Caught in the Whirlpool

Part XIV

She was late. Or, he was pretty sure that she was late. She would come around mid-morning…or was it around noon? Well, he was fairly certain that she was late, so he'd started to worry.

Kyuumaru had sat and watched the main trail to the shrine for a while. Then he'd moved to the bottom of the hill and paced along the invisible boundary that he'd set centuries ago in his own mind. And then he'd looked at the smaller hills that surrounded the shrine's hill and wondered if he could get a clearer vantage point from one of them.

He hesitated and retreated several times before reaching one of the crests of the neighboring hills. Then, again with much reluctance, he'd moved on to the next hill, and then the next, and then the next. With each hill he swore to himself that he would take a look and then return to his post, but then he would slink further away in the desperate hope that he would see her coming from the next vantage point.

And then, quite suddenly, he found her…and a strange man…and another ninetales.

Initially it was the ninetales that caught his attention. It had been ages since he'd last seen one of his own kind, and his nose told him that this one was female. The attraction was instinctual and a little overwhelming since the last time he'd felt any stirring to mate had been decades and decades ago.

:Back off!: the vixen snarled in warning. :If you try to harm Minato-kun I won't hesitate to battle you.:

Kyuumaru bristled slightly and raised his tails in a more aggressive posture, brief attraction nearly forgotten. :You are an intruder here, you have no right to make any demands of me!:

The vixen's "Minato-kun" had to be the unknown man that she was standing in front of. He had shaggy blond hair and blue eyes and wore a white shirt that was decorated with red flame patterns. And he was standing much too closely to the woman (Mito-sama? That other Mito? The new one, Kushina?) that he'd been looking for.

:I have every right to insure the safety of my human,: the vixen snorted. :Put down your tails if you intend to be friendly.:

:That man has no business touching her!: Kyuumaru growled, baring his teeth slightly.

:That woman has no business touching my Minato-kun,: the vixen countered. :She's not good enough for him and she just won't go away! If you could make her leave us alone, I'd be in your debt.:

:She's an Uzumaki!: Kyuumaru barked. :One of the noblest groups of humans that I've ever met. If anything, your Minato-kun isn't worthy to touch her!:

:Don't make me laugh!: the female ninetales scoffed. :She's loud and unrefined and irritating! My Minato-kun is far above her. If only he weren't so kind I'm sure that he would've moved on a long time ago, but he stays with her out of pity.:

:How dare you insult her!: Kyuumaru bellowed.

:She's no good,: the vixen insisted. :If Minato-kun would let me, I'd make my opinion of her far clearer, and maybe then she'll finally keep her dirty hands off my human!:

:Mito-sama isn't dirty!: he howled and lunged in a blind fury.

He tackled the vixen and snapped for her throat but she was slippery and avoided him and bit at his shoulder. They tangled and tussled and bits of embers started leaking out of his mouth and her mouth, doing nothing more than inflaming their fighting energies. The only thought in his head was to punish this bratty upstart who'd dared insulted his beloved human and he wouldn't stop until she submitted—

A blast of icy cold water hit him like a hammer and he scrambled backwards, trampling and tripping over his nine tails.

Cold! Wet! Water! What?

Kyuumaru ended up in an ungainly heap entangled in some woody brush and dripping wet. His opponent was in a similar state on the opposite side the dirt trail, sneezing water out of her nostrils. And standing beside the two humans was a hulking feraligatr with excess moisture dribbling off his thick jaw.

A fresh spark of anger kindled towards the monstrous crocodile.

:How dare you attack—:

"Kyuumaru, Mito-sama would not approve!" the red-headed woman declared.

Kyuumaru reeled, immediately cringing into a submissive posture. The raging fury was doused completely and now he wallowed in shame and confusion. How could he have done something that would have angered his beloved mistress?

"And you," she whirled on the vixen, "didn't help the situation any!"

:I was defending Minato-kun,: the female ninetales snorted and shook some of the water from her pelt. :Unlike you.: She rolled her red eyes over to him. :Why did you call her Mito? That's not her name.:

:I…called her Mito-sama?: Kyuumaru blinked and looked back at the red-haired woman. :She's not Mito-sama. Mito-sama is…: He shook his head and his left ear started to throb. :Ow!:

"Ah, your ear's bleeding!" the woman (her name was Kushina, wasn't it?) gasped and hurried over to examine it. "Kyuubi tore it!"

He ducked his head as her fingers gently probed the injury and saw bright red drops of his own blood dribbled on the dirt in front of his paws. And then he noticed that his new decorative rope was ruined. It hung awkwardly off his neck and was smeared with dirt and charred in several places from the stray embers, destroying its new-rope-smell and starchy stiffness.

:You okay?: the feraligatr rumbled. :I was told to only soak you enough to make you stop.:

:I'm fine,: Kyuumaru muttered. At least, I think so…

"This is just great," Kushina fussed. "That ear needs to be stitched up and Pokémon Center medical personnel hate making house calls."

"I take it that that is Kyuumaru," the man said as he gently squeezed excess water from the vixen's nine tails.

At the sound of his voice, Kyuumaru was instantly reminded that there was a stranger present—the untrustworthy man…who looked and sounded completely different from what he remembered.

"Yes," the red-head sighed. "Minato, meet Kyuumaru; Kyuumaru, meet Minato." She started to carefully wring water from Kyuumaru's tails. "We were on our way up to meet you. What are you doing all the way down here? Is something wrong at the shrine?"

:No,: he shook his head slowly, his red eyes fixed on the man with sun-colored hair. :Nothing's wrong at the shine…: And then it hit him. :The shrine! I need to get back! I can't believe that I left!: He shook his head and turned back to the Sealed Shrine at a trot. Why did I even leave?

:Where are you going?: the feraligatr asked. :Aren't you going to eat these dango?:

:You need to visit a Pokémon Center,: the vixen said. :Otherwise that wound will get infected.:

:Kyuubi has a point,: the feraligatr agreed.

Kyuumaru hesitated and glanced over his shoulder. :If your master commanded you to guard a place that was special to him,: he asked Kyuubi, :would you shirk your duty?:

:Of course not,: Kyuubi replied with a snort.

:My mistress bade me to protect the Sealed Shrine from vandals and desecrators and I will fulfill her wishes,: he told her, and the feraligatr, and then resumed his trek back to the hill.

"He's leaving," the man said. "Are you going to let him go?"

"I can't make him do anything," Kushina responded. "The only person that can command Kyuumaru has been dead for a couple of hundred years."

A couple of hundred years… Kyuumaru started to run. Has it really been that long?

Kushina dragged a weary hand over her face as she walked out of the Pokémon Center to where Minato was waiting. It had taken way too long to get a hold of the chief physician and arrange for a nurse and a chansey to visit the Sealed Shrine for Kyuumaru. Normally a nurse would visit the site once a year to give him a physical and she hadn't thought it would be a huge problem for a little emergency trip, but with all the complaining that the man had done it was like she'd asked him to send nurses to heal all the sick pokémon in the wilderness outside of town.

"Did everything go alright?" Minato asked when she reached his side.

"Yeah," Kushina nodded. "Kyuumaru will get taken care of, and unless Kyuubi mangled his ear worse that I thought he should be all healed in about a week or so."

"I'm glad to hear that," he sighed in relief.

She started walking with no particular destination in mind and he fell in step right beside her. They'd left the dango carton open at the foot of the shrine hill for Kyuumaru before heading back into town, but hadn't sought the old fire fox out since there was no sign of trouble at the shrine. Perhaps she'd try and show Minato the Sealed Shrine and get him to know Kyuumaru better tomorrow…

"So what's Kyuumaru's story?" Minato wondered.

"He's…I guess you could call him a living family heirloom, although more than just my family looks after him," Kushina shrugged. "He's the last surviving pokémon that belonged to a moderately famous ancestor of mine: Mito Uzumaki. On her deathbed, she charged him—and all her other pokémon—to watch over the Sealed Shrine, and he's been there ever since."

Minato raised an inquiring eyebrow. "What sort of things did this ancestor of yours do?"

"Almost everything that a good girl from Uzu isn't supposed to do," Kushina smirked. "She trained her monsters to kick butt instead of just look pretty and she supposedly visited every country on the mainland at least once, and half the time she went unescorted. When she gave up traveling, instead of settling down and getting married she campaigned to get the ruins of the Sealed Shrine restored and studied them for the rest of her life." She snorted. "I think that the only reasons that she wasn't disowned by the family were that her monster collection was so remarkable, that she always wore pretty dresses and did feminine things like gardening and the traditional tea ceremony, and that she started some trends for female Uzumakis that the elders approved of."

"What sort of trends?" he asked, catching her hand in his and interlacing their fingers.

"The real big one is training milotics," she replied. "Uzumaki men prove their manliness by training a magikarp into a gyarados, and Uzumaki women prove their womanliness by beautifying a feebas into a milotic…and then they use those milotics in Contests instead of fighting with them."

"So you have a gyarados instead of a milotic to be different?"

"Partly," she admitted. "But mostly because my family said that girls can't manage a gyarados, they can only handle gentle milotic, and I wanted to prove them wrong. I wanted to have a gyarados just like all my brothers."

He blinked. "All of your brothers have a gyarados?"

"Yep," she nodded. "And almost all of my male cousins do, too. With how common magikarp is, it's only a question of patience and determination."

"True."

Kushina grimaced in irritation. "Of course, Arashi thinks that the only reason that I—a female—can control a gyarados at all is because Tsunami must have a calm or gentle nature."

"Have you told him that Professor Sarutobi determined that Tsunami has a serious nature?" Minato asked.

"No, I was too annoyed with his idiotic statement," she grumbled. "And Akane finds it utterly inconceivable that I prefer gyarados over milotic! The one time that she saw Tsunami my cousin kept watching her like she was going to snap and go on a rampage because I'm a woman and a gyarados just can't be controlled by a female."

He squeezed her hand comfortingly and pulled her to walk a bit closer to him.

"I know that she doesn't mean anything bad," she sighed. "She's not all that bright and she just parrots all the traditional conservative garbage that Aunt Asuka has filled her cotton candy brain with… But almost every time she opens her mouth I get so pissed I want to grab her and shake her until her brain actually starts working!"

His thumb gently rubbed the back of her hand.

"It wouldn't do any good, of course," Kushina continued. "She's almost four years older than I am and thoroughly set in her ways. She's always been perfectly comfortable living in her little black and white world that Aunt Asuka painted for her. She loves dresses and Contests and sewing, and she still dreams that some prince charming is going to magically appear and sweep her off her feet and give her a happily-ever-after life." She shook her head. "When she isn't annoying the heck out of me, I kind of pity her."

"You pity her for having dreams?" Minato chided her lightly.

"No, just for clinging to the fantasies of a little girl and seeing herself as a failure for not achieving them," she replied. "The way that I understand it, her previous boyfriends have all had serious flaws and she completely ignored them and exaggerated their good qualities to make them into the prince charming that she's always wanted. The only thing that's kept her from marrying those losers and being miserable was my dad and brothers putting their foot down and making her end the relationships. But she would have gone through with it because she feels like a failure since she's still unmarried and childless, and a woman of her age that's considered successful is one that has a husband and at least one baby."

Minato frowned slightly. "Doesn't she know that there are plenty of successful women out there that have never married or had children—like Tsunade-oba-san."

"But that would make her a spinster," Kushina said with a grimace, spitting out the final word like a curse. "According to Aunt Asuka, there is no fate worse and more unfulfilling for a woman than to end up as a spinster with no husband to protect and support her and no children to nurture and love."

"…I don't think that I like this aunt of yours very much," he told her.

"I hate her!" she growled fiercely. "The only good thing about her is that we're not blood-related—she's an Uzumaki by virtue of marriage alone! If only Daddy hadn't felt obligated to take her and Akane in after Uncle Kazuo died…" Things would've been so much better.

Their meandering path brought them to Uzu Town's 'park'. It was just a chunk of wilderness with no name, minimal landscaping, a few benches, a few trash cans, and some gravel trails that twisted and looped through it. In the spring it looked stunning with all of the blossoming cherry and plum trees, but the rest of the year it looked thoroughly unimpressive.

Minato guided her over to a bench beneath one of the larger and more gnarled cherry trees and they sat down side-by-side in the dappled shade.

"So…why are you out here?" Minato wondered. "I thought that you never wanted to come back to your homeland ever again."

"I didn't," Kushina grumbled. "But Professor Sarutobi talked him into this trip to help out Professor Utatane since both of her usual assistants are unavailable."

He nodded in understanding, and they sat in silence for a while.

"…I never wanted you to come here and see my messed up family," Kushina sighed after basking in his calming presence for a while. "But…I'm glad that you're here." She leaned her head on his shoulder. "I love you."

Minato chuckled and rested his cheek against her hair. "I love you, too…"

Just as the sun was starting to set, a nasty thunderstorm rolled in from the sea. It blocked out the brilliant colors of sunset with thick black clouds, cold sheets of rain, blinding flashes of lightning, and tooth-rattling peals of thunder. Local residents were well accustomed to such weather and simply took cover to wait it out. The truly dangerous storms struck in the coldest months and made this storm cell look like a sun shower.

In a dilapidated-looking warehouse on the fringes on the docks, a small handful of workmen continued their duties without pause for the weather. Most of the crates were full of nothing but straw and extremely cheap goods. However, way in the back where the inspectors and police never got around to visiting, was where all the valuables were kept.

There were cases upon cases of expensive liquor that had been smuggled in to avoid taxes, crates of rare berries that hadn't gone through customs, ancient artifacts bound for private collectors instead of museums, and rare pokémon taken from restricted populations or distant lands. Before the storm had arrived, a batch of new crates had come in from a similar warehouse located on East Uzu Island. Rumors had leaked to shadowy ears that the police on East Uzu were preparing for a big raid on the warehouses holding illegal goods and so all the merchandise was being shifted around to safer ports until the heat died down and business could gone on as usual.

"Stupid cops," one man muttered as he struggled to rearrange some boxes. "They're getting all the kickbacks that they could ever ask for and they're still making things difficult."

"They have to look like they're doing something or they'll be out of work," a comrade replied philosophically. "No job, no bribes, no money for food and housing."

"Shut up," the first man grumbled and finished stacking the last box on the pallet. "I'm going to take a break. Be back in five."

The comrade nodded, and the burly box-mover ambled over to a quieter corner of the "back room" where there was a cracked window. He pulled a cigarette and a lighter from his pockets and lit up, puffing smoke through the open window so that the others wouldn't complain. As the nicotine seeped into his bloodstream, there was an agitated stirring in a large nearby crate.

"Go back to sleep," he grunted at it and took a few more drags. Don't tell me that that stupid hack screwed up the dosages of the sedatives again…

Whatever was in the crate didn't quiet down and, disturbed by the odor of his cigarette, started to struggle and kick at the wooden planks of its container.

"Damn it, I hate shipping these things loose!" he growled and dropped his half-smoked cigarette to grind it out with his boot heel.

Smuggled pokémon were shipped in pokéballs about only half the time and the rest were caged in crates with air holes. Keeping them sealed in capsules was the safest and most efficient way to move monsters around. But a lot of customers were picky—they wanted to keep the pokémon wild in private little menageries or they wanted to set up their own private hunts and catch the pokémon themselves…and they were willing to pay a lot extra to get their pokémon that way.

"What did you do?" another man, a Kurokawa judging by his facial tattoo, asked as he stomped over.

"I just smoked a little!" the smoker explained. "Where's the tranq gun?"

"You know better than to smoke in here," the Kurokawa glowered.

"I was blowing the smoke out the window!" the smoker protested.

"Doesn't matter," the Kurokawa snorted. "Smoking's against Boss Goro's rules. You don't want to piss the boss off by breaking them."

"Goro's not so scary," the smoker sneered. "Akuro of South Uzu—now that's a scary guy. He breaks legs for fun!"

"Well Boss Goro doesn't have to lay a hand on you to break you," the Kurokawa retorted. He looked over at the philosopher. "You, got get the tranqs—"

CRACK!

The side of the crate exploded with one final kick and a black hoofed creature with jagged white stripes bounded into view. It bucked and reared and electricity danced over its hide as it frantically sought on escape route. The irregular flashes of lightning blasted through the grimy window and silhouetted the zebra-like creature as it cried in panic.

"Damn it, it's loose!" the Kurokawa cursed. "The tranquilizers won't knock it down fast enough—it might manage to escape!"

"I got it!" the smoker muttered and released something from a pokéball in his pants pocket.

An enormous reddish mushroom with yellow spots appeared. It grew out of the back of an orange insect that was almost crushed under the bulk of the fungus attached to it. White blank eyes locked onto the rearing form of the loose pokémon and it raised its heavy claws.

"Shroom, give it a taste of spore—"

The zebra-like creature struck first. It shrouded itself in ribbons of flame and charged into the mushroom. It didn't work up a lot of momentum, but with its extreme weakness to fire and its dry skin ability that made that weakness even worse the strike was enough to knock the parasect out cold.

And then the wild creature started to glow.

"Crap!" the Kurokawa snarled and reached for one of his own pokémon. "We need to stop it before—"

The glow vanished revealed a creature a little more than twice its previous size. Its lightning bolt mane and tail were more impressive and its overall form less child-like. And riding high on its success against the parasect, the larger zebra beast began blasting anything that moved with paralyzing thunder waves.

"Damn it!" the smoker hissed as the electricity hit him and his muscles locked up.

With all the threatening humans temporarily taken down, the large zebra began striking at other crates with its hooves. It freed five other little zebras and rallied the drowsy creatures, stoking their energy by charging them with its own electricity. Then the small herd made a break for it, stampeding through the twisting aisles of crates and boxes and breaking through a door left ajar, exploding into the storm.

They charged through the deserted streets with the large zebra in the lead. The tiny stampede charged along and, since they were already close to the edge of Uzu Town, headed for open ground. With the loud, almost continual growl of thunder the noise of their hooves was nearly drowned out, and there were no people outside to stop or delay them. Only one person, a lost and drunken sailor looking for his ship, saw them at all as they raced away.

"…I drank way t'much," he slurred and staggered back towards the docks. "'S no such things as zebra pok'mon!"

It was dark and the storm had passed when Kenjiro headed home from his dinner with his father-in-law, Morimaru Hoshitama. His wife's father rarely visited Uzu Town as he lived in Eddy Village on West Uzu Island, but when he did he insisted on sharing some food with his son-in-law. But with Atsuko dead it was always an awkward affair and now it seemed like old Morimaru's health was starting to fail. This visit to Central Uzu could very well be his last.

Grimacing at his grim thoughts, he stepped through the front door of his quiet house. His sons were out with friends, Arashi was most likely trying to win back lost money somewhere, and Asuka was probably sleeping already, so only Akane sat waiting for him in the living room. She was listlessly stitching some bit of embroidery and jumped when she caught sight of him.

"Is something on your mind, Akane?" Kenjiro asked.

"Oh, no…" his niece shrugged and reapplied herself to her needlework. "Kushina stopped by a little while ago and took her bag and her things out of the bathroom. I think that…that she's staying with her fiancé tonight."

Kenjiro only nodded in response, not terribly surprised by this news. Kushina already had a child out of wedlock, so there wasn't much reason for her to make any pretense of chastity. And after the explosion at lunch, he knew that she wouldn't want to stay here if she could arrange to stay anywhere else.

"It's getting late," he told Akane. "Why don't you get ready for bed?"

"I'm almost done with this," Akane said softly, her eyes glued to the stretched fabric and colored threads.

He patted her shoulder and headed for his own bedroom. It was a bare but serviceable space with little more than a bed, a dresser, and a nightstand with a lamp and a picture of Atsuko. Venturing into his closet, he removed a hidden shoebox and brought it over to his bed where he removed the bunch of letters inside.

There were about thirty envelopes and all but four of them remained sealed. Kenjiro retrieved his reading glasses and checked the post-marked date stamped on them by the post office to make sure that they were in the proper order. And then he went to the oldest of the envelopes, which had been opened by Asuka, and started to read the note it contained, frowning at all the scratched out words and disjointed sentences.

"Um, hey…

"I'm not begging for money, I don't need you to come rescue me…I'm not in jail or anything… I don't want to come home. It's just…just…

"Kaede (she's this really nice old lady, she's letting me stay with her right now, her house is really cool, there's a lake behind it and all these berry bushes and it's really private) well, she says that I should make up with him and that everything will be okay…but she's kind of hard of hearing and I don't think that she gets it.

"What if…he gets really mad at me? What if he feels that he's stuck with me? I don't want him to feel…obligated to do…stuff! What if it ruins everything? What if he hates me for it? I don't want him to hate me… That would…really suck, and stuff.

"So, well, the thing is… Damn it, I don't know what I should do! I'm hiding from him right now so I don't get in his way, but should I do what Kaede says and make up with him? Or should I just hide out here so he isn't dragged down by a girl like me?

"…I just don't know…what should I do, Daddy?

"PS: I'm pregnant. Don't tell Aunt Asuka."

Kenjiro closed his eyes for several minutes before opening them again and reaching for the next letter.