A/N: aaaaaaaaaaand here's the other chapter I forgot to post. Double update? Yay? (im so sorry why am i like this)
-:-
Shiori likes her new parents, she really does. It's just… hard. To see them and know that there's a very high probability that they'll be dead soon. It's hard to connect with people when all she can see is the shinigami hanging over their shoulder.
(If she cares now, it'll make it harder when she loses them.)
Kushina is different; Kushina has a confirmed age and day of death, one Shiori probably won't live to see. The knowledge of her imminent demise was a little less urgent than Nanami and Kenshi's.
But Kushina is gone. There's no one to force her to be a semi-functional person the way Kushina did. Letters are kept at a minimum because of "village secrets" or some bullshit, and Shiori is man enough to admit that her codependency has come back to bite her in the ass.
Shiori doesn't have the luxury of shutting down right now. She has shit to do, and it's not going to get done if she falls into a depressive episode.
(It's not just her life on the line, here. It's an entire island.
A whole-ass civilization rests on her shoulders, and if she thinks about that too hard she wants to curl up and die, but if she doesn't think about it at all she'll wallow in self pity right up until the red tiled roofs of Uzushio collapse on her fucking head-)
Nanami picks her up and kisses her cheeks, her scarred face made soft by the smile she gives Shiori. Its warmth leaves Shiori wrong-footed, because she hasn't done anything to be worthy of it. She's been distant, and cold, and nothing this woman or her husband deserved.
"I love you so, so much, Shiori. I know that Kushina's your favorite, and that's okay. Just know that she's not the only one who's rooting for you."
(Fuck. It's really hard not to love them. It's going to hurt so bad when she loses them.)
-:-
Her chances of stopping the invasion are next to nonexistent, although Uncle Arashi has been taking the time to reinforce the protective seals on the Uzumaki compound for her peace of mind. Uzushio is a big island, and the population in the village is sizable. There's no way she can figure out a way to convince her uncle to reinforce every single barrier seal on the island. She's not even sure if they have the time to do so regardless.
So, Shiori does the only thing she seems to be good at. She makes seals.
She's been making seal after seal after seal since Kushina first brought her a brush and ink, and she's been experimenting with her own seal language to do something, anything, to protect the Uzumaki.
(They deserve to live. These people who cheered for the broken kid no one asked for. These people with their brilliant seals and warm laughter. These people who Kushina loves. These people who love Shiori.
Why can't Shiori be enough, just this once?)
Seals can do anything, right? Why shouldn't they be able to rewrite fate? What's stopping her from making a seal that protects everyone?
Time, talent, and chakra, that's what.
(Seals can do anything, sure, but only if you're good at them. Only if you have the chakra to power them. Only if you have the time to write them correctly.
Shiori's doing her fucking best, but she can't get the balances right, and she doesn't have the chakra to power her last resort.
Shiori can't tell anyone else, because who'd believe her?
Kushina. Kushina would believe her, but Kushina is ten, and Kushina is gone.)
-:-
"Whatcha working on, Shi-chan?" comes Kenshi's voice from above. Seeing as Shiori had been hyperfixating on this seal like a motherfucker, the sudden noise scares the ever loving crap out of her, and her brushstroke goes wide across the paper.
Kenshi winces. "Oops, sorry sweetheart. Think it can be saved?"
Shiori sighs and shakes her head. "Wasn't working anyways."
Kenshi hums, then plops down beside her. "How long have you been working on it?"
Shiori draws a blank. She started sometime after breakfast.
(A glance out the window shows that the sun is setting.)
"Um. A while?" Kenshi snorts in laughter, and brushes hair out of her face.
"So, all day." Shiori makes a face, and Kenshi laughs louder. He picks her up and sets her in his lap. Shiori has to fight back a wince as it jostles her legs. Fuck, not moving all day was a Mistake.
Kenshi catches her wince, and his grey eyes go stormy.
"Are your legs bugging you, Shi-chan?" At her nod, he sighs a little, then positions her more gently in his lap. Then, he carefully stretches out her legs in front of them, and starts rubbing feeling back into them. It hurts at first, but soon enough the sharpness of the pain dulls down into a manageable ache.
The repetitious pattern as he massages up and down them becomes soothing, and Shiori reclines into the broad chest of her father.
(It feels safe, like this. Like nothing can go wrong.
Shiori is tired, and scared, and hurting.)
She leans into her father's chest, and is asleep in minutes.
-:-
It's two months after Kushina left, and Shiori lives on top of a mountain made of failed seals and panic. In a way, it's nearly nostalgic. It's just like exam season, but more exciting. Instead of failing a class, everybody dies!
(Fuck whatever force of the multiverse it was that put her here.
If and when she gets through this, Shiori is going to walk up to God and schedule a cage match.
She'll lose, but make no mistake, Shiori is taking the sonuvabitch down with her.)
It's two months after Kushina left, and mid-September, and the significance of that is lost on Shiori right up until she wakes up to her mom's Nanami's broad smile and Kenshi's smaller but no less warm one.
"Happy birthday, baby girl! You're three whole years old today, you're getting so big, Kenshi our baby's growing up-"
And Dad Kenshi is laughing as his wife starts tearing up. She snaps at him that he's made of stone. He calls her a crybaby. It sounds like Love.
And the day is spent with both of them carrying her all over Uzushio, with its limitless seals on every surface and ocean of red hair and birthday wishes on every tongue. They take her to see all of the biggest and most impressive seals in the village, darting around with the speed only shinobi can achieve, and Shiori can't hide her grin as they bound over rooftops because she's always loved roller coasters and this is damn close.
And Shiori misses Kushina like she's missing all of her fucking organs, but it's not quite agony. She can move past the emptiness in her lungs, because she's laughing at her father's dry humor. She can live with the hole in her heart, because her mother looks so happy every time Shiori says anything that it spills out and fills her up too.
She can suck it the fuck up, put on her big girl pants, and figure out a way to fix this clusterfuck she's been dumped in, because she wants more days like this. She wants to see more of the sealed streets and red-roofed houses, she wants more of Nanami and Kenshi's love, she wants and wants, and god dammit, Shiori is going to do her best to get it.
(Shiori will take this birthday, this reprieve, this promise of safety. She'll wrap it around herself like armor until nothing bad can touch her.
And then, she'll save Uzushio, find a way to get Kushina back from Konoha, and schedule a motherfucking cage match with any god who tries to take this from her.)