Chapter 7


"Oh dear! Yuuko-chan, why on earth are you crying?" The elderly woman cooed to the tiny child. Her cries were soft and bore no actual tears.

"Your mother is quite exhausted at the moment, but soon she will be holding you and loving you the way she should be. I promise." The baby quieted for a moment falling into a light slumber from crying. She wrapped the child in the fabric and lay her beside her still mother who was down with a fever.

Physical exertion seemed to have brought her to an early labor also taking most of her strength in the process. Several days had passed and she'd seen no sign of a father either. She continued to care for the baby appreciating the company out in the middle of these frozen lands.

TenTen stirred finally her eyes blinking open. The elder woman smiled brightly.

"Well good morning miss TenTen. It seems you've been down for a few days with a fever." She explained to the waking girl.

"Where are we?" She asked. The woman's response was interrupted by a few small cries for attention.

"Yare Yare, Yuuko-chan, it seems you can finally meet your mommy!" The woman picked the child up and presented her to TenTen.

"Yuuko?" TenTen asked. The woman looked back at her.

"Oh, please forgive me, I did not know her name so I gave her a name. Please feel free pay it no mind. I will call her as you do." TenTen shook her head.

"No. Yuuko is perfect." A smile graced TenTen's fever struck face. "Hyuuga Yuuko. It's perfect." She said tears welling in her eyes.

TenTen looked around bouncing her baby lightly in her arms. They were in a large room seemingly carved from rock.

"This is my cave home, I often refuge here on my way between Kumogakure, and Shimogakure. I'm a medic nin. What brought you out here, with a Hyuuga child no less?" The woman asked mixing something across the stone room.

"I was tricked into coming here with a kunoichi of Kumogakure. I finally found a chance to escape and I wound up here. I should have been months away from giving birth but I guess what's done, is done." She said looking down at Yuuko. Yuuko looked up at her mother smiling happily and pulling on the loose hairs that dangled above her.

"We have to go, her father is probably looking for us in Amegakure!" TenTen told the woman. She looked down at the two sadly.

"I'm afraid that is impossible. Your body cannot withstand travel, it has only been two to three days, you need a few weeks before you can travel without assistance. The next place you and that baby need to get to is a hospital. It won't last long at all traveling all the way to Amegakure. The only thing keeping Yuuko alive at the moment, are my medicinal treatments and mystical palm. If you leave here both of you may die."

The woman took Yuuko unwrapping her and laying her on the bed engulfing her with her mystical palm. TenTen sat up nearly screaming at the pain that rushed through her lower body.

She watched the woman treat Yuuko tenderly. Yuuko was only about a pound small enough to get lost in TenTen's tender embrace. Her large white eyes darted gazed over at her mother, face expressionless.

"What should I do?" TenTen begged the woman. She couldn't let her child die before she even had a chance to meet the man she could call father. She let her body fall limp back onto the bed.

The elderly woman sighed.

"Allow your body to heal, at least another day, then I will escort you to the hospital within the land of frost. Fortunately I know these caves and they run underground into the village. If we remain within the caves, the temperature will not cause either of you any harm, and along the way I can stop and treat you both." She offered. TenTen looked up at her.

"Thank you Uzumaki-chan." TenTen smiled. Her smile dropped and she sat up through the pain again.

"You know, there is an Uzumaki in my village too. Are you related?" She asked slowly. The elderly woman shook her head.

"Long ago my granddaughter was sent to Konoha to contain the nine tailed fox, almost immediately after, our village and clan was completely destroyed. Our clan has scattered all around the world now and is probably nearly extinct. We could possibly be related, but it is rather impossible to know."

"Wow, I bet Naruto has no idea he has a clan." TenTen giggled out. The elderly woman smiled.

"Indeed. Our clan was from the beautiful Uzushiogakure, renowned for Fūinjutsu, the very reason for its destruction." Yuuko coughed distracting the women from their stories and pulling their attention to Yuuko.

"I think Yuuko needs feeding. I've been prolonging her feeding using milk of goats mixed with the herbs I'd been collecting in Kumogakure." She said chuckling and letting her hands slip away from Yuuko. She handed her to TenTen showing the younger woman exactly how to feed the child and left the room to fetch some materials.

"Yuuko-chan, I'm sorry you had to be born here, I'm causing you so much trouble. But soon your daddy is going to see your beautiful face. He is going to love you, I promise." She cooed. The woman returned with two packs, one rather small and one slightly larger. She also lay out some clothing for the girl and some fresh blankets for the child.

"I will fill these bags with the herbs I need to continue caring for both of you. Tomorrow late afternoon we will begin our travels." She said. "For now please, You and Yuuko must rest."

TenTen was left in silence. Yuuko pulled away from her breast cuddling up to sleep. TenTen put her breast away and lay Yuuko beside her to do the same.


TenTen's eyes fluttered open. She stretched best she could and pulled herself to a seated position, she felt quite refreshed but she had no hopes of finding if were morning or afternoon. She looked over to Yuuko who was sound asleep beside her and heard Izanagi enter.

"Ah! Good Morning!" Izanagi greeted. TenTen couldn't help but wonder how this mysterious woman always knew what time it was.

"Yuuko-chan looks good too, you two should be well enough to begin traveling this aftern-"

A large explosion echoed through the cave before she could finish.

TenTen crawled to her feet.

"That must be them! The people after Yuuko! We have to leave now!" TenTen urged the woman.

"But Yuuko must be fed, and I must administer healing to the both of you before we leave."

"Heal Yuuko while I feed her, I can be treated later, I've suffered through worse anyway." TenTen hurried out pulling Yuuko's food from her shirt. She nudged the child awake and watched her hungrily latch onto her.

Izanagi quickly engulfed her hands in the green chakra hovering them over both TenTen and Yuuko ignoring TenTen's protests.

"You need your strength you're the one doing the moving!" Izanagi argued back. She finished quickly grabbing the packs and pulling TenTen down a hall with Yuuko.

"Follow me closely and watch your step. Down here gets a bit dark, and cooler. I will slow the intruders." Izanagi warned rushing through the smaller tunnels of the cave.


"Shit!" Neji cussed loudly. Another attack from the other side shook the cave, TenTen was inside, there was no chance of finding her if the cave was destroyed.

He glared in front of him studying the woman laughing loudly at their struggles against her.

"You cannot win! You will not win! I have trained for years to combat against you, and avenge my father." She yelled out firing another lightning attack towards them with a range too wide for the cave to withstand.

The walls shook again rumbling menacingly.

"Neji! This entrance won't last much longer if you can't fight off those attacks!" Ino shouted to him from her battle with another of Tai Ming's subordinates. Kiba and Akamaru stood back panting from his own battle with another subordinate.

"We won't last much longer in this tiny cave hallway!" Kiba shouted with an agreeing bark coming from Akamaru.

Neji's teeth clenched tight. What were they going to do now? A wind Nature type was nowhere to be found to overpower the lightning chakra nature. At a standstill Neji glared at the smiling woman.

The cave began to shake and a giant boulder appeared on both ends of the tunnel they had been traveling through. Tai Ming spun to see the boulder slide into place.

"What did you do Hyuuga?!" She yelled out. Neji stared at the rock, no one hear used earth manipulation, who would block their path? Tai Ming sprung at him he snapped back towards her kicking backwards to avoid her attack in the tiny space.

"Stop! If you continue your lightning attacks the entire cave will fall on top of us! And there is no way out!" Neji yelled at her. She ignored his warnings sneering at him.

"It would be my pleasure to trap you under thousands of pounds of rocks!" She yelled back.

"You will be trapped too!" As if emphasizing his point the roof above them broke into several cracks.

She watched nervously as the cracks stopped appearing looking back to him with a smirk.

"Shit. Kiba! Use Gatsūga on this damn rock!" Neji called. Kiba nodded doing as told to clear the rock from the entrance of their walkway.

"You won't escape!" She called "Water Release: Storm Pool!" She called out. Quickly the cave flooded with water. She made signs again as the water poured from her body.

"Lightning release: Electromagnetic Murder!" Neji's eyes widened as he and his teammates hurried to the door.

"Wait boss..we-!" Her henchmen called. The current shot towards the unmoved bodies, forcing blood churning cries from their bodies, scrambling their bodies and reducing them to burned corpses. She laughed evilly and right above her the cave crumbled. Neji looked back and found both the water and lightning stopped and Tai Ming nowhere in sight.

Neji sighed. "Well how the hell will we get to TenTen now?" He asked.

"I could use Gatsūga on the rocks to move them out of the way." Kiba offered.

Neji shook his head in response. "No, there is no way you're using that technique without major damage to the cave." Neji said biting at his thumb.

Byakugan now active he searched the cave and found whatever barrier had been obstructing his vision, was now gone. He searched the cave for another entrance of some sort.

"This cave had one sole entrance in this area. The nearest is all the way back in Kumogakure. We have absolutely no time to return." Neji said angrily.

"Wait, she and…another person?" Ino said furrowing her brows in confusion. "Ah…she and some other person are headed that way, towards the Land of Frost. If you can follow the tunnels we may be able to intercept them at the cave's Frost entrance." Ino reported glancing at Neji.

"It's all we have." He walked off in the direction the tunnels headed keeping his Byakugan focused on the tunnel they followed.


It had only felt like a few hours had passed as TenTen continued walking straight ahead.

"How long has it been? Should I maybe stop and feed Yuuko?" TenTen asked looking down at the sleeping child.

"Ha, it isn't necessary, if the child isn't hungry." Izanagi replied. TenTen remained silent. She looked down at her child's closed eyes.

She wondered if she still had the Byakugan, it seemed like her baby did, so was hers gone? She held Yuuko tighter to her body.

"What is the matter TenTen dear?" Izanagi asked from in front of her.

"This child is a Hyuuga. An illegitimate Hyuuga, her clan may ask to have her killed." Izanagi glanced back at the girl. There was nothing to be said against a clan whose secrets had to be protected. She thought back on her village and the secrets it had been destroyed for.

"Yuuko is strong; she will find a way to live." Izanagi responded. TenTen nodded choosing to believe in the elder woman's words.

"I hope so." Izanagi stopped walking.

"We can rest here, Not too much further to go." Her hands held out to Yuuko so TenTen could hand her to her.

"You three will experience many, many things in your life, not all of them will be happy, nor simple to overcome but these will strengthen you as a family." She said laying Yuuko down to treat her with her mystical palm.

"Thank you."


Well here is a new chapter. tried to make it long but it just didnt happen sorry. but I may make some of you sad soon cuz it wont just be happy trails from here of course, it wouldn't be a very good story now would it ;))

I'm thinking about showing a little bit of Yuuko's life after they decide what happens to her. What do you all think?