returned.

If not more.

Fourth Hokage, prodigy, brilliant shinobi, commander. Minato has been many things throughout his life. Looking at Kushina he just wants to be the man Minato who is allowed to love her.

Wants to be a man she can love.

…

Sunshine falls warm onto her face.

"The harvest in Kusagakure will be good, if their report is anything to go by," Minato's voice drifts through the warm early-summer air. "You should have seen the vegetables they sent us last year. They had the size of…"

"Of your Hokage's hat?" Kushina proposes. Minato chuckles.

"Something like that."

Kushina blinks into the sunshine.

"I'd like to see them."

"I'll bring some home next time we get some. Who, if not the Hokage, has the right to try the offers other countries send as thanks?"

…

"Are you alright, Kushina?"

Kushina wipes sweat and dust from her forehead and glares at Hidetsugu. "Stop asking me that!"

Naoki and Tasuku, who have been sparring on the other side of the field, come to join their two friends. Hidetsugu drops to the ground and spreads out his legs.

"Well, I thought…"

"Don't think, then." Kushina sits down, as well, and pulls out a bottle of water. The sparring is as exhausting and as elevating as always. The air smells like spring, fresh and alive. It is a perfect Sunday afternoon, the one day the four of them always meet, no matter the season or the weather.

"Somehow I can't help thinking…" Her voice drifts off.

"What?"

They all look at her. Three men – her best friends, her three boys, she realizes with a jolt – who have grown so much since she has gotten to know them. So much time has passed since they fought together, side by side, for the first time, so much time has passed since she stopped seeing them as just three other tormentors but as her friends and sparring partners. As her team. They are adults now, grown up. They have drifted apart slowly and somehow managed to cling to each other even more despite the fact that they rarely see each other nowadays. The love for them is a part of her, runs so deep she cannot say where she starts and they end. In the same way Minato has become a part of her, they have, and they have an even older claim on her than he. And she loves them so much it almost hurts.

"This is the way it is supposed to be, I guess." She says. Tasuku takes her hand lightly and squeezes it, and Hidetsugu and Naoki just smile. Well, in Hidetsugu's case it is rather a grin.

"By the way," she tells them happily, "It will rain soon."

They groan.

…

"Did you…"

"No, I didn't, but I will soon. Would you two please stop pressuring me?"

Anko grabs the last stick of odango on the plate and polishes it off in record time while Kurenai sighs and grins.

"We don't do pressure, Kushina, you know that."

"Ha!" Kushina snorts and takes a sip of her juice. "Talking about absolutely no pressure, Kurenai, how is it going with Asuma?"

Kurenai actually blushes, which is a nice albeit startling contrast to her porcelain skin. "I'm not…"

"Course you're not, love, everyone can see you never look at him," Anko interrupts. She is the cynical one of them, ever since the snake left her to die in the gutters of Konoha. "And what was that I heard from my sources that the two of you were seen on the training grounds last Thursday – definitely not sparring?"

"Or perhaps they were trying a new sparring type," Kushina offers, her face entirely serious. Only her eyes betray her mirth.

"Oh, stop it, the two of you!" Kurenai swats them like they are annoying insects. "Kushina, you don't have any right to say something, you and Minato are disgustingly in love, even after two years of courtship and – what was it? Five years of relationship…"

"We keep it private, at least!"

…

Kushina is not sure whether she should be happy or terrified.

On most days of that special summer, she oscillates between both, living through phases of extreme happiness only to wake up sweating and terrified at the thought of what will happen. There is so much that could happen, so much to take care of. How can she be a good mother without ever having known her own for more than five years? How can she give her baby all her love if there always will be a part of her that might hurt him? How can she even look at her own child without fearing for his life, fearing it will have to carry the same burden that was placed on her shoulders one day?

Of course, there are rational answers for all her fears, but rationality does not matter much when she is confronted with one of the greatest wonders and fears in the world.

And no, she hasn't told Minato yet. Kushina is pregnant in her sixth month and it is getting increasingly difficult to hide it. Where Minato not so busy with training his team and leading the village, perhaps he would have noticed already. But then, her lover can be naïve, sometimes. It is one of the things she loves so much in him.

Time has passed in a blur. Even the last War that came so unexpected and ended so quickly and with such great losses seems like a fleeting affair, now that she looks back on it. As usual, sadness threatens to overwhelm her. Obito. And so many more. A younger Kushina would have lingered on the fact that she had fought again, killed yet again, longer. As it is, Kushina finds herself at a loss. The news of her pregnancy had her thrown off-balance heavily.

Does she want her baby to be born into a world like this?

The simple answer is yes. She wants this child. She wants it to grow and to learn, to live in a world that can be so cruel and so beautiful at the same time. She wants Hidetsugu, Naoki, Tasuku, Kurenai and Anko to come and visit her, get to know her baby and protect it together with her and Minato. She wants Minato's teacher, the perverted Sannin who isn't half as stupid as everyone takes him for, to be the godfather of her baby, no matter whether daughter or son. She wants Tsunade-Hime to hold it and to teach it because the woman knows the true sense of strength, even if she pretends she does not. She wants to show her baby the world, the village she loves so much, the people that are so important to her.

She wants it to live.

"Minato, you're an idiot," she tells him in the morning.

"Why? What have I done now?" He turns on the threshold of the door he had just wanted to walk through, comes back and puts his arms around her. Kushina leans her head against her shoulder. His shirt smells like aftershave and peppermint. It's a smell she has come to associate with Minato, the best smell in the world.

"You can't tell me you really haven't noticed anything."

"Well." His grin is evident in his voice as his lips ghost over her hair. "I must confess I'm a bit offended that the whole village seemed to know before I officially knew anything. But I wanted you to tell me when you're ready."

"I'm not." She takes a deep breath. "But it does not matter."

He kisses her and Kushina melts into his embrace, feels his lips on hers, his arms around her and his hands on her spine.

With him, she can do anything.

…

Kushina dreams of the future.

She sees a boy with a shock of blonde hair, eyes as blue as the sea and with the will of the fire run through the village that became her home at some point of her story. She sees him sneak out of the classroom during school hours, sees him cry alone in the darkness, sees him struggle to hold up with his new team mates. She sees him fall in love for the first time, sees him fight and lose and win. Kushina sees the boy journey out into the world and gain new friends, meet old friends and learn and teach. She sees the dark-haired boy and the weak-strong girl and Kakashi-kun, softer and harder than before and yet at peace. She sees the boy receive his chuunin grade and pass his jounin exam. She sees him fall in love, being hurt and being happy, lonely and together. He grows stronger with every passing day, gains strength with every challenge he overcomes. He learns to lose and learns to fight, learns to see into the hearts of other people and to realize what it is that makes them suffer. And with each passing day he grows until he is even taller than Kushina.

With tears in her eyes, Kushina watches as the boy makes peace with the kyuubi and unites all jinchuuriki to fight Kabuto. She watches as he is hailed as the savior of the village that has become a home to both of them. She watches as he is named the successor of the Fifth, as he marries, as he leads his village and plays with his children and returns home to his wife. His smile is wide enough to encompass the world, his love strong enough to break down every obstacle in his way. He is a good father, a good man and a good Fire Shadow. In generations to come, when she will be long forgotten, people will sing songs about him and tell tales. And that, Kushina thinks, is everything she could ever wish for.

Kushina dreams of her son, her wonderful, amazing son, and she is so proud she wants to cry.

…

There are worse ways to die, she thinks. And then: Minato is here. It would be perfect if he didn't need to die, as well, but some things can't be helped. At least he's here and they will do what is necessary to contain the kyuubi, and while she feels the pain of never seeing her child grow up she tries to console herself that she will have done everything she can for him.

How ironic, the thought passes her. She, who is one of the last descendants of Whirlpool, will never live up to the long life-span she could have had. But that, too, does not matter. Voices are calling her. I'm sorry, she sends into the void. I won't be able to see you soon, Mother, Father. Mito-Sama. Just some time more. Some years, until Naruto does not need me anymore.

There are worse ways to die, she thinks. And then: I love you. And she means Minato and Naruto, and perhaps also the friends she leaves behind in Hidden Leaf. Her team mates. Her best friends. Her mentors and her lover's mentors. Even the stiff, cold Council Elders (except for that prick Danzo) she can almost remember fondly. Because this is where it ends. Under the endlessly blue sky, a sky as blue as Minato's eyes, she feels safe. Minato is behind her and her son is in her arms. Konoha will be safe for a little while longer, she hopes.

Uzumaki Kushina, heiress to Uzushiogakure, last Sealer of Whirlpool, jinchuuriki to Hidden Leaf, Mother to Uzumaki Naruto who will be the future savior of the village and Sixth Fire Shadow in the line of succession, closes her eyes.

…

"My Shadow Flame," Minato says.

"Why do you call me that?" She asked him once. He never answered so she asks him again, now. He wraps his arms around her even tighter and she feels safe, secure in his arms, the ghost of his breath in her hair.

"Because there cannot be a fire shadow without a shadow flame," he answers.

"Hmmm." She can feel him smile and smiles, too. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"That I love you."

end