It was dark. It was cold. The makeshift building's wooden frame creaked loudly, breaking the silence that otherwise rang through Karumi's ears. She didn't know how long it had been since she'd been locked up here - it could have been days, weeks or even months. With no windows in her sparse room, there was no way of truly knowing what time it was.
The Leaf Village's intelligence corps had been largely unsuccessful with her. Physical damage was healed as soon as she was thrown back in her 'room', and their genjutsu was nothing compared to Itachi's. On several occasions her interrogators had muttered about how much easier it would have been if their technology hadn't been destroyed, but Karumi could hardly call herself lucky.
The only thing they truly held over her was the safety of her children, and they made sure to remind her of it every time they talked to her. Karumi could gauge that they'd talked to the twins, sorted through their memories, and found that they genuinely knew nothing that could help them. Now, here she was: the thorn in the side of the intelligence corps.
Karumi answered their questions, of course, but gave them nothing. Any questions about the Akatsuki members were met with unnecessary details of their medical records. Questions about her involvement with the criminal organisation were answered with stories of her charity work. Demands for knowledge about Karumi's children came with only the vaguest of responses about a man who'd died of illness while she'd been pregnant.
Irritatingly for them, her interrogators knew she wasn't lying, and they couldn't prove any of their accusations. There was no record of her ever being involved with the Akatsuki, after all.
So, they left her alone; locked in her room with no knowledge of the outside and no access to her children.
That was until her door was suddenly thrown open, a large man standing in its entrance, backlit by the light outside.
Karumi recognised the man's scarred face from several of her interrogations and smiled sarcastically. "Hey, Ibiki," she greeted with a half-hearted wave, though didn't move from her tucked position on the floor in the corner of the room. "Here for another one of our 'chats'?"
The man grunted as he stormed toward her, grabbing her by the upper arm and lifting her to her feet. "You're being released," he muttered.
A short laugh escaped Karumi's mouth and she quickly lifted her hand to stifle any more. "I never pegged you for being funny," she managed between giggles. "Seriously, though, where are we going?"
Ibiki stayed silent as he escorted her out of her room and down the hallway, though they didn't take their usual route.
The smile slowly fell from Karumi's face as a dark-haired woman came into view, a large bundle in her arms and two small boys trailing behind her. Their eyes widened as they spied Karumi and they immediately broke free of their chaperone, sprinting towards her.
"Mama!" The twins cheered as they flung themselves into Karumi's arms.
Karumi was speechless. All she could do was sink to her knees and envelop them both in a desperate embrace. Small hands pressed against her cheeks and the familiar tingle of chakra buzzed against her skin.
"Definitely her!" Hotaru whispered, and Tonbo nodded in agreement.
The young woman paused, holding her boys tightly as she turned her head to look up at Ibuki. "Did you transform into me to get them to talk to you?" she demanded.
The large man glared down at her, grumbling. "They noticed right away."
"Your children are very bright, Ms Hanakawa," the boy's chaperone complimented, holding the bundle out toward her. Karumi took it immediately, looking softly down at the baby who stared back at her with smoky blue eyes. Sayuri had grown so much in the time Karumi had been kept away, but her face was unmistakable.
Karumi's eyes prickled with tears at the sight of all three of her children, and she felt her shoulders slump forward, feeling the exhaustion of the past weeks finally hit her. "What is this?" she mumbled, her voice trembling as she pressed her lips together. "A change in tactics? Build me up so you can knock me back down again?"
The chaperone cleared her throat uncomfortably, interrupting Karumi. "Actually," she said quietly. "The Hokage - Lady Tsunade - awoke from her coma yesterday. The moment she learned there was a member of the Hanakawa clan being held for no reason she ordered your immediate release."
The woman bent forward, lowering her head respectfully.
"I would offer our deepest apologies on her behalf," she murmured. "But Lady Tsunade wishes to speak to you in person."
Karumi swallowed, glancing down at her children, before slowly getting to her feet. "Okay," she agreed hesitantly, not daring to look back as she followed the woman out of the building.
Her stiff joints ached as they walked, and her eyes burned as they tried to adjust to the bright sun outside; but, despite the discomfort, Karumi was just happy to see her family again. Surely they'd been kept in better conditions than she had. Judging by the way the twins bounced alongside her they couldn't have been treated too badly — and they seemed comfortable with the woman who escorted them.
"I didn't catch your name," she said to the dark haired woman, eyeing her warily.
"It's Shizune," she replied, smiling proudly. "I assist Lady Tsunade with her work."
A feeling of nostalgia bubbled in the pit of Karumi's stomach. Did Tetsuya ever look this happy when he talked about her?
The group continued to walk until they reached another makeshift wooden building, and the sound of clinking cutlery sounded from inside. A crudely painted sign indicating it was a restaurant was nailed crookedly to the entrance, and the scent of grilled meat wafted through the air, making everyone's mouths water.
"She's in here," Shizune spoke, gesturing for Karumi and her family to enter first.
Considering the stressed looks on the server's face, Karumi expected a full house; but only one table was occupied. A blonde woman looking roughly the same age as Shizune sat alone, several empty dishes stacked beside her with several more full of food in front of her. The woman looked up as they walked in, her eyes scanning Karumi before looking over to Shizune. "Is this her?"
Shizune nodded as she moved to sit down, and Hotaru and Tonbo followed suit.
Karumi remained standing, holding her daughter tightly as she watched. There was no way this woman was Tsunade Senju. She would have been almost sixty, but the woman in front of her only looked half as old. Then again, looking young definitely wasn't the strangest thing Karumi had witnessed chakra being used for.
"Sit down," the blonde ordered, pulling one of the dishes closer.
The younger woman obliged, but still remained on guard, ready to grab her kids and run if needed.
"I'd heard you were blind," Tsunade mumbled through a mouthful of food. "Only an inhuman amount of chakra could cure it. How did you fix it?"
"An inhuman amount of chakra," Karumi answered dryly, earning a laugh from the Hokage.
"I can see why they had trouble with you," she complimented. "And to think you were still alive after all this time. We assumed the Hanakawa clan had been completely wiped out."
She glanced down curiously at the twins, and Karumi could sense her question without it needing to be asked. "They've both inherited my clan's Kekkei Genkai," she murmured.
Tsunade raised an eyebrow, though it wasn't as though she didn't already know. They'd probably proved it several times while being questioned. "And the girl?"
Karumi paused. "She's a baby."
"An Uchiha baby," Tsunade pointed out.
The hairs on the back of Karumi's neck stood on end as her body suddenly felt cold.
"That's classified information, of course," the Hokage continued. "But you can imagine what sort of questions people would ask if another Sharingan user appeared."
She smiled gently, and Karumi narrowed her eyes. "What do you want?"
Tsunade cleared her throat. "First of all, I want to apologise," she murmured. "You offered to help our village and you were treated like a criminal in return. I know more than anyone that you were just doing your job."
Karumi felt her shoulders relax a little, though she could tell there was more coming.
"Secondly, I wanted to ask for your help." Tsunade sighed as she looked down at her plate. "A war is coming. The nations are allying themselves together, and I would be stupid not to ask a skilled medic such as yourself to assist us."
A heavy silence filled the air as Karumi considered her words. "You want me to fight?"
"Of course not!" Shizune cried, interrupting their conversation. "We would keep you at a safe distance from the battlefield, treating the injured."
"Many injured don't make it off the battlefield," Karumi explained. "Surely it's more useful to have healers on the front lines too."
"Medics are useless if they're dead," Tsunade muttered, pointing to the purple diamond marking that sat squarely in the middle of her forehead. "Unless you have one of these there's no way I'm letting you anywhere near danger."
Karumi smirked, hooking two of her fingers into the collar of her t-shirt and pulling it down far enough to expose her own purple marking. "Do I pass?"
Shizune gasped as Tsunade let out a roar of laughter that seemed to shake the slapdash building.
"You do," she said breathlessly, wiping away tears. "Keep surprising me like that and I'll escort you into battle myself."