Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I, however, own the plot and any OC you encounter throughout this. Which is going to be a lot.
Warning: I've got no idea what I'm doing.
Do have a fun read, though!
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Mum and I were alone when she decided that we could finally do something other than wait for dad to come back home from his mission, and I followed her out without any kind of complaint, my excitement very badly hidden.
She bent down to carry away the foldable chairs, which gave me a clear view of her butterfly-knotted white obi that was tied around her brown kimono. Four golden chopsticks held up her glistening red strands in an elegant hairstyle, the bells tied to them ringing with every step she took.
This was the first time I'd seen her in formal attire, which slightly weirded me out. Her unnatural need to do things as quickly as possible had always made her wear whatever was in reach, which also meant her hair always in a messy low ponytail.
My undivided attention was focused on her because of that, eyes following her every movement as she took out a foldable fan from her obi.
With a flick of her wrist, the beige fan opened to show a complicated picture of a chinese dragon done in black ink, the scales glittering in a bright golden colour that matched the chopsticks in her hair.
"From today onward," she began in a pleasant voice, surprising me by how easily she twirled the fan around her fingers. "Your father and I shall help you understand words. When we deem your knowledge acceptable, we will help you through the path of a seal master. It's not a requirement to do so, however. It depends on your own judgement."
I paused, blinked, then tilted my head in thought.
Did I want to dabble in sealing? I was curious about the arts, that was at least true. Its uses were endless from what I'd seen, but it needed time to master the language, and time to actually make the seals, the latter being something that I didn't expect to have during actual battles unless I made a stock of them beforehand.
But there was still a chance of using up all of the stock, which would considerably lower my firepower if I relied heavily on them. It could be an additional skill I could use to protect my family and myself.
So yes, I did want to dabble in it, but it wouldn't become one of my main attacking skills.
The movement of the fan when mum used it to hide the lower part of her face caught my attention, the gesture making her face look petite and elegant when the colours accented her light makeup and made her eyes look sharper. At that moment, her beauty was breathtaking even for someone who saw her nearly every hour of the day, and my thought process died down in favour of admiring her.
Without any kind of warning, mum threw the fan upwards. I gasped in surprise when she didn't look at it, but instead slid her whole body to the right in one fluid motion while her arms sailed through the air in an arc while she elegantly bent her legs.
In the blink of an eye, she jumped backwards and swiftly caught the fan in its descent. Her right arm straightened in front of her and she pinched the end of her sleeve with her other hand as she fell back to the ground.
She swept her fan upwards a few metres above the grass right before she landed, righting her body in the process as a gust of wind forced leaves and rocks to float when she lightly stood on her feet.
I startled when she unceremoniously dropped down on all fours, slapping her hands on the grass. I sucked in a deep breath as my attention locked on the chakra that suddenly flared up with power around where mum now stood.
I imagined that it'd be extremely difficult to ignore how her chakra affected everything around her, even when I wasn't somewhat aware of said energy.
But wouldn't that be a problem during actual fights?
I stared at the visible gust of wind that was lightly blowing upwards to the sky until mum crouched down next to me.
Maybe the enemies would be long gone if she seriously danced.
"What do you see?" she asked, and I tore my gaze away from the obvious chakra wisps that were laced with the wind and blinked up to her.
"See…?" I repeated in puzzlement, half of my mind focused on how the scattered grass kept twisting in their place, some of them breaking as the chakra was still making everything violently rotate.
"They're… swirling?" I uncertainly answered, furrowing my eyebrows in concentration.
With a carefully aimed smile, mum warmly cupped my face.
"See Kayo-chan? Mummy is strong, and so is daddy. We won't let anyone hurt you." she whispered, brushing her thumbs over my flushed cheeks. I nodded after a moment and tilted my head so I could kiss the back of her hand.
Ever since I'd shown that I was worried about our family, my parents had made it their personal mission to reassure me as much as possible that nothing bad would ever happen to our homeland.
It was a sweet gesture that brought sadness to me, since no matter how many times they told me everything would be fine and demonstrated that they were amazing shinobi, I could never accept their words simply because I couldn't snap my fingers and forget about my future knowledge.
It was true that maybe, just maybe , no matter how much of an impossibly and ridiculously small of a chance it was, the events I knew would happen might not unfold. The Uzumaki being destroyed might have just been something the author of the story added to spice up his characters' backstories, and not something this world's future held.
I hoped this was the case from the bottom of my heart. It'd take away the huge lump of fear that was always weighing down on my shoulders.
Even then, I always told myself that that wouldn't be the case. Kushina was a huge part of my doubt, because I knew her from a previous life and I met her in the new one.
"I know." I lied, smiling brightly with practical ease. She grinned and ruffled my short hair before she stood up, then did a series of quick steps that returned the garden to its previous glory, as if she hadn't affected it in any sort of way.
"I learned how to dance when I was your age."
With that said, she folded her fan and slipped it inside of her sleeve, then planted her hands on her hips, all of her previous gracefulness disappearing as excitement leaked into every fiber of her being.
I couldn't blame her, since I could feel my own excitement replacing the sadness that always accompanied her reassurance.
How many people could say that they danced their enemies to death? It was fascinating how she laced her chakra with every movement. I was confident that the small gusts of winds she'd created were just a small sprinkle compared to the actual attack power of it, and that she could create a storm of she wanted to.
Uzumaki were truly terrifying.
"But we're not going to do that!"
I blanched, caught off guard by her exclamation, and mum laughed at my confusion.
This was probably why mum didn't tell me to wear the outfit that was more oriented towards sports rather than what I was currently wearing, which consisted of a bright coloured dress and white shorts under it.
"Then what do you want me to do?" I said, pouting. Mum smiled in a way that made me regret my question.
"You're going to guess the words!"
Without any further instructions, she struck a dramatic pose with one of her arms up in the air, fingers stretched towards the sky, as if she was trying to catch the clouds. Slowly, she arched her back and brought her other arm up.
She abruptly punched the ground, drawing her legs apart in the process. While her hands were on the ground, she changed her center of balance before she twisted and threw a fist sideways, droplets of sweat falling away from the force.
I yelped when the force of her following kick caused a number of mud puddles to appear all around her. I tentatively took a step towards the closest one after I picked up a long stick from under one of the trees in the garden, not quite believing what I was seeing.
I stuck the item into the puddle, and let go of it in haste when half of the stick disappeared into the earth.
Mum clapped her hands to draw my attention.
"So?"
I looked up at her in fascination, my eyes undoubtedly sparkling in obvious admiration.
"Yes?" I asked, a bit breathless. She sighed, as if she thought I was being silly, and shook her head.
"What's the word?" she asked, slowly, and I made a sound of understanding.
"The word..." I muttered, looking all around me at the puddles of mud. I crouched down and closely stared at the one near me again, trying to figure out which word she'd danced.
It did cause mud to appear, so... "'Mud'?" I said with apparent uncertainty. It was the obvious answerㅡ
ㅡWhich was the wrong one, judging from the mud ball that hit me square in the stomach and ruined my dress, startling me out of my dazed state.
A part of me really should have realised that easy answers were always wrong when a shinobi was questioning someone.
"Hey!" I warned, and she stuck out her tongue at me, her left hand dripping with mud, not bothering with the fact that she was the culprit of my now ruined clothes.
"Bzzzt, wrong answer!" she said, making a buzzer sound as she crossed her arms in front of her. "But since this is your first time, then you get a free chance!"
I touched my now muddy dress and quickly dived behind one of the chairs nearby, only to remember that she'd put them all away. As in, she put them all away for this particular moment so I couldn't escape.
Mum's laughter rung loudly behind me when I realised that I was trapped around the mud puddles. I couldn't cross over them, because if I failed the jumpーwhich was something I had to do because of my heightーand fell inside, then I might end up like the stick I'd poked the puddle with. I knew she wouldn't let me drown inside it, but I didn't want to be stuck inside of one in the first place.
She'd successfully trapped me.
I gulped down my fear and stood my ground. It wasn't like she was aiming to actually hurt me. But just seeing someone throw something at me was going to naturally raise my flight response.
"Uhm," I stuttered when mum motioned for me to speak in an exaggerated hand twirl.
"I-I think it's 'puddle'?" I said while distributing my balance onto my fee in preparation for anything she might do.
Not like that would help when my 'enemy' was my own mother, since the difference in our skill was sea deep.
It didn't fail to somewhat calm my nerves, though.
"Close, but still wrong !" mum exclaimed with an evil grin. I screamed in fear when something wet slapped my backside, and I crouched down in instinct. The thing that'd touched me flew over my head, narrowly missing my face.
"You can control it?!" I shrieked in fear, pointing at the new puddle of mud in disbelief as I took a step back. Mum opened up her fan and giggled cutely behind it, the delightful laughter sounding like that of a villain's.
"Yes." she chirped, doing a few steps that made most of the ground return to normal, and then pointed the fan at me. I squeaked in disgust when a whip moved to wrap itself around my ankle.
The thing was wet and full of chakra. It was thrumming steadily on my skin, and I crouched down so I could tentatively poke it.
My finger came up wet.
I sighed in amazement and understanding, forgetting that this thing was actively destroying my clothes as it slithered towards the hem of my dress up to my torso.
She did say I was close to guessing the word. Although, what she wanted wasn't guessing, but comprehension . She needed me see and notobserve . To feel the dance and its effects instead of trying to logically define each aftermath of a dance.
"Is the word water?" I asked, grabbing a handful of mud, not caring about the ickiness of the feeling anymore. I wanted to learn and that left no room for my own disgust.
"Correct! But it doesn't count since you've used all of your passes. Better luck next time, honey!" she jokingly exclaimed.
I shot my arm up in the air and she grinned and put her hands behind her ears, giving me an I'm-listening look.
"How did you do that?"
The overly amused smirk her mouth broke into made me sigh in exasperation.
"Chakra!" she mysteriously said, throwing her hands around to mimic sparkles.
"I knew that." I grumbled, crossing my arms. Of course I knew that. The energy that'd covered her entire body while she'd danced, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, was expelled in a very obvious way that even I could pick it up.
"Seals need chakra and a base, which is paper most of the time. Paper is really easy to deal with." she suddenly said, twirling a strand of her hair with an unusually serious expression. I nodded in understanding, taking the fact that she went into her teacher persona as an opportunity to swindle more information out of her.
"So you used your body as a base instead?" I said, to which she nodded and momentarily shifted her attention away from me. "Shouldn't that be really draining?"
"Which is why this way of sealing can't be taught to those outside of our clan."
I jumped up, startled, and I whirled around so I could find the voice that was unmistakably my dad's. He went down on one knee and opened up his arms for me to hug him.
"Welcome back!" I enthusiastically squealed, wrapping my arms around his neck. "I missed you! How was your mission?"
"I missed you too." he said, voice potent with happiness to the point where I could easily hear the smile in it. "As for the other question, that's… classified information."
I pushed myself back so I could pout at him. Most of the time he'd crack under my very hard-to-deny expression. I puffed out my cheeks in mock annoyance when he only chuckled, but my lips quickly pulled back into a smile when my pocket suddenly rustled.
"Subaru-kun, welcome back!" my mother said, crouching down next to us to hook her arms around his. Dad dipped down his head and pecked her lips.
"Thank you, love." he said, kissing her nose. She sighed in content as he shifted his gaze back at me. "As I was saying, body seals can't be used by anyone who doesn't have the same chakra potency as us. However, if the potency was found but not the necessary levels, the person will only be able to implement easy words."
"Like water?" I asked and he nodded while mum got up. She offered her hand so she could help him up to his feet and I fully moved off of him so he could go back up to his full height.
"Complicated means that the word has more than one kanji," mum said as dad's hand cupped hers. "But that's not always the case either. It really depends on the effects it'll have on the surrounding area." she continued, voice a bit breathy as dad turned her hand around, palm up, before he closed his eyes and kissed the base of her wrist.
I smiled and moved back to give them more space, suddenly feeling relaxed and happy at their open display of affection.
"May I have this dance, my love?" dad asked, his red eyelashes fluttering open to stare at mum. I put my hands on my mouth in awe and leaned forward in anticipation, unable to stop myself from looking forward to the dance. I didn't expect this technique to involve more than one person, which was… full of potential, to say the least.
My mother took a step back, bowed, and put her hand on top of his when he offered it.
"Of course, my dear." she easily agreed, smile widening even more when he put a hand on her back to support her. They were both standing still, with their spines arched to make their silhouette beautiful.
Instead of starting the dance with a large step backwards, they both slightly lift their legs up, heads facing away from each other, before bringing them down in perfect sync.
Lights exploded on top of the grass, as if nature itself felt the need to give them some of its beauty as they stepped around each other, their eyes teasingly looking at everything around them without meeting the other's gaze.
My smile grew when they became more playful and I bit my lip to make myself focus on the meaning and not be cheated by what's in front of me.
I wanted to get this word right.
They broke apart, their feet falling heavily back to the grass. It made little balls of light, that were filled with chakra, lazily float around them. In the final steps, they extended their hands towards each other and dad slowly guided mum, helping her find her way back into his arms.
The lights disappeared when they looked at each other and smiled.
The dance looked like it could never be implemented in a serious fight. It was private, it was full of love. It wasn't violent, but playful. It was understanding and accepting.
And dad danced all of it with his front shirt full of mud because of my hug.
"Beloved." I whispered with a wide smile. They glanced at each other and laughed.
"Correct." mum said as she walked to me so she could pinch my cheeks.
"Since you need to know more words before you can attempt dancing, we've already prepared your learning tools beforehand." dad said, wiping sweat away from his eyebrow.
"We'll give them to you after lunch." mum continued on, grabbing my hand to lead me back inside. I followed her in content, and we finished lunch soon after that. I practically inhaled my food in my excitement, and then quickly took my plate to the kitchen.
Mum and dad chuckled behind me as dad brought out the mini steps they'd gotten for me when I'd made it obvious that I was interested in shouldering more responsibilities, such as drying the dishes with mum.
Of course, being the ninja parents they were, they both had cooed at my attempts at being 'adult-like'. They didn't tell me that 'I was too young to help around ' or things similar to that, though, since shinobi generally encouraged such behaviours because of the nature of their job.
"Are you done?" dad asked as he poked his head into the kitchen. I nodded and turned off the tap, mum waiting next to me so she could put away the stairs once I was done washing my hands.
I sat on one of the cushions around the low table in the middle of the living room. Dad was already seated and shuffling through… Cards? I blinked heavily at the kanji written on the backs, I tried peering at what was written inside. He noticed my apparent interest and put three in front of me.
"Do you know these?" he asked, tapping the cards. The kanji for the numbers one, two and three were on full display.
They were easy and had probably been written in a book they'd read for me before. They read a lot for me previously, and I did try and look like I was learning by tracing words and repeating certain phrases after one of them had read them out loud for me.
There was only so little being labelled a genius and an Uzumaki could hide, so I tried not to raise that many flags. Like only speaking about something after I'd heard about it from someone else during our daily walks around the marketplace.
Soー
"Yeah." mum sat next to me as I answered, shifting some papers closer to me so I could see them better.
"We'll skip to writing since you do, then." she said, grabbing a brush so she could draw some characters on an empty paper.
"Our writing system has a very specific stroke order for each word." she drew the kanji for one, which was just a line that started from left to right, and then started drawing the kanji for two. "Many kanji consist of other smaller ones inside of them. That's why knowing an order will help you with the bigger words. We'll start small for now and continue on until you know two hundred kanji."
I nodded in understanding, shifting slightly on the cushion when dad's lips momentarily turned into a grin. I knew two hundred kanji weren't a lot by their standards, so I didn't dare to complain.
Complaining would only mean that they'd double the amount of words, which would make learning take longer than it should. That particular scenario was unacceptable. I shouldn't waste time on things I already knew.
"The next words consist of the numbers from four to ten." dad continued on, showing me the rest of the flashcards. "They might not be useful in seal dancing, but numbers are fundamental for paper sealing in general, like putting a limit to the amount or things that can be stored inside a scroll."
I turned the cards around in my hands. The front had the kanji written on it with small arrows and numbers indicating the stroke order, while hiragana and katakana were written on the back.
They looked like the generic flashcards I'd used during my college years, but these were smaller and fit more into my tiny hands and were handmade instead of printed.
And they'd already made all of the two hundred kanji they wanted to teach me, most likely.
Knowing that the only way to repay them for their hard work would be passing whatever tests they threw at me, I nodded and huddled the cards closer to my chest.
"Can I take the papers too?" I asked, my intent clear as day. Mum nodded as dad stood up and stretched his back. He pushed the items closer to meーthe brush and papersーwhile mum shuffled through a drawer to bring me an ink bottle.
"We'll teach how to grind your own ink when you're a bit older." she said, opening it before she gently put it on the table next to me.
"You're going to nap?" I asked dad as I neatly organised the items for easier access. He rubbed his neck and slightly smiled at me.
"After I take a bath."
"Off to the tub with you then, honey." mum said, pushing him out of the living room. "You deserve to rest. Tell me what happened on your mission later, okay?"
I heard dad sigh as they rounded the corner. Mum poked her head back inside as I dipped the brush inside of the ink bottle.
"I'll come back in a minute. I just have to give your dad some clean clothes." she informed, disappearing as quickly as she came.
I grinned in determination and got to work.
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By the next morning, I'd ended up studying about thirty words.
I really should have expected that, after mum had come back to supervise me and saw how I was steadily moving my hand while making a couple of minor mistakes, she'd see my memorisation abilities as something that should be challenged, something I shouldn't take for granted, something I should use to its fullest potential!
Because she was an Uzumaki, and I knew as a fact that they loved finding new challenges.
What was the challenge, someone might ask. What did she do? How did they find a loop to make me work extra hard for their approval of my skills?
It was rather simple.
They'd stuck a brush in my mouthーan item that I was currently viciously biting atーand tied up my hands and legs in order for me to 'learn how to write using every part of your body and feel the words instead of using boring old ways like the weird people outside of Uzushio'.
That had been their literal explanation.
I didn't know what was normal anymore. I'd been successfully converted into an Uzumaki.
(And my only complaint was that the ropes they used were too damned itchy .)
"Alright Kayo-chan," Dad said with a very amused expression. "Write sky ."
I nodded briskly, slipping one finger underneath the not-so-tight ropes that wrapped themselves around my bound wrists, scratching my irritated skin.
The brush kept twitching due to my jerky movements and I used my lips to stop it from missing its mark. Dad moved closer to me as I drew two, albeit very crude, strokes. I stopped for a moment so I could gulp down my accumulating spit.
"Focus!" my dad exclaimed, clapping his hand loudly next to my ear. I startled and the brush went all over the paper. With a muted poof , ink exploded on everything, excluding my Ninja parents.
Trial and error took a whole new meaning because of them. I grind my teeth over the brush and sneezed, getting ink out of my nose without letting the brush fall. Nothing got into the upper half of my face, thankfully. But my chin was dripping.
Mum watched me like a hawk, her eyes transfixed on both my mouth and the paper, waiting for me to mess up.
A shiver ran down my spine and I shifted uneasily on my bound legs.
I had realised, the hard way, that my mother enjoyed torturing me more than necessary. She'd been giving me punishments for incorrectly writing a word since morningㅡIt was late in the evening now.
The papers I was using would randomly explode if I messed up an order, depending on what was inside of the mini-seal she'd drawn on the corners of them. She took this as an opportunity to fine-tune her handwriting and a way to think up of new creative, but still harmless, seals she could use on me.
I'd overheard them brainstorming ideas about those seals as I was writing many times throughout the day. Not the actual content of their conversations, but just snippets that made it clear about the topic they were discussing.
A ringing sound made me fearfully glance sideways at her, already knowing she was the one behind such a sinister, yet still beautiful, noise.
She poked the bells that were hanging from the strings pinched between her fingers, making the yellow items ring once more.
"Raise your head, honey." dad said, and I slowly looked away, hoping nothing bad would happen.
She twisted my hair into twin braids, and at the very end, the bells were hanged from my short strands, falling just below my chin. I moved my head experimentally, and sure enough, the bells loudly rung.
I immediately developed a dislike towards them because of a feeling that these two bells were going to bring me trouble.
"Again." she ordered me in a bored tone.
My hopes were in vain, because each time they rung while I was drawing a kanji, I had to resist each attempt they made to make me laugh.
A poke here, a hug there, tickling my feet, clapping their hands near my ears. The longer they kept distracting me, the more I grew agitated.
I couldn't not mess up the kanji I was practising about half an hour of them figuring out ways to take away my attention from my attempts at calligraphy.
"I can't do this!" I exclaimed in frustration, spitting out the brush and then letting my head fall on the table. My forehead was now most likely smeared with ink because of this, but I didn't quite care at this particular moment. They made me lose all of the focus I had given to learning.
Which was exactly what they wanted, judging by the grins that grew on their lips.
"Okay," dad said, nodding his head sagely. "You don't want to write anymore?"
I glanced at mum, who put an elbow on the table. I nodded, knowing the conversation wouldn't continue otherwise.
"Then how about you go on a treasure hunt?" mum said, pointing a finger at me with an overly sweet smile. I skeptically agreed, shaking my hands for dad to remove the ropes.
Mum moved instead of him, relieving my limbs from their confinements.
But she wasn't done there.
"... Why." I deadpanned, staring at her blankly as she tied another two bells to both of my wrists. I had four in total on my person, currently.
Which didn't bode well for me. At all.
"You need to take a hair strand from Kushina," she said, poking the bells to test them. "Without alerting her. If she does realise what you're doing, however, then invite her and Koyume for dinner."
What.
"This is a suicide mission!" I exclaimed, backing away from them. I wasn't going on such a mission in this lifetime. I didn't want to be the one explained that particular thing to Kushina, who'd most likely cry because I attempted to take her precious red and sparkly hair .
"If you succeed we'll allow you to write using your hands instead of your mouth." mum said and I found myself shortly leaving the house after, grumbling all the way out of our front door.
After a short walk towards my aunt's house, that was spent waving and greeting family membersㅡwhile trying to have a feel of how restricted my movements were thanks to the bellsㅡI knocked on the door, hugging a smiling Koyume when she opened it..
"You took longer than expected." she said, putting her hands on my back to gently return my hug.
I didn't bother asking if my parents had told her about my arrival, because of course they did. She knew everything they made me do. I had to listen to her outright laugh when she'd found out about the time when I used my chakra, because, apparently, little kids hiding things from shinobi was the funniest thing she'd ever heard.
"Good evening oba-chan! How are you?" I settled on saying as peered inside of the house in curiosity. "Where's Kushina-chan?"
A light that was all too familiar settled inside of her warm eyes.
I bravely kept smiling.
"She's napping. Inside of her room." she said, grinning slightly when my face froze.
And so, I found myself I tiptoeing towards Kushina's room after I managed to convince my aunt to let me go. I was sure that she was trying to buy some time for the girl, and she was damned good at it.
She offered me some sugary goodness.
I couldn't resist.
Upon setting foot into her room, Kushina stirred. I paused when she softly exhaled, her breath coming out in a murmur about something I couldn't quite hear because of our distance.
I marched deeper into the room, mindfully avoiding the toys scattered in the middle. My arms were tense as I used them to balance myself. I glanced at the bells, silently praying they wouldn't ring.
Like the pink panther that I currently resembled with my almost neon pink coloured attire, which I didn't have any hand in picking, I took long strides towards the sleeping girl.
Mumbling some more, Kushina turned her body towards the wall and I saw her hug the doll that was in her arms tighter. It fueled my courage and I soon found myself looming over her sleeping form.
I had to finish this quickly, because while her current position meant I wouldn't be instantly noticed by her whenever she woke up, it also pointed at her waking up much sooner than anticipated since she was moving a lot.
She deeply breathed out again.
Slowly, my hand traveled closer to her head. But I soon the realised the trouble I was in.
I was pretty sure the bell would still ring, no matter how hard I tensed my arms and back. Plucking out a hair required a swift motion or else I'd hurt her and suddenly wake her up. I narrowed my eyes at the bells and twitched my fingers towards it.
I wrapped my fingers around it.
Bad idea.
"Ow ." I yelped in surprise, removing my digits away from the bell. I rubbed my fingers in disbelief
I couldn't believe it! I was just zapped . It wasn't hurtful in any way, but the abruptness had scared me.
I glanced at Kushina, and sighed lowly in relief. I took the chance and grabbed a red strand of her hair while my I pinched the middle of it with my other hand before I pulled it.
With no warning whatsoever, I was tackled to the ground by a red-haired truck that was called Uzumaki Kushina.
I blinked at the floor, wondering how she managed to push me on my stomach and somehow sit on my back. The bells kept ringing in my panic. Kushina, oblivious to it, put her whole weight on my back and leaned forward so her lips were near my ear.
"Kayo-nee…" she whispered, and I shivered from the creepy aura she was emitting. Her fingers went towards my hair, and the cloth doll she was hugging fell next to my head, its button-eyes staring blankly at me. I yelped and tried to get away from her, which was futile in my current position, with my arms awkwardly stuck under my stomach.
"G-Good afternoon, Kushina-chan!" I said, trying to sound cheerful. I didn't know if I failed or not, because the smirk she responded with wasn't an answer.
"You took my hair."
I felt her fingers pinch a strand of my hair and I shook my head in growing fear. Kushina only grinned wider.
"Mama said we can make cute bracelets out of hair and it's going to be so silky, y'know." Kushina giggled, playing with said strand. She blinked down at me with a pout.
"That means I can take yours too… right?"
Somehow or another, I managed to wiggle out of her grip. Not after she took the strand she wanted, of course.
I shuddered and closed the door behind me after I left her room.
"Kayo-neetan !" Kushina called out, and I moved far away from her door.
It cracked open and Kushina peered through it, her gray eye appearing wider as she giggled more, her hand gripping the door.
"C'mo~oon … let's play!"
The doll popped above Kushina's head.
I shrieked and couldn't help but run away.
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A/N: Early Happy New Years! Late chapter is late. Forgive me *coughs*
As usual, thanks to everyone who faved/ followed/ reviewed. Special thanks to Fog and Sachiko13, who beta'ed this chapter while I was writing it (though the final version isn't beta'ed- I couldn't wait...)
Do tell me what you think about this!
Notes:
So as a response to SnowCatt, I'll address a couple of things that were mentioned in their review. This might be too long so I'm sorry in advance.
First thing first, I don't want to write about perfect parents. The parents I want to write about are parents who make mistakes and grow with their children.
Subaru, Hinomi, and Koyume are first-time parents and only know things about raising children from secondhand resources, such as their own experiences, or from watching the clan members interact with their own kids in front of them.
They didn't experience what it was like to raise children before. I thought that it wouldn't be realistic for them to be perfect at it from the get go, hence why they thought it was fine to leave the two alone for a few minutes while they took care of their business, and at the same time, try and see how this will turn out.
As for them thinking it's a great idea to throw Kayo at Kushina after she displayed negative emotions towards herー I made the Uzumaki members a bunch of people who don't know how to be subtle about their social approach until they grow older and wiser (read, interact more with the normies). So I imagined them thinking something like, "Oh Kayo doesn't like Kushina… You know what'll fix this? Exposure!"
In short words: If Kayo displayed negativity towards Kushina, who isn't a gentle child like you pointed out, then they'd have still tried exposing her to Kushina by using different methods because they prefer the head-on approach.
As for Kayo talking about things she shouldn't know about… Well, they already established that she's a genius. I did take that route with this, but I also thought that while they knew she's a genius, they'll think it's fine for her to know the things they're sure were mentioned around her.
She goes with them everywhere unless she's being babysat by someone, so obviously she must have picked up a lot of words from random conversations and deduced that, as an example, money is important because it's used by them whenever they purchase something in front of her.
I really do thank you for your constructive review. I also hope that someday I'll find the time to go back and make the things you've pointed out smoother and easier to digest.
4everWriter: Reading reviews that say the original characters I've created are good makes me beyond happy. I'm also especially happy that you said this story helped you keep your hope in OC fics. Thank you, and all of the other reviews that commented somethings similar, for giving this a chance even with the terrible grammar slips.
(Psst, I need an extra pair of eyes for those.)
thestorymaker2: I really hope that I don't fail you and my readers! I do plan on writing this without repeating canon events, aka destroy it and reshape it to fit the events that Kayo will surely affect. Do cheer me on!
Kudos for BlackDove WhiteDove for creating Kushina's quirk (making hair bracelets). I shall use it as promised. Great ideas, this person has.
Notes 2:
Dances:
。The first dance is for the word Uzu (渦 / うず), swirl.
。The second dance is for the word Mizu (水 /みず), water.
The first word Kayo guesses during that dance is Doro (泥 / どろ), mud.
The second word Kayo guesses is Mizutamari ( 水溜り / みずたまり), puddle. It uses the kanji for water, which is why Hinomi said Kayo was close to guessing it right.
。The last dance Hinomi and Subaru do is for the word saiai (最愛 / さいあい), beloved.
Cards:
The kanji for one, two, three are ( 一 / いち ), ( 二 / に ), ( 三 / さん ) respectively, ichi - ni - san.
Writing:
Ten (天 / てん), sky. It could also mean heaven.