Chapter One
Minato cursed as he tried to alter the seal correctly, he could see the Kyuubi's chakra becoming unstable. Bijuu weren't meant to be sealed inside people, so even if the Kyuubi didn't want to kill Kushina, it's very nature was causing it to be pulled out of the seal. The only way this wouldn't happen was if Kushina was on friendly enough terms with the Kyuubi to use all its power.
Kushina lay on her back in the cave, dressed in a hospital gown that left her stomach exposed for the seal to be seen. "Urgh! God-dammit Minato! What's happening!" She screamed, the red chakra violently stretching her pathways in its attempt to get out.
"Kuso! The Chakra isn't responding! I've fixed the seal but the chakra just ate it away before I could reapply it!" He shouted. "Is there no way for you to pull it back in?! At this rate it will explode and wipe out Konoha!" He tried asking.
"I'll try!" Kushina felt through her chakra coils, trying to find some way to grasp the chakra, but despair filled her as every time she tried the chakra either slipped away from her own or corrupted it and added it to the unstable mix. "Dammit! I'm sorry Minato! Nothing's working!" She shouted.
Minato pulled his hands away, aware of the fact that he wasn't doing anything to help anyway. He watched the chakra bubbling on Kushina's stomach, along with Kushina herself writhing on the floor in pain. Looking outside the mouth of the cave, he saw Konoha in the distance, the happy citizens within its walls completely unaware of the impending danger.
'No. I can't let Konoha fall.' He thought resolutely. Looking back at Kushina, he spoke again.
"Kushina." Kushina looked at him with a strained expression, and he took the message to get on with it. "I know how to fix the seal." He said quietly.
Kushina grunted at a sudden spike in the chakra. "W-well fix it t-then baka!" She exclaimed, her voice strained as she arched her back in pain.
Minato shook his head. 'I can't tell her the way I fell after all. I'm such a coward.' He sighed. "Very well." He said resolutely, standing tall and starting handseals as Kushina watched.
Snake → Boar → Ram → Rabbit → Dog → Rat → Bird → Horse → Snake
Kushina widened her eyes at the sequence, recognizing it from her studies on fuinjutsu. "No wait Minato-!"
"SHIKI FUJIN!" Minato intoned, slamming his hand on the ground similarly to how a summoning Jutsu would take place.
They both watched as the surrounding area for what seemed to be miles ceased to contain any sound whatsoever. The crows stopped cawing, the owls stopped hooting, the crickets stopped beating their wings, the very world itself seemed to loose all color and sense of life and hope.
Minato suddenly coughed out blood and lurched forward. Kushina couldn't even move to help him when a figure seemed to rise from his shadow. With sickly purple skin, a flowing white robe and a demonic face with black teeth and red horns, Kushina whispered it's name.
"Shinigami..." She uttered.
The grinning figure seemed to grunt as it clenched its clawed fists, producing gross popping sounds as if the hands and joints hadn't been used in thousands of years. "MMmm... It's been over a millennia since i was summoned in a corporeal form." It spoke, the the voice itself making Kushina feel as if the Kyuubi was aiming a fully powered Bijuudama at her from point blank range.
Minato slowly stood, turning to face the Shinigami and immediately kneeling in reverence. The Shinigami took no notice of this, seemingly still taking stock of its body. "The last time I was here was when that foolish child sealed Gaia's power inside himself and his brother. Stupid brat... Oh?" He said, just now noticing Minato kneeling before him. "What's this? Are you the one who summoned me mortal?" It/he asked.
Shivering at the being addressing him directly, Minato nodded, still kneeling. "Yes, Shinigami-sama. I am." He said.
The Shinigami seemed to raise an eyebrow, but stayed silent for a moment. When Minato didn't say anything, expecting to be told something, the Shinigami spoke again. "Well, mortal? Are you going to get on with the reason you summoned me or are you going to carry on allowing recently dead souls to be obliterated because I'm not there to guide them into the afterlife." It asked not sounding angry, just like it wanted to know for interests sake, as if it didn't care that thousands of souls would be erased because it wasn't there to guide them.
Minato widened his eyes in horror at the question. 'So... that's why it's forbidden. Not because it takes the life of the user, but because thousands of souls suffer from the Shinigami's absence. I better hurry.'
"My apologies Shinigami-sama. The Kyuubi no Kitsune was sealed in my friend here, but the seal weakened and now the chakra is growing unstable. I fear if it is not fixed that it will cause an explosion that will wipe out my village and a good portion of Fire Country." He said.
The Shinigami looked at the bubbling chakra on Kushina's seal. "Kyuubi no Kitsune? That feels like a piece of Gaia to me!" It said, seeming to frown. "So that's what the brat did. I never thought he would split Gaia's power. I wonder where its body is." He muttered. "Nevertheless. You have summoned me mortal, so I shall heed your wish. I assume you would like me to provide a seal that will contain the - what was it you called? Kyuubi no Kitsune? You know the consequences for you, yes? I will allow you to back out now if you change your mind." It said.
Minato nodded quickly eager to get this over-with. "Yes, Shinigami-sama, I am aware."
The Shinigami stayed silent for a moment. "Very well." It said. "I will use the power of your soul to power this wish of yours." He said. Minato nodded, causing the Shinigami to silently thrust its hand into his chest, pulling out the wispy shape of his soul and swallowing it.
Looking to Kushina, it waved its hand. "Fuin." He said calmly. The bubbling chakra immediately calmed, being sucked in to the seal that formed on Kushina's abdomen.
Kushina opened her eyes and breathed in sharply, having lost consciousness just after Minato summoned the Shinigami. She sat up, frantically looking around.
Blinking when she felt no pain from the seal, her hand flew to her stomach, where she channeled chakra. She widened her eyes when instead of her four trigrams seal, she found a seal so complex that she couldn't even begin to recognize it.
"Mortal."
Kushina's gaze snapped to the Death God, eyes widening at the sight and knowing what it would mean. 'Please no, don't let him be...'
Looking down, her heart sank when she saw her friend's body laying upon the floor of the cave, his skin already a pale white. "I guess he really did it then." She muttered sadly.
"Indeed." The god intoned. "But I am not here to get sentimental with you mortal. There is something I must tell you about the seal." He said.
Kushina nodded and sat up against the cave wall, the best she could do at the moment. "Hai, Shinigami-sama." She said.
"The seal I gave you will undoubtedly work in containing the 'Kyuubi' as you call it. However, the coils of power running through your body seem to have been stretched immensely by it. Stretched to their limit, in fact." He said.
Kushina closed her eyes, sensing her chakra to confirm what the being said; and she did indeed feel that her chakra coils had expanded, unbelievably to almost four times their original size! Bearing in mind her already kage level reserves. 'Shit, my control is gonna go to hell.' She whined internally.
"Your coils are near empty from keeping back the Kyuubi at the moment, but they should fill up slowly as your coils solidify their stretched pathways. This will take around three months."
Kushina blinked. "Three months!? My chakra will take that long to refill?!" She blurted out in shock.
"Is that what you call it? But yes, and I wouldn't recommend using any 'Chakra' until that period is over. The next bit will also probably annoy you. If you continue to let the Kyuubi remain in your body after your reserves fill, it's own chakra will continuously inflate your coils and slowly kill you. This will take another 2 months after the initial 3 months." It said.
Kushina's mouth opened and closed several times in shock. "So I'm going to die no matter what?" She asked quietly.
"You say that like dying is a bad thing, mortal. But unfortunately yes, however if you conceive a child before then, the Yang half of the Kyuubi will be sealed within the infant and the Yin half will remain within you when you die. Since the child's coils won't have developed yet, the presence of the Yang chakra will allow the coils that are created within the infant to adapt to it." He explained.
"And how will that help me?" She asked. "I meant no disrespect by the question, Shinigami-sama." She said quickly, realizing she may have sounded rude.
"Of course." He sounded amused at her action. "It won't help you. It will give you a slightly longer life though, because the Yang half of the power is the part of 'chakra' that governs vitality, it is the very essence of Gaia that can breathe life into form. This is what would cause your coils to expand quicker. The yang part of the chakra would continuously assume that your coils were damaged when they weren't, and would attempt to heal them. Much like a muscle, they would tear and heal over and over until they became too much for your body and you exploded much like you were going to a few minutes ago."
Kushina nodded. "I see. So how long will I get to live for." She asked, hoping she could at least raise her child.
"Around six years." He said.
Kushina frowned, that wasn't nearly as long as she wanted to live for. She wasn't afraid of dying mind you - far from it. Every ninja at her level knows the threat of death looms over the lives of ninja and that they should be ready for death at any time. She just didn't want to leave her child alone. "So what do you think I should do, Shinigami-sama?" She asked.
"What do I think? It isn't my job to find a father for your child mortal." He said incredulously.
"Ehehe, sorry Shinigami-sama." Kushina chuckled sheepishly. They were conversing so intently that she forgot she was speaking to a God.
"However." He said, making Kushina look at him in surprise. "One of your doctors, 'Tsunade' I believe, is extraordinarily talented in the ways of healing and researching new medical procedures, yes?" He asked. Kushina nodded. "If you were to ask your friend Mikoto for help, she could provide you with a sample of blood. Bring that blood to Tsunade, and I will give her the knowledge to create a medical procedure that will allow a sperm sample to be created from it. I sense that she is the only one with the means to do so at the moment."
Kushina bowed her head in thanks. "Thank you Shinigami-sama. I am beyond grateful." She said, tears of happiness at being able to continue living in her eyes.
The god gave a tut and began to fade away. "I did not do it for you, mortal. I just happened to be bored after a millennia of no contact with the living world. This will allow me to observe it until you give birth."
[Timeskip, 3 and 1/2 months later]
Kushina waited with baited breath in the hospital, biting her nails and tapping her feet whilst sitting in the chair inside the waiting room.
She had been waiting for this day for three months, and every day that she had been made to wait for the results of the tests was killing her more than the Kyuubi was. She was glad that the procedure had gone through okay, according to Tsunade using the blood to create the sperm sample was easier than she thought it would be. 'I guess I have Shinigami-sama to thank for that.' She thought.
When she had gone to Mikoto to ask for help like the Shinigami told her to, she was surprised when Mikoto had been all too happy to help. She had tried to get a blood sample from Fugaku, but he had refused. Kushina worried that the Shinigami tricked her, when Mikoto reluctantly left and came back with a vial of blood from her recently deceased brother. Apparently they kept his blood because he had a particularly strong Sharingan.
Kushina told Mikoto that she owed her a huge favor, and Mikoto just said that in return she would have to help her child and Mikoto's soon to be born son become friends. Kushina agreed, only too happy to have her own child be friends with her own best friend's son. She just hoped she could do it before she died.
"Kushina Uzumaki?"
She heard her name called, and immediately shot into a standing position. "That's me!" She shouted, before chuckling sheepishly when the other people in the waiting room gave her disgruntled glares.
She walked up to the doctor, an average but intelligent looking woman in her early thirties. She had shoulder length black hair and green eyes with glasses. "Tsunade-sama is ready for you." She said. "I must say, I'm surprised at that you would want to have a child, usually Jounin in the village retire or go out of active service when they become pregnant or think of having a baby."
Kushina nodded. "I'll do that too, I just didn't want to take leave for nine months and then end up regretting it if the procedure fails." She explained, using the excuse she had thought up.
"Ah, I see. That is quite sensible of you." The doctor smiled.
They continued on walking in silence until they reached the door to an office that read 'Head Consultant'. This was Tsunade's office. She would have been the chief of medicine, but she had only come back to help with the procedure and would be leaving again afterwards, apart from the occasional visits to Kushina that she had promised.
*Knock Knock* "Tsunade-sama, Uzumaki-san is here." The assistant said.
The door quickly opened, surprising the assistant. Tsunade stood there in all her glory, smiling across at Kushina. Tsunade Senju was a famous Kage-level shinobi, known for her medical prowess and the fact that she was 'the most Beautiful Kunoichi' which isn't an inaccurate description. She had an amazing figure, with a toned stomach and a firm ass, along with the biggest gravity defying breasts on a slim woman that Kushina had ever seen. Her beautiful face also redefined the word Bishojou, and these combined factors made her the subject of fantasies of people all around the world.
"Kushina-chan!" The woman said with a bright smile, embracing Kushina tightly. Kushina smiled and hugged her back, always happy to see her sensei.
"Ohayo, Tsunade-sensei." She said.
Tsunade pulled back and pouted, bopping Kushina on the head. "Stop calling me that. A woman your age calling me sensei makes me feel ancient." She whined. Kushina just grinned cheekily, making the Senju heiress sigh. Looking to the side, she saw the assistant still standing there. She raised an eyebrow. "Uh, can I help you?" She asked, slightly annoyed at the nosy woman.
Said woman jumped when she was addressed. "G-gomenasai Tsunade-sama." She said, quickly hurrying away, making Tsunade shake her head.
"Shall we, Kushina-chan?" She said, walking back into the office and sitting at the desk. Kushina followed, sitting in one of the guest chairs. The office was quite sparse, containing the typical essentials for a doctor and not much else since Tsunade rarely visited. Tsunade opened a file, flicking through it until she found the right page. "Right, you ready for the results, Kushina-chan?" She asked seriously.
Kushina steeled herself, taking a deep breath. "Yes, Tsunade-sen..." She stopped at the glare she received. "Tsunade-chan." She said instead, holding her hands up in surrender. Tsunade's smile returned, as if nothing happened. 'Man, Tsunade-sensei is scary...' Kushina thought. She may have the Chakra reserves of four kage and may be an elite-jounin level ninja, but Kushina knew that Tsunade could and would easily beat the tar out of her if she got on her bad side.
"You... passed. You're pregnant." Tsunade said happily.
Kushina blinked, stayed silent for a moment, then the biggest grin Tsunade had ever seen sprouted on her face. "YES! I'M GOING TO BE A MOTHER DATTEBANNE!" She exclaimed, not even caring about her verbal tic. At first when she had been told by the Shinigami that she had to give birth she had been dreading it, but gradually, she had warmed up to the idea until it was the only thing she could think about for any long period of time. She even forgot the fact that she wouldn't actually live past her child's sixth birthday.
Tsunade just watched Kushina prance around the room doing a happy dance, feeling happy herself that her student was so excited. Slowly however, a tick began to form on her brow as Kushina carried on celebrating, and when it got to five straight continuous minutes of shouting, she stood and shouted. "Okay! I get that you're happy, but will you please stop shouting and sit down!"
Kushina eeped, immediately shooting back into her chair. Tsunade nodded, sighing out a sarcastic 'thank you'. Kushina noticed something new about her sensei however.
Her diamond forehead mark was missing.
"Gah! Sensei, where's your forehead seal?!" Kushina asked, never having seen her sensei without it.
Tsunade smirked in mock arrogance, flipping her her exaggeratedly. "What, that old thing? Pisha, I found a solution to that a long time ago." She said, even though in reality she had found it only a month ago. "I still have it, mind you. I just don't need to use it for my genjutsu anymore so it's only visible when in use." She said.
Kushina blinked. "What do you mean you don't need it anymore?" She asked in shock.
Tsunade lost the arrogant smirk and looked around the room, closing the curtains and activating a seal on her desk that caused a purple barrier to surround the room. "What you hear now will never leave this room. Am I understood?" She asked sharply.
Kushina nodded. "Of course."
"Good. The reason I don't need it anymore is because I found a solution to my aging problem. I wasn't even looking for it at the time, but when experimenting with the blood you gave me to try and produce a sperm sample from the genetic code, I found something amazing." She said, lifting her shirt slightly to expose her stomach, which Kushina saw had a very complicated seal on it.
Examining it closely, she saw that it was made of many little seals, even she found it extremely hard to decipher. "What does it do?" She asked. "I see the inscription for 'transfer' and 'infuse'. But that's it. It looks kind of like a larger version of your forehead seal, only more complicated." Kushina said.
Tsunade nodded and pulled her shirt back down. "When I was trying to find a way to make the sperm sample, I used my own blood first, and tried regressing the cells back as far as I could using medical ninjutsu just to see what would happen. It worked, in a way. The tissue making up the blood cells regressed into a stage earlier in life. When I injected that blood into myself again, as it flowed through my body it revitalized the parts of the body it went through because of the residual yin chakra."
Kushina stood up, realizing what this meant. "You mean to say that you found a treatment to make someone younger?!" She exclaimed.
Tsunade grimaced. "Not exactly no." She sighed. "The straightforward answer would be yes, I found a way to make myself younger. But, for the procedure to work, the person the treatment is used on has to have ungodly chakra control. I myself, had to create four new immensely difficult chakra control exercises that I will have to continue using every day for at least an hour a day for the seal to continue working." She said.
Kushina nodded gaped. Tsunade Senju is hailed as the strongest Kunoichi in the world, and her prowess in chakra control is well known to be impossible to match. Note even her teammates in the Sannin came close. To hear that such a person had to improve their own chakra control to the point where even they found it hard was very humbling. "So how long will it lengthen your lifespan?" She asked.
Tsunade chuckled sheepishly. "That's where it gets a bit ridiculous. I won't be immortal by any stretch of the imagination, but if you were to quantify it, basically I sealed three gallons of my own blood that I had collected in my late twenties into this seal, which will then slowly use around a millilitre per month and infuse that with so much yin chakra that also collects in the seal that it multiplies once it hits the bloodstream, taking over the old cells and turning them into the younger ones."
"But I can only do that with one amount of blood, it won't work again when I run out. Also, now it's made it so that it's like I have the strength of a hundred seal activated at all times." She said, hoping to dissuade Kushina from working out how long she would live by making it into a maths question and givng another cool fact.
Kushina slowly worked it out in her head, thinking very hard. 'So three gallons is 12 litres give or take a few, and she said she uses one mililitre a month. One litre is 1000 mililitres, so 12 litres is 12,000 mililitres. That's 12,000 months. Divide that by twelve to work out the years and...' Kushina's mind blanked as she worked it out, denial coming up in waves to try and push the possibility out of her mind.
"You're going to live for o-one t-thousand years!?" Kushina screamed, pulling at her own hair.
Tsunade sweat-dropped. 'Of all the times for her to be good at math.' Tsunade sighed. "Yes. And as another side effect I'll look this good until my final breath." She said, taking a sexy pose.
While she acted cheerful, truthfully this freaked Tsunade out. She could cancel the seal whenever she wanted and use the illusion seal instead, which would make her age normally. But she wasn't sure she would have the bravery to do that once she was tired of life. And by living for a thousand years she was sure that eventually she would get bored.
Kushina finally stopped freaking out, just sitting in her chair staring at the ceiling. "I've had too many shocks this past year. I swear it's taken even longer off my life." She muttered, semi-serious.
Tsunade looked at Kushina sharply. "What do you mean, taken 'even longer' off your life?!" She exclaimed.
Kushina cursed at her slip. Looking at Tsunade's concerned face, she bit her lower lip in thought. 'She is one of my best friends. I trust her more than anyone except Mikoto.' She thought. Sighing, she decided to tell her. "I'm sort of dying." She said.
Tsunade blinked, her mouth opening and closing in shock. "...what? I didn't find anything wrong with your blood sample!" She said.
"It's not that. You remember a few months ago when the seal malfunctioned and you healed me afterwards?" Tsunade nodded. "Well, I didn't exactly tell you the truth of what happened. You see, the Kyuubi's chakra was growing unstable, and threatened to destroy fire country by exploding. To stop it, Minato used the Reaper Death Seal." She said.
Tsunade grew pale. "He used that... thing?" Tsunade stuttered. She had been warned by Mito about that seal, and the thought of summoning the death god, sacrificing her soul or not terrified her.
Kushina nodded. "The Shinigami was able to fix the seal, but it was too late, the experience had done irreparable damage to my chakra coils. If I didn't conceive a child and pass on the Kyuubi to them, then I would die within five months." She revealed.
Tsunade widened her eyes. "You needed a baby because their chakra coils would be able to adapt to the chakra and work alongside it." Tsunade breathed out. "Would that not fix you completely though?" She asked hopefully.
Kushina shook her head. "No, the damage has already been done. I'll still have the Yin half of the Kyuubi within me though, which will stall the process for around six years." She said.
Tsunade fell into her chair, burdened with the knowledge that her friend was going to die, no matter what she did. Tears pooled at the corner of her eyes then ran down her face when she considered that this was probably her punishment for seeking eternal youth.
"Tsu-chan?" Tsunade looked up, still crying but wondering why Kushina used her name that she used when she was still a child and Tsunade stayed with her in the Senju compound. "Will... will you take care of my child when I die?" She asked nervously.
"Of course!" Tsunade exclaimed, not even hesitating. Kushina smiled, coming up to hug the youthful looking sannin. Tsunade accepted the hug eagerly, crying into her friends shoulder as she hugged her tightly.
End Chapter
A/N:
Hi! Thanks for reading the latest story.
Here's a different take on the Naruto universe.
Yes, Tsunade will seem a little overpowered compared to usual in this fic, in fact Naruto will probably be weaker than her for the majority of it. However, there is a very good reason for that.
And yes, the fact that she just figured out a Jutsu to extend her lifespan for so long has a lot to do with the Shinigami's knowledge that she received.