The Last Uzumaki.

Uzumaki Gale glared at Konoha's open gates. The Village Hidden in the Leaves looked beautiful and inviting as seen through that opening. It was a deadly lie. "Stay here," she ordered without glancing back at her hidden charges. "Keep the children close."

"My Lady, you don't really think any of the clans have hidden here?"

"No, T'kah, I don't." Gale relaxed her shoulders enough to allow her to make eye contact with her oldest surviving friend. T'kah was humanoid, but not human; A fact which had targeted her clan as prey. Ironic, as T'kah was a huntress, a great blue-black panther that walked on two legs.

Gale returned her focus to the village. "But this is the last shinobi village. If I do not call, I will always wonder."

"You may not like what answers." T'Kah didn't growl, not quite, but the ruff at her neck bristled like an angry cat.

"That is why you are staying here, with the children. You are our only warrior."

"And you are our only healer. Be careful."

"As a naked Prancer in a nest of cobras."

Gale lowered her eyes and stepped fully onto the road leading up to the village gates. Years of hard experience had taught her how to walk the tightrope between possible threat and easy victim. Too confident, and shinobi felt the need to neutralize a possible threat. Too timid, and the predators came hunting. She covertly studied the gatekeepers and chose her strategy.

Gale trudged toward the nearer gatekeeper. She felt a testing chakra pulse. It would tell the keepers that she was armed, but only with the scapels, bindings and herbs common to civilian medics. She continued forward, stopping only when a pair of shinobi shoe-thingies came into her down cast field of vision.

"What is your business in Konoha?" The gatekeeper's voice was professional.

Gail lifted her head, blinking like an exhausted civilian only just realizing there was someone else there. The gatekeeper had an ugly burn-like scar on the side of his face, but his eyes were kind. Gail allowed a tired smile. "Resupply."

"We sensed a heavy chakra presence just before you arrived. Did you see anyone on the road?"

Gail turned toward the other gatekeeper then hastily staggered back, bowing deeply. This one's eyes were dark and suspicious. She would play to that. "No one, Shinobi-san. Only my body guard and her children."

"Is your body guard konoichi," the dark one more demanded than asked.

"She is nursing and moody. There were no shinobi or konoichi in our town. There were a few with possible bloodlines, but anyone who showed violent tendencies was exiled. The use of most bloodlines was not permitted. "

"You said there were no shinobi," the gentler one asked.

Gail allowed herself to unbend, though she did not make eye contact with either gatekeeper. "There was one trait shared among all the townspeople. If anyone was injured, or lost, or just a kid being a kid, blood would call and blood would answer. " She shifted her gaze from the ground to a grey cloud overhead. "The call was always a blessing. That day it proved deadly. By the time we understood what was happening, we had already gathered to assist the injured. The invaders slaughtered everyone: Men, women, infants and elderlies. Ironically, most of the survivors were the outcasts. They became shinobi for other villages in order to avenge their families. "

"Are you an 'avenger'?"

The cloud drifted overhead, casting its shadow. Gail dripped her chin and wrapped her arms across her chest. "I am acting medic for the children and their teacher. I am not really a healer, but I'm the closest we've got. " She lifted her gaze to the kinder keeper. "Many of the children are sick, some are injured and all of them are tired. I ask only that we be allowed to camp outside your gates and that I be allowed to buy necessary blankets and medicines."

The gentler one looked past her to the empty road. "Why not bring the children in with you? I am sure we can provide better than the woods."

"Maybe later. When the sight of shinobi vests and head protectors doesn't set them screaming." Gail also turned to look down the road. "They still have nightmares."

"Your attackers were shinobi?"

"Shinobi kill for money. My homeland was beautiful. Someone wanted the land and was willing to pay to have us killed so they could have the land. My husband and I were on our honeymoon. It is the only reason we were not slaughtered with the others. We responded to the call too late to be of any assistance." Odd, Gail thought, the expression on the kinder one's face. He almost seemed offended.

The cloud passed on, and as the sunlight hit her Gail allowed a shiver to run down her back causing her to stagger. She bit down on her lower lip just hard enough to draw blood then, once certain both gatekeepers had seen the shiver or the blood, she pivoted back from the gate. "I can't do this. I…it isn't only the children having nightmares." She drew in a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and stood proud as any civilian facing certain execution. "I will call, just in case any of the survivors found their way here, then I will be out of your hair, Shinobi-san."

Gail released the breath she'd been holding and sent out the call. There was no answering echo. Her entire posture slouched. "Permission requested to search your woods for medicinal herbs."

Gail felt the gatekeepers shift, alert to something running through the brush. Kunai flew.

"I'm here Mommy. Mommy! Why are you bleeding?"

Gail knelt in the roadway, her arms wrapped protectively around her almost 4 year old daughter. Kunai which would have hit an adult in the kidneys, and the child in the head, embedded in Gail's right shoulder and slashed open her scalp. Gail's cloak of civilian medic had been tossed aside with the gatekeepers kunai: A civilian could not have moved fast enough to have intercepted the blades before they killed her child: But Gail didn't care as long as her daughter was safe. "Mommy had an accident. Why are you here, Dart? I told you to stay with the other children."

"Hey! Hey! Who are you?" demanded a young voice.

Gail pivoted, attempting to keep her body between her daughter and Konoha's gates. Too late, as her daughter darted past her and straight up to a blond haired child of around 5 years of age.

"I'm Uzumaki Dart, and that's my mommy. Who are you?"

A dark haired teen sprinted to the gate then bent over, hands-on-knees as he attempted to catch his breath.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto," proclaimed the blond ball of energy. "Hey! How come you're name is Uzumaki?"

"My name is Uzumaki because Mommy's name is Uzumaki."

"Oh." The blond's energy simmered low. "Maybe my momma's name was Uzumaki." He frowned then stabbed a finger at Gail. "Hey, Lady, Are you my mom?"

Dart giggled. "Silly. She's not your mommy. She's my mommy."

Gail cupped her hand around the back of Dart's head. "Baby Girl, play nice."

Dart dropped her chin to her chest. "Yes, Mommy."

"Where are your parents, Naruto-kun?" Gail noticed the two gatekeepers seemed very nervous and felt one of them send out his own chakra call for assistance.

The blond boy scuffed his shoe into the soil packed on the road. "They're dead."

"Oh." Dart quickly bounced forward, giving Naruto a hug. "Then you're an orphan. Mommy collects orphans. Do you want to be one of Mommy's orphans? She'll cook for you and play with you. But she also makes you take your medicine. Yuck."

Gail allowed the children to natter and shifted her attention to the teen. "You're an Iruka," she acknowledged.

The teen ran a nervous finger along the scar crossing his nose and flushed slightly. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

"I guessed. It is tradition to name the oldest son with your birthmark," her finger mimed tracing a scar across her own nose, "Iruka". Gail formed a small ball of lightning and tossed it to the teen. He caught it then stared at it in wonder before it fizzled out. "Your bloodline is thin. Have your parents taught you any of the clan techniques?"

"My parents are dead. There are no other Uminos in the village. " Suddenly the teen's eyes grew very wide. "I have a bloodline?"

"The bloodline isn't Umino. It's…."

"Pretty!"

"Dart! NO!"

Gail knelt on the sticky road, sticky with the blood of her daughter. There really wasn't anything left to bury. She handed the biggest piece, a hand, to the child-monster that had killed her. She spoke to him, but she could not remember what she might have said. She supposed she should feel grateful for the shock that cushioned her when the flood of terror, anger then total silence, told her that the children and their guardian hiding in the woods had been found and brutally murdered.

Slowly, she stood. She noticed the blond standing at her side, staring at the blood. "You are now the last Uzumaki," she said softly, cupping the back of the boy's head with the same affection she showed, used to show, her daughter. Touching him, she felt his chakra; His, and something else. The urge to swear struck life back into Gail. Konoha was using the boy as vessel for one of the tailed beasts!

She had come in peace, searching for any survivors from her husband's Uzumaki clan. She had long given up on finding anyone from her own Shadow-stalkers clan, or ever having the power to avenge her hometown's destruction.

Then she laughed. She was still laughing as she found the Uzumaki chakra pathways, bonded them as she has once bonded with her life-mate, and yanked them free from the seal that held the beast. She continued to laugh as the chakra of the nine-tails, now freed from the last Uzumaki, destroyed Konoha, the traitor village; the ally that never showed; the village of the Nara clan that had entered a peaceful civilian town without walls and slaughtered every man, woman, infant and elderly. She laughed….