Beta: The brilliant Prince Nemui

Mild Edit:05/01/17


Minato was worried. Who could blame him? Kushina had been gone for two days when her mission should have taken one at most knowing her. But they were short on men and couldn't spare anyone to go look for her.

'If she does not return by the end of the day I'm going,' he thought, dread coursing through his veins. What if she was captured, he wondered, they could already be too late. So lost was Minato in his thoughts that when a ninja dropped next to him he jumped, preparing to punch the newcomer, thankfully he managed to restrain himself.

"Minato-san, ano… I know we are not best friends, but would you mind not accidentally killing me?" the male asked, looking at the sheepish blond.

"Sorry about that. What was it that you wanted?"

"It's about Uzumaki-san, she was spotted by our northern patrol heading—," poor guy never got to finish as Minato hiraishined out of there. "Hgh," he sighed, the man was so whipped. And here he wanted to tell him that she was spotted carrying a child with her. 'Oh well, he would find out on his own now,' he thought.

—.—.—.—

Appearing next to the kunai he left at the northern post, Minato ignored the three ninja that he scared with his random appearance.

Crouching and placing a finger on the ground, he stretched out his senses trying to locate Kushina's chakra signature. Locating it, he immediately went to hug the fiery woman, who was taken completely by surprise.

Minato was so happy that he didn't even realise that he couldn't wrap his arms around her fully like usual, nor did he even take notice of the light squeak that clearly did not belong to the flustered woman.

It took a well place punch to the head for Minato to take a couple of steps back and look at the blushing woman properly. She was dirty, covered in blood and had several cuts in her uniform. Her hair was a mess and she looked exhausted.

He was about to open his mouth and point out that she should go to the medical tent, when he realised that Kushina was carrying something.

No, not something, someone.

"What are you staring at Minato, I'm fine," Kushina said, bringing Minato out of his musing.

"Well yes you look lovely as always —what! Kushina exclaimed, blush darkening— but Kushina… who did you kidnap this time?" The blond asked, slightly dreading the answer. After all, this was Kushina.

Sputtering, the woman managed to give out an indignant, "hey," before a light giggle caused her to focus once again. The laugh also served in gathering Minato's, as well as the forgotten guards', attention.

"Oh, right," Kushina said, "this is my cousin, Michiko-chan!" Poking her head above the woman's shoulder, she gave a little wave grinning at the flabbergasted expression the men had.

"Hello," she said. Their reaction was funny, in Michiko's opinion, and judging by Kushina's barely repressed giggles she thought so too.

On the way to the base, Michiko got to learn more about the other redhead and vice-versa, as Kushina fired question after question her way with Michiko felt slightly proud to have been able to retaliate in like.

The girl told her about her family, and how they weren't affiliated with any village, and Kushina talked about her time in Uzushiogakure and how the kids at the academy used to tease her about her read hair and she would beat them up.

Michiko revealed that she never really got beat anyone's ass since it was usually either her mother or father —sometimes both— would just spend training time kicking her butt.

It wasn't a particularly long journey to the campsite, but being exhausted and in enemy territory made it feel like an eternity passed. And while Kushina chose conserved as much of her strength and chakra as she could, Michiko made sure to keep her sensing abilities on high alert, prepared to tell the woman of even the smallest human chakra coming their way.

So for them, the light hearted conversation was a nice way to keep the nerves and jitters at bay, or at least it was for Michiko. She had a feeling that Kushina by now was able to keep her calm even if she was surrounded my enemies.

At their makeshift infirmary, Michiko and Kushina got patched up. The older female being told that she should rest for the next couple of hours in order to replenish her chakra and strength. While Michiko was told that she should not put pressure on her right leg for the next couple of days. The bone didn't break, but it hadn't been far from it and the burns were rather bad.

Once the medic left, Minato —who up till that point had been speaking in hushed tones with Kushina— came up to her.

Michiko wasn't stupid, she knew that questions would be asked and that she would have to be careful with what she said.

"I believe some thanks are due," he began, causing Michiko's to wonder what he meant. Was he talking about the medical treatment?

"That is true, thank you ninja-san," she said, bowing her head at the man and completely missing the bewildered look that he shot Kushina.

"Wha— No, no, you misunderstood me. I meant that I owe you a thank you, for helping out Kushina. She can be quite a handful," he said jokingly.

"Hey, I'm right here!" The woman in question exclaimed indignantly.

"Oh," Michiko said, after realising her mistake. "That shouldn't be something you thank me for," she said, much to the confusion of the two adults she was talking to.

"She's family, so of course I would help…not that I was of any real help to be honest'"she said, laughing awkwardly at the end. And as Michiko was solely focused on Minato, she missed the looked that flashed across Kushina's face. She did however notice when the older redhead hugged her, all teary eyed as she rubbed their faces against one another affectionately.

For so long Kushina had tried to forget about her family in Uzushiogakure, to forget the pain since she found out that it was destroyed. So she threw herself into her training, made new friends and memories and tried to bury the old ones because it hurt too much to deal with them.

Yet this girl appears in her life out of the blue and for the first time ever she learns that not everyone died in that tragedy. And, for the first time in a long while, Kushina was able to speak about her childhood before Konoha without feeling awkward or judged.

"But how did you know she family? Or do you always go and help strangers?" Minato questioned, all pleasant smiles and gentle movements which only Kushina knew to be fake.

'Stop it,' Kushina thought. Yes, it was true that it was odd and she was curious too about how the girl knew who she was before helping, if she even knew beforehand. But she didn't bring Michiko-chan here to be interrogated. Just as Kushina was about to make her feeling on the matter known, Michiko explained her actions:

"It was because of her chakra," she began, voice firm, looking Minato in the eyes. "Everyone has a unique chakra signature true, but there are certain aspects of everyone's signature that are the same," she carried on. At this point the other ninja in the makeshift hospital stopped trying to be subtle about spying into their conversation and were blatantly staring.

After all, knowledge could be the difference between life and death in their world; and who was going to say no to free information.

"This is particularly true of people who are closely related. So for example, theoretically as long as you meet one person from a particular clan and you are a good enough sensor, then you would be able to tell if someone else is from their clan even if you have never encountered said individual,"

It seemed that this was new information for most people present, as far as Michiko could tell and judging by Minato's expression he one of the ones who knew of this information.

"So are you saying that you recognised Kushina as being an Uzumaki from her chakra," the blond accurately concluded.

"Yes," Michiko confirmed, "I can, theoretically, tell you who most people are related to, because family members also share a common point in their chakra. I only say theoretically, because you need to be really familiar with a particular chakra signature, or family in order too do this, otherwise it just becomes another feature of someone's chakra signature," she carried on.

"I see," Minato felt like a boulder was lifted of his shoulders. The girl didn't look like an enemy, but one couldn't be too careful. For now he wouldn't do anything, at least he knew what she said to be true.

"By the way Michiko-chan, how old are you?" he asked, looking at her up and down, trying to gauge her age. She looked very young but Kushina described her as having quite a bit of skill.

Then again, Kakashi-kun was also very young and that didn't make him any weaker than any of the other ninja present, just less experienced.

Though, Minato kept thinking, he was a prodigy that was raised and trained in a shinobi village, and if this girl really wasn't affiliated with any of the shinobi villages…

However he never got to finish his though as Michiko cheerly told him:

"Oh, I'm nearly ten."

-two days later-

Michiko was sitting by a tree stump next to the medical tent, busy making explosive tags. After the first day, she demanded to know if there was anything she could do to help.

She couldn't leave due to her injuries and Kushina demanded that she at least stay till she was healed up. However, she was extremely worried for her family, as she couldn't exactly send them a message from within the Konoha camp without raising some alarms.

Kushina was healthy enough to rejoined the fight, so that left Michiko alone most of the time, and while the remaining ninja were ordered to leave her alone she could feel them looking at her whenever they passed her.

Thus she asked for some ink and blank tags, which they didn't really have in large quantities, and proceeded to make the explosive tags so as to repay their help and occupy her mind.

Initially, there was scepticism among the shinobi about her making the tag, apparently —Michiko learnt— shinobi were the biggest gossip queens in the world.

But after some words from the older Uzumaki and a test run regarding the efficiency of her tags, the others shut up and let her fill her time doing something.

—.—.—.—

It was the following night that something drastic enough happened that Michiko had to be involved.

Iwa was Konoha's main enemy at this point. Sure, there were still some shinobi from other villages roaming about, but compared to Iwa they were nothing.

Kushina told Michiko that Iwagakure were growing bolder and bolder as time passed.

"We are thinking about destroying their main supply pathway, but the bridge is heavily guarded, so we haven't had a chance to do anything yet." Which might have been more information than Kushina was strictly allowed to say, but it seemed that, like Michiko, Kushina had taken a leap of faith and chose to place her trust in her.

Thus, knowing all this, it was not completely surprising that Iwa ninja had chosen to attack the campsite. She was able to feel multiple chakra signatures approaching, and was about to point it out to the ninja she was sharing a table with, when some alarm must have been given, because everyone jumped to action.

"Go to the medical facility girl, you're still injured," the male next to her said. Feeling panic well up inside her, Michiko tried to sense Kushina or even Minato's location for guidance. She didn't particularly felt like being a sitting duck and this was not the time to do things on her own.

Yes, she had fought before, but never had she been in this sort of situation. This was not some random encounter with a small group of ninja.

No.

This was war.

And she was right smack in the middle of the soon-to-be battle-zone. Add the fact that she was injured and thus not at her full fighting potential, and you had a recipe for disaster.

Michiko was by no means prepared for this sort of situation, so like any child she went seeking some adult reassurance. Because no matter how mentally mature she was, this was a completely foreign situation, in which winging it, was not an option.

Thus, once she located Minato's chakra, she speed up without glancing back, ignoring the pain from her injuries as she made her way to the blond.

She arrived while he was giving out orders to a group of ninja and waited till they went to their post before approaching him.

"What should I do?" she asked, causing the blond to glance at her in surprise. Minato gave her a once over before frowning:

"Return to the clinic Michiko-san, you're injured, and you might not be able to receive backup," he commanded. It wasn't something she was entirely happy about, she wanted to help! But she also understood the wisdom of his words.

"Here," she said, handing Minato some of the tags she had made, using most of her own paper supply, but at least it was still something. Gratefully nodding, he accepted her offering, quickly stashing them in his uniform. 'At least she doesn't argue unnecessarily,' he thought.

Any further thoughts were interrupted as strong tremors started rocking the earth. Screams were soon to follow and with a curse Minato also disappeared to join his comrades.

Now she was alone and the battle started. She tried to sense of the chakra signatures around her but she could not differentiate between Konoha and Iwa.

Cursing, even more, she forcefully took in a deep breath, attempting to calm herself. Then she very carefully circulated chakra into her damaged leg like her mother had taught her to try and alleviate the pain.

Once done, she started to weigh the consequences of helping. Returning to the clinic without fighting was a big no-no. The place was swamped in chakra signatures and it was beginning to give her a headache.

But helping out in her condition would likely also prove to be more of a bother than help if she was not careful. Unconsciously biting her bottom lip, Michiko decided that becoming a standing target was, for the moment, the worst thing she could do. Especially given that her hair was practically a beacon screaming, I'm here, I'm here for any nearby shinobi.

It didn't even take two full minutes before she encountered her first fight, though considering it was three Konoha-nin against two Iwa-nin… 'they don't really need my help,' she thought after watching the fight for a bit. Although she couldn't stop herself from sending a chakra chain underground and catching one of the Iwa-nin that was preparing to use a technique. Her interference broke his concentration enough for one of the Konoha shinobi to swiftly decapitate him.

She received the barest of acknowledgements, in the form of a brief glance from the shinobi that dealt the finishing blow. Not that she actually minded, this was neither the time nor place for such airs; that and she didn't care much about things like that in the first place.

Continuing onwards, she had to dodge a kunai aimed for her head. Turning around quickly she saw an Iwa-nin staring at her, kunai out and snarling like a mad dog. She had just enough time to realise that he looked really young before she had to leap backwards and avoid several earth pillars from skewering her.

'Well, fuck.' Biting her thumb, she went through familiar hand signs before slamming her right hand to the ground.

It was several hours later that Michiko could rest, exhausted, covered in bruises and cuts and this time with a broken ankle and a dislocated shoulder to add to the list, the later was not as painful once a nice enough guy set it in place for her.

She was sitting in a clearing, Konoha shinobi all around her, some disposing of the enemy corpses, some patrolling, but the large majority were resting or talking amongst themselves.

Michiko was given a wide berth, very few being reasonably close to her. Although that might have to do with her angry summons that were surrounding her. Though, Tsubaki was the only seriously angry one.

Mitsuki was essentially plastered to her lap, refusing to leave causing her to briefly wonder whether or not he would be scolding her as well if he could talk but immediately discarded the thought, he was more of the cuddly type.

To her left was Ryoshi, the oldest of the present foxes. He had a dark red coat, with white tipped ears and tail, big as a wolf and wearing a teal vest with Shakkudō-rin's symbol imprinted on it. He was wicked fast and had a mean bite, often training with Michiko and Mitsuki to help improve their speed.

On either side, behind her, were the twins: Mimi and Kiki, they had bright orange fur and wore bells on their front paws to aid their jutsu. Since, much like Tsubaki —and most of the fox population— they were genjutsu users. Although their speciality was in sound illusions.

She ended up helping a small squad of Konoha ninja as they were surrounded by Iwa-nin, and that encounter alone caused her to break her ankle. But after finally defeating the enemy and losing three of their own, the tired soldiers were ambushed by another Iwa team.

The medical-nin present healed her wounds, but couldn't do much about the broken bone with the little chakra he had left. And for one moment, Michiko thought about using her own healing ability, however she dismissed the thought immediately.

She had already revealed her summons and if she were to reveal that ability, no amount of good will from Kushina and Minato would be enough to prevent the higher-ups from ordering her capture. Or, more appropriately, from retaining her if they though her ability too good to let go off. After all, what better than someone who could speed up one's healing exponentially?

No, that technique would be a life or death resort, which considering her state and the shinobi around her, might be sooner rather than later. Reinforcements did come in the end and Michiko managed to last till the last of the Iwa-nin retreated.

Which ultimately led to her current pitiful state. Cracking open an eye she surveyed her surroundings, far too exhausted to use chakra to do so and noted that Tsubaki had stopped lecturing her and was sitting at her feet. She gave a tired smile and murmured a thank you to the foxes for answering her call.

It was only the third time that she had managed to do a multiple summoning, as it tended to take far more chakra than she was willing to use.

She was seriously debating falling asleep right then and there when Kushina frantically burst into the clearing. The moment she spotted her cousin the woman made a beeline towards the exhausted girl.

Her appearance was so sudden that nobody had a chance to react before she flung herself at Michiko, squeezing the life out of the girl. It was eventually Mitsuki's wine of pain from being squeezed between two bodies that made Kushina release her and actually take note of the surroundings.

She took note of the foxes looking at her —glaring in Tsubaki's case— and blinked owlishly for a bit before seeming to decide that she didn't want to know.

"Are you alright?" she questioned, looking Michiko up and down, taking note of her injuries but sighing in relief when nothing appeared life threatening.

"Yes. Yes, I'm fine," Michiko noted that Kushina also looked rather ragged, but nowhere near as bad as the rest of them here. 'It must be a testament of how good a shinobi she is,' she thought, as the girl doubted that her fights were any easier.

"Why weren't you at the camp, you should have stayed there dattebane!" the older redhead scolded, causing Tsubaki to actually give her an approving look.

It was only after that the woman seemed to remember Michiko's summons and paid them any mind.

"Wha-Who are these guys," the older Uzumaki quickly corrected herself, noting the way Ryoshi was looking at her.

"These are my summons. Well, they are more like an extended family," which was true enough. The skulk quickly grew on her and she tried her best to get to know them all individually. A challenge in and of itself, considering the sheer amount of them. But since not all of them were nin-foxes she had a smaller group to concentrate on.

"This is Mitsuki," she pointed to the youngest member present.

"Tsubaki," Kushina followed her hand to greet the one who returned to glaring at her, prompting a bout of nervous laugh out of her.

"Ryoshi," Kushina inclined her head towards the oldest fox present.

"And these two are Mimi and Kiki," she finished introducing the twins.

Time seemed to slow down as the silence stretched out and eventually Kushina got up and gently picked up the much younger female.

"Lets get you patched up, alright?"

-a week later-

By this point Michiko was becoming increasingly more anxious. She has been gone for almost three weeks and was unable to send news to her family without risking suspicion about her motives or her home's location.

It was something she confided with Kushina one evening as they were eating together and the woman offered to have a message sent to them via eagle —after its contents were checked of course— but that would allow Konoha to track down her home and as much as she liked Kushina and had no reason to mistrust her; the goodwill of one person did not reflect on the whole group. In this case said group were a bunch of war-hardened paranoid ninja.

Yeah, she didn't want to risk it. But she couldn't afford to stay here any longer either, least her parents leave to try and track her down themselves. 'And wouldn't that be fun,' Michiko thought sarcastically.

It was night time but Michiko, out of sheer boredom, decided to join Kushina and one more shinobi —whose name refused to stick in her brain— on their patrol. Her foot was wrapped up and allowed to heal naturally after the medic set it and healed the fracture, but it was still tender and would take at least two weeks before she would be allowed to even run. So she was quite lucky that they were in no hurry with the patrol and Kushina didn't seem to mind her tagging along. After all, it was not like she really knew anyone else that she felt comfortable enough to stay with. Even as it was, she did not get to spend as much time as she wanted with her fellow redhead as the woman was often in meetings or sent on missions.

But the time they did spend together the two talked constantly, swapping stories from their childhood and once when Kushina was to stay at the camp for the entire day, they found a more secluded spot in which they shared some of their knowledge on fūinjutsu. The older kunoichi even gave her tips with regards to her chakra chains, explaining who she made her own stronger.

Even Tsubaki warmed up to Kushina to some extent, after deciding that the woman was no immediate threat to his stupid summoner, while Mitsuki on the other hand was won over after she took him in her lap and petted him. It was cute seeing the energetic kunoichi play with the foxes, although the girl was not oblivious to her initial reluctance or the look she would shoot towards them every now and then. It made wonder if it had anything to do with her jinchuuriki status. After all, Kushina was the host for the nine tailed fox.

Even Minato seemed taken back when he came upon the foxes for the first time and seemed to do a double take at the view. Before Michiko cheerily pointed to herself, as way of explaining their presence.

He didn't ask her any questions.

-4 days later-

Her ankle was still not fully healed, but when the medic changed her bandages, she agreed that if she really had to, Michiko could start applying more weight to it, as long as she was careful.

With this news she went to hunt down Kushina, her cousin was meant to go on a reconnaissance mission some time today and she wanted to say her goodbyes to her.

Their parting made both redheads sad, as they had started growing quite close throughout Michiko's stay.

Michiko was the first family member that she had interacted with since she left Uzushiogakure, so she did not feel ashamed to admit that she had grown to care about the little girl. There was also the fact that she was so young and wasn't even completely recovered, and she worried about her returning home safely. It was true that age, especially for ninjas, was not a reliable indicator of someone's skill. Kushina only needed to think of Kakashi to remind herself of that. Plus she did have her summons, but nevertheless the girl was still just nine years old and her cousin damn it.

Honestly, why was she even allowed out on her own?

Then again, Kushina already knew the answer. You just couldn't keep an Uzumaki locked up forever, especially one as energetic as Michiko, who was admittedly not bad for her age. However the fact that she was in Kusa no Kuni was admittedly strange.

In all honesty, he still had some questions but refrained from asking for Kushina's sake.

It was still odd, but the girl fought beside them, risking her life and undoubtedly saving quite a few when Iwa attacked them.

Looking at the teary-eyed girl Kushina gave her a brilliant smile and made her promise to get home safely.

"And when this war is over you better come visit me in Konoha, I'll deal with anyone that could possibly have a problem with that," she said, nodding sagely whilst Minato chuckled.

After exchanging hugs —Mitsuki yipped till he got one too— Minato ruffled the girl's hair and then saw her off. She was to be escorted by one of their ninja to the outer perimeter and was to keep a discreet visual on her to make sure that she really had left. The two adults that she befriended being unable to do so, for they had other duties to take care of.

After thanking her escort, Michiko kept to the path she was on until she neared the country's border and felt that her shadow had finally left her, then after a routine check she deviated off track, stooping on a tree branch before bringing her right arm to her mouth biting till her teeth broke the skin. She felt the draw of her chakra as it was guided to heal the damage she sustained. Once her wounds were fully healed the girl pulled her arm away, watching as the small wound healed itself, leaving behind only the imprint of her teeth.

That done, Michiko speed home, no longer held back by her injuries and cutting down on the time needed to reach her home significantly.

Needless to say that the moment she walked through her family's perimeter a red blur tackled Michiko to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably into the girl's shoulder. This was the longest Michiko was ever away from home so she could understand the reaction.

Takeshi was not far behind as he leaned against the trunk of a tree, watching as Natsumi attempted to scold Michiko through her sobbing. The child couldn't see her father's expression from this position but she could only guess based off her mother's one.

When the woman calmed down and got up she pulled Michiko along to their house where Ayaka was already waiting for them, being the first to demand what retained Michiko for so long.

Winching in preparation for what was about to happen, she reluctantly told them what happened the past weeks, watching as their expressions grew more scared as she told them about the Kusa and Iwa ninja, before anger took over and they began shouting at her for being so foolish.

Needless to say, she was grounded.


A/N: Sorry for the wait guys! I procrastinated with this chapter so much, it was meant to be for Christmas but...

Ah well, I hope at least the length makes up for the wait. We are about 2 chapters away from Naruto's birth and then we can start seeing Michiko take a more proactive role.

Out of curiosity what do you guys thing about Minato, would you like him to live or not? I have already decided what I want to do in regards to Naruto and his parents, but I had quite a long debate about whether or not I should keep him alive.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EVERYONE THAT HAS READ, REVIEWED, FAVOURED OR FOLLOWED THIS STORY. Please let me know what you think in the reviews! I really take your comments into account, which reminds me,

Thank You grifman275! Haha I know she says it when she is exited, flustered or just general highs of emotion, but I think it was me that was exited so I got a bit carried away with the ttebane, thank you for pointing it out, I made sure to adjust that!