This is technically a prequel to my other story, The Uzumaki Chronicles, but you don't need to read that to understand this. Also I've published this at AO3 quite a while ago (I forgot to cross-post it here, sorry!)

Some things in Kushina's story in the anime pissed me off and so this was born.

(It was supposed to be two thousand words tops! *sobs* I hate when projects like this get away from me. And it's so choppy and non-linear and confusing timeline-wise and *bursts into tears again* I've edited it as much as I can stomach, so please say something if you see a mistake or if it's too confusing or whatever.)

(Anger and grief make you do things out-of-character. Just. Putting this out here, as a warning of sorts.)

The title is from Petya Dubarova's poem 'Me and the Sea'. As far as I am aware, it has not been translated in English, but her poems are amazing and you should totally check the translated ones out.

Uzumaki Kushina is born amidst white stone, golden skies and azure water, and the chatter of her family and the sighs of the sea are her lullaby.

Kushina is the future Clan Head; she's born as one and raised as one and it flows in her blood even if they want to suffocate it and tell her she's better off following someone who doesn't share even a drop of blood with her, who was the reason Uzushio isn't standing tall and proud anymore.

Kushina's raised on white marble and golden sand; she wakes up with the cry of seagulls and falls asleep with the song of the sea echoing in her ears. She's grown up in a place where there is no such thing as silence because everything is alive and breathing and living and singing in a harmony no mortal can ever hope to replicate. So it's more than jarring when she's faced with the hush that's so ingrained in Konoha for the first time.

What does the quiet rustling of tree leaves, rare as it is, have on waves crashing in hard rock and soft sand? What do the shrill, toneless cries of hawks have on the melodious songs of the seals that come to the north beaches to rest during their long journeys?

Kushina hurts and yearns for a home that no longer exists, for a song that she will never again hear. But she'll be okay – one way or another, no matter how long it takes.

She won't let them take anything else away from her.

There is no Clan for her to be a Head of, no Village for her to look after. She can't even see the other Uzumaki survivors, because she's taken – no, blackmailed – to be the Jinchuuriki of the Nine Tails, because Mito-sama is getting weaker.

She's grown up on tales of the Sage of the Six Paths and his creations, has sung the songs of the Nine since she's been able to talk, and still. And still, she hates the Kyuubi. She hates the Kyuubi before the Konoha ninja – Hokage, and how stupid the way everyone looks at him with reverence is, has he never walked down a street of his village? Has he never stopped to play with the orphans or have tea with the elderly? Why do they worship him, like he's some kind of untouchable god when he's only human, just like them? Why do they not see him as protector, as family, as one of them, rather than this almost divine figure that can be only viewed from a distance? – has even finished speaking.

The two Uzumaki posing as her guardians clench their teeth and growl and say 'no'. The Hokage doesn't budge, tries to lure them in with a village and company, as if they won't be always alone inside the clay walls, always outsiders.

In the end he says, 'we can search for someone else,' and Kushina, filled with terror because what if they find the others, we'll be wiped out, blurts out without thinking, "There isn't anybody else."

The Hokage looks at her with pity, but Kushina doesn't bother to hide her poisonous glare, doesn't back out, clenching her jaw to stop the tears from showing. She doesn't want to – of course she doesn't. But Uzumaki people are the only ones capable of carrying the burden of the Nine Tails, and as much as she wants to shove this burden onto somebody else, she can't. She's not stupid – she knows Konoha will tear the world apart to find another Uzumaki to hold their bijuu, even if she says she's the last.

So she says yes. And seals her fate.

"I'll become Hokage," she thinks, watching the man walk away, and there is not a hint of regret in his posture even as (to his knowledge) he's stealing someone's daughter away. "I'll become Hokage and change things and no one will have to suffer like Uzushio ever, ever again."

Kushina sits on her bed, combing through her long hair, and in the crooked window it looks like someone's poured blood on one half of her. Kushina's eyes linger on that image, and it's so easy to pretend the lock of hair in her hand is another stain from an enemy shinobi it's laughable.

Red like the blood of those who think us easy prey, she remembers, and the way the Hokage wants her to be a quiet, obedient Leaf is so ridiculous when she has already bled and killed for another Village.

(Kushina remembers the signs that were there even when she had only begun to learn how to write; her sisters and their whispers, their sadness, their hate, how so many of their neighbors left and never returned, how one day Sakuya-nee-chan and the others sat her down and explained to her about the war their sister Village Konoha started. Four-years old Kushina had frowned then, and asked, 'Why do we fight for a sibling that does not care about us?' Kumari-nee-chan had laughed then, a very ugly and a very sad laugh, and replied, 'Because we do not want to believe she doesn't.')

The man who destroyed her country wants her to kill and die for his sake. Kushina stabs her brush into the windowsill and it sinks in more than three fingers deep. The expression the traitor had been wearing the whole time was full of regret, and it makes the dark parts of her heart shiver with satisfaction.

"That's right, Sarutobi Hiruzen," and her grin is ugly and bloodthirsty and her eyes are overflowing with tears for her country, her Village, her family, hershershers and it was taken away because of fear and she will make sure that fear stay in their hearts forever, "I'll become your puppet. And you suffer, live with the memory of what you did until the day you die and then beyond!"

Because if there is one thing Uzumaki are famous for, it's their temper. It's also the thing they are underestimated for. But it's still the thing they are feared for.

And with their numbers so small, Kushina won't be anything but the perfect Uzumaki.

Konoha calls what happened to Uzushio a tragedy, but Kushina hears the echoing of 'mistake' behind that word as the destruction of her village is swept under the rug alongside all other dirty little secrets (mistakes) Konoha is too perfect to have.

It is not talked about much – too recent of a wound to poke at, an Academy Teacher placatingly tells her when she asks him why no one else in her class knows (not that she'd like to be questioned, certainly not, but it is strange that there are no whispers, no prodding. Children are curious little things that don't care who they hurt or how much, as long as they get what they want.)

Too recent of a wound to poke at, and too gruesome to show children – or tell them about it, even, or that's what the Academy Teacher says.

At least, Kushina thinks that's what he says. She can't hear him very well over the blood pounding in her ears.

Weak, her mind hisses as he shrinks under her murderous glare.

Coward, she thinks as she watches him bumble around and then walk away, obviously uncomfortable with looking a mistake in the face for so long.

Traitor, is the only word she can think of when her eyes catch the red spiral on the back of the man's flak jacket.

Is this what her village burnt to the ground for, what her family bled and died for? To be called a tragedy that no one has the will to remember? To be forgotten without a second thought like they've never existed?

(She's asked her classmates – no one knows what the spiral on the flak jackets stands for. Maybe they were going to learn about it later, but–

Kushina knows, in her gut and in her heart and in her bones, that they aren't going to, not anymore.)

Konoha calls the destruction of Uzushio a tragedy and a mistake they should learn from and never let be repeated; pretty, flowery words coated in shiny promises and glittery reassurances that mean nothing.

Kushina calls the death of her home a slaughter.

(The first thing any child born on Uzushio land and sea is taught is how not to blow themselves (and, consequently, everyone else in the vicinity) up to high heavens.

It's fairly easy to reverse that process, if you have the kind of knack for Fuuinjutsu those with Uzushio blood have, and the guts to do it.

…

Is it really any surprise that whoever survived storming the Devils' Village never fully recovered?)

The children in her class don't care where she's come from, don't believe her when she says she has a Clan (never had, never, because the Uzumaki will not fall the way Uzushio did). The teachers (the Hokage) don't care she was already getting ready for the Chuunin Exam when they were attacked.

("We do it a different way here, in Konoha," they say, but all Kushina hears is plans for her to become more obedient, more familiar to them – more Leaf. She hates them all, hates them all with such a burning passion she'd gladly set the Kyuubi on them the moment she gets it if she wasn't the last Heir, the last of the Main Uzumaki Line, the last Future Clan Head (but she's not even that anymore, because the moment she graduates she'll be property of Konohagakure, and a Clan Head can't be property of anything but the Clan they lead.)

Kushina has cried herself to sleep so many times since she got here she's sure she's cried less when she was a baby still.

But no matter how much she cries, the tears don't stop, the nightmare doesn't end, and the future slavery she will be subjected to doesn't cease to loom just a little bit further in her vision.)

Kushina hates it here – the classes are too big, there is no room for individuality, no room for special teaching techniques. Here, ninja are mass-produced, bland and tasteless. If you don't fit the norm, you get made fun of, and sometimes beaten, if you're unlucky enough.

The people in Konoha are as dense as the forests they live in and it's grating on her nerves. Can they not stop and think, if only for a moment? Why does all have to be so linear and precisely cut?

(Maybe it's the lack of fresh air, Kushina thinks. They don't have any good storms here and the wind is weakwilled.)

But the gravest mistake they make is what nearly makes her murder all of them.

Because of all the things in her to make fun of, they pick her hair.

"Tomato, tomato, red hair and round face, like a to-ma-to!" rings in her head, and she remembers Aunt Kazue's face shape, just like hers is now. Remembers how she went down with a battle roar, making those fucking Iwa and Kirin nin scream in terror for thinking they'd come here and lay waste to their home. Remembers the Head Miko, winking at her and saying, 'red like the blood of those who think us easy prey'. Remembers doing her daily hair ritual with Manami, singing and laughing and dreaming about how long their hair will grow and how they'll be strong and take everyone else down.

(Manami, dear Manami, who lost her arm and whose hair won't grow back and who will never be able to play the shamisen again–)

...

The Teacher scolds her and punishes her, and the fool who dared insult her blood and her roots is still unable to stand, bruised like a stormy sunset. Everyone is trying to get as far away from her as possible. She's scary because she beat up someone. They don't want to be next.

(Kushina's eyes darken as she remembers, blood on her face and hands and the streets. Luckily, she doesn't need to clean her Adamantine Chains, as they are Chakra constructs.

Insulting an Heir's main Clan feature – really, they should all be glad he's not dead.)

...

(The next day, the blond pussy who wants to be Hokage

(who sat and watched as his classmates had cornered her and did nothing, just like Konoha did when Uzushio was attacked, and that makes Kushina's blood boil and her bloodlust spike)

sits next to her, while the whole class shrinks away and whispers. Kushina knows he's been watching her for some time, she can feel his eyes on her.

She doesn't say anything. His unflinching gaze on her helps her focus on her behavior – control has been hard, these past months, when there are no waves and no seagull cries to help her stay grounded.)

(They don't talk, but every even day of the month, there is another wrapped amatou on the top of their deck, and every odd day there is a different-flavored dango stick waiting in the same place.)

Her nickname is not Tomato anymore; she's the famed Red Hot-Blooded Habanero and she's never lost a single fight. Few people want to mess with her, and those who do want to 'teach her a lesson'. She shows them why three Hidden Villages were so afraid of her people they decided to exterminate them.

In school, however, she moves at a normal pace. She is not bad, but she's not so good people talk about her skill. She's… mediocre, and as much as it hurts her pride to stay that way (the Uzumaki Clan Head is the strongest and the smartest and the best, because Uzushio will not be satisfied by anything other than that) she will not give anybody an advantage, will not share the way Uzushio did things.

So she does it the Konoha way when Amaterasu-ōmikami blesses the ground, and dances to the sound of waves that she can't hear when Tsukuyomi-no-mikoto watches over her.

She's so, so scared, that the descendants of Ōtsutsuki Indra will see and steal what is not theirs and use it for their own gains. So she practices only in those gigantic rooms of the house they've given her (empty, empty and dark, and only ghosts would dare to live there. Kushina isn't surprised she fits in so well) and hides all of her Uzushio except for her reflexes and her way of speaking.

There is another boy challenging her. 'Three after the noon, at the Sakura Trees path' is scribbled on the note left on her desk. Oh, it might sound like a love confession, and it might as well have been, if it were anybody other than Kushina.

She goes, and does not bring her weapons with her. One, Academy students are forbidden to carry around those or practice with them after school hours (but she was almost-Chuunin in Uzushio; she's used enough to kunai and shuriken and small paper bombs to feel exposed when they're not on her person. Still, she bears with it, just like she bears with everything else). Two, she knows how to use them, better than all the Academy Instructors (and they're as weak and bland as they come), and better yet, she has used them.

She's already likely enough to slip up and kill one of the trash using just her bare hands; there is no need to needlessly increase that chance.

So she goes, unarmed but armed to the teeth at the same time (no one knows about her Clan, no one knows about their Special Techniques; this is the advantage Kushina has been cultivating since she'd stepped foot in this place) to face yet another stupid, hollow log of a scum.

The boy grins wickedly, expression promising pain, and an older relative with a Konoha headband around his forehead comes up from behind him.

Coward, Kushina seethes, and wants to grind the trash's bones to powder so fine his useless blobfish of a mother would use it as a cosmetic tool. (It won't help her much.)

But she persists, even when the Genin clearly doesn't want to hear that his younger brother is in the wrong. He's come for justice and he will have it, even if it's blatantly false.

He throws a kunai at her (his aim is shit) and for a moment she's back in Uzushio and everything around her is burning, the stench of blood is suffocating and she has to kill yet another of the endless enemies crawling through her hometown.

Kushina comes to herself after seconds, but it's too late – she's already kicked him hard enough to fracture a rib.

She tries to collect herself, and there's a log in the place of the broken body she expects; there's only half a second of relief and then the Konoha hits her and kicks her down and grabs her for her hair.

"Whoa, it's so red!" he sneers and Kushina is berating herself because you either get good enough to fight with long hair or you cut it, and really, there is no way out of this situation. No one will help her and she refuses to go down without a fight.

He pulls on her hair, the sacred hair Uzumaki Clan has been proud of for generations, the hair that's the only remaining connection she has to her home (her Uzushio hitai-ate is either destroyed or buried beneath the rubble of her Village, she cannot visit any Uzumaki for fear of revealing their existence, she's not allowed to celebrate the holidays everyone back on the island participated in) and she snaps. Tears roll down her cheeks, and she ignores the horrified glance her classmate shoots her.

"I hate–" this Village, these people, the Kyuubi, the Hokage, those who dare not care about what the colour red and the spirals actually mean, that dark and cold and empty mansion you stuck me in, the way everyone avoids me and makes fun of me "–this hair of mine, I hate it too!"

It hurts, to have hair pulled out so roughly, but she persists, because this is what it's come down to: the Spiral laid its life bare and the Leaf stomps over it and then laughs. But she won't let them, not now and not ever, to have the upper hand, to drive her family into the ground and bury them and then forget; she will parade on the streets, with this hair, with that symbol on her back, and stick it in their faces, the 'mistake' they want to forget so dearly.

She punches and kicks and bruises, the screams and the groans of the Genin and of the terrified squeak the younger brother lets out before running away echoing around.

"But even an ugly hair like this–" even an ugly hate like this "–it's a part of me, so there's no helping it, is there?!" Her punches are light and her heart is heavy and she grieves, not only because of the loss but also because she can't move forward, can't accept the sacrifice her family has made for this garbage village and she wants to destroy it with her own two hands, if only to numb the pain she feels just a little bit more.

"It's the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero!" and the scream is the same as the ones at home, only this time it's from a Konoha ninja's mouth that it comes out and not a Kiri or an Iwa or a Kumo.

Satisfaction pools in her gut and Kushina feels dirty. She stumbles back from the boy she's been beating, and he crawls away, trembling.

"O-Outsider!" he yells, throwing the blood-red strands of her hair he's still clutching in his hand at her.

Outsider, and it hurts, despite everything, because she doesn't want to hate Konoha, doesn't want to hate the Hokage, doesn't want to hate the son of the Sage of Six Paths or his descendants. She doesn't want to be alone for the rest of her life, with only the Nine-Tails as her company.

But she can't let go of her Village, of her birthright, not now and maybe not ever, and the Hokage hiding everything from everyone ensures someday it'll blow up worse than a novice sealing practitioner's first seal.

The Genin screams, as he runs away, "As if an outsider can become Hokage!" As if an outsider can become so beloved to the Village they'll choose them to lead.

As if an outsider can become so beloved to the Village.

As if an outsider can become so beloved–

As if an outsider can be loved–

There are eyes on her.

Kushina spins around and comes face to face with the Namikaze wuss. He's standing on a Sakura Tree branch, looking (he saw everything, and just as always, he's just watching) so at home Kushina wonders if that's what she looked like when she trained on the bays surrounding her home.

Her heart hurts even more, and she can feel her eyes fill with tears again.

(Stupid Konoha cowards, only watching and never helping, this is why I–)

"So you won't help, just because I'm an outsider?!" Is this why so few of us are left? Because you didn't want yours to bleed for someone other than Konoha?

Namikaze looks stricken. "I–"

"You think so too, don't you?!" Kushina doesn't want to hear him explain, doesn't want her thoughts to be confirmed, because as much as she's loath to admit it, these few months she's formed a somewhat comfortable companionship with him, even if he only just watches and does nothing.

All for naught, it seems.

She runs away, tears falling, and she feels like she's just lost something very, very precious to her.

'I don't want to be an outsider.

I want this to be home.'

(The next day, Namikaze sits next to her again. There is no amatou package in sight.

Kushina feels cold.)

They meet while walking home from yet another bland day at the Konoha Academy. Kushina is determined to ignore everyone and everything, just like any other day, but then she hears someone running after her and she tenses, readying herself for battle. The street is deserted. She doesn't stop walking.

"The spirals on the flak jackets are there to symbolize the friendship and sisterhood between Konohagakure and Uzushiogakure," a voice calls after her, and that voice – that's Namikaze. It's weird, having him talk to her.

Then Kushina registers what he actually says, and freezes in place. She doesn't know why she turns to face him, but she does and is immediately aware of the weight his stare holds.

They stay like this, staring at each other for what feels like centuries, before Kushina moves and walks away slowly.

"Uzumaki-san," and dear Amaterasu, why does the sound of his voice have the ridiculous ability of making her stop and listen? She'd much rather just pummel him into the ground and be done with this.

"What?" she snaps at him, turning to look at him again. The blond visibly steels himself before saying, in the most honest tone she's ever heard,

"I hope your Village grows to be once again as strong and prosperous as it was in the past."

This time, Kushina swears, on her seven sisters' funeral pyres she swears, that her heart stops working alongside her brain and… everything else, actually. Her mouth is hanging open and her eyes are wide and, really, how does she answer that?

She thinks about it for a few moments, trying to find the correct words. Then she stands up straighter and looks Namikaze in the eyes, even if it makes shivers crawl up her spine.

"We'll be better," she promises, swears, and it's a deal they won't even realize they've struck until a lot later.

Namikaze smiles at her and they stay there, in the middle of the road, staring at each other until the first person appears and throws them a weird look.

That night, Kushina sleeps a little easier.

(When Kushina gains consciousness, three days have passed since the Fall of Uzushio. Her best friend is sitting next to her futon, dark blue hair in disarray.

Kushina's mouth has already formed the beginnings of a greeting when her eyes finally focus and she snaps it shut, choking off a scream and a sob. All that's left from Manami's right arm is half her upper arm, and the leftmost side of her head is wrapped, bandages soaked with herbs for burns that are much too strong for Kushina's sensitive nose.

Manami lifts her eyes and jumps on her the moment she realizes the other is awake. Her shoulders are shaking and her breath is uneven, but there are no tears in her eyes. Manami's shamisen sits against one of the bleak bunker walls, singed and lonely.

Kushina, buckling under the stress of an incoming invasion with no way out for weeks, finally crumbles and cries, for her best friend who will never be able to do what she loves most again, for the seven older sisters she has lost, for the neighbors' kids that imitated the singing seals, for the grandchildren Suzuki-obaa-sama waited for with such impatience, for the home they have lost because of other people's fear.

She can only hope those they died for pay their debt back fully.)

As much as she postpones this, Kushina knows graduating is inevitable. Getting branded with Konoha's mark is inevitable. So she graduates, gets sorted on a team, and trains with them, goes on missions with them. But they're not family, they're not what her Genin team was in Uzushio; they're just colleagues here, not siblings, and their Sensei doesn't seem too keen on changing that.

Kushina departs each day from a cold, empty house and meets her cold, empty teammates before she goes back to a cold, empty house. Each day is repetitive and everything's so cold she can't feel anything anymore. She hasn't seen Namikaze in months. She misses his amatou sweets.

(She misses his warmth.)

The ninja attack her in her house, and she's so surprised she retaliates far too late, when they're too close. She's spent so long burying everything under a hair-trigger temper and pretend-mediocrity that even the glimpse of a Kumo headband can't get her going. She's out of hate, because she can scarcely remember what it's like to have someone precious, and she knows she's going to die because no one will come for her but she doesn't mind that much.

Still, she leaves clues, just in case – her hair is bright enough to be seen clearly even in only Tsukuyomi-no-mikoto's glow. Strands of it litter their path, and she's careful enough that no one notices. She feels awful and weak and nauseous, and she's sure it's because of the half-assed seal they've slapped carelessly on her.

An Uzumaki taken out because of a faulty seal – that's irony like nothing else before. Still, it's not long before Kushina feels absolutely seeped out of energy. They're so close to the border of Hi no Kuni she's lost all hope, but she can't stop because she's on autopilot and knows that if she does so now she'll collapse.

There's a dull thump behind her, then one more on her right side and then a swish from a Shunshin. Kushina's sure she's hearing things. A kunai clanks to the ground, there's a grunt of pain, but she doesn't stop walking. Can't stop, because if she does, she'll faint and then she knows she'll die.

"Are you hurt?" It's a voice she knows well, and really, the Genjutsu work is impressive. If she didn't know it was impossible for Namikaze to be here–

Her thoughts screech to a halt, and she rewinds the last thirty seconds, but it doesn't make any sense.

He can't be here.

Can he?

Kushina looks up, vision blurry from exhaustion, and mercifully Tsukuyomi-sama shines brightly so she's able to recognize the boy standing in front her, bodies strewn on the ground around him.

"I came to rescue you," he says, and it surely must be the fatigue taking a hold of her, because she not only believes his words, she actually stops and relaxes.

Her legs give out the moment she does that, and Kushina's resigned to face-planting in the dirt when he catches her, making sure to hold her head and neck as they're bobbing dangerously, but still maintaining some kind of a respectful distance.

"It's okay now," he reassures her with a soft smile and picks her up like she weights nothing, like he hasn't just run the distance between Konoha and wherever-the-fuck-this-is, and even in her state, Kushina is… impressed. (And perplexed. Very, very perplexed.)

"W-Wai–" she's about to tell him he's got to take it easy, to rest a bit before going back to Konoha, because the way back is surely going to be even more tiring with her as baggage. But then he chakra-jumps fifteen meters up like it's nothing, and the words shrivel and die in her throat.

Namikaze is a downright monster, Tsukuyomi-no-mikoto be her witness.

Then Kushina notices the strands of red in his hand, noticeable even when it's this dark.

"That's…" …what you used to find me with? That trail actually worked?

"It's very beautiful hair, so I noticed it straight away."

Namikaze doesn't look at her when he says this. Kushina can only imagine how much he'd searched for a lead to her whereabouts if he really found her hair. He'd have to literally have turned every stone and grass blade to find that. Or crawled on the ground.

It's an uncomfortable conclusion to be reached; Kushina looks away.

"You never help me." Her tone is bitter and sullen and a tad bit confused. All things point to one direction, but he's too contradictory to figure out.

Stupid geniuses, she huffs and her shoulders tense and climb up in exasperation.

"Well, that's because I know you're strong, both in power and spirit." The reply is soft and gentle and – yes, there is no mistaking this, is there?

She cannot say she's exactly surprised.

"But," Namikaze continues, expression serious and brows furrowed, "this is a matter between Villages, completely different from all your other fights. That's why…"

"That's why?" she prods, already suspecting what he'll say. He did not watch because he enjoyed her getting into fights; he was always there so that if something went wrong, he'd be able to intervene.

"I didn't want to lose you." He looks her in the eyes as he says this, and Kushina's glad for his honesty.

"Even though I'm an outsider?" she still asks, and her voice comes out tiny and scared even though she tried not to let it, because she needs to know.

Even though I hate Konoha?

"Why?" Namikaze's question is so surprised Kushina thinks for a moment he's read her mind and heard what she'd actually thought, and cold terror replaces the blood in her pounding heart. "You're living in Konoha, that makes you one of us."

That's not quite how it works, she thinks, but doesn't say anything. He's quick to give loyalty even to people who don't deserve it, she knows. She's always thought that'd make him a disastrous Hokage. Now she thinks she's seeing that part of him that's capable enough to retaliate when that loyalty is used, and it's a sight to behold indeed.

She might never be a Hokage, maybe because she's an outsider or maybe because she'll never stop hating this Village, but Kushina's suddenly a lot less worried about what'll happen in the future.

Namikaze's smile as he runs back towards his home is radiant, and Kushina promises herself to teach him a few things about Fuuinjutsu, just a few, as a thanks. There was this Thunder God thing the Nidaime had used, no? Namikaze is ridiculously fast already; maybe that'd also be useful…