Kazuko and Ebihara met for the first time in the middle of a rainstorm.

The event had been carefully planned. Naruto and Kazuko had talked over how honest they wanted to be with Ebihara, what they wanted to say, what they ultimately were trying to do.

Naruto had wanted to trust Ebihara implicitly. Kazuko had wanted her to be kept almost entirely in the dark. Naruto had told Kazuko that just because she hated ninja generally didn't mean that every ninja was a shitheel. Kazuko had told Naruto that he was a naive, overly-generous moron who was going to get himself killed from sheer stupidity.

But the plan ultimately was for them to all live in the same house together, and that wasn't going to be possible unless Kazuko stayed incorporeal in the evenings. And Kazuko did not want to spend half her days cooped up inside the seal, so trusting Ebihara was the only plan. All that remained was finding a good opportunity.

Naruto had been out with Kazuko looking at abandoned estates to see which was the least horrifying to renovate when they had been caught out in the rain. Kazuko often helped Naruto by manipulating a dome of water around him to keep the water off, complaining every time about how she wasn't his maid and it was beneath her dignity. It seemed as good a chance as any to introduce Kazuko to Ebihara.

"This is pretty bad," Naruto said as he and Ebihara huddled under the gate eaves. "I've got a summon I can ask to keep the water off."

"Oh, that's good," Ebihara said, grimacing at the downpour. "What kind of summon?"

"She's a river spirit," Naruto said casually.

The response was about as expected.

"What?!" Ebihara shouted, snapping around to stare at Naruto. "What the fuck are you saying? An actual river spirit? Are you serious?!"

"Yeah, look, Ebihara, calm down—"

"Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?!"

"Yeah she tried to kill me twice—"

"It could totally try to kill you— wait twice already?! Are you insane?!"

"STOP," Naruto yelled. Ebihara stopped. "I swear, it's fine, okay? She's cool. Her name's Kazuko, her favorite food is fish, and she likes swimming. We go out to this creek sometimes so she can spend some time in the water."

Ebihara's face betrayed her confusion and doubt. "You talk about it like it's a person."

"That's because Kazuko is a person," said Naruto. "She's even people-shaped. I can summon her to show you. She's a grouchy pain in the butt sometimes, but I swear, she's nice once she gets to know you."

Ebihara did not look fully convinced, but had not palmed any kunai. "…I guess. I did not know spirits could take human shapes. I'm going to stand over here though."

"That's fine," said Naruto. "I'm going to summon her then. Ready?"

"Yes."

Kazuko appeared with a snap of red. She stared Ebihara down as she went through the motions of straightening the kimono she wore while in human form. The spirit's gold-rimmed irises glinted in the low light under the gate eaves.

Ebihara stared straight back. She did not want to be a threat and carefully kept her body loose. Ready to fling herself backwards in case something went terribly wrong.

"Hmph," Kazuko eventually muttered. "The girl has some self-control, I suppose."

"Kazuko says good afternoon," Naruto lied.

"You can understand it?" Ebihara said.

"I am a 'her', not an 'it'," Kazuko said testily.

"Yes, I can understand her," said Naruto, "and Kazuko is a person. Don't call her an 'it'."

Ebihara grimaced. "Right. All I hear is hissing noises."

"That's to be expected."

"I thought you were a water spirit?" Ebihara asked Kazuko. "Are you a dragon?"

Kazuko snorted and rolled her eyes. "If only. You have clearly never heard a catfish out of water."

"Kazuko is a namazu," Naruto said. "An earthquake catfish. I'm guessing she sounds like a catfish to you."

"Catfish make sounds?"

Kazuko rolled her eyes again and folded her arms. "Obviously. And you call yourself a missing-nin. Didn't you ever catch a catfish when fishing for dinner?"

Naruto laughed and Ebihara looked at him for a translation.

"Don't worry about it," said Naruto. "Come on, we should get going."


"So why can you understand her but nobody else?" Ebihara asked inevitably.

Naruto shrugged. "It's just part of the bloodline ability I have," he said.

"Is it?"

Naruto kept his face casual. "Yeah."

Ebihara was utterly expressionless.

"Fair enough," she said eventually. She didn't bring it up again.


"Naruto-kun asked me a very unusual question the other day," Hiruzen said to Danzo as the meeting about festival security finished up.

"Did he now," Danzo said dryly.

"Yes, he asked if he could spend a few days looking in the Hokage Library about spirits," said Hiruzen. "I suppose he must be trying something new with his summon."

Danzo eyed the meeting room. It was empty of anyone with overly open ears or loose lips. "Fascinating. I suppose it is not unexpected. It was certainly a surprise to learn about."

Hiruzen snorted. "The boy is a living example of how asking forgiveness is often easier than asking for permission. I suppose it was also an accident. He has done a remarkable job taming the beast."

"Well, I suppose it must be because of the Kyuubi's influence," Danzo said.

"Who can say?" said Hiruzen. He shrugged. "Banishing and barrier seals are common enough, but I do not believe that anyone has attempted to tame a spirit in several hundred years. Certainly I do not know how."

"A gap in the knowledge of the God of Shinobi?" Danzo said. "How scandalous and impossible."

"Ha ha," Hiruzen said. He pulled out his pipe and lit it with a flick. "Would that sensei were still around. I believe he and Shodaime-sama had a few non-hostile dealings with spirits."

"Perhaps they left some discussion on the matter in the Hokage Library," Danzo suggested.

"Naruto would think of that?"

"Oh I have no doubt," Danzo said. "Do you know, I believe that we may finally have gotten through to him that books are worth something?"

"Have we?" Hiruzen said. He puffed on his pipe. "Is there progress in his training then?"

"Yes, I believe we might speak to the Academy about introducing meditation as part of the curriculum," said Danzo. "Walking meditation seems to have improved Naruto's ability to quiet his mind and focus on less engaging tasks. No doubt he will always prefer to be sparring rather than reading, but…"

"Hmm, how interesting," Hiruzen said, and stroked his beard. "Very interesting. We should have thought of this earlier. It will be an easy enough experiment…"


"I fucking knew it," Naruto crowed, slapping at the ancient manual with a grin. "See there Kazuko? Told you that it wasn't always this bad."

"Don't do that!" Kazuko hissed, pulling Naruto away from a scroll of bamboo strips that was at least five hundred years old. "What if you broke the binding?!"

It was a mark of how old the scroll really was that Naruto winced at his own lack of care. "I put a cloth underneath it, it should be okay," Naruto said, examining the silk cords warily before straightening back up. "Yeah they're fine, see?"

Kazuko squinted at the scroll before nodding reluctantly. "Be more careful."

"Yes yes, I know. But look, see? It's a manual from the Senju Clan head three generations before the Shodaime Hokage. It's talking about ritual techniques for calling upon spirits of the forests and mountains. I guess back then already people didn't talk to spirits much."

Kazuko rubbed her fingers together. "I have never experienced this."

"Do you want me to sacrifice a fish to you?"

Kazuko made a pinched expression. "I can get my own fish."

"Well I don't think you want me to sacrifice a baby," said Naruto as he scrolled through the bamboo slats and caught sight of a passage regarding forbidden rituals. "Or a virgin. Wow I can't believe that was an actual thing."

"I don't know what a spirit would even do with one," Kazuko muttered. Then more loudly: "Do you think these would work on His Lordship? The power you can use is limited, but some of these look like protective charms."

"We should try it out," said Naruto. "But look here, this is what I wanted to show you. There's also a ritual for, uh, what's this kanji—joining of souls? No, of minds."

"That sounds dangerous," Kazuko said, folding her arms in her kimono sleeves. "Why are you interested in this?"

"Well don't you want to be able to talk to Ebihara?" Naruto asked. "Without me being there, I mean. You can do girl talk and stuff."

Kazuko seemed to restrain the urge to smack him. "I am a spirit, Naruto, you imbecile. What would we even talk about?"

"I mean, I dunno—"

"Besides, this says the ritual needs me to drink her blood," said Kazuko, grimacing in distaste. "I don't like her that much. We can deal with you passing messages."

Naruto huffed. "Alright, fair enough I guess. This is still a really good find though."

"It is," Kazuko said. She tugged on a piece of hair thoughtfully. "We probably should keep this here and go buy some scrolls to start copying this out."

"Right, shopping time then!"


Sazae had met Orochimaru of the Sannin two years ago.

It was said then, and now, that the Snake Sanning was a terrible man. He was not a loving man, nor a merciful man, nor an ethical man. Many had called him a psychopath, certainly a monster, and perhaps he had earned those epithets. But despite all his detractors, despite his many flaws, he was still a kind man, in his own way.

"Good morning Sazae-chan," he said. His bedside manner was terrible at the best of times, but by now his patients were at least used to it. "How are your arms feeling today?"

Sazae was one of his patients. She knew he meant no harm. "They hurt less, Orochimaru-sama," she answered, and it was true. The aching soreness underneath her bandages was far better than the searing, burning pain when her arms had been hunks of dying meat, all but destroyed by fire before Sound ninja had pulled her out of the burning remains of her home.

"Hmm, I see," Orochimaru said. He gestured at her arms. "May I?"

Sazae nodded and Orochimaru picked up her left arm. The pressure from his fingers was deadened, like she was feeling his hands from behind layers and layers of cloth. But the bandages were only one or two layers thick.

She watched nervously while Orochimaru carefully unwound the bandages. The flesh underneath was strange, mottled black and amber patterned across pale grey. The surface was smooth and glossy, and her ruined hand was a gnarled spike at the end.

Orochimaru picked up a clean cloth, dipped it into water, and wiped it across. He pulled back a layer of mucous that clung in long strings between Sazae and the cloth.

"Well, not completely unexpected, I suppose," Orochimaru said quietly. Sazae bit her lip and tried not to cry. What had happened? Her arms were supposed to be fixed—better than anyone else's in the world. But—

"Don't fret, Sazae-chan," Orochimaru said firmly. "You will remember our exercises. I told you it was critical to learn how in order to make sure your arms healed, and you learned so very well. I want you to do it again. Rotate your chakra through your arm."

Sazae took a deep breath. Right. It had been hard, because whenever she did the exercises, her arms had hurt so badly she had cried, but Orochimaru had been there to give her a little drink of something to make the pain lessen. He had been the one to strip away the dead flesh and replace it with something new. He had been the one to give her the strength to protect herself. And now her arms didn't hurt nearly as bad anymore, and the exercises would be easy.

She carefully fed chakra down her arm, dipping a little deeper down her arm each time. Something wonderful happened as she did. The surface of her arm turned hard and smooth. It still gleamed, but it wasn't the wet slippery gleam of earlier. It was a harder gleam, like polished bone.

The chakra went farther and farther down, and near her shoulder her arm started to grow, swirling outwards and turning white as the amount of chakra she was confident in using increased. Sharp spines began to grow outwards, creaking as she fed in more chakra, until finally she had turned her arm from a strange, disgusting thing into a spiked mace of a limb, thoroughly capable of impaling anyone who came her way.

"I dare say we have succeeded, Sazae-chan," Orochimaru said with a satisfied smile as Sazae stared. He raised his hands and lit them with a glow to scan her arm. "Yes, I see you have developed venom bulbs as well. It will take some practice, but I believe you will be able to shoot your, mm, shall we call it a shell?"

Sazae nodded. It seemed as fine a name as any to call the thing that had encased her arm.

"I believe you will be able to launch parts of your shell at the enemy," said Orochimaru. "Tip them with poison, and you will be sure to kill them. Let us see your other arm."

Sazae's right arm was more intact than her left, and Orochimaru had been able to salvage her fingers. It too was able to form a speckled shell full of spikes and poison. It was absolutely amazing. She had no idea such a thing was possible, and the ability was now hers.

Nobody would ever hurt her again.

"Practice will allow you to control how the shell forms," Orochimaru said firmly. "The spike form is good offense but poor for defense. I am sure you will be able to create a dense, smooth shell that can deflect blows easily. It will take time to develop your skills, but you have excellent potential. I look forward to your progress."

Sazae nodded and bowed as best she could from where she sat in her hospital bed. Tears dripped onto the sheets.

"Thank you so much, Orochimaru-sama."


Sazae had moved to the Eastern Proving Ground in the years since Orochimaru had gifted her with new arms.

She was now part of Special Weapons Group Four. It was a seven-man squad, led by a jounin commander and made up of two sections of three.

Sazae was one of the two weapons in her section, Section Two. Her section leader was Gin from the Amemiya Clan, though he freely admitted his so-called-clan was only called that for political reasons. They were really more of a very large bandit group, made up of people who had lost their homes because nobody had thought they were worth helping in the wake of famine or plague or raids from other bandits.

Sazae could relate.

Her fellow weapon was Mana-chan. Mana had been fixed with the same shell-thing that Sazae had been fixed with, though the circumstances were different. Mana had been shot in the shoulder by a nobleman on a hunt—someone with more arrows and alcohol and money than sense, and who had barely done anything to help before pushing Mana back into the street. There, the wound had festered until her shoulder had started to rot off the bone and the infection had spread to the rest of her body. Mana had patches of shell growing across almost half her body, the only way to fill in what the rot had eaten away. The deep illness had ruined her bones, twisting them so badly it was painful to stand straight and leaving Mana hunched over like an old crone.

Between the two of them they could roll over just about anything Gin pointed them at. Sazae was faster, hit like a wave crashing into a dinghy caught in the breakers. Mana's shell was thicker and grew faster besides, and where Sazae's spikes tended to break off in her targets and kill them with poison, Mana simply impaled them. She was the cliffside that Sazae swept their enemies into, where they smashed to bits and drowned.

What couldn't be crushed that way, Gin stabbed with his spear. Which was a somewhat degrading way to describe what Gin did, Sazae felt, because he really was very good with his spear. He whirled it with the sort of skill that only came with decades of practice, and indeed he was old enough to be their father. Was, in a way these days, because Sazae's parents were dead and Mana had been born on the street and couldn't remember her parents, even though obviously she came from someone. They joked sometimes about which whore from which disreputable teahouse must have been Mana's mother, but only the three of them. Anyone else who made jokes like that, Gin stabbed, but only because if Sazae or Mana stabbed someone they would be guaranteed to die and that was too messy to deal with.

Their relationship with Section One was good, though of course it still had a little ways to go. Section One was all boys, both fire breathers who had nearly died of the plague and had their lungs and throats replaced with some tough, leathery substance that had grown to cover their mouths and abdomens. As fighters went, they were good enough, but they were far more fragile than Mana or Sazae, and Sazae didn't like the fire. It couldn't hurt her anymore, her shell could more than defend against it, and it had even grown deep into her shoulders and back so she wasn't lacking in coverage. But nobody could blame her, given her circumstances.

But Mutsu and Orin were nice enough, and Sazae put up with the fire because they worked well together in group exercises. Their section leader was Taku, an arquebusier-turned-pikeman who tended to use the boys like gunmen in a particularly mobile, particularly fast-reloading arquebus team.

Their commander had evidently decided that the group was well-suited for crushing enemies between them, and for that reason Section One and Section Two usually were the two flanks of a pincer attack while the commander held the center. He was a jounin-tier missing-nin who refused to give his name, and Gin said it was normal for missing-nin who were too used to having to be anonymous in order to survive. Eventually, the anonymity became a part of you, a shell that you couldn't give up, because you'd die without it.

Sazae could relate.

"Gather round," called out the Commander in the middle of their campsite. "We've got an update."

Sazae looked up and then glanced over her shoulder to Gin, who was braiding back her hair. "Have you heard anything senpai?"

"Not a thing," Gin said, and tied her headband around her head like a headscarf to keep her hair out of her face. "Sounds important though."

"We've been doing a lot of pirate hunting on the coast," Mana said quietly as Section Two gathered its things. "Maybe it has something to do with that?"

"Maybe," said Gin. "Securing the borders of Rice Paddies has been part of Lord Orochimaru's plans for a long time."

"I hope it has something to do with that," Sazae said. Her family had been killed by a pirate raid—killing pirates was one of her favorite missions.

Group Four gathered around the Commander. He cleared his throat and rubbed his beard.

"We're going to war," he said bluntly. The group collectively gasped. "The target's Fire Country."

"Why?" Orin asked.

"Land," the Commander said. He ran his fingers through his hair. "It's that simple, really. Lord Orochimaru's got a good thing going with Hidden Sound, but Rice Paddies needs more land. Both Hidden Sound and Rice Paddies need more food and resources to grow."

Nobody really wanted to hear this. "What's keeping the Rice Paddies court from just taking everything again?" Taku asked, scowling. "Not like the Daimyo ever gave a shit about us before. Even unified, there's no reason he can't just fuck us all together instead of one at a time."

The Commander folded his arms. "Remember that we've already replaced many of the members of the Daimyo's governing council with our own people. The Amemiya Clan, for example—" the Commander nodded at Gin "—now wields considerable influence. For the rest: there's a lot of jounin that have been running missions in the capital—it's supposed to just be body-guarding, but it's probably also assassinations and blackmail. I can't say for sure, that's compartmentalized intel. If it's true, it'd be a shitshow if it got out."

Sazae growled. The thing she hated about becoming a Sound ninja was all of the secrets. But she owed Lord Orochimaru at least a little trust.

"I guess we have to just trust that Lord Orochimaru has it in hand," Gin said. "This is the best chance we have for making a new home where future generations won't be left in the mud and dust by the rich and well-connected."

"Or at least we'll be the rich and well-connected," muttered Mutsu. The Commander frowned at him and Taku jabbed him with his elbow.

"In any case, to prepare, Orochimaru-sama is recalling all the Special Weapons Groups for upgrades," the Commander continued. "I don't know the details, but we'll be cycling back to Lab Four by the end of the week."

Upgrades? Sazae and Mana looked excitedly at each other. They didn't get upgrades often, usually only maintenance and parts replacement. Sazae's mangled left hand had been properly turned into a harpoon head—she could even regenerate it now, repeatedly!—the last time they had been back to Lab Four, and three trips ago they had been given a special "cursed seal" to boost their speed and power and chakra capacity.

"If it's all the groups, I bet it's an upgrade to our cursed seals," Mana said. She tapped her unmodified hand against her thigh as she spoke. "When we got them the first time, they said it was still in progress right?"

"They worked really well though," Sazae said and rubbed at her neck, where her seal had been painted. "I guess it doesn't work for very long though. Not that we need that much time for pirates."

"Don't get arrogant," Gin said and dropped his hands on top of both their heads to pat them affectionately, but warningly. "If we're going against Fire Country, we'll be up against Konoha ninja. They'll be a lot harder than pirates and bandits, so we'll need every advantage we can get."

Both girls nodded. "Yes, senpai!"