EDIT: I added a prologue at the very beginning, which I felt was better for the story thematically. This bumps all the chapters down. So this is still Chapter 11. Sorry for the false update!
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- Vainglory -
11: Seeing Ghosts
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"Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust."
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Book of Common Prayer
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The salt in the air was perfect. The ocean, which at dawn was a murky glass, had become a dappled, glittering pool as the sun peaked. The waves, the breeze, and the loosening, whipped clouds were part of this perfect morning, with the dull sounds of birds far off, lulling the moment into a soothing peace.
Anyhow, Kushina wanted to scream.
"Good weather we're having," remarked Dragon.
This didn't help her mood. Kushina glared at Conspirator Number One. She wished every ill upon Dragon, on this stupidly perfect day. Every. Single. Fucking. One. The only problem was: no matter how hard she wished, there was little execution. She was tied up to a ship's mast, mouth full of a rag soaked with seawater and some strange peppery substance. Kushina had a few guesses as to its uses. Her chakra felt clogged and at an all-time low. Between feeling murderous, she thought to herself that Konoha ninja were very good at tying things up. She added 'mast' to the growing list of things to which she'd been tied. Right behind 'flower-patterned armchair'.
"I brought her. What more do you want?" The elder, Nobu looked hollow with defeat. "Uphold your bargain and leave this shore."
Right. Conspirator Number Two.
As much as Kushina wanted to hate this man, this betrayer, this scum, she couldn't quench the hope in her chest. Nobu-san was a family friend. Their fathers had sat on the council together. Her heart wrenched with this blow, unsure of whether to beat fast or agonizing slow. Kushina vowed to kill the persistent, flickering hope that cried out every time Nobu shot her a guilty look. Maybe she should learn a thing or two from poker-faced Minato.
"You know I feel badly about this." The ANBU senior toyed with a small scroll from his pocket, dangling the peace treaty like some paper carrot.
"But you also know how hierarchies work. It's not my choice to make. I just execute the order, get my paycheck, etc. etc."
"Then your task is done." The Whirlpool elder's chin quivered, sparser patches of his beard bristling with effort. "You secured her, and she's special, like you said. Let the other Whirlpool children go. D-don't run your sick experiments on them," he pleaded.
More and more good things were coming to light on this perfect sunny day.
Kushina listened, while sweat began to collect at her temples. The horrified feeling transitioned to sympathy for Nobu's choice. She wasn't sure that she was worth saving in comparison to an unknown number of innocent children. And if Whirlpool children were involved, Kushina had a better idea than anyone the sort of tests they would undergo.
Dragon put a hand to his chin, humming before depositing the treaty back into the sack at his hip.
"I disagree. Before my job is done, there's a tiny complication that I should take care of."
"What?" Nobu ground out. "I-I'll help you get rid of it."
Dragon barked out a laugh, pivoting toward the mast.
Kushina voiced her extreme displeasure, her muffled cries only growing in ferocity as Dragon drew close to her. He moved quickly across the deck and leaned close—too close for comfort.
"Don't fidget, Sweetheart. Stay still."
His voice played near her ear, and a hand lifted her hair and scraped her back.
"Ah, there it is. Nobuhiro-san, come here to see."
The older man was glued to his spot, eyes downcast, head turned away as if he was unable to look at Kushina bound and gagged. Kushina thought this was rather unfair, as it was Nobu's compliance that had led to this situation.
"S-see what?"
"This seal here. I've learned now to check. You can teach an old dog new tricks, you know."
Nobu did look this time, and edged closer with leaden, hesitant steps. "T-that's not one of ours. We're not cheating you, if that's what you're insinua—"
"I'm not insinuating anything, my good man," Dragon replied languidly. "Sweetheart here has an admirer, you know."
This was pretty much the final straw.
If the rest of the world wanted to make a cosmic joke about her non-existent love life with one Namikaze Minato—fine—but Dragon sure as hell wasn't going to. Yes, she'd kissed him, but that was when things were infinitely simpler, when she was under orders, when a crazy kunoichi technique meant succeeding in something that could not be compromised.
It was as if Dragon could see her rationalizing. The ANBU grinned as he continued to fill Nobu in.
"That admirer's one of our village's other dogs, though he's more of a wolf, if you ask me. This'll be a dramatic movie showdown."
Kushina struggled against the rope. Her eyes began leaking hot liquid with her effort. "Nnngh," she worked around the gag. Dragon looked displeased, if not disgusted, as drool collected and dribbled down his captive's chin.
"Try to look presentable when Namikaze gets here, please."
He scraped a finger inside her cheek, moving the gag with a loud squelch just before Kushina's teeth came down on his hand. Disappointed, she uttered a string of profanities so colorful that Nobu flushed, and said "Child, Whirlpool ladies do not swear so," as if forgetting the circumstances.
Dragon was more forceful, crashing a hand across her cheek.
Kushina sagged against her ropes.
"Stop screaming. Your co-star has arrived."
Indeed.
There was another figure behind her now.
"Why are you here," snarled Kushina, a bruise blooming on her face and her lip bleeding freely. But though her face was turned away from him, the frustration in her voice was clear.
There was no response.
After twisting his way, Kushina scowled at what she saw. Minato—blank-faced as ever, if a bit ruffled by the wind—seemed surprised.
"Sensei said that…" the blond started to step over to her.
He was abruptly cut off by a resounding crack of splintering wood as a branch the thickness of his arm lashed out at his face.
"He's a dog, following orders from his teacher," Dragon interjected. "And now he's even making excuses."
Minato's relaxed pose stiffened.
"I'm not here to fight Konoha, or you," Minato informed his former squad member.
"Oh, so cheeky. You may think saving her is easy, but we're on a wooden ship, Yellow Flash," Dragon grinned his razor smile. "Surely that counts for something."
"I don't need saving," Kushina announced half-heartedly.
The cut on her lip had clotted, and she was not about to play damsel in distress without a fight. She eyed the two shinobi warily. One was her captor, an enemy first due to his allegiance to Danzou, second to Konoha, and third… third because he was simply an ass. The other was, well… Against her brain's better judgment, Kushina's heart hammered with something like hope. She'd seen Minato in battle, and it was an awe-inspiring sight, universally acknowledged.
All this to say, Kushina was essentially a pragmatic creature. Even if she didn't need saving, a helping hand wouldn't hurt.
The ANBU's face was twisted in concentration. Beads of sweat formed on his brow, trailing the old scars. Suddenly, a crack split through the deck, and this time, a sheet of wood collapsed over the old man huddled across the deck. Minato shot over immediately, pushing the elder out of the way a little two late as splinters scraped across his bandaged arm, tearing the gauze so that it flapped in a shredded ribbon in the salty sea air. Nobu lay dazed, crumpled in a corner of the ship, but out of the way and newly marked with a seal.
Dragon's uneven eyes seemed to glow in the light. "Yondaime was right. No darkness in you, still. I thought that'd changed, Minato. What happened?"
He got no answer, which made the ANBU grin wider.
"Don't you get it, Prodigy? I'm playing up the classic villain syndrome, so at least talk back."
"I see," said Minato.
"It's an honor, Namikaze. I don't talk with every one of the people I'm told to dispatch. Actually, I'm not even supposed to kill you, as I'm sure you've deduced."
Minato tumbled through a loop of wood that peeled itself off the floor, like a sheaf of thick paper. Another loop of wood twined itself around his legs, twisting hard around his right calf and holding him affixed as two more branches held his wrists.
"But who am I to pull punches with the Yellow Flash? Maybe you'll die by my hand, in the heat of battle."
"Ew," commented Kushina. "Male bravado mixed with bad jokes."
Dragon rolled his eyes. "You know, Namikaze, I've always been jealous of you, but only realized it when I got our first mission in Kumo. Everyone in ANBU was, actually, because of your speed, but I hated your freedom. You weren't a genetic experiment like the rest of us. You still have all your stupidly perfect teeth."
"Experiment?" Minato echoed politely, still dodging. "I did blood scans as is normal ANBU procedure."
Dragon chuckled, his hands stopping in mid-air as the branches stopped growing and thrashing around his opponent.
"Stop playing dumb. Hell, there wasn't one other person Danzou didn't at least let Orochimaru take live tissue samples from, on a weekly basis. But you were different, the golden child. You had no kekkai genkai to speak of, but you were still so strong. You know what they call you?"
"Yellow Flash," Minato deadpanned.
"Non-replicable," Dragon amended, something bitter lacing the phrase. "You think your silly title is worth something?"
Minato didn't answer, face a blank canvas.
"You'll never be respected for anything of real contribution. No one in Konoha history will think you were anything more than a stupid, non-replicable village dog, who thought himself so special, so pure. Go back to barking as your master says, Yellow Flash," Dragon mocked.
"Stop monologuing," Kushina spat from her mast. "You suck at it, and you make no sense."
Turning to Minato, she seethed: "And don't tell me that monologuing is not a word, Minato. You're the stupidest. Like, literally crazy, 'ttebane. Finish him, already!"
Dragon's annoyance dissipated. He shrugged. "You heard her. I'll obey if you do."
The blond missing nin's face was calm, but his eyes were ice. His eyes stared straight ahead as if unseeing, his whole body still, the only movement being the wind determined to tousle his hair and bandage.
Then, he flickered and vanished.
Kushina let out an involuntary cry as, suddenly, the mast behind her was like a giant serpent, bending and twisting as it jostled her with it. She looked up, and saw Minato perched precariously atop, balancing to prevent being shaken off by the moving structure.
Move, she screamed in her mind as the entire top of the mast exploded.
The pole split into thick, knotted ribbons that attempted to wrap around the blond like a twisted cage. Minato had enough time to tip himself in midair, hurtling his kunai with as much force as he could muster toward his former ANBU senior.
A thicket of leaves sprang up and draped themselves ferociously around Dragon, and Minato's kunai impressively lodged into a hank of wood, stuck there on top of the webbed tangle of branches. There was no time to throw another as Minato landed roughly, the side of his torso hitting the knobbed wooden shield, breath knocked away, his Rasengan dissipating before making contact.
"You're going to have a hard time putting a seal on me," said Dragon. "My mokuton is not slow, and this whole space is wood."
It seemed that it was long past time to take matters into her own hands. Kushina's nails shone with fresh blood as she clawed at the surface of the mast below her thick ropes.
C'mon, Stupid Fox.
She flexed her wrists for better purchase. Her red fingers were weeping, nails torn as she scratched futilely against the wood.
C'mon.
Finally, her nails grew, elongating and calcifying as her joints cracked, bones reworking to accommodate the thickened yellow bone-like claws that protruded from her bleeding digits. They shredded the side of the mast like shaving butter, slackening the rope.
Success!
She breathed in heavy, short pants, her teeth sharp, biting down on her lower lip and drawing blood as she channeled her unique chakra to stifle the inner rebellion. The Kyuubi was struggling to gain more control. Just the chakra. Just the hands, c'mon, she could do this.
Dragon seemed to notice, as he raised a hand from inside his wooden shield toward her. Minato seemed busy dodging obstructions across the deck, various snaps and hanks of splintering wood trailing after him. His other kunai had all failed to find their mark, getting stuck on various wooden lattices or gnarled, twisted roots that resprung and reshaped themselves constantly.
The same moment that Dragon's lifted palm started to glow with a strange character, Minato flashed forward in a lunge which Kushina's eyes could not follow.
Three.
Two.
On—His Rasengan made contact with the outer layer of Dragon's shield, pulverizing it into an exploding gust of chips that rained across the deck. A growth of intricately woven branches, like a thick vine mesh, blocked Dragon from harm, but by this time, Minato had already launched his attack at the floor where the ANBU's feet rested.
The mokuton was not slow, but wood took time to grow, and it seemed all the time Dragon had was to elevate himself with a makeshift stage barely a foot above the deck as the rest of the floor around them was carved hollow by the Rasengan.
Kushina's ropes were finally slackened, and she hastily shrugged them off. Scrambling away from the mast, she saw for the first time what was underneath the deck, lining the inside of the ship in uniformed, identical rows.
"Oh my god," she breathed. "Are those… Yuki?"
Minato had flickered away again, but Dragon—from a few feet away—took no notice of her.
"What in the world are those?" her voice this time bordered on hysteria.
"They're still recharging, so they're utterly useless right now. Just like the real thing," Dragon sneered back, flexing both of his hands and motioning up and out.
Fighting the sour feeling in her stomach, Kushina stood up, ready to fight.
Then she felt the entire ship tremor.
It wasn't just the deck, though. The very shape of the ship twisted, as if a tidal wave rippled across the deck, and then the huge galleon cracked apart like a seed. As the ship's bottom and sides regenerated themselves into taller, narrower pillars, the identical, horrifying versions of Yuki spilled out onto the shore, bodies like fleshy rag dolls, an unconscious Nobu with them. Kushina saw that there were other faces too, but no more than three different ones in a sea of roughly two hundred.
The wood of the ship, its shiny planked walls, sprouted buds and levied themselves into an elevated arboretum-like structure. The towering wooden pillars became flowering columns with growing leaves overhead. The wooden planks that were previously the deck floor grew tendrils that wrapped themselves around Kushina's legs.
"What do you mean destroying the village? And why are they Yuki?" Kushina demanded of Dragon, who looked pale, drenched in sweat, and newly shielded by his netting of tree branches.
"Don't be stupid. They're not her," the ANBU said, not looking at her as he eyed Minato, who was also surveying the spill of bodies onto the sand below with solemn interest.
"Clones," Kushina breathed. "Holy shit, is Konoha cloning people now?"
Again, Dragon didn't answer, because in that instant Minato released a powerful wind jutsu, causing an impressive creaking of the wooden pillars surrounding their battle platform. Dragon motioned for a tree to bloom from the side wall to shield as three kunai landed in front of him, catching them like a large fan.
The howling wind around her made her see white. Kushina dug her chains into the floor, wishing her own kunai hadn't been confiscated as she ripped at the fairly sturdy roots tangled around her feet.
"They're not your usual kunai," Dragon roared when the wind passed. "Didn't you come prepared, Yellow Flash? You're nothing without Hiraishin!"
This time, Minato let out a katon-no-jutsu, the roaring ball of flame powerful but concentrated enough to hit Dragon and merely singe Kushina with the rolling waves of hot, dry air.
It wasn't enough, by any means, but it seemed to trouble Dragon.
Cr-eeeeeak.
The tree-like cage seemed to moan.
Again, the wooden, once-ship-like structure twisted, charred pieces breaking off as the healthy center rose taller—thinner—until it was a single mast-like tree, spiraling high—a lone, spindle-like tower on the beach.
The sea wind howled around them at this altitude, and the shoreline was a receding crescent of pale sand.
"Holy shit," Kushina breathed. "Is this what the mokuton can do?"
Dragon was cradled at the top, and Kushina with him, perched like two tines on a fork.
Minato, she assumed, was far below, just a fleshy ant from this distance.
"He can throw his special kunai up, if the conceited brat even has any, but what will that accomplish if they won't reach?" Dragon rasped from beside her, his face paler than ever. His words were labored.
Kushina scanned the beach below. Why wasn't Minato sawing the trunk with a Rasengan? Was it too thick at the base? Jiraiya's words whispered back into her brain, as she remembered his small katon-no-jutsu. S-stupid… it couldn't be because he was scared she would get hurt in the fall?
She turned to Dragon. The ANBU's eyes were bloodshot, and neck flushed with effort.
One idea stood out in her mind. Minato needed to close the distance, but literally everything in this space was Dragon's to manipulate.
"You plan on just sitting here all day?" she spat. "I'm not Rapunzel."
He gave her a look of intense loathing.
"I'll shut up when you fight like a man," she egged on. "Your mokuton is stupid. It's nothing like what I've read of the First Hokage's."
No man was an island, and none impervious to fault. One slight misstep was all she needed.
Her words seemed to hit a nerve.
"I can move this thing," Dragon wheezed.
She felt the giant tower hum, as if it were rearranging its very cells. The netting of branches and leaves surrounding Dragon quivered and receded, spiraling only to his hips.
Kushina saw her chance. She used all of energy to crack the roots around her legs, kicking herself free. Luckily, the lack of horizontal flooring made it harder for the tendrils to regenerate in a sturdy form.
In throwing herself forward, she jumped the four feet across thin air to reach the ANBU. The impact of her chakra chains connecting simultaneously knocked the wind out of both her and Dragon.
"Now," she screamed down at the beach. "Go through me!"
Her arms wrapped in a vice-grip around Dragon's back, where there was no wood netting protecting that part of his body. His skin seemed to harden, at her touch, but she increased her grip, squeezing, almost choking, the senior man.
Her insistence paid off. Down below, Minato understood what she meant, even if it was hard to see what exactly was going on.
His vision already narrowing, already focusing in on the Hiraishin seal on Kushina's back. Even though his mind was shouting "no", a deafening build-up of chakra and instinct told him to move, to rush forward. There was nothing more satisfying that feeling the rush of air, the efficient victory and thrill of acquiring your target.
Minato vanished.
The foliage netting went up immediately and had to wrap around Kushina too, but it was a split second late. Dragon was slower, and worn. Minato's own shoulder was already against Kushina's, where the vines had not yet grown.
Kushina would never know, but for Minato, it marked a turning point. It was a bit too familiar to Kazu for comfort, but it felt like a remedial test, a second chance.
A shinobi's duty
A duty to die for
Kushina's sacrifice would not be in vain. There was no time to say "sorry", only a silent acknowledgment of respect, as Minato shifted and plunged his chakra-infused kunai through the still-exposed part of Kushina's shoulder, into Dragon's unarmored chest.
The long, thin spiral of roots and wood seemed to creak against the wind.
And suddenly, the structure began to topple, diagonally, into the sea.
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The resounding splash carried a wave onto the shore, battering against the sides of the other four Konoha ships.
And the water!
The water was ice.
It filled Kushina's lungs with fire, and set her shoulder ablaze. Dragon's body had been carried away in the swift onslaught of waves and tides, no doubt he'd exhausted all of his chakra in battle.
She coughed out saltwater even as her open mouth sloshed in more foaming sea liquid.
It cleared her mouth of the taste of chakra-clogging chemicals from her gag, and it helped settle her mind—even though she was cold, tired, injured—because this water tasted like home.
Minato!
"Minato!" she screamed as she fought for purchase on the small branches of wood that drifted by. She wanted to say "I'm here!" but the waves swallowed the rest of her voice.
Grimacing, she held her breath as she plunged underwater, her wound numb with cold, but her torso still blazing, pumping chakra outward, as her shoulder's healing accelerated and she fought to keep her eyes open. The ice water helped her not lose consciousness, the cold undercurrents strong but keeping her from losing to exhaustion as waves of icy adrenaline spurred her on.
She nearly opened her mouth in surprise when she finally spotted him.
Crap.
It was a whirlpool, small but spiraling deep, carrying Minato's exhausted limbs closer and closer to the center. Kushina dredged up all of the chakra she could to shoot four chains through the water toward him.
She felt the tug of the whirlpool as soon as her chains latched on—not an immediate suction power but constant and insistent and sapping her of strength.
Swimming to the surface of the water took all of her remaining energy, it seemed. Each drag through the increasingly unpleasant cold water numbed her further, no longer invigorating. Her arms felt thrice the size that they ought to be, and bloated with lead as she focused on paddling them through-one-two-one-two through the water.
The dark waves around her seemed to convulse.
Suddenly, her chains released their grip on their rescued. Kushina felt the break heavily, as the sensation washed over. She struggled, more and more weary by the second, as she fought for purchase in the swift-moving water.
A small voice came from startlingly close.
"Come with me."
She struggled.
Her body knew nothing else, trusted nothing. Where was Minato? She'd let him die!
What felt like minutes, hours, but were only seconds later, a splashing, fighting Kushina was hoisted onto a boat, the rough wooden sides clipping her bruised, cold limbs.
"S-s-save him," she rasped to the set of skinny arms, a small, pale face, before succumbing to darkness.
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Kushina couldn't say that she expected to wake up in a warm bed, dry, tended to, with a warm towel over her forehead. That was the stuff of dreams. Or nice stories. These things didn't really happen to her.
Still, her body was sorely disappointed when it jolted awake, battered by cold wind. She noted the tell-tale lap-lap of the sea water against the small rowing boat, the cold, wet weight of her clothes against her damp skin.
"C-C-Cripes, it's cold," she shouted hoarsely. She felt an instant jolt of pain in her left shoulder, which was raw but no longer bleeding profusely. Painfully craning her neck to check, she noted a bandage of old but clean rags that had been applied to it.
She also noticed the small red-haired girl in the boat.
"Y-you!" Kushina stared at her glum but clear-eyed stare, her initial surprise at her rescuer's age quickly subsiding. "Th-thank you, 'tte-ttebane."
She was maybe six, no more than seven, and dressed in faded rags that hung like drapery around her small figure. The girl's gaunt face seemed to whisper a smile at Kushina's verbal tic. Her hair was as red as Kushina's, but her pale, slightly somber face reminded her of—
Minato!
"Where—"Kushina started, but the girl already knew her question. She shook her head and pointed.
Kushina saw the conclusion, her heart chilling.
Twenty feet away, a large whirlpool spun, with Minato nearly at the bottom.
She shot her chakra chains into the dipping water, but they didn't arc correctly, and missed contact as the continuous spiral of the whirlpool moved Minato's position at an alarming rate.
Eyeing the boat, she shot two chains to the deck, hooking against the seats, as she dove back into the sea, ignoring the small cry of alarm behind her.
In the water, her sense flared again, even as her shoulder throbbed angrily. She swam deeper, positioning herself at a depth where her chains could reach Minato laterally, if she were to shoot her chains horizontally at him. Aiming, she struck.
She missed the first time. The pressure of the water, her quickly clouding head, and the insistent weariness and pain made her faint.
The next attempt went better.
Bingo.
Dipping deep into the last dredge of her chakra, she hoisted, both the chains connecting her to Minato and the chains connecting her to the boat.
They both shot out of the water, coming crash back into the rippling surface and bobbing, exhausted, at the edge of the rowboat.
Small pale hands foisted her over the side. Kushina rolled onto the boat's wet wooden interior, twisting with pain to help grab the ice-cold Minato into the boat.
Using her energy when she was so exhausted was a strange thing. Sometimes an extra spurt of stamina would kick in. Or maybe she just didn't know her own strength. In her desperation, she pulled a little too hard.
They tumbled.
Kushina knocked her head against the opposite side of the boat, cursing as she winced at the pain, mostly in her shoulder than anything else.
The girl in the boat was quick in attending to the new member, although she seemed to hover around him like a small bird, unsure.
"He's barely got any chakra," the girl whispered.
To Kushina's great surprise, the girl proffered her arm, positioning it against Minato's mouth, scraping her skin against his teeth.
"Y-you're an Uzumaki," Kushina exclaimed softly. Clearly, the red hair was a clue, but the healing bite was the sealed deal, no pun intended. "But how did you avoid the Konoha forces?"
The girl seemed to flinch at the mention, or maybe that was just the exchange of chakra eliciting a feeling of pain.
The color slowly returned to Minato's face, and the blond gave a gasping wheeze as he coughed up a splash of liquid.
Kushina released the breath she didn't know she'd been holding.
"He's awake." The girl seemed mystified by the color of Minato's eyes. "Eyes like the sky," she whispered, less fear in her voice now that it seemed Minato was not prone to making any sudden movements, even when conscious.
The Konoha missing nin spluttered a few more times, looking a little worse for wear as he noticed that he was on a small, rocking boat in the sea. He seemed to try to shift, check his limbs, maybe stand, but didn't have the energy for it.
Kushina cracked a painful smile. "D-don't have your sea legs, Minato?"
He blinked, looking astonished, at her, then at their little rescuer.
The girl had taken out two large haori that were stuffed in the back of the small boat. They were deliciously warm to look at, and Kushina accepted one gratefully, wrapping it gingerly around herself and reveling in the feeling of the thick pelt.
"D-d-d-don't get any ideas," Kushina chattered, as the other haori was rationed. "W-w-we're not d-doing that thing where we huddle and m-make each other warm."
Minato only stared morosely out into the water.
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Kumogakure military camps were set up to intercept any foreign shinobi infiltrators weaving in and out of them. What that meant was each camp being set up in concentric circles, but that—per camp—each circle's seniority differed. It made it hard for infiltrators to know whether the commander or unit head would be stationed on the outskirts or the middle of the base.
Call it learning from their mistakes, if you will. Ever since the late Raikage's untimely death, A had done more than thought feasible to step into his predecessor's shoes. People praised him for his effective, innovative leadership, but mostly, it was a streak of fear, newly developed, that caused him to be cautious where the legacy of previous Raikage had not been.
"Sir, our Iwa allies are congregating near the northern border. Another group has been sent into the Land of Fire to cut off bridges and trade routes. And finally, Killer B's mission—it was a success. He caught twenty members of the Konoha Special Branches unit, just as you wanted."
A stretched his aching muscles, rising from his morning routine. He looked away from his iron weights and at his new courier, a young man just a touch older than B. "Takeshi, was it?"
"Y-yes, sir."
"How'd you get this job?"
Kasanari Takeshi looked genuinely ill, his eyes darting around nervously. "Um, sir, the previous news relay team was killed by the attack in the mountains…"
"And do you feel prepared for this job?" A rumbled.
The natural sternness to his voice and face still would have made any boy piss his pants. But Takeshi looked up, even if he was nervous.
"I-I don't, Raikage, sir. Everyday I'm learning."
A guffawed, surprising the younger man. "See?" He clapped a large hand on Takeshi's shoulder. "Shinobi aren't completely expendable. Konoha would have us believe otherwise, but we'll do just fine. Keep learning, boy."
A would make the announcement today, he decided.
The repercussions would finally swing the chances of victory in this war his way. Danzou, that old man, had finally crossed the line between irreverent and immoral. Even if the other nations feared him, there was no way Kumo wouldn't fight against Konoha, now.
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The proud island of Uzu was geographically separate from the Land of Fire and the Land of Water. However, both places claimed the tiny island as having originally broken off from their coast. Around autumn, the whirlpools made traveling difficult, even as the increase in traffic was necessary to account for the import of the mainland fall harvest to feed Whirlpool's small but growing population.
The people of Whirlpool were traditional. That was the nice way of saying that they were stubbornly rooted in preserving their culture, which they claimed to be separate and non-derivative from either larger nation of Fire or Water. Change was slow. Children grew up steeped in old adages, and were taught to respect their elders. And when those elders left the world of the living, they were venerated with incense and clean, marble grave markers that were kept in clan halls.
But that was that. No one on the island was much into the supernatural, or ancestor worship as some in Konoha called it when they left little manju out in the streets after dusk. There were no ghosts here, on the island.
Minato wasn't so sure.
There was a ghost right in front of him.
Kushina wandered. She floated past the old monuments, the old, storied columns, now collapsed against dirt mounds soaked with blood and human detritus. She was like a pale, red-haired oni—walking barefoot, draped in a damp haori—silent as she took in the ruins of her proud nation, marveling at each broken bowl, wondering at each collapsed ceiling, staring at it all as if it were just a dream within a dream.
After her trailed a little child ghost—equally red-haired, equally pale.
Minato silently watched the two of them meander. It left a resounding echo in his own chest. He'd been vain enough to think his chest hollow, once. He wasn't sure, but the experience of being here, in this desolate place, with two broken people, brought out a different side of his melancholy.
There was one thing that was becoming increasingly clear, in his mind. His continuing worry about hurting the people he loved with his presence… perhaps that didn't matter here.
Because this was a place where everything was already hurt, broken, destroyed. No more damage could be done to those who had already lost everything.
And so Konoha's missing nin followed. He followed the Whirlpool ghosts.
He followed them through a stone-walled fish market, where cracked knives and even harpoons littered the floor. A few human bodies littered the ground, sprawled next to fish of different sizes. The smell was as horrible as the sight.
He trailed them to a grassy enclave, where little jumping stones dotted the tiny valley. Stumps littered the ground, broken brambles the signs of jutsu being thrown at enemy. There were no bodies here, only a child's sandal, which Minato set atop a small toadstool he found peeking from the weeds.
Finally, they moved past the hollow houses, past the deserted streets. He let Kushina and the ghost child lead him to an elaborate building, a single story tall but ornate with painted gold filigree on red posts.
This was difficult.
The smell of death was the strongest here.
Minato expected to see a massacre. He expected to see evidence of resistance, of indoor clashes and blood against the walls. Instead, he saw a row of elderly men—around twelve counsel men or governing elders, by the looks of things—dressed in white and headless.
With their ash-gray hands cradling their swollen bowels.
They had all committed seppuku.
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.
The ghost didn't speak, didn't move.
Minato knew better than to expect her to say something, after all they had seen. The images of death still played in his mind, but that was perhaps a normal occurrence, a fact of life he had already mentally adjusted to even if it left him physically exhausted as the week wore on.
However, the moon was bright, and basked in the moonlight was Kushina's motionless form.
She would have nightmares, but she would not wake, if the previous night was anything to draw conclusions from. They were physically exhausted enough. Their daily routine was to collect the bodies and to bury them in mass graves. It was the best they could do when the dead outnumbered the living by so much, and when flies and carrion birds were already circling. The task wore down the body and mind too much for a person to sit awake at night.
So Minato was surprised to see Kushina, upright in her futon.
She was staring out from the broken hut at the edge of the island.
They were spending nights in the nameless girl's hut. Although she was silent about her identity, she had pragmatically provided her two visitors with basic access to shelter, water, and a bit of broken yellow rice. It was more than they had been hoping for, and it was all Kushina could stomach—after all, scavenging the abandoned houses at the center of town for rice felt like validation that all of the household of villagers was dead.
"What are you looking at?"
Kushina didn't answer, but her eyes shifted.
Minato looked, and saw.
The small, red-haired girl was framed by the border of their small window. Her figure was stark against the enormous, pale yellow moon.
In her hand, she carried a hatchet. It was hoisted up high, then brought down with a tell-tale sound, onto what looked to be a sleeping human on the grass.
Minato's first thought was: she's preparing to kill us in our sleep.
His second thought was: I should dispatch her.
Finally, his blood chilled. It would be better to investigate. Wordlessly, he moved from his futon, careful to not step his foot onto Kushina's bedding in the small, cramped hut.
His speed, even without Hiraishin, was legendary. The girl gave a small cry when his hand cupped hers, scooping her bony fingers from the stained axe.
"What are you doing?"
The girl gave no answer, but her silent face met his.
Minato's eyes must have been terrifying.
Hers welled up in tears. Stick-like legs collapsed onto the grass with a dull thud.
"…Mom."
Her tears reflected clearly in the moonlight. "M-Mom died after Dad tried to save us. I don't want you to bury her."
The mass graves. Were they too impersonal for this girl's parents?
He heard footsteps from behind, and then, Kushina's voice.
It was barely a whisper.
"Did she die to save you?"
"Yes," the girl hiccupped. "Mom t-took the genjutsu for me, but then she went crazy. Died yesterday jumping into the ocean."
That explained why the girl was in a boat when he and Kushina fell into the water. But it still didn't clear up the issue at hand.
"Why are you chopping her up?" Minato asked softly.
In reply, the girl pointed toward a grave—marked by a small stone—that was on the rocky ledge across the cliff.
"My dad's there. I want to bury them together. It's easier to carry this way."
Kushina dropped to her knees, wrapping the small, trembling figure in a hug. Minato heard a muffled wail. He wondered if the love between a parent and child was something Kushina also knew well.
"Shhhh, it's okay," Kushina whispered fiercely, protectively. "We'll help you carry your mom. I'm sure she would be very proud of you…"
"… Karin," the girl supplied.
When the tears subsided, Kushina brought them back to the hut, tucking the girl in with her.
Shamelessly, Minato looked at their two sleeping (tear-streaked, but calm) faces.
Then he too found rest.
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Whirlpool being razed to the ground by mysterious Konoha clones sounded impressive.
But it didn't turn out to mean that, literally.
The village had been completely empty the first day, with rubble and the occasional dead body strewn about. It was more than a little shocking to find a small band of stragglers, on the second day's afternoon. There were about ten of them, but they said there were more hiding. Apparently, they had been hiding in underground caves, near the whirlpools themselves. They had successfully evaded the invaders because they'd lived their lives on remote rocky crags, not unlike Karin's parents. When the attackers came, they found the best hiding spots without once having actually encountered their enemy.
Minato's thoughts turned now and then to the way clone-things operated.
He knew that as soldiers, Konoha shinobi were trained to kill all enemy combatants on sight, but observe basic laws of war, such as leaving out civilians unless tactical operation required their lives as proportional sacrifice to the mission objective. Did clones operate like that? Did someone input mission parameters into their brains—and they, machine-like as a fantastical novel villain—killed until they ran out of batteries, then rested on the shore in large boats? Now and then (digging holes left a lot of space for the brain to work), he'd wonder if his Sensei had reached Konoha, and what he'd found out.
What usually snapped him out of his reverie was the signs of Kushina slowly getting better. She exchanged news with those villagers that had been in hiding, but it seemed she knew none of them by name, and vice-versa. Minato would have thought that everyone knew everyone on an island of this size.
Well, he didn't know even a fourth of Konoha, especially counting the civilians. And it was definitely too late now.
For all of Kushina's crazy physical healing ability (Minato still noted with a pinch of guilt the bandaged shoulder, despite her being able to swing her arm, somehow), her emotional reserves were the most shocking.
She wasn't healed yet (and perhaps she would never be), but she was healing.
There were no ghosts on Whirlpool Island.
Speaking to Karin seemed to give Kushina life. As the only child in their midst, Karin spoke shyly but almost exclusively to Kushina. The other thing that gave Kushina life was manual labor. Perhaps it was just the act of piling the graves and clearing most of the rubble. As Minato was put in charge of digging large holes, it felt like they were building a giant mausoleum on the island.
He didn't want to ask if Kushina was just pretending. He felt quite inferior, in that his coping with being exiled was not nearly as… productive.
The stragglers had taken to calling Kushina "Lady", in a humorous but still reverent manner. Perhaps it was the way Kushina singlehandedly heaved concrete blocks of rubble, or her penchant for tying her grubby slacks up at her thighs, like a field hand, as they trudged through the mud.
Around sunset of the second day, another person appeared, this time with a nostalgic face.
Minato was tilling the soil for a fresh grave when a voice "ahem"ed behind him, too polite to be Kushina and too bossy to be an errant female villager.
The visitor was dressed in standard Konoha shinobi gear. The face that stared back at him was familiar, but different. If Jiraiya had looked aged, it was nothing compared to Tsunade. On first glance, her visage appeared to be that of a woman in her twenties. The gaunt hollow of her cheeks, though, and the stress lines around her eyes and forehead, gave away a lot about her age, and the way that life had hit her, hard.
She took him in, as well, as if the thought of meeting him here had already crossed her mind. Minato couldn't read her reaction—his Sensei always said that Tsunade had a better poker face in real life than she did in gambling games.
"You're not supposed to be here, Minato."
"You don't seem that surprised," he replied.
She eyed him quizzically. "The only thing surprising is the hoe, and the farmer getup." Minato, too, had taken to tying his slacks up above the knee. "I didn't think you would go to Sunagakure, but I also had my doubts you would follow that Uzumaki girl here."
He stopped digging. "You know Kushina?"
If his use of the familiar name revealed anything to Tsunade, the second Sannin didn't say anything. "The Yondaime told me that I would meet her here."
It didn't seem like that was the whole story, and Tsunade looked openly apologetic about it. She put her arm up above her eyes, sizing up Minato.
"You grew quite a bit for a squirt."
He put down his hoe, sighing into the sea breeze that floated up to the hill they were standing on. "You saw me two winters ago."
Tsunade grinned, if a bit sadly. "Well, I meant emotionally. You look fucked up now—a ninja, like the rest of us."
It was interesting that his Sensei accused him of shutting himself off from the world, but Tsunade said he'd grown emotionally, whatever the heck that meant. Maybe the Senju accepted a bit more of the double-faced world of shinobi than her idealistic teammate. Or maybe it was that coming to Whirlpool had changed him, although that seemed too far-fetched and hopeful to be true.
Minato wiped at the grime collecting on his knees. "Thanks, I guess. What are you doing here, Tsunade-sama?"
"Making the ceasefire official," she said. "You killed Dragon, didn't you?"
Minato stopped picking at his muddied trousers.
"I know what happened, even if I was away down the coast, scouting for Kumogakure forces disguised as merchant ships," Tsunade said calmly. "Dragon said he could handle you himself, if by chance you came. I was convinced you wouldn't show up, but I can see I was wrong."
"You're not angry?" Minato forced himself to look for her reaction.
She glanced at him, then looked back over her shoulder at the unturned earth, the numerous large pits dotting the island's landscape.
"I'm not involved in Dragon's death."
Minato said nothing.
Tsunade sighed again. "You're not as chatty as your teacher, Minato. Listen, if I got involved in everything, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Every complication to Yondaime's plan isn't my business, even if I try to stay informed. You, on the other hand…"
She eyed him again. "… You should be in Sunagakure. You can try to run away, but it's too soon. Us winning this war centers around you."
The tone of her voice irked him. Minato was glad Kushina had rallied the rest of the villagers to the center of the town, to clear the main hall where the council elders rotted. He had wanted to be there, with her, but she was strangely mute as she pushed him away with her eyes.
"I get to decide what I do, if Danzou wants to call me a missing nin."
"You're the legacy of Konoha, Minato. You know you would have made Hokage, if Sensei was still around," said Tsunade, a bit wistfully.
"I'm not Danzou's dog."
Guiltily, he thought back to Dragon's words.
The female Sannin's voice became hard as she replied. "Minato, don't be like that. You're involved as part of Konoha. You attack Konoha's enemies because you're on our side."
Minato's mounting frustration got the better of his temperament. Maybe Whirlpool's atmosphere had gotten to him after all.
"What right do you have to say 'I'm not involved' and expect me to be?" he asked coldly. "I'm a missing nin. You're not. And as for this war… these people were innocent. They weren't attacking Konoha."
"Whirlpool chose their side," Tsunade replied, her hard tone evaporating.
It was as if she was surprised at his outburst.
She continued, gently.
"Minato, they chose this route more than ten years ago, and they've continued to choose until now. Until this. My parents tried to stop them, as did my Sensei, as did I, but they don't care about the Senju anymore than they care about the Hokage."
Minato shrugged tiredly. "I never asked to involved in… this… this part of Konoha. Whirlpool never was a part of this, either."
"It's related. The world isn't fair or nice, Minato. People die because they choose sides. People have sacrificed for you, too. You might not remember it, but the Sandaime died protecting you."
Sandaime. He tried to stifle the rushing sweep of tension that accompanied the recollection of his dreams. The gravestones. The Sandaime's death.
"He died protecting all of us," Minato said uncertainly. "That's what a Hokage does."
You killed him
You killed the Sandaime, Minato
Minato closed his eyes.
There are no ghosts on Whirlpool Island.
"He—" Minato started, unable to turn away from Tsunade's hard, pitying look. "E-explain. Why is Whirlpool involved? Why is Konoha declaring war?"
Tsunade was haloed by the setting sun. Her face was a mix of light and dark, young and old.
"We are at war because someone poisoned the Sandaime nine years ago," she replied.
"It was my grandmother, Uzumaki Mito."
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tbc
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Suzu: Every single freaking chapter, I'm like: ughhh, this chapter is too long, and it's so dark and sad, and now I'm sad too, boohoo. Then I realize, some people still read this, and this journey is teaching me a lot about choosing words, laying down little details as clues.
It's great fun. And of course, I appreciate your feedback with lots of fanfare and joy!