I split this text because of its length to make it more readable, but actually this is a OneShot. Which got a bit out of hand. Again. Some of my headcanons are based on what I wrote for my longfic Roots. That is, had Madara not left the village, Hashirama would have had a polyamorous relationship with him and Mito. Mito and Madara may not have much to do with each other, but they can share Hashirama. Moreover, low key my headcanon that Kakashi is Tobirama's descendant also resonates here. But that's stuff that doesn't play a big role here. The ships are there but not the focus.

The text is based on an idea by Moontheoretist I found on Tumblr and was kindly allowed to use.

When Mito woke up, the first thing she noticed was birdsong. The second was the fact that she could not feel the grass under her fingers. She looked at her hands and made out characteristic cracks in her skin. Skin that, mind you, was no longer wrinkled and covered in age spots, but smooth and tight as it had been in her youth.

"Edo Tensei."

"Mito-sama!"

Mito looked up, only now realising that she was not alone. Next to her was a young woman she knew all too well. Kushina looked a few years older than when she had transferred her Kyūbi. And she too was Edo Tensei.

"My, my, you were quite a beauty in your youth, Mito-sama!" chattered Kushina blithely. "It makes me jealous, for real. Not that you weren't in your grandevity. But you know. I hope." She laughed nervously.

Mito smirked. "You haven't changed a bit, my child. It's good to see you've grown into a wonderful woman, Kushina-kun. But we'll have time to chat later. First, we have to take care of this." She waved her hand.

Kushina looked at her hands as well. Then her eyes snapped open and she made a startled sound. "Oh my goodness! What is this? But we're not in the afterlife, are we? And what about Naruto? What happened to my baby? What if he's turned into a naughty, cheeky brat who pulls girls' hair? I'm his mother after all, for real!"

Oh, then some time had indeed passed. Mito didn't know how Kushina had died, but apparently she had been able to experience the joys of motherhood before then. That was good. It would have to wait now, though.

"This is Edo Tensei, my brother-in-law's jutsu," she explained. "We're both dead, but someone called us back from the afterlife with a human sacrifice; that's how Edo Tensei works. We have been given sigils with which the user can control us. But since we still have our own will, I assume he either wants it that way or is otherwise busy at the moment before he can suppress our personalities. We should hurry before we find out what the reason is."

Kushina stared at her in disbelief. "N-nidaime-sama developed such a jutsu?" she stammered. "I can't believe that, for real."

Mito waved it off. "Tobirama had always had questionable morals. And too big an ego. He never got over the fact that I'm better with seals than he is. Which is lucky for us, because that's how I know how to break the seal that controls us. Just give me a moment."

She had always been in the habit of carrying some ink and sealing paper in her life. She was delighted to find out that in death it was no different. Then she sat down and sent out her senses.

"Oh, that's interesting," she observed.

Kushina looked at her expectantly. "What is it, Mito-sama?"

"This seems to be an evolution of Tobirama's formula," Mito said. "Not only was the user kind enough to restore me to my youth, but it also restored us to almost our full power. Tobirama had never been able to figure out how to accomplish that, and actually, it was better that way. But did you notice that we no longer have Kyūbis chakra? So the user couldn't summon that."

"When I was in labour, the seal weakened, much as it had with you, Mito-sama," Kushina reported as she watched Mito write down a sealing formula. "We had been prepared for that and Minato had mastered the eight Trigrams. We thought that would be enough, even if we didn't have anyone like Hashirama-sama. But at the moment when the seal was at its weakest, we were attacked by an unknown person. To cut a long story short, Kyūbi was snatched from me and let loose on the village. Minato as Hokage was able to avert the Kyūbi's attack, but we both gave our lives for it. With his last breath, Minato was able to seal Kyūbi in our son Naruto. What happened after that, I do not know."

Mito paused in her writing. Regretfully, she looked to Kushina. "I'm very sorry to hear that. How terrible that this was done to you."

Kushina clenched her hand into a fist. "But while we're here, I might as well find out what happened to my Naruto, for real! Maybe he's already Hokage!"

Mito executed the final brush strokes and then let the ink dry. "There, that should work. Through Edo Tensei, I can sense that the user is up to no good, and that he has summoned us can only mean that he is after the Bijū and needs our techniques to do so. So it's high time we do something about it."

Kushina looked at the formula. "Phew, quite complex. Respect that you were able to pull it off so quickly, Mito-sama."

Mito sat back with a satisfied smile."Unlike you, however, I have the advantage of having worked on it with Tobirama. We had been aware that Edo Tensei should never fall into the wrong hands and if it did, there had to be a solution to it. One can seal those summoned with Edo Tensei, but to really stop Edo Tensei, the user themselves must dissolve the jutsu. Or we can just use it to free ourselves from the user's influence." Mito waved the sealing paper. "I don't know if anyone had figured that out. Tobirama and I had only ever talked about it theoretically and never made notes. I didn't think I'd ever have to use it, and then on myself. Well. Come here, Kushina-kun."

Kushina stepped in front of her and Mito pinned the paper to her forehead. The paper dissolved and the ink sank into the skin. The formula immediately worked against the seal that bound Kushina to the user.

"It works!" exclaimed Kushina. "Quickly write another one for yourselves."

Mito immediately set to work while she pondered what was actually going on here. As she had told Kushina, she sensed malicious intent in the connection that existed between her and the user via Edo Tensei. Who this user was, she could not say, but that he was up to no good was clear. There was no way she would allow him to use the two Uzumaki women for his sinister plans. It would be theoretically possible for her to simply seal them both herself, but while they were here, they might as well find out what was going on and help set things right. After that, they could always be sealed.

And all this at my age, she thought to herself. She had lived long enough and had given Kyūbi to Kushina out of her own free will. That should have been it, she had seen enough of this world. Actually, she had wanted to spend a nice time in the afterlife with Hashirama, but that was probably not going to happen for a while now.

Well then, it was once again up to the women to put everything back in order.

"I wonder who is Hokage now," she said as she completed the seal. "Had Minato appointed a successor?"

"No, it had never come to that. He hadn't even been Hokage for a year, and to be honest we hadn't expected it to be necessary to worry about it yet. Maybe Sandaime-sama had taken over again, but he had been so old when he had left office to Minato."

"And we don't know how much time has passed since then," Mito added. "Well. Anyway, this is finished too. Then we can go and find out what's actually going on here."

She pinned the second seal to her forehead and immediately felt the connection to the jutsu user dissolve and she could now exist independently of him. Perfect. Finally she could breathe freely again. Figuratively speaking, anyway. Being Edo Tensei was a strange feeling. If she should run into Tobirama in the afterlife, she absolutely had to talk to him about her experience.

She looked around. The two women were in a forest and all around seemed peaceful. Mito didn't recognise the forest, it could be anywhere in the Land of Fire, maybe even in another country. So that didn't help them.

Mito strained her sensory skills. That was something Tobirama had always surpassed her at, at least as long as she hadn't been a jinchūriki. In this case, she didn't even need Tobirama's superior skills or Kyūbis chakra to sense the vast mass of sinister chakra.

"Madara!" she groaned. "But it can't be."

"I sensed it too. About there," Kushina confirmed, pointing in the appropriate direction. "That's really bad. Had his chakra always been like that?"

"Believe it or not, but you get used to it," Mito said, remembering the time when Madara had lived in Konoha. "But it's true, it had only been that dark at the end, when he had forced Hashirama to kill him. This is not good. Let's go quickly."

By now it had begun to dawn. The two women hurried side by side in the direction where they had sensed Madara, and Mito silently cursed the one who had summoned them. She was wearing her favourite kimono, but it was really not suitable for hurrying across the tree paths. Kushina was better off. She wore the standard equipment of the shinobi of Konoha and her headband was tied around her head. Her red hair was tied back in a ponytail.

"If you don't mind me asking, Mito-sama, but what had actually happened in the Valley of the End back then?", Kushina wanted to know. "Hashirama-sama had killed Madara, hadn't he? And that was also the moment when you became the first jinchūriki of the Nine-Tailes. It makes me wonder how it is that we can sense Madara's chakra now. He must be ancient, but that chakra there is full of life and so not like old people's."

"Well, I wish I knew," Mito replied. "Hashirama had definitely killed him, there's no doubt about that. Both Tobirama and I had confirmed that. Tobirama had taken the body and locked it away, but had not told anyone what he intended to do with it. As I mentioned, he had somewhat questionable morals. If I had to guess, I would guess that someone had also revived him with Edo Tensei and that can't be good. Tōka had rightly called him a slob."

Kushina nearly fell off the branch laughing. "Now that's not the word that would have come to mind when I think of the stories about him."

"But it must also be said that even when he was alive, many spoke worse of him than he deserved," Mito added seriously. "At the bottom of his heart he was a good man, and Hashirama had loved him dearly. I don't know what led to Madara eventually turning against the village he had helped found after all; he hadn't even told Hashirama. But he hadn't always been like that. Now, though, his chakra feels like it did when he went into battle with Kyūbi against the village."

Kushina eyed her seriously. "Do the two of us alone even stand a chance against him? We don't have Kyūbi's chakra anymore and I doubt that seals alone will be enough."

"As I said before, the most direct way to stop Edo Tensei is to seal the summoned person. And no one possesses stronger sealing jutsus than the two of us. Your Adamantine Chains are even stronger than mine. What my husband managed to do, we can certainly pull off!"

Kushina grinned. "For real!"

Because of Mito's cumbersome kimono, they were not progressing as quickly as they would have liked. But at least she would be going into battle in style, Mito joked. They had no trouble keeping an eye on Madara's chakra and continued to track it as he seemed to move away. He was as fast as ever and was soon able to close the distance to his pursuers. Once again Mito cursed her kimono and resolved to give whoever had summoned her a good thrashing.

When night had already fallen, Madara paused again. Mito couldn't really figure out what she was sensing. A huge amount of chakra in any case, in which she could also make out Kyūbi. She also knew the other chakra signatures, after all, it had been her who had helped Hashirama to capture and seal the other Bijū. Then all at once they all disappeared except for Kyūbi and Hachibi and something else more malevolent took their place. Something that far surpassed anything Mito had known until then in terms of violence and power.

She paused.

"Mito-sama, are you all right?" asked Kushina anxiously, stepping up to her.

Mito smiled. "In this form, I am no longer an old woman for you to help up, dear. But you felt that too, didn't you?"

"Yes. It's terrible, I can't even put it into words. But Kyūbi was there too, and I really hope that means he and Naruto have become friends."

"I don't know if humans and Bijū can become friends," Mito said sceptically.

"If anyone can, it's my little Naruto!" said Kushina energetically, clenching her hand into a fist. "I'm a firm believer in that, for real!"

"Then we should move on quickly and find out what's going on."

An explosion detonated in the distance. The earth shook. The two women swayed, holding on to the tree on whose branches they were sitting. Wordlessly they looked at each other, then nodded and hurried in the direction of the explosion.

It was not to remain with this one. With irregular pauses in between, more explosions followed, which were of considerable dimensions even for Bijū-balls. Neither Mito nor Kushina had ever experienced anything comparable.

A bright flash was the only warning they received. Then the fabric of the world around them was torn apart.

Mito learned that it was a strange feeling to be hit directly by a Bijū-ball and to be shredded down to the smallest atoms. She also learned that it was even stranger when those same atoms reassembled afterwards. Tobirama's jutsu was undoubtedly questionable, but at that moment the indestructibility of an Edo Tensei body proved useful after all.

While scraps still clung to her again, Mito looked around. The forest around them had disappeared, literally vaporised in the heat of the explosion. The two women now stood in the centre of a huge crater, debris still trickling from the edges. The smoke gradually cleared and the dust that had been kicked up began to settle.

"Woah, that was funky, for real!" exclaimed Kushina. "How is that possible?" She twisted her arms and watched as the rags clung to her again.

"That's the dangerousness about Edo Tensei," Mito explained. "Tobirama was a clever bastard who wouldn't settle for half measures. He couldn't give the people summoned with his jutsu their full strength, but he could give them indestructible bodies and chakra reserves that never ran out. The great advantage and enormous danger in Edo Tensei."

"You really know a lot about it," Kushina said admiringly.

"We did a lot of research together," Mito said. "He knew a lot about seals, but I knew more. We also worked together to help my husband understand his Mokuton better. Hashirama had a habit of just acting on instinct, but he was a wooden head and the fact that nothing ever went wrong and he ended up as a tree was bordering on miraculous."

Kushina chuckled to herself. "That doesn't sound like Shodai-sama at all."

Mito smiled mildly as she thought back to Hashirama. She missed him. "Shinobi only look at power and like to forget once in a while that there is a human behind it too. But come now, Kushina-kun. Our bodies are now fully restored and we must move on."

The explosion that had caught them had cut a swathe through the range of hills ahead of them. That was good, because it meant they were moving more quickly. It couldn't be far now.