I have back to back chapters because I haven't connected to the internet and uploaded for a few days... So here you go!
Hope you enjoy :')

Sakana

I eventually reached the tavern, toting my awesome new sword.

Letting myself into the room I shared with Hidan, I smiled at him until Kakuzu came into view with a frown.

"Where have you been?" He asked gruffly, eyeing me.

I wiped at my mouth, where I was sure there was still blood, and bit my lip. "I found it." I said, offering no other explanation.

"You did?"

"You totally have that post-sacrifice glow," Hidan remarked. "Was it a good one?"

I grinned, "It was lovely," I replied, "and afterwards, I knew exactly where I needed to go."

Hidan nodded in affirmation. "Yeah, His grace does that to you."

"Enough of that." Kakuzu bit, "What about the sword?"

I placed the case on the bed and opened it, showing them the mythological object.

"The Kogitsune-maru." Kakuzu said. "That's what Pein-sama sent us for?"

I nodded, finally ready to tell them all.

"Pein-sama is... Well, I think he's my brother." I explained, "And to prove this, he sent me to retrieve something that only someone of Uzumaki blood can find."

"The sword," Hidan concluded, peering at the blade as I lifted it from its case.

The trip back to the base didn't feel as long as the trip there did, and Kakuzu helped bide the time by informing us of the rich history of the valuable object.

Kakuzu seemed to know a great deal about the subject, and at my questioning, he explained that the sword was priceless, and is obviously a point of interest in men like him.

"It still doesn't prove that you're who you think you are," Hidan said, ever the pessimist.

"Only an Uzumaki can wield it, due to the involvement of Inari-Myōjin. After the sword being lost for centuries, the God reclaimed it and bestowed it to the first Jinchuriki of the Kyobi. The nine-tailed fox. Mito Uzumaki's descendants are the only ninja able to wield that blade."

Ah, Inari-Myōjin's messenger was a white fox, so it made sense that the God would choose a fox spirit to use his sword.

"However, Hidan does have a point," Kakuzu confirmed. "We'll need a demonstration to prove that this is the real thing."

I nodded, promising to unsheathe the sword once we reached land and we would determine if the sword was genuine or just a really convincing replica.

I nearly nodded off on the ferry ride, despite the cold rain. I was still feeling the euphoria of Jashin's grace.

Hidan kept poking me in the side to keep me awake, and we eventually reached the shore. The ferry departed again, leaving us standing in the rain on the mushy bank.

Not wanting to sully the intricately designed box, I kept it tucked into its case until we found a cave to take shelter from the rain in.

Kakuzu lit a fire and I placed the ornate wooden box on the ground and opened it again, this time picking it up and testing its weight in my hand.

Hidan took it from my hand and looked at me as if I were dumb, "I can hold it, it's obviously not real."

I scoffed and snatched it back, while Kakuzu grumbled something about a waste of time.

It didn't make sense. This is what I was supposed to get, I just knew it. I voiced my thoughts, and Hidan shrugged, sitting down with his back to the cave wall.

"Could I inspect the case?" Kakuzu asked, already picking up the wooden object and turning it over in his hands.

As it shifted it around, the lining of the case fell off, showing the false bottom of the sword's container, sealed by a tricky looking seal.

"As I suspected," the miser mused, showing me the seal. "It's an Uzumaki seal. If I were to guess, I'd say that breaking this seal will show us the truth."

I nodded, taking the box back from him, placing the sword back into the case. "Let's take it to Leader-sama first."

Back at the base, several hours later, Pein and I sat in his office, staring at the seal.

"As I'm sure you already know, to prove that you are who you claim to be, you must unseal this. Only an Uzumaki can complete such a task."

I nodded, confirming that I already knew as much, "However I'm not sure how to unseal anything... Isn't there a crash course you can give me?"

He shook his head fractionally. "Unfortunately, this is something you must do on your own."

I groaned, but closed my eyes and tried to summon forth all of the knowledge I had about seals.

"This is the clan legacy," I breathed out, still thinking. "A basic enclosing seal, if I'm correct." I glanced at the Deva path, my potential brother's fallen comrade's corpse. He nodded almost unnoticeably.

I had made the decision to only tell him about the seal if I truly was his lost sibling, but if it were the odd chance that my gut was wrong, I didn't want to bother him more.

"Alright then," I murmured, attempting to do a basic unsealing of the inked symbol.

Nothing happened.

Deva path shook his head.

"What could I do to prove that I have Uzumaki... Blood." I lit up as I made the connection and quickly cut open my thumb and placed the bleeding wound into the middle of the seal firmly.

It hissed, steam rolling up around the leader of the Akatsuki and I.

In an instant, the scenery changed.

I stood in a meadow overlooking a vast ocean, which seemed to stretch across the horizon for forever. Taking note of my new surroundings, I followed a worn footpath cleaving the breezy field in two.

It led to the beach, where large, smooth rocks speckled the shore. In the middle of the sand sat a flat, medium-sized stone covered in seals, bonding an object into the stone itself.

As I drew nearer, I could distinguish the protected item as a sword; the real Kogitsune-maru, I could safely assume.

"Oh, I've been waiting for you!" A woman's voice exclaimed. "I knew you'd return, and here you are my dear."

I turned around the face the voice, and came face to face with Mito Uzumaki herself. I bowed quickly and she laughed.

"Dear one, don't treat me so formally. Relax, we've got much to discuss, and we'll need time to get through it all." She told me, sitting cross legged in the sand between the stone and I.

I mirrored her, sitting in the sand and watching the woman carefully.

A few long minutes ticked by, and I finally cleared my throat. "Mito-san, when you said that I'd be back, is that true? You knew that I'd return to this world?"

She nodded sagely, "Yes, though you were born and taken a few years before my death, I knew that my great-grand-daughter would return and would accept her inheritance. This is why we are here, in this small seal of my chakra. Saki, my child, I anticipated your return and knew that this part of my life would be bequeathed to the other side of my clan."

"My... Inheritance?" I asked, "And—Mito-san, why me? Why not my.. my mom?" I asked, clenching my fists.

"Mm, Fuso had the choice, but she chose another path. Such as her sister agreed to take on the Kyuubi from me, Fuso refused my legacy and left to save lives and spread peace." Mito murmured quietly, looking at her hands. "I cannot blame her for wanting it to end... But, as long as there are shinobi enforcing peace, there will likewise be shinobi opposing it." I watched her elderly form, quaintly sitting as she revealed the past to me.

Before she married Hashirama Senju, she had bore a son to her first husband, who had tragically died at the hands of her nation's enemies. That son was placed under the care of her sister when she left for Konohagakure, and eventually grew and bore his own children; two beautiful Uzumaki girls. First Fuso, then Kushina years later. Because of her new status as the first lady of Konohagakure, the village elders demanded that she keep the truth of Kushina's true heritage a secret, and she did so, but didn't keep herself from guiding the new host for the Kyuubi and forming as close of a bond as she could.

She exlplained that she offered the blade to her son, who refused and taught his other daughter of peace, leading her to Amegakure, where Fuso joined up with Ise, married, and started her family. Together, the provided aid to the people suffering from the village's civil war. Fuso too refused my great-grandmother's offering to take on the sword she used in her youth, her legacy.

"Saki-chan." When she spoke my name, I looked up and met her gaze, squarely staring at my ancestor.

"Will you accept the Kogitsune-maru blade forged by Munechika and bestowed to your great-grandmother before you?" I glanced over her shoulder at the sealed weapon, imagining how powerful it must be to have to restrain it several times. Mito was said to be a formidable Kunochi, but with the fox spirit sword, who wouldn't be?

I swallowed, meeting her eye again. "Hai, Mito-san."

She smiled and stood, "That's settled, then. Step forward and unseal your destiny."

The unsealing was a bit trickier than the first time, and I had to make myself bleed again. It required several removals, as it had been bound by Mito herself to keep it secure.

Before I touched the item, I turned to the apparition of the woman, and bowed slightly. "Thank you, Mito-sama."

She smiled, her face wrinkling. "Your return was greatly anticipated, Uzumaki princess." With that, she bowed and wandered down the beach, disappearing from sight.

Refocusing on the Godly weapon, I placed my hand on the hilt and immediately felt the powerful chakra concealed within licking at my palm. I wrapped my fingers around the ornate handle, and tugged.

No sooner than I pulled the sword from the seal was I back in Pein's office, the blade now shimmering and glowing in my hand.

I stared at it in amazement for a moment before Nagato broke the silence. "Welcome back, sister."

I beamed and bowed my head. "Thank you, Nagato-san. Now that we know the truth, there is something you'll need to see."

He watched as I unbuttoned the cloak and showed him the white scar on my abdomen, then the seal mark on my back.

"That's an interesting development." He remarked before asking me to go to the research laboratory.

Having confirmation that my prophetic dreams were true left me feeling nostalgic and sorrowful, but consented to the testing that my newfound brother had ordered.

In the labratory, Sasori and Kakuzu stood over me, discussing the procedure as I laid on the examination table, my shirt discarded on the adjacent table in the room, leaving me awkwardly sat, my chest exposed to both men. To keep my mind off of my almost nudity, I fixed my attention on the room.

It was clean and cold, and though it had likely been years since Orochimaru had used the room for whatever grotesque experiments that the group had allowed him, I could still feel the abysmal touch of death.

"Alright, this will hurt, but I think you'll live." Sasori remarked dryly, picking up a scalpel. He pushed it deep into the scar, and planted his palm on my chest to keep me still as he cut me open.

"Motherfucker!" I hissed as he abruptly pulled it out.

"Quit being a pussy," the puppet smirked down at me. I glanced at Kakuzu, who was holding a pair of really fuckin' long tweezers.

I yelped as he stuck them into the same spot without warning. "At least tell me what the fuck's going on," I grumbled.

"We're taking biopsies of the tissue between the marks. Obviously." Kakuzu replied, pulling out a small red bit of my flesh and placing it in a metal dish Sasori was now holding. He repeated this a few times, yanking out pieces of me until he was satisfied that they had enough samples.

The skin was already healing, but it still stung like a bitch.

"Alright, now we need to inspect the seal so we can find out why it's there." Sasori said, and I hastily turned over to show them my back.

"It's complex," Kakuzu whistled, "It'll take a while to figure it out."

"That's great," I sighed, sitting up. "More waiting."

"Tell me about it," the two Akatsuki members chorused.

Hidan wasn't the quickest to fully capture the implications of my tale, so I had to spell it out to him... More than once.

"So then... You have this awesome blade, don't you want to test it out?" He asked, his pastel eyes glinting in anticipation.

"You're more excited about it than I am," I remarked, but agreed to spar him using my new blade.

We met in the training room, prepared to fight a brutal battle. Hidan and I stared at each other for a few moments, weighing one another silently. He was shirtless and cloakless, lean muscles prepared to start at any moment. He was clad only in his black training cargo pants and black sandals, lacking his usual pouches of soldier pills and quick-healing salves he'd usually have for missions. Hidan gripped his scythe tightly, anticipating combat.

I was clothed similarly, opting for a dark gray tube top and black training pants, but I had forgone the pouches, leaving them tossed on the floor. My only equipment was the sheathe strapped to my back holding the sword.

"You'll have to give me leniency, I've never learned to properly use a sword." I told Hidan, but he shrugged and stood in a defensive stance as I gripped the hilt of the blade.

"Just come at me, bitch." He smirked.

"Alright," I returned his cocky grin, lunging at him as I swung the sword effortlessly through the air. He poofed away, a training dummy taking his place.

"Not fair, you're playing with justu I don't know yet!" I huffed, searching across the expansive space for my lover.

He responded with a snicker and I crossed the distance to where the sound came from and he dashed out, charging me with his scythe. I blocked his blow with the Kogistune-maru, sending him backwards a few feet.

"What the hell!" Hidan shouted, jumping up. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Defending myself!" I growled, bracing myself against his impending attack.

He 'hmph'-ed and ran at me again, swinging his blade at my head. "I'll decapitate you and skull-fuck you until you regain consciousness." He threatened.

I barked out a laugh. "I'd still be able to bite you." I warned, parrying his blow once more. This time, as he was pushed back, he braced his feet against the floor and swung at me again, knocing my sword from my hand, cutting my palm in the process.

As the blade clattered to the ground, I held my other hand out and as if it were pulled by a magnet, it flew back into my hand.

"Alright, nope! Fuck this!" Hidan exclaimed, tossing his scythe down.

I gave him a quizzical look and he widened his eyes at me.

"This shit is way to freaky, bitch. That's a cursed sword if I've ever seen one."

I rolled my eyes as he picked his scythe back up and retreated, heading for a quick shower.

I watched him leave before looking at the sword in wonder before sliding it back into its holster at my hip. As I knelt to pick up my discarded pouches, I was joined by Itachi.

"Pardon me for intruding, Sakana-san, but I watched your spar with Hidan." He said, his eyes glowing in his Sharingan.

I shook my head, "Oh, it's alright, Itachi. I know I'm not that good, I barely know how to use the thing, much less understand every ability it has."

He made a quiet noise, before speaking again, "I'm not sure what you mean by abilities."

"Well, it's the Kogitsune-maru," I explained, "Surely it's got some hidden powers."

"May I see the blade, then?" He held out his hand.

I unsheathed the sword once again and held it out for him.

"Hmm..." He leaned down and took a closer look at it before looking back at me. "You're right, it's the Kogitsune-maru blade, however this blade has no sign of a hidden power. It seems that it's rather a husk."

"Huh?" I asked, looking at the sword.

"It fills with the wielder's chakra and utilizes Jutsu that the user can use." He explained.

"Ah, but that's not true," I countered, "Hidan was being forced away by the sword as he struck it."

Itachi gave me a dry look. "Precisely. It would seem that those were caused by some jutsu that you're capable of mastering, but perhaps haven't yet."

With that, he left me more confused than ever.

Perhaps time will reveal all. Jashin whispered to me, so I shrugged and picked my belongings up before leaving the cold room.