Disclaimer: I do not hold any claims over Masashi Kishimoto's intellectual property. Thanks for bringing us this strange, entertaining series.
Author: Take a pill of Suspension of Disbelief; this is where Episode 135 derails to my storyline.
Also, formatting fixed, and extra content added herein.
Scene 01: Curtains Rising?
Swathed in bandages, the cocoon of injury that covered him, Naruto combed still-sore fingers through scruffy saffron spiked hair, feeling chakra-burned dandruff peel off, narrowing vulpine eyes in a grimace of discomfort. It all hurts, he observed, everywhere he touched setting off escalations of pain. Lets me know I'm alive, the recuperating genin reassured himself. More so than ever, through his medical mummification, sensation was sharp, touch was heightened near the level of battle.
Catharsis was becoming a word he came to identify with his current state. Give it his all, he still failed. Falling back on his own curse, he still failed. Beyond his limit, of course he failed. Another wince. Luck would only hold for so long, even against the bold, and in the end, Naruto grudgingly admitted that Sasuke's motivation and abilities had surpassed his own, cursed seal or otherwise.
His immediate sense of caring had cooled into apathy upon apologizing to Sakura. Love Sasuke as a brother, though he might, ulterior motives ran as the sinew to his crusade to redeem the prodigal triad of Team Kakashi. Whether it was to reunite their triumvirate, or even to play the friend who put the happiness of his beloved above his own, it all failed. Corruption, or further motivation, Naruto's emotional paralysis denied him the ability to guess which fueled the attempt more. For the moment, his heart, his will, and his confidence were wept away in vain as he extended his anguish by vowing to continue the quest of redemption. He'd take that step soon enough, for now, he was happy to drop the smiling mask of a happy-go-lucky fox and look within his soul for inference as to what would his next action would be.
Stoically, Naruto had dismissed Sakura and the other visitors from himself. Pending his release, he did not wish to see another soul. Release back into the real world could not soon enough, but for now, physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion demanded a little isolation, reflection, and recuperation away from others that'd interfere with his paced recovery.
This is hardly like you, Kit. The other entity that inhabited his body spoke to him.
Sitting up and sidling to recline against the head frame of the hospital bed, Naruto took a breath to clear his vision from how the internal ocean of his psyche stirred from that dormant force inhabiting its depths. I rushed in last time. The next try is going to have to be more deliberate, and before that, I have to exceed him.
He spared you last time; the bonds of friendship were severed with that act of mercy. The Kyubi factually replied. Pray the next time you meet him, that he already achieved his goal or else that same, a mental sneer, friendship would place you on that altar that you laid yourself upon.
I'd rather die than fail him. Negativity will only-
Complete a self-fulfilling prophecy? Riposted the heeled Nine-Tailed Fox entity. For a vessel of a being that your darling community of kittens fears will cause its destruction, you're all too eager to break yourself open.
Then why have you helped me as much as you did if dying would set you free? The adolescent shinobu retorted, tired of the patronization, even from a mythical beast's astral essence entwined within his body, and through his soul.
Visualizing the beast in the dank prison he saw it kept in his soul, Naruto could see the hackles of the Kyubi rise in indignation and frustration. Exactly that mentality of you humans that brought my wrath upon this land in the first place. I am eternal boy, old in the world long before your ancestors learned to warm themselves away and fight off the darkness, and will be older still to see your destructive race pass on when it destroys itself and as much of this planet as much as their greed can sustatin.
You didn't answer my question. Naruto pressed, uncaring of the sealed beast's tirade.
Perhaps because no matter how disdainful you regard it, I have a bond with you, vessel. I'll have what is owed to me and my fallen in time. The Kyubi edged its nose to the edge of the sealed gates. When he gets stronger, you know you will call upon me; pray that your next actions ensure that it does not end in vain after I have given you my favor.
Favor? Naruto scoffed out loud, looking out at a grim cloud that had encroached itself upon the city. I'll save him without.
The confined kitsune just laughed. Living with me all these years, boy, do you truly believe me evil?
Without waiting for a retort, Naruto was roughly brought into focus when the Kyubi dispelled their meeting in the depths of his soul. Especially, since I only took half of what that damned sealing ritual owed me from you?
Unable to feel his spiritual symbiote, Naruto was left to ponder the cryptic question left by the Kyubi in its indignation.
SCENE BREAK
Annoyance. That was emotion that came foremost to the Fifth Hokage upon receiving the report from the two Anbu detailed to investigate the cause of the approaching saline sprinkle. "Always more questions than answers," Tsunade said, standing in the lobby of the hospital.
"Is that why we remained here?" her assistant asked, slipping a writing tablet back into its pocket in her left sleeve.
"Placing ourselves directly in her path Shizune," Tsunade nodded. "If she is who she claims to be, then there is damn elsewhere that woman would head." Pensively, she brought her akimbo arms up to take a small nip at her left thumb.
Shizune sifted through the reports in her mind. "What would a nin from a land that fell to ruin so long ago have ties to this village?" She frowned, "None of our records indicate hostilities with them for decades. If anything, before disaster fell, our relations were neutral."
"Her name, Shizune," Tsunade supplied. "Konoha would tear this woman apart if she life about whom she is, if she's tied to Orochimaru." A grim smile. "It's a rich gamble…" she trailed off.
"Hokage?"
"Namikaze," Tsunade answered. "Namikaze Kushina."
The Hokage's protégé's eyes lit up, her ever-tense and suspicious eyes shocked out of their usual edgy posture. "I-Impossible!" she gasped. "The wife of the Fourth Hokage, alive?" The thought developed. "Uzumaki Naruto's mother?!" she exclaimed. She shook her head. "Its too unlikely. The timing is just-"
Grimly, Tsunade nodded. "We'll test her when she arrives." Shizune noticed immediately when the Hokage's chakra control fluctuated, opening up her channels, Tsunade's chakra signarute increasing rapidly throughout her body. "I will not allow that Snake to take another child from this village."
Or one that means so much, Shizune silently reflected.
SCENE BREAK
The daughter of the Snake and the woman of the salty rain had made their way to the city. Paying little to the passerby's comments on the curious weather –already dissipating, causing more gossip- they purposely strode towards the infirmary. "Why the rush?" Anko off-handedly remarked to Kushina as they navigate around the light crowd on foot. "The moment the others report your presence in the city, this is going to cause an uproar. Why not wait till you iron things out between you and the council to hash out what's going on?"
The whirlpool nin simply kept walking. "If you're afraid of a little complication, you're free to leave. I can find my way from here."
"So?" Anko asked again, "Why the rush?"
Without stopping, Kushina spoke back. "Too much time has already passed."
The comment elicited a laugh from the fishnet-kunoichi. "Years pass, and now you decide to reappear?"
A half-hearted shrug. "You're not the one I have to explain myself to."
Sighing, Anko stopped at an eatery, sensing that a debate with the cook would be easier than an argument with the woman. "Saving my efforts for the battles that are worth fighting, and winning," she added. "Good luck."
Alone again, Kushina continued on through the city, wondering why as she walked deeper into the forest micropolis, the more the clock in her memories begal to unravel and illuminate, her heartbeat rising in anxiety.
Sitting a lonely vigil on the wing's hallway, a strawberry nin fidgeted with herself, unable to focus on a medical scroll that she had picked up from the staff. Sakura could find little appeal regarding the topic of sanitation and living a clean experience when in the field.
Another door down, the portal opens back into the passageway, waiting terminal for concerned friends of family who awaited their loved one's recovery, and offered prayer.
Placing a smile on her face upon seeing the pearl-eyed maiden, Sakura greeted her. "How's Kiba, Hinata?" she asked, sympathizing with the teammate vigils.
A shy expression graced the Hyuga's façade. "Sleeping," she looked around, "like dogs do best."
A joke from the wallflower? Noticed Sakura, grinning. The grin soured somewhat as she saw the fidgeting in Hinata herself, twiddling her index fingers together, gazing balefully at the shut door of her teammate. Having an idea what the girl was looking for, Sakura spoke to her. "Naruto's pulling through again with idiot recovery, but he wants to be alone."
Sakura didn't miss the crestfallen expression on Hinata's pensive pose. Her stomach rumbling broke the silent vigil. "Want to grab something to eat and come back here?" she asked the other shinobi.
Taking another pensive glance at Naruto's door, Hinata took a sidelong look at Sakura. "Hope everybody else is doing well."
Side by side, the two junior kunoichi began to make their way downstairs to the cafeteria.
SCENE BREAK
Approaching the steps to the ubiquitous medical facility, Kushina's sixth sense felt the presence of several unique and prominent signatures. Anxiety being suppresed, she passively probed an aura unfelt for a dozen turning of seaons though intimately familiar as when she first became sick, the first heartbeat, the agony of birth, and finally, the terror and oblivion of how they came to be separated. What was once a trickle, a whisper of life that she bore within her, was swoll, subdued yet turbulent, and intimately closer to her than anyone else in this world. When his chi awoke from an mysterios-though familiar sensation, she drew back into herself and brought her focus out again into the surroundings.
Before she ascended the steps into the hospital, Kushina applied herself to a more immediate concern. A person that radiated such chi passively, a considerale amount, precisely controlled, that had the whirlpool nin been prepared for a confrontation, would have missed. It feels of this village, but from one I've never met before. A further study as continued her ascent, passively keying and preparing herself for an inhospitable welcome, A presence that is aged, one that I should have known then, but the family is unknown. That the presence was directly tuned to her own, reflecting her own curious study of the unknown entity, caused Kushina to debate whether or not to actively perform jutsu to unleash some of her own abilities.
She paused midstep, then snorted. Someone to be respected, perhaps not to be feared, especially if... she blinked, she seems to have positioned herself consciously between myself and mine.
Still, Kushina loosed her limbs, rotating her wrists with a languorous swaying of her hips, her neck and her ankles, she purposefully strode and opened the glass entryway and let herself within instantly binding her direct gaze at furious, interrogating eyes from a woman whose attractive, buxom shell hid an aged, sad -and currently agitated- presence. In her peripheral senses she discerned the protective presence of a woman who exuded a poisonous impression, and tertially, the heartbeat of that precious soul several stories above them all.
Three women, a mother, a repentant, and a devotee, in a deadlock introduction.
With a wry grin belying the buildup of palpable tension and thickening chakra, Kushina made a show of wiping off her hands on her sleeves and introducing herself with a nod of the head and a slight bow. "Namikaze Kushina," she began cupidly. "of the fallen Land of Whirpool and," she huskily trailed, "of the Village of the Leaf."
Tsunade dryly nodded, Shizune turning to the staff, who took the silent command and began vacating the floor room. "The Namikaze clan has been extinct for over a generation. Namikaze Kushina is among their ranks missing since the crisis that eliminated their clan-"
"-and most of this village." Kushina rudely interjected, impressed with the effect of her brashness at a woman who seemed used to being the chaotic element in a confrontation. She let out an audible threat. "I was expecting more than a blatant lie from someone seemingly so far up sent to examine and apprehend me."
It was Tsunade's turn to become catty as she let out a deprecating laugh. "We don't believe in being rude to strangers -except those that come up during the worst of times, with the worst of possible identites, with an even worse possible course of action."
Willing walking into the baited trap, Kushina bit back: "A direct heir to the Namikaze clan has lived in this ungrateful, willingly ignorant and hateful social institution to fearful of the wrath of spirits beyond and justice to have eliminated him." Angrily she gesticulated at the ceiling. "You dare tell me the Namikaze clan is extinct?! Imply that I am false. When he bears my maiden name," her voice's pitch rose to an accusing challenge," because you bitter shadows clinging to the past refuse to believe that the vessel of your salvation, from your own Hokage, my husband!" she emphasized, "committed the ultimate sacrifice just so that you can tuck away the stain of your shame below a rock?"
As she manipulated her chakra into a murderous urge, and water visibly began to condense and mist as she drew it from the air to surround herself, she was wary of Tsunade releasing her own focus and giving her a bemused look even as her subordinate took a measured step back into a fighting stance.
"Congratulations," Tsunade warningly told her. "You stand on the precipice of execution on secrets that none outside this village -or outside of that incident- would know. On my authority, you may pass and visit him." She crooked an eyebrow. "A visit, correct?"
Kushina only continued to build the aqueous solution around her, manipulating them into two floating crescents that hovered around her shoulders before she actively reached up and grasped them, giving them more form. "Authority?"
Tsunade laughed. "This is too unlikely to be real."
"I concur," Kushina replied. Tensing, she emphasized. "Explain..."
End Scene
Yay! More content; I apoligize for the faulty formatting. Enjoy the confrontation, or the prelude to it, at least.
Author's Notes: More players are introduced, and I adjusted the dialogue and narration for more dialogue instead of narration to drive the pace of the story. Managed to keep better on track this time around with few tangents, though I expect lulz in the next chapter after this.
Thanks for the support thus far. Thank you, reader critique is a great source as to how my writing is