Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters.

Warning: I actually haven't watched the anime in a while, but I'm pretty sure some of the characters/events mentioned here haven't shown up in the anime yet, so beware spoilers.

Kodama

"Remember, Hashi-kun, be careful if you see a pretty girl by herself at twilight. She's probably a fox."

"Yes, Obaa-chan."

The boat pulled up to the dock, the lamp that swung from the prow casting erratic shadows over the banks of the Nakano.

"Welcome to Konoha," Hashirama said, elegantly extending a hand to help the boat's passenger up onto the dock. "You must be Uzumaki-san."

"Yes," Mito said. She glanced at his face, then looked quickly away. She was shyer than he had expected Uzushiogakure's foremost sealing expert to be.

He's constantly amazed by her precision and control. He always has to be moving, doing something, and he finds it hard to understand how she can sit still and quiet for hours, perfecting some obscure aspect of her seal calligraphy. She'll show him a progression of symbols, and they'll all look the same to him, even though she insists that the earlier ones are absolutely horrible and the later ones much better.

Most of the shinobi he knows are much more like him than like her, and he considers it a mystery that she can be so different and yet so accomplished as a ninja.

"I thought you might like this," he said, tentatively holding out the smooth, snowy-white paper. "It's a special kind of paper for writing seals on."

Mito raised her eyes from the scroll she was studying. "Thank you."

She returned her attention to the scroll, and Hashirama stood there for a few moments until she realized he hadn't left.

"Can I help you with anything, Shodaime-sama?"

"I was wondering if you could tell me more about your seal-craft."

She didn't answer right away, and he wondered if she was offended, or confused by his interest, or something else. Her expressions were as precise as her calligraphy, rarely revealing anything she didn't want them to.

"Why are you interested?"

"Because I think it would be wise for me to understand the jutsu used by all the ninja of the village." This was a perfectly reasonable answer, but not a true one. The true answer would be, Because you fascinate me, and I want to know more about you.

"...And with so many of our buildings made of wood, it would be useful to have a way to seal fire, in case one ever broke out in the village. Could you possibly research something like that?"

"Of course, Shodaime-sama."

He smiled in a way that made her think of sunlight on green leaves in the summer. "You don't have to address me so formally, you know."

"What should I call you then?"

"You could call me Hashirama-san."

"Very well...Hashirama-san."

The wedding is elaborate, as expected for the leader of the village and a scion of a noble foreign clan. Most of the villagers bring gifts, and the priests weave shimenawa to protect them from evil influences.

"I am glad to see my friend so happy," Madara says. "And of course you look even more stunning than usual, Uzumaki-san."

Hashirama grins. "And I am glad to have my friend by my side on the happiest day of my life."

Mito only inclines her head respectfully, hiding the lower half of her face behind the jeweled fan Madara had presented her with.

Hashirama rested his hands on the stunted tree, his head bowed. "I can't do it, Mito. I can't make anything full of life when I feel like there's no life left in me."

She placed a hand on his shoulder. The gesture was calculated and precise, like everything she did. "It wasn't your fault, Hashirama. You didn't ask him to leave."

"Perhaps not. But I didn't ask him to stay either."

Hashirama looked up as the sliding door was thrown open so hard that it bounced off the end of the track and nearly hit the man who'd just barged into his private study.

"What is it, Yamanaka-san?" he asked, getting to his feet as he saw the panic on the other man's face.

"A giant nine-tailed fox, attacking the outlying farms!"

The Kyuubi. Hashirama lunged for the armor stand in the corner. "Mobilize the village! Have the genin escort all the civilians to the emergency shelter!" He paused in strapping on his armor when he saw that the messenger was still standing in the doorway, showing no signs of leaving. "What are you waiting for? Go!"

"Shodaime-sama, that's not all. There's someone with the fox."

"A hostage?" But that didn't make sense. The Kyuubi loved to slaughter and destroy; taking hostages wasn't in its nature.

"No, Shodaime-sama. This person seemed to be...giving orders to the fox."

"What?"

"And...a scout recognized him."

"Well? Who was it?" When the Yamanaka remained silent, he urged, "We don't have time for this, just tell me who it was!"

"...It was Uchiha Madara."

Once again, Hashirama finds himself astounded by his wife's calm. Faced with a rampaging, five-stories-tall beast, her face betrays no emotion. As it bounds towards her, clearly intent on ripping her to shreds, she removes a bottle of ink and a calligraphy brush from a pocket of her robe. She pops the cork out of the bottle and dips the brush in. As always, her movements are spare and economical.

Then she raises the brush and begins painting seals in the air.

Characters hold themselves steady in midair, not a single particle of ink dripping on the ground. More and more characters appear at the tip of her brush, spiraling outward and launching themselves towards the Kyuubi, who's just about to pounce. They wind themselves around its outstretched paw, snake up its leg, and finally wrap themselves around its body.

The Kyuubi howls, but finds itself held firmly in place. Mito inscribes one last mark in the air, this one a circle. The swirls of ink binding the Kyuubi constrict, forcing it to shrink and pulling it through the circle she's just written.

The seals constrict further, spiraling inward now, colliding with Mito's abdomen and then disappearing, as if she's absorbed them.

And the Kyuubi is gone.

"What happened? Where did it go?" Tobirama asks, leaning on his sword so as to avoid putting weight on his broken leg.

Mito lays a hand on her stomach. "It's in here. And that is where it will always stay."

"I'm frightened." Mito says this simply, the same way she'd say, "I think I'll have a snack now."

Hashirama crosses around the table to sit next to her and puts an arm over her shoulders. "Of the Kyuubi?"

She nods.

"Don't worry. The best medic-nin and sealing experts in the village-well, aside from you, of course-will attend at our child's birth. The Kyuubi won't escape, I promise you that."

Mito shakes her head. "That's not what frightens me."

Hashirama's brow furrows in puzzlement. "Then what is it?"

"The Kyuubi is inside me, Hashirama, and our child is inside me too. What if...what if it can influence the baby somehow? The fox is so full of hate, and..."

Hashirama smiles gently and kisses her forehead, being careful not to smudge the new seal she's placed there. "But Mito, the child will be influenced by you as well. And you are so full of love."

"You...I don't understand..."

In the flickering firelight, the red eyes of the man standing in front of him seem to be full of flames. "You're alive..."

Somehow, Hashirama can't quite bring himself to be surprised. He thinks that a part of him always knew Madara hadn't died at the Valley of the End. There's always been a connection between them, a bond as irrevocable as Mito's seals. And just as Mito will know if something she's placed a seal on is damaged even slightly, so he would know if Madara was truly dead.

Madara says nothing. He seems to blend into the shadows of the room. For a moment, Hashirama considers that he might be wrong, that what he's seeing is a ghost. But no, he can smell the scent of smoke that always clung to Madara, and see the way the firelight plays over his skin. This is no immaterial apparition.

"I knew it," he says. "I always knew it."

The last thing he thinks is how odd it is that he knew the truth, when Mito, who was usually the much more subtle and deductive one, didn't.

"Why do the foxes disguise themselves as pretty women, Obaa-chan?"

"To trap human men, Hashi-kun. They try to get a boy to fall in love with them and marry them. But usually they leave when he finds out what they really are."

"Usually? But that means not always." Then he adds, in a whisper that the old lady can't hear, "It means sometimes they stay."

A/N: The whole thing with Mito and the Kyuubi makes me think of the Japanese legends of the kitsune, trickster foxes who often appear in the form of beautiful young women, which is where I got the idea for the vignettes that bookend the story. The title references another type of Japanese mythological being, a dryad-like creature that lives in and protects trees. That also seemed appropriate for Mito, given her marriage to a man whose signature jutsu involves creating trees.

I made the messenger who warns Shodaime about the Kyuubi attack a Yamanaka because I found Chouza calling Chouji the sixteenth Akimichi clan head interesting. It seems to suggest that the Ino-Shika-Chou partnership has existed for a really long time, almost certainly since before Konoha's founding. I sort of like the idea of those three clans being among the first to join the new village.

Shimenawa are sacred ropes that are used in Shinto to mark off holy spaces (at shrines, for example). They're also wound around trees that are believed to be inhabited by kodama.