Author's notes: I love exploring minor canon characters. Namikaze Minato is especially fascinating. I study this guy, and I wonder... where the hell did this perfection come from? Most god-like canon characters are really, really irritating with their perfection, but Minato is just a genuine, really nice guy. Not a Nice Guy, but just a really nice guy who goes out of his way to make his friend feel better, because he's the sort of guy who wants you to feel better, and he's not going it because it makes him feel better for performing a good deed. I'm rather fascinated with his characterization with how Minato could be so talented, so strong, and so skillful.

And then there's Tsume. Who is so not perfect.

This will later appear in the story: [The Raikage] was starting to suspect that the gods had taken one look at how freakishly talented, strong, fast, and intelligent Namikaze Minato would be, and decided to create Inuzuka Tsume, because someone had to keep the man humble somehow. Even if it was just via dill pickle thievery.

I enjoy the contrast between these two in this story, with Minato's kind perfection, and Tsume's sympathetic flaws. So while Minato embraces the role that the gods assign him with all the grace and dignity that a superb character like him would be blessed with, there lies Tsume, ensuring that any ego that develops is effectively popped. It's a tough job, but someone has to play the role of the Jester... (One could argue the same for Kakashi, as far as his perfections as such an amazing warrior is concerned, but he has some extreme personality flaws that definitely show up in canon that we never see emulated in Minato.)

I am also curious about the thoughts of my readers... all the the half a dozen of you who have managed to make it through the admittedly painful Alpha Years. You people are equipped with some pretty strong stomachs, and I solute you.

o-o-o

o-o-o-o

o-o-o-o-o

Minato was short – shorter than her, in fact, although that was most likely because he was a year and a half younger than her. Tsume hoped that he would someday come into a growth spurt (just like how she was finally getting her own growth spurt). But he was strong. She supposed it made up for him being so short. She also thought his hair would be rough and thick, like straw, but it was actually soft like dandelion fluff.

"Is there something in my hair?" Minato asked, craning his head to the side to look at her from the corner of his eye.

Tsume buried her nose in his hair and sniffed. "I like the shampoo you use," she said decisively. It was sooooo soft.

"I, uh, haven't washed my hair with any shampoo in the last three weeks."

"Oh, believe me, I can tell. But don't worry, 'cause you don't stink that badly." Tsume ignored Minato's embarrassment as she poked her nose into his hair again. It tickled, and she sneezed. Minato staggered in surprise, and her grip tightened around his shoulders. "Hey – you promised you wouldn't drop me! My shin's already bruised from where we ran into that stump."

Minato heaved a sigh. "Isn't someone else's turn to carry Tsume?" he asked. He even sounded like he wasn't whining. Tsume figured that Minato had the nicest voice for being nice that she ever heard from anyone.

Jiraiya's pace quickened ever-so-slightly as he pulled ahead, just outside of their tight little formation. Danzo's pace slowed and the man dropped behind somewhat. That left Kushina, who kept pace side-by-side with Minato.

"Um. I don't think I'm strong enough to carry her." Kushina pressed an uncertain finger to her lips. They were heading for a Konoha relief station located at the lower south-eastern border of the Land of Whirlpool, a once-allied nation with Fire, where the countryside was filled with scattered lakes, bogs, and swamps. They managed to successfully avoid the worst of the Kumo and Hoshi patrols that blanketed the countryside because Tsume had been able to sniff them out and steer her group clear of them. Literally. She had taken to tugging Minato's hair whenever she wanted him to change course. It was the best fun she had since Grandmother sold her. But because she was also steering them clear of the bogs and swamps, which were filled with venomous creatures and insects, and deadly gaseous fumes, and also all hotspots of human activity (primarily villages, but also the occasional farming or woodworking homestead), their travel was significantly lengthened. It had already been two days since they initially left the cave.

Tsume personally thought that there seemed to be an awful lot of patrols, until Jiraiya wryly pointed out to her that it was part and parcel to a war.

Tsume wasn't permitted to run because she still suffered from the chakra depletion that kept her in a constant throb of pain and muscle spasms, occasionally marked by waves of sudden all-body weakness that made her sag limp against Minato's back. She was also barefooted. It made running across the countryside, especially in the dark, a dangerous and uncomfortable occupation. "Oh, three-man cell from Jomae with chakra-wire traps. They seem awfully far from home. We gotta go thataway!" Tsume tugged Minato's hair on the left side of his head. He sighed and changed angles. Jiraiya and Danzo instantly corrected their course to match his, both closing ranks around the three preteens.

"You know," Jiraiya said, "this is probably the first time I've ever teamed up in the field with an Inuzuka." He paused briefly, as if searching for the right words. "Are they always this bossy, Danzo?"

"Only the alphas," Danzo replied with a light voice. "The betas follow pack leader orders without question, and gammas tend to do their own thing if you don't assert yourself as an alpha with full rights to command them, so you can only hope that their own thing coincides with your orders. Lucky for ANBU captains everywhere, Inuzuka alphas are rare, and the gammas are uncommon."

Minato tilted his head again. "I've never heard about the gammas." She tugged on his hair again, making him shift a subtle five degrees southeast.

"Gammas are a new thing in the clan, I think," Tsume said. This was one of the few things she remembered in absolute clarity before the Nara forest. It was the winter before, and Grandmother Shinzou had sat Tsume down with Nagumi in the kennels and showed her how to harness the dogs for carrying supplies. As she showed Tsume how the harnesses attached, she explained the alpha/beta/gamma dynamics. "Gammas are like lone wolves. They aren't pack-oriented like the rest of the Inuzukas, and they tend to be male more often than not. The reason it's new is because Konoha is the first time the clan has been able to settle in one place, instead of roaming the countryside like other shinobi clans, so Grandmother was able to study what becomes of our unclaimed sons. I guess before we just considered them defective alphas or something like that, when a gamma was a clanswoman."

Tsume often saw her male cousins around Konoha, but they didn't acknowledge her any more than she acknowledged them – except for Subaru, who was five years older than her and not a cousin, nor was he an alpha or a gamma. Subaru, like the rest of the Inuzukas, had a natural inclination towards dogs, and ad followed Tsume and Kuromaru for a while. Two weeks before Kakashi was born, Tsume got tired of being followed, so she and Kuromaru confronted Subaru. (It was more of an ambush than an actual confrontation, but Tsume wasn't the sort to quibble over details.) He was a very large teenager, broad in shoulders with huge feet and hands, and he shuffled shyly as she glared up at him. He had the same swarthy olive-toned skin and dark hair that Tsume and Hidarime did, and the same familial scent of their mother, which marked him as one of Inuzuka Tsubaki's four children.

"How do you talk to the dogs and how do they talk back?" Subaru had asked.

Subaru had been given a puppy by the old lady who lived on the floor beneath him. He was a civilian like his father, but the inclination towards canines was as bred into him as it was in Tsume. Even if the dog was never meant to be a ninken, Tsume was willing to help Subaru. She snuck away from home two nights in a row to teach basic cares and discipline. She thought she was doing rather well with what she had to work with and what she and Kuromaru could remember, before Grandmother caught her that third night…

Tsume wondered where Subaru and Jet were, and how they were doing. "Bog ahead!" She tugged on Minato's hair. "Danzo-sensei, we're going to have to either squeeze through the Jomae nin and the bog on a little strip of land, or take the really long way around the bog."

"We take the long way." Danzo still had a noticeable limp in his run, and didn't trust anyone – not even the Jomae nin, who were supposed to be allies of Konoha. Tsume half-suspected that the reason their pace wasn't as fast as when it had been just her and Danzo was because of that limp. Kushina and Minato certainly didn't look like they were struggling to maintain the pace.

"This way!"

Minato sighed. "Can you not kick me in the sides when you do that? I'm not a horse."

"No, but you're a mooncalf, and calves are almost like horses."

oOoOoOo

Tsume had identified half the Konoha ANBU occupying the relief station before they reached it. The only reason Tsume couldn't identify the other half was because she didn't remember or recognize them. "But they gotta be legit," she told Danzo, "because Oyubi-chan is there, and she wouldn't hang with a bunch of imposters. And she does smell upset, but that's grief, which is different from, you know, being-captured-upset." They were huddled in the forest outside the genjutsu perimeter and trip alarms that would alert ANBU of any trespassers. Dawn was just beginning, the sky streaking with flamingo and peach shades of pink. The woods were noisy with birds that were flying further south, and bugs that hadn't yet been killed off by the harsh autumn frosts.

"Fair enough," Danzo said. Nonetheless, he sent Jiraiya in first to alert the station of the newcomers while he and the preteens waited. Jiraiya didn't return, but he sent out Minato's two awaiting teammates to guide the rest of the group through the traps. Minato's genin teammates, Aburame Hotaru and Sarutobi Osamu, were thrilled to see their teammate, but didn't make any attempts to slap him on the back since Tsume was still hitching a ride. His teammates were pretty lousy, Tsume thought. They forgot to warn Minato to duck low, so her wild spikes of hair accidentally triggered a tripwire. She, Minato, and Kushina all got stuck several times with the released senbon; Danzo was able to dodge them effortlessly.

Luckily, Hotaru had equipped herself with the antidotes to the paralytic that coated the senbon, and administered it before their diaphragms seized up.

Just as they made their way through the parameter and were about to enter the crevice that was almost invisible in the jutting cliff, Oyubi pounced on Minato.

"Oh! It's you!" Tsume was yanked off of Minato's back into Oyubi's painfully tight hug. "Oh, stars and ancestors – it truly is you, and you're alive!" Tsume sniffled at the scent of Oyubi's tears as her cousin smoothed her hands over Tsume's hair and face, caressing and prodding as if to assure herself that Tsume wasn't just an elaborate genjutsu. Tsume couldn't see Oyubi's expression because it was hidden behind the painted ANBU mask, but there was no mistaking the scents of relief and joy, tainted heavily with grief.

Gosh, it really was nice to be wanted and missed. Tsume couldn't wait until she got back to Kuromaru and Kakashi! Oyubi's dog, a sleek black and tan-colored medium-sized hound named Himewari, barked a greeting and then stood on her back legs to lick at Tsume's face, her wagging tail nearly a blur.

Danzo tapped Oyubi's shoulder as he pressed forward to the crevice. "Breaking character," he warned her in a low voice.

"Bite me," Oyubi muttered defiantly, but in such a low voice only Tsume heard. There was another spike in the grief before Oyubi pulled away from Tsume. Grasping Tsume's left hand in hers and asserting control over Himewari with a sharp point of her right, Oyubi led the adolescent shinobi through the crevice.

The relief station was a set of underground bunkers in a gigantic limestone cavern that was heavily guarded by multiple traps and only had the one entrance that was easy to defend. The crevice was so narrow that Danzo and Oyubi had to turn sideways to slip through, their clothes scraping loudly against the rough walls. None of the adolescents had Danzo's bulk or Oyubi's admirable bust, so they slipped through without a problem. Tsume followed gingerly with her hand still clasped in Oyubi's, feeling every single sharp stone and twig beneath her bare feet.

Once they safely exited the crevice, they had to pause for Oyubi to reset the crevice's traps. Then she led them through the labyrinth of underground caverns, bypassing even more traps and alarms. Tsume thought that having to circle a not-so-random stalagmite counterclockwise for two and a half rotations before skipping south twice to prevent triggering a layered genjutsu was really overkill. Then again, she figured, if anyone had the right to overkill, it was ANBU, especially if you had a relief station in the middle of a war, no matter how friendly an ally the country was.

Oyubi eventually led them to the main quarters which housed a rotating number of ANBU – fourteen currently, Tsume's nose detected (not very easily though, given how the place smelled very heavily of old sulfuric acid), although there had been recent visits by many different non-ANBU teams, like Jiraiya's. The main quarters were dimly lit by several oil laps, and appeared to consist of a very stark kitchen, a large dining room table that had a couple stacks of cards and a shogi board scattered on its surface, multiple straight-backed wooden chairs, and a magazine rack that held one crumpled and well-read Chicken Ramen for the Shinobi Soul.

"Captain."

Danzo didn't halt at Oyubi's voice as he entered the kitchen and began inspecting the contents in the cupboards and refrigerator.

"I have very important news that must be relayed to my cousin." Oyubi reached for her mask.

Tsume froze. So did Danzo. Tsume felt her heart thudding as her mind went to her worst fear: Sakumo was dead, killed in the attack during which Kushina was abducted.

Danzo's voice stopped Oyubi's movement. "Stop." His body was very relaxed as he looked over his shoulder, but his face was without expression and his eye seemed distant and flat. "The younger members of my team have been traveling rough and hard for the last several days. Tsume hasn't recovered from her chakra exhaustion, and everyone is hungry. Unless the base is about to be ambushed and we require an immediate evacuation, any and all news can wait until after we've eaten."

Oyubi dropped her hand away from her mask. She bowed first to Danzo, and then more deeply to Tsume. "Yes, sir. I shall return after your meal." She left, quiet as a ghost with her footsteps silent but her scent shifting erratically with desperation, grief, and joy.

Himewari hesitated for a long moment, whining softly. I want to stay with Mistress.

"Go," Tsume told Himewari with a wave of her left hand. Himewari's tail twitched in a half-wag before she trotted after Oyubi.

"It doesn't sound like it'll be good news," Kushina whispered to Tsume. Then, in a louder voice to Danzo, "Sensei, could you use any assistance?"

"You three can sit down and rest. The other two – Sarutobi and Aburame – can help me put a meal together."

"Should you be walking, sensei?" Hotaru asked with a concerned frown. Then the frown melted into wide-eyed fear at the hair-raising glare Danzo sent her, and her kikaichu buzzed loud for a brief moment. Tsume was just glad the glare wasn't leveled at her, and that she was able to sit down in an unmoving chair. Minato was nice and all, but he wasn't the greatest to ride, and she had to squeeze her legs uncomfortably-tight not to slide around. Her muscles still ached from the spasms.

"I'd like a really hot shower," Kushina said, propping her elbows on the table and resting her head on her hands. "And to sleep on a comfy mat without any guys being near. You know, it's kinda funny the simple things in life you wind up missing when you can't get them."

Tsume leaned back in her chair, pleased that her feet brushed the floor. She rested her right hand in her lap, glancing worriedly at it. Her swollen hand was still one unbroken shade of deep eggplant-purple, the sharp angles of vertebra trapped in the center of her palm digging into her flesh. It also smelled like roadkill. She was pretty sure most of the stench was from the vertebra, and not from actual gangrene or anything of the like.

Tsume decided that, no matter how much it hurt, she was going to pry her hand open and scrub it clean tomorrow morning. She folded her left arm on the table and rested her head on it, yawning as the tiredness washed over her body again. Her eyes fluttered shut, but only just for a moment because food sounded…

oOoOoOo

Tsume was shaken awake by a fussy mednin that Oyubi managed to find tucked away in a hidey-hole somewhere that doubled up as the sickbay. The mednin fussed and poked and prodded Tsume at great length, so she tried to ignore it as she attempted to eat the undercooked rice and overcooked sausage that Danzo had tossed together with way too much ginger and not enough garlic. It was hard because her chopsticks were awkwardly wielded in her left hand. The mednin – an unmasked, bespectacled, bald man with the unfortunate name of Nirami – evaluated her condition by sending waves of chakra through her body. It felt like stinging pelts of hail, battering against her sensitive nerves and distracted her from eating. Not that being distracted was all that hard.

Tsume tried not to think of how disappointed she was to realize that Danzo was a really lousy cook. It seemed like Danzo knew everything – like how to sniff things out properly, even when he wasn't an Inuzuka, and how to hone your body and mind and heart into a really awesome weapon without weaknesses, and being able to temporary fix her seal, even when he was all aroused and didn't have blood flowing to the correct head. However, she was beginning to suspect the whole "overcoming hunger" manner of training and disciplining the body was just to make up for his lousy cooking.

Speculation of Danzo's mediocre domesticate skills was interrupted by Nirami clapping his hands twice to attract everyone's attention. "Is there anyone else besides Inuzuka-san in need of medical attention?"

Everyone turned at once to look at Kushina. Kushina stared back with her mouth crammed full of rice, cheeks bulging like a desperate chipmunk. "Whath?" she asked through her mouthful.

They turned back to Nirami, and Danzo spoke. "No. Just Tsume."

"Then I require your immediate presence in my exam room for a more in-depth examination and diagnosis."

Tsume blinked at him. "Why? I thought it was just chakra exhaustion."

Nirami shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a pointed prod from his index finger. "Just chakra exhaustion, she says," he muttered, with a downward pull of his mouth. His voice rose in volume. "Just chakra exhaustion is enough to require a further examination to clear the near-toxic levels of lactic acid still lingering in your body because you were very nearly in organ failure, not to mention healing the burned tenketsu and the broken bones, but you're also anemic and…" He hesitated for a moment, his eyes dangerously sharp.

Tsume felt her heart stop for one moment as she thought about what else he could've detected – didn't the antibiotics clear the chlamydia completely? Checking her for it was how Madame Kai had discovered… She was distracted again when Oyubi stepped forward and bowed deeply to Danzo. Oyubi still wore her mask, but looked oddly naked without her ninken at her side. Tsume wondered why Himewari was kept away.

"I still have very important news to share with Tsume-sama, and I feel that's best done without an audience."

Uh oh. When had she ever been considered Tsume-sama?

The expression on Danzo's face was unreadable as he studied Oyubi over his cup of mostly-milk (slightly watered down with tea, Tsume noticed earlier) for a lengthy moment. Then he jerked his chin upward. "A moment with you, first." He, Oyubi, and Nirami stepped away from the table and disappeared together beyond the corner of the kitchen.

Tsume poked at her overcooked sausage, and then dumped the contents of her dish into Minato's empty bowl when she realized she had no appetite and no desire to eavesdrop on the three adults. Not after her deepest secret had been revealed the last time she eavesdropped. She briefly wondered where Jiraiya had disappeared to, since she couldn't smell him anywhere in the caverns.

Minato stared at his bowl. "Uh…"

Kushina pointed her chopsticks at Minato's bowl with a gleam in her narrowed eyes. A few grains of rice stuck to her chin. "If you don't want that, I'll take it." Minato eyed Kushina, and then carefully nudged his bowl towards her while making sure his hand was nowhere between her and the offered food. Osamu sported bruises on his wrist from when he unwittingly reached between Kushina and the sausage.

Danzo and Oyubi returned without Nirami. Oyubi held her hand out to Tsume. "I'll take you to the exam room," Oyubi said with a gentle voice. Her face was unreadable behind the fox mask, but Tsume was able to smell the fear, grief, and a simmering edge of rage. Feeling like she was being led to a pit where Orochimaru lurked – although he was nowhere near – Tsume slid off the bench she shared with Minato, and reluctantly accepted Oyubi's extended hand with her open left hand. Her right hand seemed to be weighed down by a heavy stone, even though it was just a rotting vertebra. She was led away through the twisted labyrinth of caves and caverns, following Nirami's scent and distant lantern.

Nirami's exam room was a curtained off section in the sickbay where three hospital beds and a metal stand on wheels were tightly crammed together. It had several shelves crudely carved from the stone walls, and misshapen wooden cabinets stuffed with an array of supplies. Tsume tried hard not to look at the metal surgical tools that were carefully lined up on a small wooden tray on top of one of the cabinets.

Oyubi never released Tsume's hand as she coaxed Tsume onto the examining bed. Nirami closed the curtains around them and sat down on a wheeled stool. He leaned forward, hands open and loose as he rested his weight on his forearms and knees. "The Captain," Nirami began with a pinched expression, "just informed us that you've spent the last four months undercover in an S-rank mission that's outside our pay grade. If I inadvertently ask you a question that pertains to classified information on that mission, you are to immediately inform us that you cannot answer."

Oyubi carefully released Tsume's hand and pushed her mask up to rest on top of her head. Her pale skin was sweaty, and her fine black hair, cut severely at the level of her ears, clung to her cheeks. Her clan markings were the designated mahogany of the gamma. Oyubi's elegant features favored her sire's clan more than the Inuzuka clan. Her dark eyes were nearly unreadable. "The Captain said you could use your own judgment in regards to whether or not the answer is classified, that you're smart enough to know."

Tsume kicked her dangling feet and hunched her shoulders. It actually felt nice to hear that Danzo said she was smart, although Oyubi probably just paraphrased Danzo's original message to make it sound nice. "Okay." She expected Nirami to whip out a clipboard with papers on it. Instead, he clasped his hands in front of him. His scent was strangely lacking in emotion, as if he buried feelings so deep within that they couldn't be touched.

"My initial examination revealed repeated sexual trauma, although there's no indication of how long ago it happened."

Since both adults looked at Tsume expectedly, she shrugged. There was no point in denying it, and she wasn't ashamed to have been a prostitute. "Yeah."

"So how long did the trauma happen?"

Grandmother Shinzou took her from Konoha… gosh, it must be close to eighteen week, now. Tsume quickly estimated how many days she and Grandmother spent traveling to Earth, plus the week of grooming she received before the auction, minus the combined nine days of running with Danzo and the others… Stupid little numbers. She really needed the fingers on her injured hand to get the right numbers. "Three and a half months?"

"So this happened nearly four months ago?"

Tsume kicked her feet again. "It started then." Oyubi turned her face away as a shuddering wince crossed her face. It was almost gratifying to see the dawning horror and disbelief in Nirami's face, and just a hint of corresponding scents from him.

"It lasted nearly four months?" His mouth gaped open for a moment like a fish gasping for air, as if he were also gasping for words. Then his eyes narrowed. "Your S-rank mission was at a brothel."

"That's classified."

He snorted. "A word to the wise, kid. Answering like that only confirms suspicions. But it only makes sense – how many sexually-explicit S-rank missions would otherwise involve a twelve year old?" His eyes briefly met Oyubi's before he turned all attention back to Tsume. "Were you diagnosed or treated for any sexually transmitted diseases at that time?"

"I got antibiotics for chlamydia last month. It's all cleared up now."

Nirami straightened. "Are you aware that you were, at one time, pregnant?" He hesitated a moment. "How did it end?"

With a long hook, a pair of bloody forceps, and the unfortunate realization that there were far worse things than a penis or fingers that could be jammed up between her legs. Tsume looked down at her feet. The floor was a boring yellow-brown limestone, but she thought she saw some fine cracks in the stone.

"Tsume-sama…" That crack over there looked like a rabbit. "What Nirami-senpai means is did you miscarry? That's not an unusual result for a girl your age when impregnated in dire circumstances."

And that crack looked like the Hokage monument, if she turned her head just right. A wave of homesickness washed over Tsume as she thought of Konoha. When Oyubi's hand touched her shoulder, she didn't flinch. She had been well-trained, after all. "Madame…" Tsume nibbled her lip. Names were probably classified, since they knew she was at a brothel, but they couldn't prove which one. "When I was treated for chlamydia, that's when they found out I was pregnant. I guess I was seven weeks along." Tsume vaguely understood the development of canine fetuses, but hadn't quite made the connection with human fetuses yet. A puppy was a puppy was a puppy, after all. "They ordered a termination." Madame Kai always looked regretful with everything she did, whether it was to heal or to harm.

Oyubi's hand tightened. "You knew you were pregnant."

"The smell kinda gave it away." Tsume knew something was different when the odor of her hormones had shifted, and didn't know at the time whether to be horrified, happy, or grateful that Inuzuka women made it a tradition to forbid involvement between sires and their daughters.

Her nose was good enough to tell her that the fetus was a girl. She wouldn't have had to worry about abandoning the baby somewhere, given Grandmother's wrath… she could've kept her daughter, and she would've loved her daughter, even if the little girl favored her sire's bloodline limit with weird mouths.

Tsume thought of Kakashi the first time she held him, little and naked and covered with sticky fluids. She knew she made a really great aunt – Sakumo always said so – and Tsume secretly thought she was also a better mother than Hidarime-chan, even though Kakashi always seemed so much happier to see Hidarime than Tsume. She hoped it was because Hidarime wasn't home very often, and that Kakashi would look just as happy to see Tsume when she finally got back to Konoha. Him and Kuromaru. Her puppies, and no one was ever going to take her puppies away from her again.

The emotional scents were making Tsume dizzy, between Nirami's slowly-growing, still-somewhat numb horror, and Oyubi's rage. Tsume looked up. "If it makes anyone feel better, being pregnant wasn't supposed to be part of the mission, so, it makes sense that I wasn't supposed to have a baby" No, that didn't seem to really help soothe their rage, judging from the looks on their faces. Oops. Tsume sort of understood why people seemed so mad, but it was mostly because these types of experiences tended to make people mad when she overheard such discussions at Konoha. She just wasn't used to people being mad on her behalf. After all, no one ever tried stopping or changing anything at Konoha, whenever Grandmother said or did something that hurt Tsume.

And the only ones who ever truly cared at Madame Haori's House of Pleasure had been the dogs and Danzo.

Nirami shoved his glasses up his nose. "How…" He coughed to clear his throat. "Your anemia bothers me. How was your nutritional intake? Did they feed you well or were you deprived?"

"I gave my lunch to the dogs. Dinner wasn't usually so bad." The way to a dog's heart was generally through its stomach, Tsume had learned. Dinner was whatever her patron that night wanted to share. As Oyubi's anger and grief both flared at Tsume's words, Tsume turned to her cousin. Oyubi still held Tsume's shoulder, but she covered her face with her other hand and was taking deep breaths. "Who died, Oyubi?"

Oyubi's breath hitched. She lowered her hand from her face. "How did…"

"You're really sad. Something's wrong, and you've never called me Tsume-sama before." At least not any time that Tsume could remember, which probably didn't mean a lot. Nirami slid back from them to give more space, his wheels squeaking.

Oyubi crouched down so she looked up at Tsume. She took Tsume's left hand into both of hers. Oyubi's fingers were long and elegant looking; her nails were smooth, short crescents. Tsume's hand looked stubby and dirty, the nails jagged because she chewed on them so often. "Tsume-sama… Eleven days ago, the enemies managed to plant a blast zone that severely injured several Konoha shinobi. The same one where they successfully abducted Kushina. Grandmother Shinzou is one of the wounded nin – and word has it that she's dying. Your teammate, Kokoro, was also injured."

Tsume's first thought was how she could feed Grandmother some of her special-seasoned meatloaf and finish what the blast zone started. Her second thought was far more charitable towards Kokoro, wishing for her safety.

"There were several Konoha shinobi killed almost immediately, however."

Tsume's mind immediately veered to Sakumo. She smelled blood, and distantly realized that she gripped Oyubi's hands so tightly that her claws pressed bloody furrows into Oyubi's skin. Oyubi didn't even flinch.

"I regret to report that Inuzuka Hidarime died in that attack. I'm so sorry for your sister's death."

oOoOoOo

Tsume received an iron injection for her anemia, another pelting wash of healing chakra, and a plaster cast that covered her hand from the knuckles to her elbow that thankfully required removing the vertebra from her grasp; her fingers were splinted individually to prevent compartment syndrome. Straightening her fingers and plastering her hand took up most of the day, Tsume only passed out twice from the pain, and Oyubi fetched dinner for Nirami and Tsume.

Nirami grumbled about how Oyubi's ill-timed report interrupted the health history he was trying to obtain, but released Tsume after the various treatments. Oyubi assisted her in dressing into one of Oyubi's clean sleeping shirts, and then tucked her into a bedroll that smelled more of Uchiha than it did of Inuzuka. She was left to her thoughts, which is probably not the best place for a brain-damaged simpleton like her, Tsume realized in retrospect.

She realized that Nirami's lack of emotional scents was because he was emotionally numb. She stared upward into the dark, the silence broken by Kushina's sleeping snores beside her. In an effort to give the two girls some privacy after the two of them had been for so long in the admittedly questionable company of grown men (their captors, although Oyubi had eyed Jiraiya when she said this), they were sheltered in a nook of one of the caverns. The overhanging ceiling was so low that stalactites brushed the tops of Tsume's wild hair when she stood upright. The area was surprisingly warm compared to the rest of the caves and caverns, but she didn't take much heed of the temperature as she considered her own numbness.

Tsume was just as numb as Nirami, and had been since Oyubi told her the news. She wasn't sad, mad, upset, or happy to realize this. She couldn't feel anything. Even when she tried to remember Hidarime's smiling face, or her scent, Tsume felt utterly empty. She thought of broken hearts and broken brains, and wondered if everyone got it all wrong. Because when your brain was broken, you couldn't remember anything, or understand numbers, or track two thoughts at once, and you had a constant headache the first few years that never went away except when Tsunade was there with her bodacious boobs and gentle hands and cool chakra.

When your heart was broken, you couldn't feel anything. Except her right hand had been broken – multiple fractures, Nirami had explained as he put the cast on her hand from knuckles to elbow. "It takes sheer and utter talent – and hardly the good kind – to break every bone in your hand, and I do mean all twenty-seven bones of your hand. And… and where did this homosapien vertebra come from?" – and that was why it hurt so badly and she couldn't pry her fingers open. So, clearly, broken things hurt, unless they were hearts.

Tsume rolled to her side, grateful that Nirami had eased up the gigantic throb that made her entire body ache, and studied Kushina's face in the dark. Wanting to see more clearly despite the low light a distant lantern emitted, Tsume boosted the chakra at her eyes, which was easy enough to do when her olfaction was only at ten percent and her chakra levels were recovering slowly.

Kushina was drooling into her blanket. Tsume reached out and touched a lock of red hair. It was soft, silky, and fine, as it slid through her fingers, like Oyubi's hair was… like Hiderime-chan's hair had been. The numbness cracked.

A memory – distant, but clear in the way her memories never were after the Nara forest – came floating to the surface of Tsume's thoughts. Her hands were clumsy and her fingers kept tripping over each other as she tried to braid Hiderime's waist-length hair. Hiderime's hair was soft and slippery, almost as if made of water. Hiderime knelt in front of the full-length mirror and she was laughing as Tsume growled around the brush handle she held between her teeth. The bedroom door swung open, and Grandmother stepped through. The smile that lit up Grandmother's face erased lines and years as she stepped forward. "Here, cross the strand here, Tsume-chan." And Grandmother's hands, callused and scarred, were gentle as they patiently guided Tsume's.

Tsume curled up in a tight ball, clutching her blankets tight. Her eyes stung and she wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. In the darkness of the cave, Tsume felt like she was alone in the void that Orochimaru had warned her about. A void of nothingness. She wondered – would Kakashi cry when he learned his mother was dead? He always seemed so happy to see Hidarime with his face lighting up and eyes shining, as he ran to her with his arms open.

Even the old stirring of jealousy – what does Hidarime have that I don't, besides an unbroken brain? I'm the one who takes care of Kakashi, I'm the one who's been his mother – remained dead at the thought.

Tsume concentrated on the numbness; it seemed to grow, spreading through her body in a rush. She felt the hollow echo of her empty insides clenching at the thought of being so utterly alone in the world, of how her sister was gone, and how many alphas were left as possible clan heirs? Alphas had the worst survival rate because they were always leaping to the fore to protect their pack. Tsume sometimes wondered if she ever truly felt fear, even before her traumatic brain injury, because alphas were notoriously fearless.

("I have seen the void, child, and it has seen me – it is inside of me.")

Feeling restless, Tsume sat upright. She heard Kushina stir a moment in her sleep, and concentrated on the scents all around her, boosting her olfaction by just a fraction. After a moment of consideration, she gathered her blanket and pillow, and left Kushina. Tsume had a void like Grandmother and Orochimaru, and she only now realized just how horrible voids are. It wasn't that they were filled with terrible things, but that they emptied a person into a numb shell that had no bottom, and voids had no way of ever being filled, no matter how many puppies you threw into them.

Kushina-chan could never know about the void, because the void might get inside of Kushina-chan, too.

Tsume carefully navigated her way through the dark with her increased vision, bypassing the traps by following the scents of adults, faint beneath the ever-prevalent sulfuric acid, who knew their way around the traps. She eventually found Danzo sharing a space with Jiraiya. Jiraiya was asleep, curled up in a ball with his arms wrapped around his pillow. Danzo wasn't, as he lay flat on his back and stared up at the ceiling.

"No." Danzo's voice was harsh in the dark before she could reach him or ask for help.

Tsume tightened her grip on her blanket and pillow, ignoring the burning throb in her right hand. Danzo had a void, too, she just knew it. But Danzo had somehow managed to make the void an important tool or a viable weapon, instead of just becoming an empty shell incapable of love and kindness like Orochimaru and Grandmother. "But I—"

"No."

Tsume had the sudden urge to look over her shoulder to see if there was a kunai poised to strike between her shoulder blades. She shuffled back a step, hesitated a moment, and then retreated without another word. Danzo didn't want her and wasn't going to help her. He hadn't wanted anything to do with Tsume ever since Jiraiya permanently took care of her seal… ever since Jiraiya told Danzo about the forced abortion.

She felt like such a wasted failure. She was used to not being wanted – the rejection shouldn't have stung the way it did. Being wanted had been nice while it lasted, even if it was fake and seal-induced, because Danzo didn't hurt her nearly as much as the others had. In her numbness, she figured it was appropriate to be cast into the dark – as black and as empty like the void within – by the only person she had hoped would help.

Tsume wandered through the caverns a few more minutes before finding a stalagmite that looked comfortable enough to lean against. The limestone was cold and rough beneath her bare feet, and the stalagmite even more so against her back. She hugged her pillow and blanket close as the numbness took on a chilled sensation. She didn't want to sleep, because she'd have to close her eyes, and then the darkness would smother her. It was like the void was waiting, and she was poised on the edge of it. If she closed her eyes and fell asleep… would she ever be able to leave the void? Would she plummet head-first down into its unending depths?

How much of herself would she lose?

I don't want to turn into Grandmother. The thought was almost overwhelming in the gut-sinking revulsion and horror that not even numbness could deaden. She imagined treating Kakashi with the same disdain and hatred, of calling him a simpleton, or striking his face if he turned it smiling towards her, as if she could slap the smile right off, of shaking him until his teeth rattled while saying it was his fault that she hated him… Her eyes stung as Kakashi's face morphed into her own.

"Tsume?"

She slowly lifted her gaze towards an approaching pool of light.

Minato held a shuttered lantern in his hand. He seemed to glow in the dark, his hair like a blaze of dandelion fluff beneath the summer sun, and his eyes like two bright blue winter moons. "You can't sleep out here. You'll get cold."

She was surprised to find tears dribbling down her face. Mooncalf-san was always so nice to her, and for no reason! Sakumo was nice, but that was because she loved and cared for his son. Tsume didn't think he would so close and as caring if there was no Kakashi. Hidarime had been nice and did her best to pick up the pieces, but she never seemed to be around when Grandmother was at her cruelest. Yuu was nice, but that was because Orochimaru had ordered Yuu to prep her for this horrible mission. The Hokage was nice, but that was because he was the Hokage, and you had to be nice right back at him. Jiraiya was nice, but Jiraiya had no taste and was nice to anything with two possible X chromosomes. Aunt Natsumi… Aunt Natsumi truly loved her, but Tsume thought it was might also because they were alike as clan pariahs with their brain injuries.

Minato walked toward Tsume. His lantern swung and heavy shadows danced through the cave. The closer Minato and his light approached, the further the darkness and void retreated. Tsume hunched her shoulders and shrank down. Upon reaching her side, Minato raised the lantern overhead and he crouched low. "What's the matter?" he asked, his voice dropping into a concerned whisper.

Tsume's bottom lip trembled. Emotions came rushing back as Minato's light pooled around her and the void receded. She thought of Danzo's refusal, and suddenly her chest hurt, like someone punched her in her broken heart.

Tsume just wanted to be wanted. "My sister's dead," she whispered, and her memories finally bounced in her head like echoes through the caverns.

Hidarime, who had rested Tsume's hands on her pregnant belly and let Tsume feel the flutter of movement. Hidarime, who let Tsume pick out Kuromaru from the latest batch of puppies and promised that Kuromaru would be her memory when he got older. Hidarime, who had rocked Tsume and read fairytales to her after the Nara forest, when Tsume couldn't even remember how to walk.

Hidarime, who always loved and wanted Tsume, would never again be around to love and want Tsume.

"I'm sorry."

"Grandmother just took me away, and I never got a chance to say good bye." Tsume covered her eyes with her left hand and curled into a ball, unable to stop the tears. "And then G-Grandmother told everyone that I had been killed, so my s-sister died without knowing the truth."

Minato didn't hesitate to catch Tsume's unbroken hand in his own. His hand was warm as he uncovered her eyes. "I met your sister a few weeks ago. She never stopped believing that you were out there somewhere. She said that it's the greeting that's the most important, not the good bye."

Tsume covered her face with her pillow so Minato couldn't see her crying. She had already passed out, broke her hand, and had to be carried on his back for nearly three days. She didn't want to be seen weaker than what she already was.

Minato tugged her to her feet, draped her blanket over a shoulder, and then led her away from the stalagmite. "Come on. No one should be alone right now."

She didn't know why Minato had to be the one who was nice, instead of Danzo. But at least Minato, with his lantern and his ridiculous dandelion hair and his gentle smile, somehow chased the void away. "W-why?"

He threw her a knowing look over his shoulder. "Because when you're alone, that's when no one's there to keep you afloat when you're drowning in your emotions. And you're having a hard time treading that water, Tsume." He slipped his hand free from hers, and looped his arm around her shoulders. "Let me throw you a lifeline, please. It's what we need to do for each other."

Tsume's crying softened into sniffles by the time Minato brought her back to the nook where Kushina was still asleep. She didn't protest when he settled beside her on the bedroll and spread her blanket over both of them. Even after he extinguished the lantern, she saw the dim afterimage of his dandelion hair behind her eyelids, burning like the distant sun. It was enough to keep the void at bay.

Tsume found and squeezed Minato's hand in the dark. "Thanks," she whispered. Then, after a moment, "You sure you're younger than me? You seem to be a better adult than most adults I know." Certainly better than that butthead, Danzo.

Minato squeezed her hand back. "Jiraiya-sensei said I was born forty years old."

Tsume tried to imagine a forty-year old Minato covered in birthing fluids like Kakashi had been. It was a disturbingly silly thought, and she found herself giggling at the image. "How would he know? He's probably stuck at fourteen."

"I suppose that's why I was born forty years old. Someone has to be the adult."