Kushina is a whirling dervish of hands and feet, the blows coming in a surging rhythm like cresting waves. Her teeth are gritted, her brows furrowed, and a look of frustrated determination occupies her face. I'm probably not helping with her state of mind as I dodge most of her blows, and guide the ones I can't gently around me. When I see an opening in her guard, of which there have been more and more as the spar has gone on, I reach out and poke her where I can. All to help her improve, not at all because her squeaks are adorable.

The pouting glare I get every time I giggle at the sounds my fellow redhead makes, leads me to think that she wouldn't believe that assertion.

With a half strangled scream of frustration, Kushina over commits on a punch. Grabbing her arm and catching her under her other arm, I use her momentum to toss her over my head. Just before she hits the ground I pull up, resulting in her being gently laid out on the grass.

The panting girl glares up at me, to which I only respond with an unrepentant smile.

Finding Kushina this morning, the day after we'd met, hadn't been hard. Apparently her master is very old. So if the Academy isn't doing sparing, and her master doesn't have something for her to do, she's at loose ends.

Which is how I find myself in one of the training fields reserved for Academy students. When I get back to the hotel room I need to remember to taunt Koji that I got invited to a Konoha training ground by a cute girl before he did.

When I found her, Kushina had been leaving a ramen stand, unsurprisingly, and had given me the answer to my previous question about what child soldiers do for fun. The answer is, apparently, sparing.

Which really doesn't surprise me, though I admit I'm a little disappointed. We've been training together for most of the day, having started in the morning and it being mid-afternoon now.

I walk towards where we'd dropped our stuff when we arrived in the wooded clearing that makes up the training ground, and grab both of our water bottles. Returning to my sparring partner, I sit down next to where Kushina is still sprawled, hand one bottle to Kushina, which she takes with a grunt, and take a sip from my own. Kushina guzzles most of hers, before pouring the rest over her head.

"How do you do that?" she demands after a minute of silence.

"Do what?"

She frowns at me, "That!" She points at me, "You're not even winded! And no matter what I do I can't lay a finger on you!" she huffs, folding her arms petulantly.

"Well..." I say slowly, "I'm two years into training, and three, maybe four years away from being a fully trained samurai. Something that normally takes ten years to achieve by the way, and you're still what? In your first year of training?"

Kushina stares up at me from where she's still laid out on the ground, eyes wide, "So you're one of those prodigies, or geniuses everybody talks about?" She sounds way too excited by the idea.

I'm not really sure how to answer that question, because on one hand I'm working with an entire lifetime of experience and training already present. Complete with training from people like Ku and Vivain. On the other hand, thanks to what I took from the Tengu, I really kind of am. I'm absolutely on my way to completing all the required training for being a samurai in half of the time it should have taken. And it's only taking that long because the academics are slowing me down.

So in the end I settle for a shrug.

"That's so cool, ya know!" Kushina squeals, sitting up and bouncing slightly, "They've got someone that everybody calls a genius in the class I spar with too. Minato Namikaze," I'm very careful to not react to the name of Kushina's future husband, "but he's so girly, and sure I hear he does well in classes, and he gives me a fight in sparring, not like you do but he wins sometimes, but he's always spacing out, or talking about chakra theory, or something." She makes a disgusted face sticking her tongue out.

I can't help but giggle at that, "Not a fan, huh?"

"Not at all, and he keeps bugging me whenever I'm there. He's annoying," Kushina declared with the certainty of a seven year old girl. "Come on!" She bounces to her feet, "Let's go again, I'll beat you for sure this time, ya know!" I doubt it, but she does come up with new strategies frequently, clearly learning from every spar. "Then we can go get ramen!"

I laugh at her enthusiasm and climb to my feet, "What is it with you and ramen anyway?"

Kushina's expression goes distant and her smile wanes. For a moment I almost panic thinking that I've somehow done the impossible and killed the irrepressible redhead's cheer. Her smile hasn't vanished completely though, it's just smaller. And sadder.

"You know what happened to Uzu?" she asks, glancing at me uncertainly. My only response is to worry and nod. It was hard to miss, the fall of Uzu being the battle that ended the war. Also the only two known Uzumaki survivors are here in this village, "My dad was a ninja, mom was too, but she retired when they had me. But every time dad came back from a mission, we'd all go out for ramen. To celebrate him coming home safe. So ramen is safety, and family, and home." She looks up at me, eyes bright and her smile wide again, "I need as much of that as I can get, ya know?"

"Yeah, I know." I give her a hug, and she sniffles into my shoulder, but no tears come, "We can get as much ramen as you want." I'm never going to be able to say no to ramen again, am I? I let her go, and she steps back, "We're doing something other than sparring tomorrow, though. There's more to do than just training."

Kushina blinks at me, eyes wide, "There is?"

This is what I was like with Sarah growing up, isn't it? I owe her such an apology.

###

I moved through the forested training ground as carefully and quietly as I could. We aren't in the infamous training ground 44, also known as the Forest of Death. A place I absolutely intend to go as soon as I can without getting in trouble for it, giant tigers, nuf said. This is a completely different forested training ground though. Which really isn't doing much for my attempts at being stealthy.

I don't think I'm doing a great job.

A thought proven true by the dull rubber kunai that bounces off the back of my head. I jerk forward clutching my temporarily bruised skull, flinching slightly as I drop my own practice kunai and the air is filled with the sound of Kushina's giggles.

I sigh and straighten up, glaring at Kushina as she drops out of the trees a little ways away from me, "I thought we weren't going to be spending the day training?"

The other girl skips up to me. "We're not training though, we're playing ninja!" she grins as she speaks. Which is fair, I guess, unlike straight up sparring where I was pretty much unchallenged, she's been kicking my ass at the game 'ninja'.

'Ninja' at its most basic, is a game of tag. If tag was a free for all, ranged 'tagging' was allowed via thrown play kunai, and encouraged stealth and three dimensional maneuvering for ambush.

In other words, training.

I narrow my eyes at Kushina, trying to figure out if she really doesn't realize that the game is just a socially acceptable training method for the very young, or if she's just messing with me. Her wide eyed innocent look actually isn't giving anything away. Which makes me suspect she's fucking with me. She's a ninja after all, even if only in training. They're never innocent.

The problems I've been having with the game is that the dense foliage disrupts my senses, Kushina's ninja stealth, and the fact that neither sneaking nor thrown weapons are taught to samurai means I'm pretty much helpless. I probably could still win with judicious use of my glamor and mana sense, but that feels like cheating, and I'm not so petty as to start cheating to win a kids game.

I narrow my eyes at her, "Right, you're not to be trusted, sneaky ninja." I shove her in the shoulder and she stumbles several steps away giggling. "I'm picking what we do next."

"Sure, sure," Kushia says, flapping a hand at me, "Whatever you say. But that's tomorrow, right?" Her eyes glint in anticipation, "We're still playing ninja for the rest of today, right?"

I sigh again, "Sure." I bend down to pick up my dropped 'weapon' and Kushina jumps up and down, throwing her arms into the air in celebration. "We can keep 'playing' for today. But tomorrow I'm going to get back at you for this."

"Nuh uh," the hyperactive redhead admonishes me with a waggled finger. "You said no training, so you can't get back at me."

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of sparring," I tell her with a wicked grin, "I was thinking more like... singing."

Kushina's face falls, "What." I skip off into the forest with a giggle of my own. "No really! Eri! What do you mean 'singing'? Eri!"

I giggle harder, karaoke is a thing in the elemental nations, right?

###

As it turns out, there is karaoke in the Elemental Nations. Or in Konoha at least.

Finding a parlor isn't hard. Convincing the man behind the counter to let two seven year olds make use of one of their rooms without supervision is harder. We manage though, and soon enough are let into one of their comfortable rooms. It's got thick carpeting, and the walls are also covered in sound absorbing material. A plush couch in front of a low table and a couple of chairs populate the center of the room. On the left side wall is a small bar, filled with drinks and snacks. I'll need to make sure that Kushina doesn't accidentally grab something with alcohol in it. Opposite the door is a low stage with a jukebox up against the back wall, with a lyric book and several microphones sitting on top of it.

An honest to god, from the earth fifties jukebox.

Filled with actual vinyl records, and with white buttons that make a satisfying 'chunk' noise when you press them.

I drag Kushina into the room, nearly skipping. Once we're inside and the door has closed behind us, so Kushina can't sneak out, I let go of her and rush to the jukebox.

The list of titles available aren't anything I recognize from Earth, of course, but I do recognize a couple of them from Iron. I bounce a little on my toes indulging in being a little girl again.

"So what should we sing first?" I spin around on the ball of one foot, a big smile on my face. I love singing, the siren's voice is so far one of my favorite traits, and I've been looking forward to sharing one of my favorite hobbies with my new friend.

Kushina though, is standing in the middle of the room, not quite trying to look as small as possible, but she's standing with her feet together, her shoulders hunched, hands clasped in front of her, and her gaze locked on the ground.

"Kushina?" I approach her cautiously, "Are you okay?" My fingers just brush against her shoulder and she jumps, though not away from me, which is good, "If you don't want to do this..." I'd be disappointed, and I did pay enough for us to have the room pretty much for as long as we want it. But I'd eat the cost without complaint if my friend really doesn't want to be here. It's not like I have much else to spend my money on.

"No..." Kushina shakes her head, "It's fine. It's just..." She peeks up at me, her bright purple eyes uncertain, "What if I'm no good?"

I almost laugh, but manage to hold it in. "Kushina, the point of karaoke isn't to be good. It's to have fun! We sing and we dance, and if we do it badly we laugh at ourselves."

"But you are, aren't you?" the smaller redhead asks me uncertainly, "Good, I mean?"

"I mean..." I hesitate, how good am I? Siren's voice is basically cheating, and I did have some pretty extensive vocal training to make use of it, and I do sing all the time... "Yeah, I love singing, so I do it alot. But really don't worry about it, I'm the only person who's going to hear you, unless you want somebody else to."

"And you won't laugh at me?" Kushina's voice is soft enough that without my enhanced senses I might not have heard her.

"Probably will," I tell her and her eyes snap up to look at me again, only to find me still smiling at her, "And you'll laugh at me. That's the point. We're going to do silly things! Sing songs, dance like fools, maybe jump on the furniture." I eye the couch speculatively, "And we're going to laugh at each other a lot." I grab her up in a hug, "Would it help if I went first?" Kushina nods, "All right then, let's see what we've got."

I put the smaller girl down and skip back over to the jukebox to look through their catalogue again, and Kushina takes a seat on the couch. After a few moments of waffling I pick a song called 'Only My Raiton' and find it in the lyric book quickly.

Mic in one hand, lyrics in the other, I'm ready.

The music starts up with a high powered fast intro before the lyrics kick in and I start to sing facing the jukebox. After the first verse I spin using the hand that I've got the book in to point at Kushina as I continue to sing along, an action that in no way fits with the lyrics, and start to dance.

I've never been trained in dancing, of any sort, but I've got spectacular body control, and a sense of rhythm, so I can dance pretty well if I try hard enough. Right now I'm not trying. Or rather I'm trying to dance badly. At which I think I do a pretty good job.

I try to swing hips I don't have yet, jump up and down out of rhythm with the song, and generally just make a fool of myself. Kushina seems to enjoy it as she has both hands clamped over her mouth to try and stifle her giggles, her eyes bright with mirth.

I grin at her, "See? Hilarious. You wanna try now?" She shakes her head, still giggling. My smile widens, "Fine. I'll do another one, but then you'd better be ready to at least sing with me." Which sends me back to the jukebox.

After some more flipping around I settle on a song called 'Sakura Days'. After hearing the music start up I decide to sing this as melodramatically as possible. I claw the scenery, drop to my knees and sing at the sky, and at one point lean backwards onto Kushina.

For which she rightly pushes me off of her and onto the floor. There's no smothering her giggles now, she's laughing at me freely and seems much more relaxed for it.

After that we're off to the races. We sing several songs together, before Kushina tries a solo. She picks 'Save the Last Dance for Me', which really sounds like a Michael Buble song to me. I don't think she knew the song though. The lyrics make her turn increasingly red as she sings them. But by now any sense of dignity has been thoroughly destroyed, so when she eventually has to stop singing it's not from shame, but because she's laughing too hard to keep going.

We finish our evening singing 'Stamp on the Ground' together. Which has us jumping up and down on everything, the couch, the chairs, the bar, our hair flying everywhere as we dance like maniacs. Eventually falling into a breathless giggling pile on the floor.

We leave the building afterwards, our bodies actually steaming in the cool night air. Kushina hasn't stopped giggling yet, which I can't help but smile at. "See?" I ask her archly, "That was fun wasn't it?" Kushina giggles harder and shakes her head, "No? I don't believe you. I think you had fun." I poke her in the ribs which makes her squeak and skip away from me, giggling harder and still shaking her head. "Say it." More head shaking, so I poke her again. "Say it!" Kushina shakes her head again, and flees from me now both of our giggles filling the air. I take off after her, "Say it!" I yell after her.

"Never!" she calls back through her laughter.

Kushina leads me on a merry chase through the evening streets of Konoha. I'm faster than she is though, and not laughing nearly as hard, so I manage to run her down as she tries to cut across a park, and tackle her into the grass.

"Say it!" I demand and begin to tickle her. She shrieks and tries to escape ineffectually, "Say it, say you had fun!"

"All right!" Kushina gasps out through the laughter, "I had fun."

I flop on to the ground next to her with a grin, "See? And there was no training involved."

"I don't know," the other girl pants, "seems like pretty good endurance training to me." I roll my eyes at her and otherwise don't respond. After catching her breath for a few minutes she rolls her head to look at me, "So do I get to pick what we do tomorrow?"

I blink, then shrug, "Sure."

"I want to meet your horse and go for a ride."

...Not what I was expecting. I was ready for her to demand we go back to training, but this... "I don't have any problem with it, it's just that Cloud has to stay outside the walls. I'm not sure they'll let you go far enough to get to the stables, never mind go for a ride."

Kushina narrows her eyes, "I'll take care of it." She pops to her feet, "I'll see you tomorrow? At the gate at one?"

A little later than we normally meet, but sure, "All right. I'll see you there and then." It'll give me a chance to check in on the merchants on my way out.

"Bye, Eri!" Kushina's endless endurance manifests itself again and she waves at me wildly before darting off into the deepening night. I hope she's not in trouble for how late I kept her out...

###

I spend my morning checking in with the rest of the caravan. Some part of me expected to be the only one who had, but the rest of the samurai had been by during the rest of the week. Even Koji had dropped in briefly. Granted he had done so with a girl on his arm in order to legitimize his bragging according to the caravaners, but he had.

So after making sure that everything had been going fine for the traders, I'm left mostly to my own devices. I get myself some lunch and sit by the main gate to people watch.

I spot Kushina straining to charge ahead, restrained by a woman that she's trying to pull along behind her. The person who Kushina has apparently kidnapped is an old woman, her indulgently smiling face rich in wrinkles. Her hair is mostly falling down her back in an iron-grey waterfall, bangs falling to her chin and framing a blue diamond tattoo on her forehead, but she does have some of it done up into two spherical buns on either side of her head. Dangling from each of those buns is what looks like a pair of sealing tags. She's dressed in a simple white kimono with a blue obi...

Mana. Hot, angry, red mana pulses from the old woman's abdomen like a bomb about to go off.

How the fuck did I miss this?

So much fury is pouring out of the woman that I'm actually starting to get mad just from exposure.

How is anybody else missing this?

I suppose that if I needed definitive proof that mana and chakra aren't the same thing, this is it. So much mana in one place. More than I've ever felt in one being before, and it's just there radiating outwards like a particularly pissed off star, and nobody else seems to notice.

"...just don't understand why you're okay with this, Gramma." I finally manage to jerk my attention away from what I'm pretty sure is a tailed beast, and notice the third person walking with Kushina and her kidnap victim.

The third person is a blond girl somewhere in her teens, long hair tied back into a ponytail except for a pair of bangs that fall to her chin. She's wearing an armor mesh bodysuit that covers her from thigh to elbow. Her modesty is maintained by a red miniskirt and a white, crop top shirt that leaves her abdomen exposed, except for the mesh suit. All together it emphasizes a figure best described as... lush.

Okay, the girl is stacked to a degree that would be worthy of note even in DxD. Here?

"Samurai can be dangerous," the blond said in a voice that a normal person never would have heard. Probably why she felt comfortable saying it. "I don't understand why you're so okay with this strange foreigner taking Kushi," Kushi? Oh, I'm going to use that, "outside the walls! What if they try to kidnap her?"

"Tsunade," the old woman, who has to be Mito Uzumaki, sighs, "I doubt that Iron has any interest in kidnapping her. They've never put much weight on our bloodlines before, I don't know why they would start now, and if they do, that's why we are coming along."

"Then why is this samurai so interested in her? Hmm?" Tsunade, and holy shit that's Tsunade, asks as though winning some point, "They've spent five days with her so far, there's no reason why a samurai would spend so much time with a seven year old?"

I take this moment to stand up and wave in their direction.

"Eri!" Kushina spots me immediately and lets go of the old woman's hand and sprints forward to nearly tackle me off my feet. She, of course, would refer to this assassination attempt as a 'hug'.

Kushina is bouncing up and down and babbling happily about... I don't even know what. She started with 'ramen' and I sort of tuned the rest out, just letting the happy babble roll over me. Instead I focus on the other two women that the energetic little redhead has just ditched.

Tsunade is gaping at me. An expression that she holds for several moments before turning back to the old woman next to her. "You could have told me they're the same age," she hisses in embarrassment.

"I did, dear," Mito patts Tsunade on the cheek gently, "Several times. You were a little too caught up in keeping dear Kushina safe to listen. Now, let's go meet Kushina's new friend. Though I don't think she'll thank you for revealing her nickname."

Huh, I wonder how she knew I could hear them that far away?

"...and the bowl was bigger than my head!" Kushina cheers, bouncing slightly without letting go of me. Apparently, she somehow talked her caretakers into ramen for lunch.

"Are you going to introduce us, Kushina?" the old woman asks, making the girl jump slightly.

Kushina spins, taking me with her, and somehow we both end up facing the same direction, looking up at the old woman. "This is Eri!" She picks me up slightly as though to show me off to the two women like a kitten she found. "Eri, this is my master, Mito Uzumaki and Tsunade-nee-chan. We live together at th-th-the Senju compound." Kushina must be really excited about introducing us if she's started child stuttering.

"I'm Ericka Rhostana," I give my full name to the two, and bow properly. Kushina refuses to loosen her grip around my waist as I do, so I end up lifting her off the ground as I do.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Miss Rhostana," Mito replies with a smile and a proper, thus much shallower, bow.

"Yeah..." Tsunade shakes herself slightly, "So what are you doing in Konoha?" Her tone isn't quite hostile, but certainly suspicious.

"I'm here as a caravan guard," I tell her, "It's my first mission out of Iron."

"Aren't you a little young for that?" the blond asks with an arched eyebrow.

I shrug, "They tell me I'm a prodigy. Now come on Kushi, we don't want to keep Cloud waiting." Kushina whines at the nickname, but follows along behind me towards the main gate.

With the wife and granddaughter of the first Hokage with us, getting through the gate isn't really hard. So only minutes later we're outside the village and at the stables. Cloud isn't in her stall, but has been let out into the paddock.

I climb onto the fence surrounding the paddock and whistle. Cloud, out towards the center of the field eating with the other samurai horses, immediately picks her head up. Finding me a moment later, she eagerly trots over to say hi.

I hop down to meet her as she gets close. She slows to a walk as she approaches and shoves her nose into my chest hard enough to make me stumble back a step. I giggle and scratch her neck in the spot she likes as she continues to rub her face against me. Interestingly, Cloud freezes for a moment in her affection, and then starts nosing all over me, snuffling like she's looking for where I hid an apple. Just, instead of checking my pockets she seems fascinated by my waist.

Shrugging it off for the moment, I beckon Kushina over and she hops over the fence, the two older women leaning against it. More than close enough for a ninja to interfere if needed. "Kushina, this is my partner, Cloud. Cloud, this is my new friend, Kushina." Cloud whips her head around to eye Kushina.

"It's nice to meet you, Cloud!" Kushina says in her normal cheerful manner. Cloud snuffles the air, then pins her ears back.

"Cloud?" I ask hesitantly. She's not the most social of horses, but she usually just ignores new people. Now she forces her way between Kushina and me, then turns to face me, nearly knocking Kushina over with her hind quarters. "Cloud!" The horse ignores my admonishment and goes back to rubbing her face on me. I'm somewhat less charmed by the behavior now, though. "Be nice. Kushina's never met a horse before, and I want to take her for a ride." Cloud's ears perk up at that, "So be nice? Please?" My horse lets out a gusty sigh and slumps.

Cloud lets me lead her back into the stable without complaint, and soon enough I have her back out in the paddock, saddled and ready to go. I mount up with ease, and then reach a hand down to help Kushina up. She may have never ridden a horse before, but being a ninja in training, even if only for a year, she's more than agile enough to swing up behind me without trouble.

I make sure that Kushina's settled and comfortable, then face forward again. "All right, Cloud," I reach forward and pat her on the neck, "Let's take it slow at first." Cloud's ears flick forward and she lets out a breath, then rotates them half way back. "Cloud..." that's the horse equivalent of an anticipatory smirk. "Cloud," she tosses her head, "Cloud, no!" Her hindquarters gather under her and I have just enough time to grab Kushina's arms to hold her in place. Then my horse rockets forward like she's been launched out of a ballista, "Cloud!"

I can hear the older ninja shouting behind us as Cloud reaches the edge of the paddock and clears the fence. "CLOUD!" And then we're off and all we can do is hold on.

"GLUE FACTORY, CLOUD! STRAIGHT TO THE GLUE FACTORY!"

###

Cloud's idea of being nice involved sprints around the outside of the paddock, and dancing around just out of Tsunade's reach when the older girl lunged to stop her. Cloud tried to trick the blond healer into falling into a couple of mud puddles and a horse trough, but never managed. I think Cloud might be jealous of my new friendship with Kushina, though I have no idea why her, and not anybody I'm friends with back in Iron.

Still, if my horse's goal was to scare Kushina off, she failed. After a few moments of panic in the beginning, my cheerful redheaded friend started treating the whole thing like a roller coaster. Shrieking and giggling like Sarah had the one time she and my parents had conspired to drag me to an amusement park when we were only a few years older than I am now.

Honestly, after all of that I figured that would be the end of my friendship with Kushina. Or at least the end of our time unsupervised. But apparently Cloud making no attempt to actually leave the area with us, my constant yelling at her, and Kushina's obvious joy, convinced everybody that it hadn't been planned. Perhaps most importantly, Mito found the whole thing hilarious, which is fair, I guess. I imagine that the whole scene must have been pretty amusing if one isn't directly involved.

All that together meant that when I finally convinced Cloud to stop and locked her into her stall as punishment, not that Cloud seemed even a bit troubled by this, Kushina enthusiastically told me that it was my turn to pick what we'd do next. And seeing as she said this right in front of Mito and Tsunade, and neither of them objected, though Tsunade looked like she wanted to, meant we were still free to do as we liked.

So I picked an activity and we met up the next afternoon like normal.

As much as Kushina reminds me of Sarah at her age, there are certainly differences. Kushina puts on a brave face, but she has far less confidence than Sarah ever did. Kushina also lacks Sarah's ridiculous observational abilities and way with people.

"Shopping?" The whining about going shopping is different too.

I roll my eyes, "Yes. Shopping." That's the twelfth time Kushina has indulged in that particular complaint. The fact that she's still complaining while we're actually in the store is a little much. The shop is organised remarkably like a clothing store from my first two worlds. Clothes hung on circular racks, and folded on shelves against the walls. The difference is that instead of having different departments for different kinds of clothes, the shops specialize. Formal wear is a completely different store from casual wear, which is a different store again from sports or ninja wear. "Come on, it'll be fun. Besides, you can't live your life with only a single outfit. Get the right clothes and you'll be beating boys off with a stick in a few years."

I turn around to show my fellow redhead a shirt in hand, only to find her blushing and staring at her feet. She's shifting her weight back and forth from foot to foot, and glancing up at me quickly before looking down again and biting her lip. I lower the shirt in my hands and just wait for her to work up the nerve to ask whatever is on her mind.

After only a few moments she blurts out, "Do you think about that sort of thing?" At my confused look she leans forward and whispers, "About boys, ya know!" I blink. I suppose that I did just bring it up, and ninja are supposed to mature more quickly than civilians... Before I can answer she keeps talking, "It's just... some of the girls in my class are already talking about who they want to marry in our class or the one above us. Some of the girls from the big clans are already betrothed, ya know." She really must have been isolated to be talking to me about this. I'm probably the only friendly female presence she has around her own age. If how the boys treat her is at all indicative of how the girls treat her... "It's just... I don't care about any of that, and it's all they talk about and..." She looked up at me again, face full of nerves, "Does that make me weird?"

I blink at her several times, before putting down the shirt. I put my hands on her shoulders looking her in the eyes, "Kushina... no. You're not weird. At all. You're seven. It's perfectly reasonable to not have any interest in anyone at our age. I bet most of them aren't really interested either, they're just acting like their parents tell them they should. You'll develop interest in boys whenever it's the right time for you. Don't worry about it. Okay?" Kushina nods her eyes a little bright with unshed tears. I pull her into a quick hug, "It's fine whenever it happens, or doesn't." I grin at her, "I know I'm never going to be interested in boys. Nothing weird about it."

Kushina nods again more firmly, "Right. Boys are icky, and knowing that is fine."

I stifle a laugh. Not exactly what I'd been going for, but if it makes her feel better that's fine. "Besides, boys or not, everybody likes to look good. And your eyes are a fantastic color," I pick up the shirt I'd been holding, "and this will really make them pop!"

Kushina giggles at my enthusiasm, and I call that mission accomplished.

###

The week ends and it's time for me to leave Konoha. The caravaners have sold and bought all they can, and we've pried Koji out of a building with a red light over the door. A place that I take a, probably, inordinate amount of delight in asking about. Nobody is willing to explain to me what the whore house is, and I don't tell them I know, but watching them squirm is more fun than it should be.

But that all means that there's only one thing left to do.

Pry Kushina off me.

"But I don't want you to go!" she wails, arms wrapped around my middle, hanging on for dear life. "If you go I'll be alone again," she whimpers.

I sigh and hug her back. "I have to go, but I'll be back," I tell her, perhaps unwisely.

"Promise?" she asks softly, muffled by how her face is pressed into my chest.

I glance up at my captain, but he just shrugs. Which is fair I guess, he has little to do with assignments, he just manages the team assigned. So it'll be down to my influence to make this happen.

It shouldn't be that hard to make sure I'm assigned to the Konoha caravans for at least a while. I got myself onto this one after all.

"Yeah, I promise. And it's not like we have to be totally out of contact until then. We can write to each other." Kushina makes a face and whines. "Don't whine, your calligraphy's fine. I'll come back, but you have to promise to write to me."

"I promise!" Kushina says quickly enough that I think she might believe that I actually wouldn't come back if she didn't.

I wait for Kushina to let go of me. After she doesn't for several moments I roll my eyes, then gently bump her with my forehead, then rub my cheek against her hair. "That means that you'll actually have to let go of me now," I tell her, and get another whine as she squeezes me harder. Cloud, apparently tired of all of this, walks forward and grips Kushina by her obi with her teeth, plucks her off of me, carries her over to where Mito waits for her, and drops her with an attitude that I can only translate as, 'this is yours'.

"Thank you, Cloud," Mito tells my horse with a slight bow.

Cloud responds with a snort and moves back over to me, letting me mount. All of us gathered and ready, we ride off. Somehow I end up riding next to Koji, through no fault of my own.

"So?" he asks, I can hear the wink in his voice, "met a cute girl of your own, did you?"

"First of all, we're both seven. Ew," I tell him flatly, "Second of all..."

"Eri! Bye Eri! Bye! I'll write to you as soon as I can!" I can hear Kushina yelling from behind us. I have no doubt that she's on the top of the wall, jumping up and down, and waving as hard as she can. Possibly with both arms.

I sigh, "Yeah. I guess I did."

Got to see Konoha. Met Mito, and Tsunade, and made a friend in Kushina Uzumaki of all people.

I'll call that a win.