Mito's Stratagem
"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
- J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb
Uzumaki Mito had been born on the shoals of Whirlpool country. She bled for her home, with no mightier goal than the protection of shifting currents, rising cliffs and the sunset glinting off marble buildings housing her brothers and sisters in arms.
It was a common sight to see her down at the shore, searching for perfect seashells and practicing a Suiton jutsu or two. Sometimes children would join her, asking for tips and tricks, all wanting to become as respected as the Uzumaki princess. Mito would impart as much fuinjutsu knowledge as she could and have them all try floating a shell above their palm. Chakra was the way of the shinobi world, and in a time of tribulation and war any instruction given could save a life.
In her youth, Uzushiogakure was named Uzu Village and the only attraction it gained was being the home of the Uzumaki clan. Renowned for their fuinjutsu expertise and their vitality, Mito's clan could bring demolition upon rivaling clans were they so inclined. They were not warmongers, though, they lived a peaceful life of laughter and cheer. Then Senju Hashirama ventured to the small island nation of Whirlpool with the words Konohagakure and friendship on his tongue and war was introduced to the island nation.
The Uzumaki were neutral. The Warring Clans era brought little strife to their self-sufficient isle. Aside from defending their coats from bloodthirsty Kaguya, slippery Hozuki and vivacious Yuki, the Uzumaki were left alone. Maybe in one life the Uzumaki had been born among desert dunes and craggy cliffs, bringing bloodshed in equal sweeps as the Uchiha and Senju. In this life, the were people of the sun and surf, and they desired peace for themselves and future generations. So they took up their weapons, they joined Konoha, and they fought against her enemies with equal ferociousness during the First War.
Mito could not fault her clan for that. Not even as Uzu became Uzushiogakure, as children were told lies of grandeur and heroism, as her hand was gifted to the Shodaime Hokage as a gift of friendship. She was taken from her home of laughter and wonder and brought to forests of secrecy and serenity, banned from fields of bloodlust and struggle. Mito was a princess, she was an honored wife, but she was a kunoichi and she served both her home and Konoha as much as she could. She assisted with storage scrolls and explosive notes, with medical and barrier seals, she helped where she could and brought ruin to those foolish enough to breach the Leaf's walls.
She did not fault Konohagakure for the war it had brought with it's creation. Nor did she blame her childish husband or his stalwart brother. The great tree was flourishing with hope and the Will of Fire, and she was happy to see the fanning of flames. Life was better, if not for shinobi than for the tinier villages that had been starved and trashed by the previous era of subterfuge and guerilla warfare. If only the leaves knew of the rot seeping through the tree's roots - if only she could warn the village she had grown to see as a second home. Even with Uzushiogakure a burnt husk decades after her departure, seashells and whirlpools held her true allegiance. Konoha - murky and quiet, soft and warm - had been gifted some sunshine, though. It had been gifted with a hope for it's future.
Uzumaki Kushina had been a good girl. A bit misguided, a bit discriminatory, but she was good. A true Uzumaki temperament allowed free reign among solid oaks without the weight of politics and treaties to weigh her down. She was a victim of chance, though. A quirk in her chakra and she was the second to bare Mito's burden. The seal was too good, too secure, to allow access to thoughts and the passing of chakra. Kushina was good with seals and with Mito guiding her she was gotten better, but Mito had passed and though Kushina was a Uzumaki she had been six at Uzushio's fall. She knew not of their combat nor the full flexibility of fuinjutsu. She was a shell trained like a leaf and Mito - it burned Mito's soul, because Kushina was good, but she would never be great.
Her home was lost, it's protectors scattered, and not even their legends and victories remained.
Mito wondered, sometimes, who remembered the originator of jinchūriki. Vessels of war distributed like candy, damning their host's lives, and no one seemed to really think about Mito's actions. That fight between Hashirama and Uchiha Madara had been laughable. Her husband had fought to regain a lost friend, the traitor had fought to sever his lost bond to humanity. Mito had interceded and fought to free a god of nature. The Kyūbi no Yōko was vile, a chakra being of hatred and carnage, but Mito knew better. Mito knew the legends passed down the Uzumaki line from the time of the Rikudō Sennin. The secret room within the crags of Uzu told of the Jūbi, of the Rabbit Goddess and her sons. The bijū were part of nature, part of the planet, but it was a human who formed them. To Mito's regret, it was also humans who deformed them.
The Kyūbi had been...difficult, to say the least. Mito was a proud kunoichi - proud of her skills, proud of her power - despite any limitations being the Shodaime's wife put upon her. The Kyūbi took her pride and her legs when she sealed him within her. Mito did not fault him, though she resented her husband and the Uchiha who brought her to this state. As time passed, as years turned into decades spent bedridden with only fuinjutsu and Kushina near the end, Mito talked with the Kyūbi. He was shrewd, he was cynical, and his sense of humor was distasteful and twisted. For a millennia the bijū had been experiencing humans tearing the world asunder, and he did not walk away without revulsion for mankind. It was understandable, and even Mito was falling to such a fate after living within the cancer-plagued village that had taken her from her home. Humans were universally flawed and it would be their doom, but it was also their greatness.
Mito was a master of fuinjutsu, potentially the last left due to Hashirama's genes dominating their children. She could manipulate the seal suppressing the deadliest of the bijū with a flick of chakra, a seal that she had formulated in the seconds it took to leap from a Mokuton branch to the beast's back, and be confronted with the sight of the sealed fox. It had been raging, overwhelmed with anger and a need for revenge for his chained fate, but Mito was a Uzumaki. She was stubborn and resilient and determined. She was the originator of jinchūriki, and she would right the wrong she had created.
Eventually they met an agreement, and Mito shared her schemes. Once upon a time the little Sandaime's student had requested her guidance in fuinjutsu and it seemed she had instilled respect and loyalty in the miniature pervert for he had included her in a meeting after a jaunt within Mount Myōboku. A child of prophecy, a chance of the destruction or salvation or the world. It was a chance of hope, so Mito and the Kyūbi had come to an agreement as her life finally ended.
The Kyūbi was chakra, wa part of the planet, was a part of life, and as much as he was joined with life, so too was he joined with death.
Uzumaki Kushina was a bit misguided, a bit discriminatory, but she was good. She was terrified of the Kyūbi, but she was the instrument to his and Mito's stratagem, and she was the creator of the world's savior.
Uzumaki Naruto was formed in the womb of a jinchūriki, more connected with nature than most Sages by the time he was a fetus. The Kyūbi was a being of chakra and humans were malleable. The babe was connected with life and death before he was ever born. He was as much a spawn of the Kyūbi as he was Uzumaki Kushina and Namikaze Minato's.
When he became the third Kyūbi jinchūriki, Uzumaki Naruto already knew the face of the Shinigami.
He also knew the ghostly visage of Uzumaki Mito.
Uzumaki Mito's greatest regret of life and of death was her recreation of the jinchūriki. She had modeled her seal with a fleeting thought of the Rikudō Sennin's legend and the defeat of the Jūbi, sending the forming Hidden Village's into a frenzy of power grabbing with her husband the main distributor. He ignored her warnings, spouting equality and peace, and Mito's second greatest regret was refraining from punting the idiot through a wall.
When Uchiha Obito brought about the Kyūbi Attack on Konohagakure, Mito watched and thought back wistfully to the day of the Kyūbi's first sealing, imagining she had secreted away Madara's soul in a teakettle instead much like those lunatics in Sunagakure. It would have solved so many of her issues.
Today, though, she had no regrets. Watching tiny Uzumaki Naruto carefully etch out a kanji with a worn calligraphy brush, Mito was even proud of her actions. She felt a pang at the loss of Kushina, that the little spitfire had just been a stepping stone of her plans, and she even despised the tinge of relief she felt at her passing. Mito hated the phrase 'for the greater good' due to the unwieldy nature of the future, but for her and the Kyūbi's plots, this was a preferred outcome. There was no interference other than maltreatment and patrolling ANBU.
That they were patrolling for threats against Naruto's continued survival and not actually bothering to interact with him was even better, if damaging to the child's psyche.
"Hey, hey, Mito-baa, did I get it?" Naruto suddenly chirped.
Mito's violet eyes met Naruto's cerulean and she couldn't help the fond smile edging across her lips. Naruto was a tiny clone of Kushina with Minato's coloring, the Kyūbi's influence barely noticeable until one focused on the whisker marks decorated his cheeks or the elongated canines so reminiscent to the Inuzuka. He was Konohagakure's gift of sunshine, and Mito truly loved the little boy, even if she and the bijū within his gut planned to use him as a catalyst for the world's survival.
Maybe in one life Mito had passed on to the Pure Land, leaving Uzushiogakure's history to rot and ruin. In this life she collaborated with a demon so that her last Leaf-bound relative could see her and be taught the ways of her lost home. So that she could impart to Naruto knowledge lost and guide him down of road of fuinjutsu mastery and unleash the destruction she had been restricted from causing.
It was fine, though. Mito was of seashells and towering cliffs, bound inside a village of forests and lies. Her origins were found in sun and surf, and she would teach Naruto how to laugh, how to be happy, even among the malcontent of Konoha.
If most forgot that the Uzumaki clan could be as turbulent and unforgiving as the maelstroms that protected Uzu Village, Uzushiogakure, for countless centuries, then it would only be to her benefit. It was only fitting that Uzumaki Naruto would gain the knowledge of his ancestors and reign punishment on those that had forgotten the Rikudō Sennin's tales. She would encapsulate him in good cheer, a figure blinding in his brightness, so that no one could see the legend he would become until it was too late.
A crooked grin marred her features and Mito resisted the urge to cackle. "It's good, Naruto-chan. Now do the next one."
Groaning echoed around the small, dingy apartment and this time Mito's ghostly body shook with cheerful laughter.
Fin
Notes
This is the reason why I refer to Kurama as a he, for anyone wondering:
"It uses "washi" (ワシ) when referring to itself, which is generally used by older men." - Kurama's Wikipedia
Naruto's name can be translated to maelstrom - a whirlpool - thus explaining the closing bit.