i.
Uzumaki Kushina, genin of Konoha, survivor of Uzushio, and future Hokage, wasn't afraid of anything.
Uzumaki Kushina was terrified.
She felt it with a physical weight, the moment fear crystallized inside her, shattering her spine and turning her iron stomach to lead.
The enemy squad came for her in the dark. She had stumbled home after a rough day of training, battered and bruised, calling out greetings to an empty house, when they slithered from the shadows with leering smiles and cold steel glinting in their hands.
Their chakra crackled in the air like thunder.
A loud shriek ripped out of her lungs. Kushina whirled around to run, pushing all her chakra to her legs as she screamed, screamed for help.
"Take her alive," a voice called behind her as shadows closed in at her sides, and that was when fear turned her blood to ice.
Kushina was a shinobi. She had taught herself not to fear death, in pursuit of greatness. But being captured was a different matter, and she felt a stab of pure, cold panic at the thought of a fate much worse than death. She screamed again, at the top of her lungs, but there was no one to hear her.
There was only the pounding of her heart against her ribcage and the panicked, irrational flight towards the window. Towards help. Someone would help her. If only she were fast enough –
Suddenly, a large hand closed around her throat, cold and smelling faintly of weapons polish. She sunk her heels down into the ground and fought, slamming her fist into the man's stomach with enough force to drive the air from his lungs, but there were too many of them, all around her. Hands gripped each of her arms and held her still, as the man she had punched recovered from the blow and slapped her, hard, across the face.
She tasted blood in her mouth.
"You'd better stop fighting, girl," he sneered, "I won't put up with any cheek. Our orders are to take you alive, but you can be missing a few fingers. An arm or two, maybe."
His voice was cold enough to make her shudder, but worst of all was his smile, sharp and unflinching and utterly devoid of mirth.
He had a Kumo accent, Kushina filed away in her mind, absently, knowing he was an infiltrator, sent after – after the demon in her belly, she thought, and hated the way her eyes burned.
Konoha would help her, she thought, or maybe wished, or even prayed, desperately. She felt a sudden impact at the base of her skull, and her world turned dark.
Kushina woke in chains, the cold metal burning around her pale wrists. She woke, and squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to startle herself out of this terrible dream. Her fingernails dug into her palms as reality sunk in with the weight of desolation.
"We have successfully retrieved the Jinchuuriki," a low voice said behind her, flat and business-like.
The Jinchuuriki. That was all anyone cared about, wasn't it? Sometimes, bitterly, she wondered if the seal on her stomach had ruined her life.
But she was Uzumaki Kushina, and she would not let her life be ruined. When they had torn down her village to shreds, she had vowed over her mother's grave to build herself back up again. It was her promise of a lifetime. She was all that was left of her people, and in their memory she would survive.
She wanted to be Hokage. She wanted to be the kind of kunoichi that would do them all proud.
Resolve burned brightly against the panic coiling in the pit of her stomach. Kushina swallowed down a wave of fear, staggering to her feet as her captors yanked her chains roughly.
"So you're awake? Good." The Kumo ninja hooked a gloved hand firmly under her chin, tilting her head up to meet her eyes with a cold, reptilian stare. "Get up. You walk right between us, nice and quiet, you got it? No funny business."
She did as she was told.
"Good girl," he jeered, voice mocking.
She hated him so much she felt ill. She hated him so much she shook from the sheer force of it. The man saw her quiver, and smirked, mistaking it for fear, as he pulled on her chains like reins. She could have ripped the smile from his face with her own bare hands.
Quietly, watchfully, Kushina plucked out strands from her scarlet hair, laying them out on the ground as she passed, a bright red trail covert in the darkness. She held out hope that someone must come.
Konoha would come for her. She was the Jinchuuriki.
And that, that stung her the worst of all, inexplicably, that they would come for her because she was the jinchuuriki, and not because she was Kushina. That there wasn't a single person in the world left who would notice her missing for who she really was, that her family was gone, that everyone who'd cared about her was dead. That she was alone.
She'd wanted so badly to make Konoha her home. She'd offered her body to the village, to contain their demon, hoping that she could be useful to them, that she could earn their acceptance.
The faces of the villagers rose unbidden in her mind, with their suspicious eyes and cold expressions. She could hear their whispered voices in the back of her head, calling her outsider.
Outsider. She'd prayed for someone to come save her, for someone to take her home, but home was Uzushio, home was gone. Anyone who'd cared about Uzumaki Kushina was gone with it.
Her heart clenched harder with every step.
"What," Kushina asked faintly, her head lowered, "what will happen to me...?"
For a cold moment, she thought they wouldn't answer her.
But then one of them turned slowly, a vicious, gloating glint in his eye. He spoke in a voice that told her he enjoyed every moment of her suffering. "You will be contained. Caged. Until you are broken in. Then you will be used."
Caged? She felt a shiver of dread running down her spine. What kind of life was that? In Konoha, at least she had her freedom. She could walk around the village, attend the academy same as everyone else, be called a citizen. In Kumo, she'd be nothing but...
Nothing but...
Faintly, with growing horror, Kushina came to the stark realization that she would rather die fighting than spend the rest of her life in chains.
Something of her rebellion must have shone through on her expression.
Her captor's face twisted into a furious snarl, teeth bared. He leaned in close enough that his foul breath fanned her cheek, his cold eyes boring into her own.
"You," he began, slowly, dangerously, contempt dripping from every word, "you will do as you're told, little girl. Or you'll be cut down and left to rot, just like all those miserable vermin from your worthless goddamn village." His mouth curled into a mockery of a smile. "I was in Uzushio, you know. I distinguished myself in the assault. Took out two squads of -"
His words faded in her ears as the world dissolved into a burst of pure white hatred.
Suddenly, Kushina found herself standing alone in the darkness.
Water pooled around her ankles as she waded through sluggishly. The ceiling dripped down around her, faint liquid noises echoing in the empty tunnel. She could smell the stench of something foul in the air, dank and rotting.
A sewer, she realized. But how...?
A terrifying, bone-rattling roar of rage boomed in the air behind her, wild and hoarse, and Kushina found she wasn't alone.
She turned around slowly, her feet rooted to the spot, eyes wide.
Before her stood a great cage. The Fox himself slammed against the bars, rows upon rows of sharp white teeth glittering in the darkness like blades. His eyes, as red as her own hair, burned through her.
Kushina swallowed. "Kyuubi..."
"So you have come, insolent human." His rumbling voice was malice itself, threatening, mocking her. He spoke the word human with such bitter hatred as if it were a curse. "You dare stand before me? I'll ensure you are never arrogant enough to commit such a mistake again."
Kushina's eyes darted around her. "Okay. I have to leave. I promise I won't come back. Where is the exit?"
The fox crowed out a vicious laugh. "Scared, human?"
"No," Kushina said flatly, blinking. Mito had told her the Kyuubi couldn't reach her beyond the seal. She trusted that seal with her life. "I don't know how I ended up here, you know. I'm being kidnapped. I have to find a way to leave this place so I can fight."
"Kidnapped?" Kyuubi stared at her with contempt. "How pathetic of you, brat."
Kushina bristled. "There are a lot of them, you know! And - and I'm only a genin. They're probably chunin or higher, sent to capture me."
"Then how," he retorted disdainfully, "do you propose to fight them, you mindless insect?"
"I - I don't care," Kushina clenched her jaw, her eyes full of fire. "They are kidnapping me. They are going to keep me locked in a cage until I bend to their will! I'd rather die than let them do that to me. I won't be their slave!"
Nine tails swished in the darkness, as the cage rattled.
"Were that I could flatten you like the puny insect you are," the fox roared. "If it weren't for this goddamn cage..."
Kushina's eyes widened. There was something in his tone - something -
- almost hurt.
When the Kyuubi spoke again, his voice was low and full of emotion, quivering with barely suppressed rage.
"What do you know of cages, human? What do you know of freedom?" The fox bared his teeth at her, red eyes burning. "Your kind have done nothing but enslave and entrap me for years and years. You have kept me locked in here, in this cold dark pit, alone, unable to see my siblings, unable to move, trapped first in the one who came before you, and now you... you are my cage."
Kushina stared, feeling a sorrow that wasn't her own rise in her throat. It was almost... almost suffocating.
"That's no way to live," she said, softly. Her fists clenched at her sides. "But I have to get out of here. You've only confirmed what I felt in my heart. I have to fight them with all I've got, you know!"
"Don't be stupid, you brat," the Kyuubi snarled, "You are a weak, defenseless human. You'll die crushed like the ant you are. If I, who am mighty and infinitely more powerful than your limited mind can conceive, had resigned myself to my cage, you can resign yourself to yours."
Kushina shook her head. "You're immortal. You have all the time in the universe. That is what keeps you living, isn't it? Knowing that someday the cage might break, and you'll be free again. Because you have endless time, so the odds are in your favor. But I'm... I'm not like you. My time in this world is limited. I only have a certain amount of years on this earth, and I'm going to live my life in a way that makes my family proud, you know!"
She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and clenched her fists.
"I'm going to fight for myself. And if I go down, I'll join my family in the next life. But that man... I won't be his village's slave! Not after what that man said. I won't forgive him."
The Kyuubi looked at her flatly. "Stupid brat," he said, "You'll die."
Kushina stared back, resolute. "I won't forgive him," she said, with every fiber of her being.
"If you die, I'll fade," the fox snarled, "And I have no intention to fade before I am freed. So shut up with your foolishness, human! I'll lend you some of my power... don't waste it."
Her pupils turned to slits.
Kushina could feel the terror beating in their hearts. She could feel the helpless hatred festering in their bones. And then, nothing.
She stood alone, falling to the ground on her knees, staring at her hands covered in blood.
All she saw was a flash of bright yellow hair and Namikaze Minato's concerned face swimming in front of her before darkness swallowed her vision.
Author's Notes: Woot, woot. Initially I was going to do a Kushina timetravel fic, but then I had a dream about this AU so. Couldn't help it.
A few things: Minato still came to rescue her! The difference is that, in this AU, he was a little late, and Kushina had already resorted to the Kyuubi's power to free herself. But still, thank you for caring, Minato, you precious baby.
Also, Kurama and Kushina aren't automatically best friends. Kurama is still full of hatred and rage and a grudge against humanity in general, and Kushina is still wary of him. I plan to develop their relationship gradually over the course of the fic.
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed it? Please leave a review! I really want to know if it is a good concept, and whether I should continue it.