Dark and Crimson
Summary: Uzumaki Kushina hated Uchiha Mikoto on principle alone before the girl even stepped a foot on her island. It didn't get better after they actually met. Until it did.
A Role Reversal!AU in which Uzushio was the biggest village Konoha depended on, and a Sharingan-user tribute had to be send guard the Kyuubi's Jinchuuriki ad vitam eternam.
Or: me trying to combine strong lesbians, rarepairs and Uzumaki Kushina in one very, very belated birthday gift. But what's one month between friends, eh, ehe *cough cough*?
Pairing: Mikoto Uchiha/Uzumaki Kushina pre-femslash. Past Mito/Hashirama, implied Madara/Mito.
Warnings: Canon minor character death. Canon violence.
Songs: 'Teen Idle', 'Savages' and 'Buy the Stars' by Marina and the Diamonds. I listened to Marina on a loop as I wrote. Nobody is allowed to judge me.
Note: Balentay and RavenShira betaed this work!
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Kushina was a daughter of Uzushio first and foremost.
She was born of the wind, restlessness shivering under her feet, soft breeze one moment, furious tempest the next, the urge to reach for the stars, to go farther, to go beyond. She was born of the sun, warm hues dancing on her skin, light streaming from her throat when she laughed too loudly, unbearable heat fueling her anger like a forest fire. She was born of the sand, brisk and tricky and eternal, rough calluses on her hands and cracks at the corner of her mouth, golden evenings tucked under her eyelids. She was born of sea, nutritious, indispensable, unpredictable, danger shining through her toothy grins, a queen in all but name.
She was born of the wave, of the whirlpool, relentless, untamable. Born to conquer.
But Kushina was also a daughter of the Uzumaki. Saltwater and ink ran in her veins, her fingers made to wield the kunai as well as the brush, adamantine chains glistening on her arms and calves, red, red, red. Her family had held dominion over this island for centuries, and it wasn't going to change anytime soon. They were the leaders and the very soul of Uzushio, descendants of the Six Paths Sage himself, feared and respected in the entirety of the Elemental Nations for their battlethirst, their unparalleled sealing jutsus, and their sheer stubbornness. Unfortunately, with power came responsibilities.
The paradox of the Uzumakis. Free as the wind, warm as the sun, sharp as sand, strong as the sea, overwhelming as the wave.
Yet duty-bound.
Duty, ugh. Kushina hated duty with a passion. T'was all they talked to her about. Honor, responsibility, duty. You must fulfill your role Kushina. You must bear our burden for the greater good Kushina. You must, you must, you must.
Kushina may have been born of the wind, the sun, the sand, the sea and the wave, but she had been born for cursedduty.
An honor, they said. Meh. What a joke. Might as well call it as it was. A bloody sacrifice. T'was the name anyway. Jinchuriki. In Uzushio, they used the word Keeper, but they all knew what the real deal was. Someone oughtta do it. Keep the beast inside. Lock the monster from within. Assume the role of a prison of flesh, ink, chakra and sleepless determination for a lifetime of fun.
And that someone had to be Uzumaki Kushina, grand-daughter of the current Keeper Uzumaki Mito and niece of the Uzukage. Her cousin Akio would become the Uzukage in his father's stead and her other cousins would be shinobi, leaders, merchants, artists while Kushina turned into the revered local cryptid. Condemned never to leave Uzushio except in case of force majeure, just like her grandma. Trapped into her bubble of fearsome respect.
Forced to endure the constant presence of her Watcher, until one of them died. Kushina fucking couldn't wait for her goddam Uchiha jailor to arrive. Clearly she had been missing her future glooming, lurking and brooding accessory.
Fucking Uchihas. She would have prefered a Senju like her grandfather - at least he knew how to have fun. Or so the rumors said. He kicked the bucket before Kushina was born, and had been replaced by tedious, dull, unbelievably boring Uchiha Madara.
Anyway, apparently they were out of Mokuton-users to share back on the tree-lover village. So a creepy Red-Eyed Watcher it was.
They weren't even there and Kushina enthusiastically hated their guts already.
"Can't you stop hunching, girl?" Uchiha Madara hissed between gritted teeth, red flashing briefly through the dark of his eyes. "You're not a common whore, for fuck's sake."
And they wondered why she had no lost love for Uchihas. "I'll do as I want, old man," Kushina stuck out her tongue boldly, barely resisting to blow a raspberry.
"Children," Grandma Mito sighed from her bed. "Can you two stop bickering please?"
Uchiha clammed up visibly at the scolding without uttering a word of protest. It said a lot about the influence Uzumaki Mito had on her warmongering and vindictive Watcher.
Even on her deathbed. Perhaps especially on her deathbed.
"Kushina," Grandma smiled weakly, gesturing at her to sit down. "Come here, dearest."
Kushina obediently sat down on the chair by the bed, ignoring the glare of the Uchiha with practiced ease. Her grandma's delicately wrinkled hand curled over her red strands, patting the top of Kushina's head fondly. "Fourteen years old already? My, you're becoming a woman I see."
Kushina made an effort not to frown at her grandmother and forced a smile instead. She didn't mean it badly after all. It wasn't Mito's fault Kushina hated the way her bones cracked up, the pain of growing breasts, the red pooling between her legs. The mountain of expectations smothering her dreams of wanderlust."Yup."
"How's your training going, little one?" Mito asks, her ancient eyes glistening with interest. The same violet shade as her own.
Grandma hadn't left her room for the nearly three months. Her cough was only getting worse, and she spent most the day dozing off. Uzumaki Mito, who had been so beautiful, so strong, so stubborn, was wilting away, dying and everyone knew what it meant. Kushina hadn't been allowed to leave the Compound in the last two months. She had to be there for when...it finally happened.
"Great!" Kushina brightened, pumping her fist with cheer. "I finally managed to use Mom's chain jutsu! It's awesome!"
"Oh? Sayuri's Jade Sealing Chains?" Grandma hummed attentively. "Impressive, Kushina. And your Fuuinjutsu?"
"I rock!" she grinned, ignoring Uchiha's mocking snort. Boring old fart. "You should have seen what I did with the Five Point Summoning Seal! Kurada-sensei couldn't believe it, ya know!"
And she really did. She might not be the most scholarly of students, unlike her bootlicking cousin Akio, but she had enough creativity to compensate. And she was way better than him at taijutsu, the flaky nerd.
Not that all her efforts or talents would ever amount to anything. Sacrifices were not meant to be used as cannon fodder. Kushina might receive the best training Uzushio had to offer, but would never get to put it to use in real life, except as a last resort.
"That's good," Grandma said, before her face closed off. There she was. A glimpse of the living legend she used to be, before time wore her out. Demon Eater Mito. "Uzushio will need your strength, Uzumaki Kushina."
Kushina straightened in her seat as Uchiha's red eyes spun wildly. "Yes, Mito-sama."
It would be the last time Kushina talked to her grandmother.
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The Sacrifice is dead.
Long live the Sacrifice.
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Grandma's corpse hadn't been cold for more than three days when she landed on Kushina's island. All perfect straight midnight back night hair, perfect glossy lips stretched into a polite smile, perfect thin hips and perfect smooth skin. Perfect demure eyes, when everyone knew the kind of wicked crimson hiding underneath.
A girl. Almost a woman, to be accurate. Pff, they probably didn't wanted to repeat the disaster that had been Mito and Hashirama's twins' delivery. She had almost let go of the Kyuubi during the childbirth, and had been forbidden to get pregnant again by her sister, the Uzukage at the time and Kushina's great aunt. Too risky, everyone had agreed, Mito included. By choosing a member of the female sex, they wanted to make sure it wouldn't happen again. Teens were so unstable and hormonal after all.
Well that certainly wasn't going to happen. Ever.
Meanwhile, Kushina was a goddamn mess, from an inside and outside perspective. She had never paid much attention to what she looked like but the ugly circles under her eyes and lines of exhaustion were embarrassing, even to her lax standards. The deeply unsettling chakra of the Nine Tails was wrecking her body, and its anger ruined the few moments of rest she managed to get for herself.
Kushina felt like a disaster waiting to happen. She wanted run away far from this place. She wanted to curl up on the beach and never wake up. She wanted her grandmother to be alive.
But idle wishes were only good for children, and she wasn't one anymore.
"This is Uchiha Mikoto, my grand-niece," Madara introduced them curtly, in his usual brisk manner.
Uchiha Mikoto, the Great-Madara-sama-grand-niece bowed flawlessly. Uchiha bitch. Kushina loathed her. "Kushina-sama. It's an honor to serve you."
Pff. Serve her. Pretty words to say she would holding Kushina's leash for the rest of their life. Serve her indeed.
Old Fart Uchiha glared at her, as if silently daring her to disagree. Kushina narrowed her eyes and had to resist the urge to flip him the finger. The last three days had been hell. On the plus side, Bitch Uchiha couldn't be worse than her ancestor.
(at least she was pretty enough to look at. even though Kushina would rather rip off her own arm than admit it out loud)
"Yeah sure, same," Kushina pulled out her most saccharine grin, just to spite him. "Welcome, or something."
"Thank you," Uchiha Bitch stood up gracefully, oozing feminine elegance from her every pore. "May I offer my most sincere condolences for your loss?"
Kushina felt Old Uchiha tense up at the same exact moment she did. Sharing anything with him, even the reluctance to speak of her, irritated her to no end. They had nothing in common. Nothing at all.
"Thanks," Kushina managed to utter, her smile painfully frozen on her face. "I appreciate that."
She reluctantly did. Nobody had really acknowledged the fact that her grandmother had just died. Only that she was the new messiah/freak-show/ticking time-bomb in this turf. Furious red chakra shivered through her belly before she forced it back inside.
"I'll teach my successor what she needs to know. We'll alternate on your guard for the next three months," Madara cut in, without looking at either of them.
Kushina blinked and side eyed him curiously. She'd never thought of what her grandma's Watcher would do once he had no one to Watch anymore. He had lived here for many years, ever since her grandpa died, and hadn't set a foot outside of Uzushio since.
"And after?" she asked, raising an eyebrow; the other Uchiha waited patiently for her clansman's answer.
"None of your business," he replied drily.
Uh. Fair enough. Not like she cared anyway. Pff. He could go rot in a ditch in the middle of Rice Country for all she gave a fuck. When she stormed out, Uchiha Bitch followed.
...This was going to get annoying real fast.
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Three weeks later, Kushina was more than ready to either tear out the monster lurking in her mindscape herself or kill someone. Preferably Uchiha I'm So Much Better At Fucking Everything Mikoto. Bitch was there. All. The. Fucking. Time. She walked with Kushina, ate with Kushina, slept in the room adjacent to Kushina's, stared at Kushina as she stretched, trained, painted, studied. It was a miracle she didn't try to follow her target when Kushina had to take a goddamn shit.
The only moment Kushina was free of her dark, stoic glare was when Madara took over, which admittedly was even worse. But at least she knew he wouldn't stick around for long. The other one was forever. She couldn't stand Mikoto's silent yet infuriating presence. Silently watching, silently monitoring, silently judging. Only speaking when directly talked to, and even then giving unpersonal polite replies.
When Kushina's mom asked how her Watcher was settling in, if people were nice to her, if she was enjoying the food, Mikoto replied with an empty smile that everything was fine, thank you very much.
When Kushina's cousin made sneaky remarks about how tedious dealing with their Red Beast, sorry, Princess every single waking moment must be, Mikoto replied with another empty smile that everything was fine, thank you very much.
Everything was fine, thank you very much. Ugh. Nothing was fine about that twisted situation.
Fuck, Kushina couldn't stand dishonesty. In retrospect, it might be for the best she wasn't allowed to go on missions outside of Uzushio. If Mikoto had something to say, than bitch should just get it out already. Everyone would feel better. The weight of unspoken things was making Kushina's nerves hiss with unease. She ached to rip apart that mantle of impassive perfection that the Uchiha covered herself with and expose the petty human being underneath. There had to be one. Everyone had a petty, whining, petulant child screaming not fair not fair, deep down or on the surface. Uchihas included. Especially Uchihas.
Fire rampaged across her muscles persistently as she stretched. Kushina needed to blow up some shit like, yesterday.
Actually.
"Hey Uchiha!" she called her Watcher standing on the other side of the training field. "Sensei is late. Wanna fight?"
Uchiha blinked. "You wish to train with me, Kushina-sama?...Very well."
Kushina had to stop her mouth from dropping with astonishment. Sure she had been the one to ask, but she never expected her uptight lady of a guardian to agree for real, ya know? "Yeah? Yeah, cool."
"What are the rules?" Mikoto said, a spike of excitement shivering through her blank mask. To be honest, Kushina would have never have noticed the change in her poise if she hadn't spent the last three weeks actively trying to get a rise out of the other kunoichi.
Kushina grinned widely like the bloody manic she truly was. "No rules. Go wild Uchiha."
Mikoto nodded, before she lunged forward with a velocity Kushina would have never expected of her.
Yes. This. This was a language Kushina could understand. Politeness and barbs hidden behind civil compliments were confusing, annoying. But the body didn't lie. The body spoke in layers of dislike, love, loathing, irritation and indifference that Kushina was fluent in, unlike the treacherous waters of spoken words. A hit meant a hit. A caress meant a caress. And Kushina revelled in the simplicity of outright trying to slaughter her enemy. Give her a good, honest assassination attempt over poisonous deceits any day.
Clearly Uchiha had a lot to say. Running, slashing, burning, kunai flying and shuriken glinting, fingers crooked into a tiger sign, her feet dancing efficiently to the tune of good ol' violence. My, so there were feelings under the shell after all. Who would have thought? It killed Kushina to admit it, but her usually blank Watcher only got even more beautiful that way. Teeth bared, muscles tensed, blood speckled over her pristine clothes and inside her eyes.
Crimson bleeding through the dark.
Kushina couldn't stop her battleborn elation from bubbling out of her throat in the form of raspy laugher. "Haha, not bad Uchiha," she grinned, swiping the sweat of her brow with the back of her hand. "Not bad at all, ehe."
"Thank you, Kushina-sama," Mikoto blankly replied, standing from her crouched position, ready to leap forward. The sharingan receded from her orbits. "I have been training for this all my life."
...Uh. Maybe they were more similar than Kushina had thought, deep down. She wasn't sure how to feel about that realization. She didn't want to like her jailor, but they were kind of stuck together, whether they liked it or not.
"Eh. Stop with the Kushina-samas would you? It's weird, ya know."
Mikoto tilted her head to the side. "I see. Would Kushina-san be more suitable to your preferences?"
Meh. It was better. She shrugged in vague agreement. "Sure."
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"Hey. Your pet is kind of pretty now that she's smiling a bit cuz…"
"Don't you dare Akio. I swear I'll gut you if you try to seduce my watcher."
"Aha don't be like that, I was just kidding! Possessive much, aren't we? I thought you hated her."
"Back. Off. Bitch."
"Oho, looks like someone has a crush. How filthy."
"That's it. You're dead meat cuz."
"Pff...Oi! Not the fucking chains! Kushina!"
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After. After, things got progressively more tolerable between Kushina and her Watcher. It wasn't a living hell at least. They talked sometimes. Really talked. Mikoto could be surprisingly sassy and salty behind her Perfect Kunoichi persona. Kushina liked sassy and salty people.
So. Yeah. Better.
"What do you mean, you've never been to the beach?" Kushina gasped, genuinely appalled.
Mikoto elegantly caught a shrimp between her chopsticks, her long, thin fingers curled around the wood with delicacy. It used to annoy Kushina so much, her Watcher's discreetly glowing femininity. She was a goddamn Kunoichi, for fuck's sake, not some noble doll at the Daimyo's Court. Now however, the sheer grace Mikoto put into every single one of her moves never failed to unleash butterflies fluttering under her skin. She didn't like that feeling, but she couldn't stop herself from staring anyway.
"No," Mikoto said with her usual even tone. "My own land is in the middle of a giant forest, Kushina-san. I had never travelled outside of the Fire Country before I came here. I landed in the port, and entered the village immediately after."
Kushina slammed her hand on the table as Mikoto ate her shrimp without paying attention to her antics. "Unacceptable. Pack your things missy, we're going to the beach this instant!"
"As you wish, Kushina-san," the Uchiha deadpanned. "Am I allowed to finish my meal before?"
The problem with being a redhead, beyond from the sheer awesomeness of having such a vibrant hair color, was that one didn't blush very nicely. Kushina wished she could hide under the table as she felt the familiar fire of embarrassment ignite in her cheeks. Dammit. "Y-yeah. I'm not a monster ya know!"
"The thought never crossed my mind," Mikoto smiled, her mouth curling into a shape that was enough to send Kushina's heart into cardiac arrest.
They went to the beach, swam in the deep blue sea, buried their feet inside warm sand. Then to the cliffs, where wind, land and sea clashed into a chaotic maelstrom. They walked over the rivers and danced over lakes. They went to the soft meadows of the inner lands, laid on the greengrass and the wild flowers to bask in the sunlight.
Kushina loved this land. She might be trapped there, but she still loved it. Her rough island with its rough people, made of salt and ink and determination. And she wanted Mikoto to love it too.
"How's Konoha?" Kushina wondered out of the blue. "I've never been outside of Uzushio ya know?"
Mikoto rolled on her back, her long black hair contrasting sharply with the grass underneath her head. "Different. Greener."
"Hey, we're plenty green, how dare you," Kushina faked a frown.
Her lame joke got rewarded with a smile blossoming at the corner of her Watcher's mouth. "Not like in Konoha. It's...the trees. But not only. I wouldn't know how to explain it."
"Seems nice." Then, hesitantly. "Do you...miss it?"
Mikoto froze. Took a moment to think. Probably considering if she should tell the truth or just take cover behind everything is fine thank you. "Very much. I miss my family the most. But it's nice here too, Kushina-san."
Her family. Damn Kushina felt like an ass. A stupid, selfish ass. Here she had been, whining about being trapped here forever with a stranger. Mikoto was in the exact same situation, expect she was far from home, in a semi-hostile environment. She might never see her family again.
Chained to Kushina perhaps even more than Kushina was to her.
"Maybe I'll see it one day. Would be nice ya know."
Mikoto smiled. They both knew it would never happen. "Maybe."
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"Well. Goodbye Old Man. Try no to die too lamely or something."
"Travel safely Madara-sama."
"Tch. Take care, brats."
…
"Do you think he's going to look back?"
"Oh no. Not Madara-sama. He's not the type."
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Kushina was fifteen (hormonal, pinning and hating every second of it) and Mikoto was going on her sixteenth birthday when they learnt the news.
Konoha, their closest ally, was under siege and about to collapse under the assault of no less than three hidden villages. They were going to be annihilated if Uzushio didn't come to their help. And even then… Three big villages. Uzushio was good but like...not that good.
"Hey Mikoto," Kushina tiptoed around her Watcher's room after they had been kicked out of the council room. Not her place, they sneered. Not like she could do anything, they snorted.
As if she wasn't the strongest powerhouse of Uzushio. She could do something. If only they were willing to let her try. If only they were willing to fucking listen for once in their goddamn lives.
"Kushina-san," Mikoto said neutrally, her face a blank canvas. Back to Unreadable Uchiha Mode from the beginning, like the last year had never happened. Except now, Kushina knew her impassive facade was nothing but a coping mechanism. And it broke her heart to see the agony her friend was feeling right now. She wished she could make it better, instead of flailing around uselessly.
"It..it's gonna be alright, ya know," Kushina tried, biting her bottom lip nervously. "We'll go help your village and…"
"Is it though?" the Uchiha interrupted her poor attempt at comforting harshly. Frost bloomed in the dark of her eyes. "You heard Uzukage-sama. They need to think about it."
Kushina couldn't find anything to say. Futile words coagulated on the tip of tongue and platitudes rasped on the back of throat. Useless. Useless.
"My village is going to be destroyed. And my family is going to die. All of them. I can't even try to help them. I can't even die with them." A sob finally made its way through Mikoto's shell.
Her distress tugged on Kushina's heart until she couldn't take it anymore. She had to do something. She had too. Kushina was perfectly aware that she tended to be too impulsive. Too reckless. She didn't think her actions through. She followed what her gut was telling and her gut was yelling to fucking go for it.
"Okay. Okay we're gonna go to Konoha and fucking roast those assholes. Those old bastards of the Council will have no other choice than to come get us."
Mikoto gaped at her. Kushina couldn't help the spike of pride to be the one to bemuse her Watcher instead of the other way, for once. "Kushina-san? You can't just…"
"You betcha I can. And you can, too. If you're...willing to risk it, that's it. I'm in if you are, you tell me."
"I don't...you could get killed for that!" Mikoto hissed, her eyes wide with disbelief.
"Sure. Wars are dangerous, or so I've been told. The old geezers won't kill me though if we survive our little escapade. They don't have that many potential containers laying around, ya know?" Kushina shrugged.
It was crazy. She was crazy. Totally and utterly nuts.
Mikoto stared at her with consideration. Red spun in her darkness. "Hypothetically...how would we get to Konoha Kushina-san?"
Kushina grinned with confidence. "Bitch please. I'm not a Fuuinjutsu genius for nothing. I can get out of that town anytime I want. Just wait until you see that secret teleportation seal I got up my sleeve."
Well. The prototype of a teleportation seal. It was a work in progress. The point was, Kushina could totally flip the old geezers the finger and leave this goddam island to go have fun on the continent if she felt like it. And haters could suck it.
"Are you...absolutely certain, Kushina-san?" Mikoto said, carefully. "I...I will not resent you if you retract that crazy, insane offer…"
Aha. Uzumaki Kushina had never retracted anything in her life before and she wasn't going to start now.
"Nope. I'm game if you are. Just say the word."
Mikoto clasped her hand grimly. "I'll follow you anywhere Kushina."
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And so they went.
And so they burnt.
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"Hey Mikoto."
"Yes?"
"In those secret jutsus the Old Man taught you...there is something to end me right? In case I lose my shit."
"..."
"..."
"Yes."
"...Good. Don't hesitate, 'kay?"
"...I won't."
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A/Note: so initially I wanted to finish with an happy ending, but I felt like an open one was better. Please leave a review on you way out^^