Hinata moved the cage of the seal one last turn relative to her consciousness and finally understood the last few turns that would allow her to slip free from this fog. The seal was a maze: to put her in, there had to be a path. Finding it had taken days, but what else had there been to do when she could not even sleep properly? The seal did not allow for a proper REM cycle—the genjutsu seal seemed to limit mental activity to some narrow band; dozing was the best she had been able to manage.

It was torture.

She eked some more chakra from her poor, stretched system, gathering as much as she dared from the baseline she was allowed to keep in her body to stay alive. Then she performed another rotation on the seal net and gasped with the strain as her body distantly ached at the lack of chakra flow. She let herself relax, let the flow go back to normal to feed those starved tissues for a couple minutes. It was hard. She was so very close to the end.

If nothing else, her monumental failure in avoiding Yuji's ambush had forced the importance of patience into her.

Dog–51 and Monkey followed Ūhei to where Kakashi-senpai was waiting. The landscape around them was newly battle-scarred—charred ground, churned earth—but his team leader was crouched alone at one particular spot, his head bowed. The wiry man turned to greet them as they closed the last few metres, his lone visible eye full of unspoken secrets. "So?"

Dog saluted and said, "We found a charred seal, about twenty metres in diameter. It was very intricate; we made as accurate sketches as we could in our report for Tsunade-sama. Monkey detected trace chakra, indicating that he must have had to abandon it in a hurry. There was an imprint from something with a rounded rim at the centre that smelled of death."

"And those that destroyed your clone?"

"Gone by the time we arrived. I have their scents though." Dog passed over the scent samples he had bagged so Kakashi could try to fix them in his mind, not that his nose was anywhere near as good.

"And I have rudimentary chakra profiles," Monkey said.

Kakashi nodded and gestured at the congealed and slightly crusty white goop on the ground near his feet.

Understanding the unspoken order, Dog knelt, sniffed carefully, and rolled the scent over his tongue before rising to meet his leader's eyes. "A match with one of them."

"Uchiha? Senju?"

Dog shrugged helplessly. "The only Senju I have as a recent scent reference is Tsunade-sama."

"Were you ever presented with anything of her grandfather's?"

Dog shrugged again. "There are probably very faint traces of him in some places in the Mansion and Admin, but not enough to fix the scent firmly."

Kakashi cleared his throat and paused significantly. "What about Tiger–19?"

"I haven't worked closely with him, but I would recognize him." He re-examined the scent of the goop. "It's not a match, but there's a common element to it. Actually, that was the strange thing about the three scents apart from the target's at the seal site: they all shared a common element, but two more so than the third. This one—" he gestured at the goop "—is one of those two. The other and the third were mingled, almost as though they were one scent, but the differences were too acute."

Kakashi looked troubled. "It's unfortunate we're so far from Konoha. I don't know if the team here has a shared sealing repository with the village; I'm sure Intelligence would love to analyze this."

"What is it?" Monkey asked.

"Apparently some equivalent to blood; about an hour ago, some kind of Kyuubi bunshin similar to the ones they used to take down Pain emerged from a seal and battled Orange Mask. Kyuubi managed to blast his arm off before the bunshin dissolved, and this is what dripped from the stump before he disappeared." Kakashi held up a sample bag containing the substance along with a good portion of the ground it had seeped into. "Ūhei, take this to our contact in Silicon and get them to transfer it to Konoha as fast as they can or take part of the sample for immediate analysis here, with the results to be forwarded immediately to Konoha with a request to be redirected to our team as well."

The hound let his handler rig it in a sling on his back and took off.

Kakashi turned back to Dog. "The journal? I need to report this to Tsunade-sama."

Dog tossed it over and went back to analyzing the scene, wandering away to examine the footprints. He could make out Monkey asking questions.

"Where is everyone else, captain?"

"Expanding the search pattern towards Lake Eisa's southern shore and further along the road. Rat and Pakkun are still looking for a landing site; he sounded sure the kid would have run across the water to make us lose his scent. His last messenger clone was almost ten minutes ago. He hasn't found anything definitive yet, but he would know best."

"Like father, like son," she said.

"I'd like you to range further southwest of our current pattern, just in case the father does know his son. You'll be in a good position to meet up with him if the kid does end up striking towards the sea from further west. Stay in range of the hounds maintaining the radio relay so we can update you if need be."

She saluted and took off south, her request to the next hound in the relay for coordinates crackling over the radio.

Dog returned to his captain for orders.

"You might as well go extend the chain, but go over the road along your way to see if you can pick up any of the three. Share your scent samples with the hounds as you go." He passed the bags back to Dog, who tucked them away and turned to begin a stooped lope back to the road, keeping his nose as close to the ground as he was able.

Itachi's ankles ached; the cushion he had knelt on for the last hour was one of the older, more threadbare ones. He forced himself to stay in seiza, gritting his teeth as the jounin sitting cross-legged to his left shifted and sighed.

Koharu-sama rephrased her counter argument yet again, as though that would somehow make it more likely to sway the Slug Princess. "This is a display of weakness. You have a team out hunting the boy; until he is in custody, we cannot sit at the table with a strong enough position. It is folly!"

Tsunade-sama rolled her eyes and snapped her fan shut before glaring at the assembled advisors. "And I've been telling you that's bullshit." She raked the jounin audience with her eyes, moving past Itachi fairly quickly.

But then she hurled her fan at him, and it would have skewered him as well as any kunai if he hadn't snapped it out of the air.

"Itachi-kun."

He bowed, fingertips to the floor. "Hokage-sama."

"Maybe hearing my words from the mouths of babes will convince our esteemed and wizened ones. Why call a Kage Summit? Why is it not an unacceptable time for us to do so?"

"The threat of Akatsuki has now moved openly against all the major powers: Nibi, Gobi, Sanbi, Ichibi, and Kyuubi, specifically. Each of those was known to belong to one of the Five. Each was attacked. Of them, Konoha managed to defend two: Sanbi and Kyuubi. We are the only nation to successfully keep bijuu out of Akatsuki's hands."

"We are hunting the boy as we speak," Koharu-sama growled. "We cannot stand before the other nations claiming to be in a strong position when the face of our Shodaime is rubble!"

"Akatsuki's Pain deflected the bijuudama into the Shodaime's face. It is rather a sign of our jinchuuriki's defence of our village," Itachi said, the carefully cultivated rumour sliding off his tongue with ease. After all, he had not seen otherwise, having not yet made it back to the village.

Koharu-sama scowled at him just the same.

Tsunade-sama chuckled. "He does that so well, so glibly, for such a young buck, doesn't he? That silver tongue from the talks with Suna and Kumo would do well at the Conclave."

There were some hushed rumblings from the audience, but Itachi heard them just the same. "Uchiha." "Can't trust."

"Itachi-kun, tell me, has your brother stepped into your old role as heir well? He has a lot of catching up to do, what with you being cut from the Clan."

Tsunade's question prompted even louder rumblings as the rumours were confirmed.

Itachi considered his response carefully as he listened to the tone of the room. "Sasuke will do well as Uchiha Fugaku's heir." He didn't dare glance towards the Uchiha jounin in the room, all sitting in a group quite a ways from him. He could feel their glares though.

"Such a doting brother." She turned back to Koharu-sama. "The messages will be going out. I don't expect much from the meeting beyond trading insults, but if nothing else, it will lodge a foot up their asses and get them to formally recognize the threat. Restricting Akatsuki's movements across borders will make it harder for them to finish their collection. We're waiting for word from some neutral sites for confirmation that one is willing to play host. We've approached Iron as the logical choice, given their stance towards ninja, but we've also sent messages to the Southern Islands, Bird, and Tea as nations within range without a native ninja presence."

"Iron favours Earth," Homura-sama grumbled.

"As does Bird," added Danzou.

"And they'll say Tea is basically a satellite state of Fire," Tsunade-sama sniped back. "None of them are ideal. At least the Southern Islands would be warm. Even at this time of year, Iron will have three feet of snow at their lowest elevations.

"As per tradition, an entourage of two is the limit. I want a politico and a fighter. Nara-san is going to be left here with Shizune in my place, with the Council to advise them. I want suggestions for my escort." She rested her cheek on her fist, elbow braced on her knee, as the elders managed the assembled jounin's suggestions.

Itachi's ankles were screaming by the time the debating started to wind down. It was strange to be officially estranged from his mother. He knew that if he had delayed this move, she would have been the first one to suggest him. He wasn't sure going would be helpful or not to his image, but he needed to anyway. He had to be there to shape events into the best possible path.

Suggestions finally stopped. Itachi could see that Koharu-sama was about to call it. He couldn't suggest himself, none of the Uchiha would, so who—?

"I nominate Uchiha Itachi as the politico," rasped a horrifically scarred older woman, who pushed herself to her feet and began strolling towards the Council without invitation. Something about the way she walked was familiar. "He's thrown himself into the fire so wonderfully for this chance, after all. Konoha is so merciful to the Uchiha; it can only catch and shelter one of their discarded heirs, of course." The sarcasm was so thick and rancid that some cringed.

"Kakuho-san!" snapped Homura-sama, glowering at her. "Take your seat!"

She waved away his order with fingers without fingernails, just scarred beds, that had been obviously broken and badly set at some point. "In all my forgotten years of service, I have never seen a more dangerous politico than Uchiha Itachi: a pacifist hypocritical enough to slay the Raikage if need be. And knowing him," her tone curled the pronoun with disdain, "it just might be necessary."

"And are you volunteering yourself for the fighter role, Kakuho-san?" Tsunade drawled.

She made a fluttering courtly bow. "I wouldn't dare be so crass, Hokage-sama. Besides, you and I both know that my guarding abilities are well below par."

Both women smirked at each other, though Tsunade-sama's was not pleasant or friendly.

"Yes, I remember. I welcome your more sensible suggestion."

"Many thanks, Tsunade-sama. I hate to see young talents wasted because of bigotry."

"Or forgetfulness," Homura-sama said.

Kakuho-san flinched. "Yes, of course."

"Return to your seat."

She glared at him, but she did slink back to her cushion.

Itachi wracked his brain, trying to figure out who and why. She wasn't familiar—he would have recognized her for her scars if nothing else. ANBU then—the mask, optional bodysuit, and gloves would have covered her body enough. One of his mother's allies? Not an obvious one or one she spoke of; she had told him of the few that remained, but he didn't doubt she had kept some back. One like Kakuho-san wasn't worth much anyway: the way she had made her suggestion would keep it from being ignored, but it would most likely lose him points with everyone who heard about it or had witnessed it.

Grimacing, Itachi hoped his mother would refrain from working through that woman again.

Itachi slumped into his couch and eyed his brother, who was staring fixed at the cartoon on the TV. There was something forced about the rapt attention Sasuke was paying it. With a sigh, he flicked his eyes back to the screen and let the blobs of moving colour play in his unfocused sight before he let his lids slide shut and his head tilt back.

After four minutes with the TV the only sound, Sasuke shifted. "Worth it?"

"Heck if I know," Itachi admitted, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes.

A light punch landed on his shoulder. "Don't know who else I could trust to be in charge."

"You know I can't do anything for the clan now. Anything. I'll lose everything if I show any kind of favouritism."

Sasuke huffed. "It's not favouritism if it's fair. Things aren't fair now."

Itachi nodded. "But you know Father; he'll want it to be more than fair to make up for everything."

"Yeah…" The TV noise stopped; Sasuke must have muted it or turned it off, but Itachi didn't try to look. "I'll keep him reasonable. I'll make Mom help."

"And what about everyone else? They're the ones that push behind Father."

Sasuke was quiet for a bit. "I'll talk to them. I'll persuade them."

Itachi snorted. "Good luck with that."

The punch to his shoulder wasn't so soft this time. "Good luck with Konoha."

Itachi grunted.

"Tsunade-sama kick your ass?"

"She's gonna foist the jinchuuriki problem off on me. She's already making me draft communications to Suna about the incursion into their territory. She's also making me figure out where the funds to pay for the Iwa teams for hunting Orochimaru are going to come from and organize hiring them from Iwa."

His brother snorted and slumped to lean against Itachi. "Brown-noser."

"Shut it, you little shit."

A silence grew between them.

Sasuke finally cracked. "Being the conduit between you and Mom because neither of you can pick up the phone is going to suck, isn't it."

Itachi tousled his brother's hair in response. "Sorry."

"Mom said she wasn't behind Kakuho-san, at least not directly."

"What does that mean?"

"That she knows Kakuho-san, and that Kakuho-san is a loose cannon who has never listened to anybody, so whatever she did, she did on her own. Mom said to remind you that a certain Snake was rumoured to have let the Sandaime get poisoned on purpose and that even Mom doesn't know if that rumour is true or not."

Itachi considered that. He and his mother both knew with certainty that the Sandaime had been poisoned in that attack by Suna's assassin and that ANBU agents had in the end taken down the attacker. His mother's odd comments from that time about the agent celebrating were beginning to click. "A loose cannon… She did seem rather unhinged."

Sasuke rolled his eyes and scooped up the remote, flicking the TV's volume back on. "You should hear the rumours. They're saying she strutted and bowed like one of those Shakespearian actors."

"She did. None of the Elders seem to like her. Neither does Tsunade-sama, which makes sense if she is the reason Tsunade was dragged back to Konoha to treat Sandaime-sama." Itachi grimaced as he considered. "Why though?"

"She likes Mom, or at least that's what Mom said. Mom thinks she did it to piss off the higher ups, but also maybe because she thought you'd do well."

"And you? You've got a pretty good idea what's going on now, at least a bit. What do you think?"

Sasuke shrugged, finally turning away from the TV. "These bijuu, they're super powerful, but I listened to Yuji and Kyuubi talking. They're partners, and the sense I'm getting is that they're unusual, that usually the bijuu and host aren't buddies. You guys are hunting him down, them down, because he doesn't want to obey Konoha, but he helped us, even after the way he attacked all those years ago."

Itachi nodded. "He didn't do it to help us, but in the end, that's what he did. From the reports, the corpse puppets were not close to being stopped when Kyuubi stepped in."

"And then he destroyed Shodaime's face."

Itachi grimaced.

"Why? He could have blasted the entire village again."

"And I think he wanted to. Kyuubi hates Konoha, but he hates the Shodaime the most."

"Because he started all this, right? He gathered the bijuu and gave them away."

Itachi arched an eyebrow at Sasuke and smirked. "Lessons already getting to you, huh?"

His brother rolled his eyes. "Gotta know what choice bits of history to bring up in debates, apparently. Anyway, Kyuubi doesn't talk like a dumb beast, not like they make him out to be in the stories about the attack. He's clever and he knows a lot." Sasuke picked at the couch cushion. "We form contracts with summons."

"Yes."

"Kyuubi… sealed away, he's like a slave."

Itachi side-eyed his brother. "He's committed crimes, so it's more like prison with labour detail in providing chakra."

"When you don't die, how long is life in prison supposed to last?"

He considered for a bit. "I suppose when there are signs of remorse?"

His brother nodded, accepting that. "None of that, obviously."

"Obviously."

"But are we supposed to force remorse out of Konoha? Can we even make them feel it?"

"A good question, little brother. A very good question."

"I hate it when you're right," Monkey shouted across the distance between them as she sprinted over the foothills to join him and Pakkun.

Rat smirked slightly around gasps for breath through his open mouth. Pakkun kept just ahead of him and didn't spare the two humans a glance as he followed the scent trail.

"You would know him best though," she said as she fell into step beside Rat, her tone enough to tell him what expression lay behind the apathetic porcelain. "You trained him."

"And that would be why Kakashi-san lent me Pakkun to chase after my theory."

She snorted. "So modest, Shi-boy. How far behind him do you think we are?"

"Hours maybe. Pakkun discovered signs he stopped in the forest and pulled out Hinata and a man, probably Nagato," Takashi said, spacing his words between very necessary breaths.

"Your stamina isn't what it used to be, huh?"

"You can't talk, Arisa."

She hissed loudly at him before shushing him. "Monkey! Monkey! No names out in the field, or has it really been so very long for you, Mentor-san? Does your genin squad not keep you on your toes enough? Or are you going soft in your old age? I thought I spotted some grey hairs there…"

"Like you can talk."

Pakkun twisted to give them a look over his shoulder. "Are you two siblings? Or squabbling lovers?"

Both of them laughed at the dog. "As if I would let myself live if I were related to Danzou too!" Monkey scoffed. "His mental fortitude for enduring such a relative is commendable, though it is pitiable that he must follow the directives of such a clan head."

Takashi held his peace, too busy breathing and pushing onwards through the burn of his muscles.

"Since he's your boy," Monkey continued in a more subdued tone, "What are we going to do once we do catch up? Kakashi and the rest of the squad are coming, but they're going to be at least an hour behind us unless we get the toads involved."

"Whatever is necessary," he said, but from the way Monkey kept watching him, he knew she saw right through him.

Takashi sighed as the latest fisherman he had been interviewing nodded and went back to meandering his way home from the local bar for the night. Yuji had definitely been here only a few hours before, but where he had gone… Dragging his palm down his face, he groaned quietly. Hatake was not going to be pleased when he caught up.

Takashi turned to Monkey and said, "Reminds me of home." It was dangerous to speak like this, talking about closed missions was frowned upon, but, with Tenzou, he had to be the adult still, the father. Monkey was from his genin squad. She was trustworthy and his flaws were well known to her, the mind-reading sister he had never wanted.

She turned to him with a dry look he knew from memory more than anything. The starlight and the scattered lanterns weren't enough to illuminate her face to get the full effect. "Your little fishing village?"

He nodded.

"I always wondered what you saw in the place. You were different and unsettled when you came back. You weren't Takashi anymore. That woman, what happened to her? She was this boy's mother, wasn't she? Why haven't you brought her out? Could she be used as emotional blackmail? Why hasn't Tsunade-sama used her?"

That was Yamanaka Arisa in a nutshell: the asker of hard questions when not wearing her ANBU mask. He allowed a corner of his mouth to curl up even as the shadowed wrinkle between her eyes, a frown line, deepened. Gods, they were both getting old.

"I cannot speak for the Godaime. Sandaime-sama was too good to use her. To use her was to admit defeat; he believed in the Will of Fire. Besides, what good was a jinchuuriki that was only as loyal as the leverage you had over him? Do you honestly think that he would've spared Konoha from Kyuubi if we did that to him?"

"It could have been phrased in such a way to promise that we were offering her as his due, an apology."

"And how long would it have stayed that way? A being as sinister as Kyuubi would not have let him interpret it that way. A jinchuuriki with an obvious weakness is too easy to control by anyone who seizes that weakness. How long would my clan head have stood aside and not held her over Yuji's head?"

Monkey nodded. "Makes sense. You must have been so careful to keep her from Danzou though; he wouldn't have hesitated. I didn't know that little tiger cub of yours was capable of hiding something like this. Does Dragon know?"

Takashi shrugged. "Who knows what secrets are in Dragon–1's head? When he retires, Konoha will be lost unless his successor is worthy."

Arisa grinned. "All those snot-nosed Dragons jump to his every finger twitch because of it. But you are mistaken; Dragon–1 is obviously an immortal. He will have no successor."

Takashi felt the tension in his shoulders ease as he smiled. "His gnarled hands tell a different story. I wager he's only a couple years older than the Sannin."

She pursed her lips. "Do you know when he took the post?"

"Before my time."

"Would…" Arisa trailed off, her grin fading slightly. "No, I suppose Snake wouldn't know."

"I don't think she even remembers when she joined," he agreed sombrely. "A retired agent? I hear that Uchiha Mikoto knows a great many secrets she shouldn't."

"And you would have the guts to face down her demure housewife smile to ask?"

He grimaced. "I'd get Tenzou to do it."

She laughed. "Ah, the benefits of having your 'son' be a friend to her son. I see how it is. I should cultivate that cousin of mine, Inoichi's daughter. She's convinced Mikoto-san will be her mother-in-law soon enough, so I could rely on that connection."

He didn't have anything to say to that. Yuji had been too young, and Seiichi had been too dedicated to the mission; neither of them had put him through the young romance wringer.

Arisa smirked at him before she settled into a more sombre mien. "Is Kato Eiko still alive?"

It would be easy enough for her to check; that she had held off was a courtesy he was grateful for. "You know it's better if I don't tell you."

She sighed. "You know, with you, I can't tell without peeking because you'd be just as dramatic protecting her memory as protecting the still-living her." She stared at him hard, but he kept his face blank. "Let's go find a boat. Or a barge? Can't let your boy slip away now that he thinks he's gotten clear."

Takashi smirked.

Kurama watched the lobby go dark until he was the only source of illumination.

The fires of the boy's consciousness were extinguished. Indeed, the candle of his life was flickering if Kurama were any judge of the extensive damage the Shinigami had mirrored upon the boy's torso. The stomach had been cut open, yes, and was spewing acid, causing terrible internal damage. But that had not been the end of it. The Shinigami's knife had been much longer than the scalpel the boy had meant to use. In the struggle, he had gotten overenthusiastic: he had completely impaled his stomach, going through the abdominal wall, up through the stomach, and out the backside for a ways. The knife's tip had reached the pancreas, liver, duodenum, and blood vessels carrying quite a bit of pressure. Worse, the boy had torn up part of his colon, which was helpfully spewing bacteria and faecal material into the general mess.

Kurama could fix the boy, but he was not sure he would be able to do it before the internal bleeding and acid did more harm than he could counter in time.

He was down a third of his strength, that portion lost to possessing Nagato. A full half of his former might was four seconds from becoming real enough with chakra to finish the evisceration job the boy had started.

And, honestly, it was tempting to just let Yin finish the job. With half of him left on this plane, the scattered remnants of Yang would accrue within Yin in time.

Yuji was not quite as trusting as he pretended though. If he did die, that soul catcher seal would hold them. It was strong, despite how Kurama had tried to let some errors slip through here and there to make sure there was an escape hatch. The boy had been very careful with his second draft, catching them and eyeing Kurama reproachfully for not alerting him. It would hold both Yin and Yang more than long enough for the masking seal to run out of chakra and fail, allowing the mutant Uchiha to find them. The Shinigami's lingering presence was proof enough of that, though the asshole could be sticking around to sate his curiosity and be ready to claim the one that had dared summon and disembowel him.

Yin was still roaring, more a shockwave of malicious chakra than sound waves. Thousandths of a second passed in slow motion from Kurama's perspective.

The lobby began to collapse.

The walls cracked, fragments of the ceiling falling into Kurama's fur.

Blood, bile, acid, and filth flowed up the oesophagus and out between the wide lips of the wound.

The floor lurched, fracturing loudly, making a woman shriek.

Hinata opened her eyes to darkness on one side and a blinding light on the other. There was almost no light in this place. There was an immense chakra source though. Malevolent orange pulsed through the skeletal man propped up against the wall. Kyuubi's chakra. A small core of purplish chakra was being overwhelmed by the orange, only visible when within the chakra coil, but being diluted out the moment it flowed into the larger circulatory system. From the chakra around and in his eyes, she could guess that they were focused on her.

"Interesting."

She kept her mouth shut, feigning that nothing had changed. She could tell she was tightly bound: wires on wrists and ankles, and wrappings around her elbows and knees, possibly wide cloth bandages. Wire she could handle—a quick chakra lance. Bandages would be more difficult.

Assuming she could get a better handle on her chakra.

"You truly are very extraordinary in your own way, Hyuuga child. He expects it from you, did you know? He unconsciously has named you his Konoha opposite, the spectre of what he could have been if I hadn't spoken to him, persuaded him to go his own way. It seems to fit you, despite your lack of bijuu sealed within. You aren't like every other Konoha-nin we have taken: you've woken up. This one did as well, but he inherited the Sage's powers; it was expected. You…" He chuckled, and she shivered. "You are actually half blind. Corneal damage. Why not let that woman Hokage the boy resents so much fix you? More politics? Pride?"

Sounds were beginning to come to her: the whistle of wind tearing through a narrow space, the drip of water into a pool, and the sort of closed echo that suggested caves to her.

"We may die here, you know. Well, you and this Uzumaki creature. If the boy dies, you two shall be left here, in this other place. I cannot sense myself; there is a vast gulf between my selves, so the boy must be right: we have shifted planes. I suppose considering how Zetsu did not manage to recover this Uzumaki, it should have been obvious. Those two would manage to track him down no matter where we stashed him so long as he had contact with the earth. The boy got the pattern for this place from the monks, but it was one of the less commonly used patterns. He didn't want his things mingling with whatever they stashed away, or so he said. There is enough food stockpiled in the connecting caverns that you could probably last a few weeks. Beyond that though… I do not think there are more than cracks providing airflow and light. I do not know if you are mighty enough to break the metres of stone open to step free.

"Unless… I thought it strange that your entire group managed to reach Silicon ahead of us. We left you far behind in northern Fire, and suddenly you are in western Wind? No. Ninja don't use space-time jutsu very well, so there must have been summoning involved. Given how you went after us immediately after detecting us and the presence of the boy's father, yes, it must have been the toads." The man holding Kyuubi barked an ugly laugh. "The boy will be furious that his trust was betrayed. He was just starting to trust Fukasaku. Too predictable too; the boy should have chosen the North Sea instead of the Kinuzu, but he worships it too much. Does your body require water or food? He expects me to feed you."

The mere mention of food made Hinata realize just how empty her stomach was and how she really needed to pee despite her thirst. She despised herself upon feeling the heat in her cheeks.

"If you don't say anything, I will not provide anything. It is the boy that wants you kept alive. I would prefer you dead."

The beast said that so casually that she shivered, which the creature chuckled darkly at. "Why." Her voice sounded so cracked and weak in this space.

"Do you let an ant that bit your arm live? No, you squish it or sweep it off so violently you break its body. You have irritated me. I can squish you."

"Why are you talking to this ant?"

There was a longer pause this time. "To have an audience, I suppose. What god wouldn't want a witness."

"Yuji is your witness. Without him, you make do with me. He is the only one who can always hear you."

The beast chuckled again and eased to his feet, chakra shoring up the atrophied limbs. He walked over to loom above her. "Well, your Yondaime did not give me much of a choice in the matter. Do you intend to soil yourself, or will you break and ask for the use of your legs to spare yourself that indignity? It has always amused me that the pelts you create for yourselves actually are made such that they hinder your natural processes."

She glared at this beast in the emaciated shell pulsing with virulent chakra—a useless gesture, she knew, but she had to express the choking gall somehow. Being talked down to by this creature shouldn't have been any worse than all the Hyuuga elders, her sister, her cousin, or the countless foreign ninja and civilians who recognized her by her eyepatch and sneered when her back was turned, as though that meant she couldn't see them. This creature didn't care about her. It didn't know her, despite how it spoke. It wasn't even really alive, just chakra, but somehow this thing that lived inside Yuji made her sneer openly, lip curling back.

Maybe it was the darkness. She was half blind for real but in the wrong spectrum. There was an anonymity to it.

"If you please," she hissed, her tone twisting the polite words. This really wasn't wise—she knew that—but this creature was so damned condescending.

That dark chuckle again. "It does not please me. It would actually please me more to witness you fester in your own excrement. It would be a religious experience for your species, I think. You like to hide your shit away, dumping it downwind so you may forget you ever gave something back to the world, poisonous as some of it is. It is rather similar to how you have poisoned chakra. You take it into yourselves, into your bloodline, poisoning it with your intentions and actions through it, and spew it back into the world with your jutsu. Do you have any idea what chakra smells like? Tastes like? You cannot understand what a cesspool your precious village is without those senses. The natural chakra in range of your walls is fetid just from proximity."

She tested the flow of chakra through her flesh as a spindly finger burning so brightly with chakra it almost blinded her descended towards her forehead. Something in her shivered with terror as tendrils of orange vapour wafted from that finger.

"I could show you. I could infiltrate your system as I have done to this one. I could change the neurones in charge of interpreting smell—they are underdeveloped in humans anyway—and lace them with my chakra to give you the ability to grasp the scents." The finger rested on the tip of her nose, the ghostly vapours moving despite how she was just barely breathing now. Something in her was screaming at just this touch. Much too close. "Yes… I think it would be instructive for you. A curse and a gift all at once. Enlightenment from a god just for you, oh blind one. A miracle to offset your damaged sense, yes?" He laughed at his own joke as tendrils bled from that finger into her skin and up her nostrils despite her attempts to shake him off.

Frantic as she felt the chakra moving through her system, she shoved what she could gather to pierce the wires on her wrists, shearing through the metal but not the bandages at her elbows before a pressure in her mind stilled her chakra. Horrified, she just shuddered and panted as that dark chuckle sounded inside her head.

Her head began to ache. There was pressure and a sense of expansion.

"Your brains are interesting, particularly when it comes to smell. The regions are closely tied to memory and emotion, did you know? I suppose you wouldn't. More lost knowledge. Now, don't cry, little human. I have a vested interest in getting you home now. I want to see if you smell what I smell.

"And I want to see what you do when you do."

Pride made Kurama go through the motions of creating a clone with half of what remained to him as the rest spread through the boy's body, propping up collapsing, dissolving structures. The bunshin poofed into existence, taking on vulpine form just quickly enough snap at the larger, ghostly Yin. Yin took a swipe at the bunshin, claws raking across its snout as it crouched over the boy's dying flesh.

Kurama snarled, baring his teeth, claws digging through the canvas of the platform with ease.

Why defend what ensnares you? Are you some loyal hound? Can you not see what is inside this abomination's soul?

Soul is your realm, not mine. He has my word.

And since when has a fox's word counted for anything? And in what world would I ever not lie to a ninja?

He hesitated.

I have battled his father for the last sixteen years, and here you would keep me from striking the final blow we were denied all those years ago?

He remembered that night. He had tasted freedom after having his free will raped yet again and then Kushina had wrapped him in chains and that yellow asshole had eaten half of him!

Wrath, thick and black, made the bunshin and boy shake.

She was here, helpless. He could make her watch impotently this time as something precious was taken away forever!

Kurama's bunshin slowly grinned at Yin.

"Not so fast!"

Chains shot out of the boy's fallen body, wrapping around Yin, who bellowed, breaking the bunshin's neck at the apparent betrayal. The clone burst into smoke, but still the chains, those damned familiar chains, towed the struggling Yin against the boy's broken form, dragged the chakra within his system.

"Kushina!" Kurama roared, scanning the gloomy lobby for any sign of the bitch. "You'll cease this or I'll let your son die here!"

The red-haired woman didn't say anything, but the chains that shot out to bind him to the floor were answer enough.

Hatred, pure and all for her, consumed both Yin and Yang.

The chains tightened, and the resonance between what had been parted allowed her to smother them against one another such that they fused as they had once been, one being as they were meant to be, both aspects as one.

Wills and consciousness came together only because of the pure hatred Uzumaki Kushina inspired in him.

The much enlarged fox struggled against the too tight chains as the ghost of the human stepped out of the gloom into the furthest limits of the glow he gave off. There was a wry grin on her face. "At least you can agree on something." She was so transparent, the chains rattling over the stone lobby floor as she walked closer.

Kurama strained to get at her, to break her in his jaws, snarling.

She looked him straight in the eye, just barely with enough colour and opacity remaining for him to make out the violet shade of her irises. "I doubt this makes up for everything, but it's all I could think of. Good bye, Kurama. Tell my son I love him."

And she and her chains were gone.

And he, whole though he was, was now all bound to a promise only half of him had made, in the badly damaged boy's body.

Diminished as the lobby was by the boy's state, Kurama's rampage destroyed entire sections before he descended into the subconsciousness to wreak havoc there, leaving Yuji to languish in the dark as his mind was broken.

What he found in the depths of the basement with senses that had returned with his Yin aspect, was enough to make him stop, slink away, and spend hours pacing the lobby, his chakra flowing over the floor and shooting flames up the stone walls.