Litter of Misfits

by Minnionette

A naked, 3 year old Naruto wandering into her dog kennels in the middle of the night? That was a shock. Inuzuka Tsume latching onto this stray and claiming him as her own? Not a shock. After all, Naruto isn't the first naked, abandoned stray that Tsume kept, and Danzo would eat the Hokage's hat if Naruto is the last stray she ever brings home. Want Of A Nail AU (VERY dark themes.)

43. Beta Years - Chapgter Six, Part One

Author's notes: For those of you who have read Forged in Fire, this chapter is essentially it. As far as an origins story for Kushina, I thought it made a great stand-alone story, so I posted it as such. It's not quite the same though, because I had to remove mentions of Tsume's brain injury and involvement (as seen via her POV in Alpha Years Chapter Two). You can skip it if you want; Chapter Six Part Two will be brand new.

Okay, I'll admit it: when I have a hard time pinning down what makes a character tick, I'll sometimes make a deliberate attempt to get inside of their head, and understand who they are. Kushina has always been a difficult character for me to grasp, because I want to treat her as a female!Naruto, but I know that isn't right. Since she takes on a more prominent role in the Beta Years, I decided to start with her origins story, to figure out where she and Sakumo had been, and just why they were all in such a terrible condition when they finally arrived at Konoha, where Tsume was innocently and impatiently awaiting Sakumo's arrival.

Philosophically, it's kind of interesting to stop and think about how each one of us are the heroes our own story. None of us truly knows what the Life and Times of the passing stranger, acquaintance, or even close friends, so it's actually fascinating - and even kinda fun - to highlight comparing the tragedies and struggles Tsume and Kushina have, and how their attitudes towards their personal struggles compare to their understanding of each other. The difference between the two of them is that Kushina clings to tragedies and triumphs. Tsume, because of her brain injury, is like a ship passing in the night when it comes to her tragedies and triumphs. In their own way and through their own differences, there is a vulnerability each girl experiences.

o-o-o

o-o-o-o

o-o-o-o-o

Uzumaki Kushina was five years old when the leader of Uzushiogakure, Uzumaki Mito, made the abrupt decision to send her and a few older cousins to Konoha. Whispers of war followed at their small footsteps, along with an elderly caretaker to ensure that they ate nutritious food, wore clean clothes, and kept decent bedtimes, as they were otherwise without any adult supervision. Kushina was enrolled into the Academy despite being a little younger than normal. There's something to be said about having a great-great aunt who happens to be the widow of the First Hokage, at least as far as getting her relocated to Konoha and signed up for ninja academy just before the Second Shinobi World War was about to officially kick off.

It was a lonely time in her life. Her parents and baby brother had died before she came to Konoha, so she was already an orphan used to having little support. Her older cousins dropped out of the Academy after their first year, partly because they felt too disheartened to become shinobi, and partly because they were met with distrust and pressure for being foreign outsiders during wartime. Kushina was also more-or-less ostracized by most of her peers, and often ignored by her suspicious teachers. It didn't matter that she was from a prominent clan/allied hidden village, or her relationship with the legendary Uzumaki Mito - she was an outsider during wartime, and that put her on the bottom of the totem pole in the school, even below civilian children.

But Kushina was determined to show everyone that she wasn't a person to be trifled with. When she declared to the world that she was going to be Hokage, it was because she wanted to be acknowledged by her peers, that her Will of Fire burned as bright and as strong as any Konoha-born ninja. Besides, she knew that she would one day have the responsibility of hosting the nine-tailed Kyuubi, so she needed every tool that being a kunoichi would provide. Ultimately, she didn't have the luxury to choose a civilian life like her cousins.

oOoOoOo

Kushina was eight years old when she unexpectedly called back to Uzushiogakure. Whirlpool had been closed off from the rest of the world for the last six months as Iwa laid siege; Konoha was unable to defend their ally because they were struggling against other enemies. But Kushina's return was of utmost urgency, and Mito had commanded that it be done no matter the cost. The messenger who delivered this urgent missive succumbed twenty-four hours later to wounds incurred from his journey through enemy-occupied territory.

That was how Kushina met Hatake Sakumo.

"My lady." Sakumo vowed to protect her life above everyone else's, and even kissed the back of her hand as he made such a vow, which made Kushina blush as her tummy squirmed - he was a very handsome man, after all, and his smile was so genuine and made her feel so special. She had heard of him - the White Fang. But he alone wouldn't be enough to protect Kushina while accompanying her to and from Uzushiogakure.

Four other shinobi, three of whom had been immediately pulled from the frontlines and all from elite clans, were also selected: Senju Sadao, Shimura Masao, Hyuuga Naoki, and Sarutobi Kei. They were all battle-hardened men (and woman, in Naoki's case), rough and strong, and she was so small and naive. Sadao made Kushina laugh because he did his best not to swear (and often slipped up); he carried her across Fire on his broad shoulders as Sakumo pushed them through the safe zones as quickly as the adults could go. Hyuuga Naoki helped Kushina with oral homework (mostly geography, history, and the shinobi rules) whenever they had to stop and rest, and Sarutobi Kei loved to hear Kushina talk about Uzushio. He was the first Konoha nin to take such an active interest in Kushina's loving descriptions of her childhood home.

Technically, Uzushio was an island, because it was surrounded by the murky salt-swamps that flooded and submerged low lands during high tides. Whirlpool was a very soggy country with various islands surrounded by swamps and bogs, salt marshes and inlets, and during low tide, the larger water ways often swirled with eddies. The country was infested with venomous snakes, carnivorous plants, and ferocious swamp alligators. But it was the mosquitoes that Kushina thought to be the worst residents of Whirlpool - great clouds of them choked the air during the day, their drone almost as loud as birdcall. She dreaded daytime, dreaded the constant sting and bite. She felt like one gigantic itchy welt.

Because they were trying to avoid enemy patrols as they secreted Kushina through, it took almost two weeks sneaking around before the team finally reached the heart of Whirlpool, but not everyone made it.

Kushina blamed herself. For all the jabbering she did to Kei, she had forgotten how large ochi flytraps became, of how they preferred to lure young victims with a hypnotizing scent. Olfaction generally deteriorated with age, and Kushina had been just young enough to still be caught in its trap, lured away while Naoki and Sakumo were distracted by some incoming Iwa nin. Most ochi flytraps were usually only large enough to capture sand cranes and immature red deer - this one was a rare, ancient plant that had probably grown accustomed to Iwa flesh.

Kei was the first to reach her, using an ill-timed kawarimi to switch places with her. He was pulled breathlessly into the acid-drenched maw of the ochi flytrap by multiple vines, his neck snapping with a loud crack and life immediately disappearing from his eyes. Sakumo yanked Kushina against his body as she stood, too stunned and stupid to move. One of the ochi's thorn vines parted the flesh on Sakumo's right arm as easily as a hot knife slices through butter before they managed to clear completely out of the ochi's reach.

Kushina heard her blood rushing through her ears and the pounding of Sakumo's heart as they watched the vines retreat, the ochi's petals folding backwards until it was a tightly closed bud, its insides bulging and wriggling as it digested its latest meal. It was fireproof and any attempt to cut it open to rescue Kei's body was only met with a flurry of whipping vines.

Kei - the gentle, sweet nephew of the Hokage who loved to listen to Kushina talk all about growing up in Uzushio, who was so disappointed when Sakumo wouldn't let him linger to study the native birds - had just joked that morning about how he was being eaten alive. He had meant the mosquitoes.

And Kushina couldn't even cry, because it would attract the attention from passing enemy nin. Not even knowing that they had reached the heart of Whirlpool and would soon see her family and childhood home could brighten her spirit as they overlooked Uzushio.

Well, they overlooked Uzushio's barrier.

Uzushio was surrounded by an impregnable bowl-shaped wall that glowed a golden orange even several kilometers away. Streaks of white occasionally flickered through it, and the barrier frequently wavered, becoming nearly transparent. Uzushio's fuuinjutsu was second to none (only Kumo could claim to be almost as good), but even such a barrier was bound to fall. And when the barrier fell, so too would Uzushiogakure, overrun finally by the surrounding Iwa and Kiri nin.

"How do we get through?" Masao asked after Naoki described what was happening. They were perched in the higher branches of the cypress. It was an ancient tree; the only one within a kilometer that had branches large enough to support them. They were Konoha nin; it was as natural to be hidden in the leaves as it was for the Iwa nin to be camping out in the dirt or the Kiri nin camping out in the swamp water. But the pond cypress wasn't the same as the oak. There wouldn't be any more successful aerial travel for them beyond this point. Kushina had forgotten how drab and dark the underside of the swamp was compared to the lush, crisp green of Konoha.

"Sounds like a lot of fucking trouble - er, fudging trouble. Fudging." Sadao's face burned crimson when he realized he had slipped up again.

Sakumo crouched on the branch and studied the country with his bandaged arm resting on one knee. Kushina fussed over the arm, knowing that the contaminants from the swamps were deadly to open wounds - swamp infection had killed her baby brother, after all. But Sakumo simply gave her that smile that took her breath away, and told her that it was his job to take care of her, not the other way around. In his eyes, she could see that she was guiltless, and it haunted her as much as Kei's silent death.

He had Naoki activate her Byakugen and once more scan their surroundings - the cypress trees, the bogs and swamps, the thick brush, the marsh waterways, and enemy locations. He had Naoki repeat twice where the enemy nin were scattered or condensed. Then he was silent, mulling over Naoki's report.

He finally raked his fingers through his hair and looked at Masao. "I sometimes wish the Hokage sent your cousin instead of you. No offense."

Masao's smile was tired but genuine. "None taken. If there's anyone in Konoha who would be master of stealth, it would be Danzo." Then the smile slipped away. "He's also probably got more experience fighting than the rest of us combined."

Naoki, with all the breeding of a main house Hyuuga, raised one eyebrow in disagreement. Sadao made a noise in his throat that best translated to fudging speak for yourself. Kushina was personally quite grateful that Danzo wasn't present. She had already met Danzo because Hokage-sama had consulted with him in who was best to team up with Sakumo.

Danzo had volunteered to go even before he found out that Uzumaki Mito had specifically requested for him, but he wasn't allowed to since he was still recovering from a Suna puppeteer's poison, and Tsunade-hime, granddaughter of Uzumaki Mito and Kushina's second cousin twice removed, instantly made it very clear that extensive physical activity - like running all the way to Uzushio and back - would cause increased lactic acid, and that alone would be enough to send Danzo right back into acute liver failure.

There had been a lot of grumbling and sniping before Danzo finally agreed to help Hokage-sama select a small team of shinobi - quick, powerful, stealthy. Danzo was a frightening man who was also very rude to Hokage-sama and Tsunade-hime, and Kushina cringed at the idea of being stuck with him telling her what to do. She couldn't even imagine what awful things he would've said to her for getting Kei killed.

Naoki's voice was just a soft whisper. "The way I see it, we'll have to go through the water."

"I agree," Sakumo said, straightening from his crouch. "They'll expect movement from enemies at nighttime, and you've already observed them changing shift at dusk with fresh, alert troops. Our best time is just before dusk, when the light is just starting to dim and when the sentries will be tired and eager for shift change."

They stripped off their vests and shirts - even Kushina, and she would've felt more embarrassed except Naoki was just as nude from the waist up, and Naoki had a fully-formed bust that the men regarded with no more scandal or notice than if they had been flashed a bare wrist - and stuffed them into a hollow log that Sadao roughly shaped into one of the swamp alligators. Sadao's Bloodline Limit wasn't as strong as the First Hokage's, but it did allow him to manipulate wood into different shapes. He was also the only person in the entire Senju clan who had inherited it.

Reeds were cut and trimmed to size so everyone could breathe even when fully submerged. They smeared slimy handfuls of the dark greenish clay onto bare skin, the better for which to blend into the murkey water. Everyone's hair, especially Sakumo's white hair and Kushina's telltale braided red locks, was also plastered with clay and topped with moss. Weapons and forehead protectors were secured to belts within easy reach.

Just before dusk, they slipped into the water and ducked beneath the log. Masao had wrapped every individual person with genjutsu so even the swamp alligators, out for their evening snack, would ignore them. Kushina was placed in the center with Sakumo and Naoki up front, and Masao and Sadao in the back. They evaded all notice of the lurking enemy nin and the swamp alligators. However, genjutsu didn't save Sadao from getting bit in the ankle when he stepped on a nesting adult sea snake.

Kushina's safety and delivery to Uzushio was of the highest priority, and they were surrounded by enemy nin. Sadao pushed his body through the water, pushed through the pain, and drowned when the venom's neurotoxin froze his skeletal muscles. The Konoha team didn't realize what had happened until they finally emerged outside the barrier that surrounded Uzushiogakure and discovered him missing.

Sakumo ducked back into the water without the log, following Naoki's hurried directions as Naoki and Masao pushed Kushina to the barrier. On the other side of the transparent wall, Mito stood waiting in full dark-blue battle garb, her wrists and ankles wrapped in white and her knee-length gray-streaked red hair braided and studded with miniature caltrops, spikes, and poisoned senbon. When they reached the barrier, Mito's hands flashed through a long chain of seals until a small portion of the barrier parted like curtains, allowing the Konoha nin and ninja-in-training to enter before the enemy could attack.

It was the first time in three years that Kushina had returned to her childhood home, and there was no one but Uzumaki Mito to greet her. Even then, it wasn't much of a greeting, because Mito immediately demanded to know where their other companion had gone.

"Sakumo is going after Senju Sadao," Naoki replied.

Mito's mouth was set in a grim line. "It's no use - my husband's clanmate is dead. I could sense his loss of life."

Naoki shook her head. "Sakumo once said that death is no excuse to leave someone behind." Unless, of course, they were being consumed by an ochi flytrap and trying to rescue the body would increase Kushina's risk for capture.

"And that is who the Third Hokage chose to protect my heir." Mito shook her head in disappointment, or perhaps even disgust, as she turned her gaze from them onto the barrier, towards the Iwa and Kiri nin. "The mission is to protect Kushina. If he must set aside the mission to rescue someone else, I cannot help but doubt how successful you'll be in returning Kushina to Konohagakure."

Fire flashed in Naoki's Byakugen-active eyes for a moment as her spine straightened. Kushina had forgotten about Naoki's nudity, but Naoki's pride in her captain was greater than any shame she might feel as she stood before Mito and a small number of other Uzumaki nin. "The Hokage chose him as our team leader because he will stop at nothing to ensure Kushina's safety. Neither will we, and we would follow Sakumo through the worst battle fields to protect her."

Mito was silent and still for a long moment. Up close and out of the water, Kushina could see that the barrier's white flickering and frequent fading were from the battering attacks that enemy threw at it. The barrier absorbed and deflected the energy from the attacks, but it wouldn't hold indefinitely. Like the continuous drip of water against stone or the drag of wind over a rock, the attacks were wearing down the barrier. Kushina could see the shinobi of Uzushio stationed at the barrier, maintaining it with a continuous feed of chakra and seals. One by one, the ninjas would die after the barrier consumed the final dregs of their chakra.

And so too would the barrier die, when there was no one left to feed it.

Sakumo surged from the water, Sadao's body slung over his shoulder and a swamp alligator lunging after. Sakumo bounced off the barrier and fell backwards, spinning on one foot to avoid losing any limbs to the snapping maw. The alligator was relatively young, only eight meters in size, but its speed made up for the reduced strength that time and physical growth would bring. Mito slammed her hands through the barrier and dragged Sakumo and Sadao through just as the alligator made another lunge. Sakumo's hair smoked from the energy - the alligator bounced off the barrier with a deafening boom.

"You should've left him behind," Mito told Sakumo, shaking her smoldering hands in the air. The burnt skin, bubbling red across her knuckles and weeping at the fingertips, was quickly healing. The Uzumaki chakra was famed for its regeneration - the same chakra that Kushina had inherited, the same chakra that would protect her body from the Kyuubi's malevolence. "And why isn't that fool, Danzo, here?"

Sakumo gently laid Senju Sadao upon the uneven ground and tried to close the bright green eyes that always made Kushina think of Konoha's oak leaves. They remained locked open from the snake's neurotoxin, so he covered them with Sadao's forehead protector. Then he straightened to his full height and stared down at Mito. He looked like a legendary bog monster, eyes and teeth bright against the clay-smeared skin. "I leave no one behind, Mito-hime. My unwillingness to abandon my companions will come in handy, especially when it comes to Kushina-chan. As for my delightful captain, Danzo, he's currently confined to Konoha and resenting every minute of it."

Kushina's eyes drifted to Sadao - she half-expected to hear his voice, no shit, man - oh shit, I mean, shoot, no shucks man. Damn it. Oh, dang it!

But Sadao remained as quiet as only the dead could be.

Mito sighed. "Well, then, I shall just have to give you the scrolls to deliver to him. Come, all of you." As she stepped past Naoki and Kushina, she added, "Let's get some clothes for you ladies. And gentlemen."

Showers had to come before clothes, since Kushina and Naoki agreed that they weren't putting on clean clothes over the slimy clay. It had taken too much soap and lots of glorious hot water to remove the clay from all crevices and from every strand of hair. Naoki's hair was uncharacteristically short for a main house Hyuuga, but it sure saved on the shampoo, which Kushina required more of. When Kushina returned to the main area of Mito's living quarters, Mito had just finished handing Sakumo a large scroll.

"This," Mito said, with a faraway look in her eyes, "is the heart of our fuuinjutsu. I'm aware that Danzo isn't the most skilled at it, but he's always shown some interest, and I'll leave it to his judgment of whom he wants to pass it on to."

Sakumo solemnly accepted the scroll. He hadn't been as fastidious in his washing; Kushina could still see clumps of clay in his white hair, and even a dried smear of clay behind an ear. "I can tell you right now that he's probably going to give this to Jiraiya."

"I have heard from Hiruzen-san that Jiraiya has an unusual aptitude towards fuuinjutsu - still, I leave that to Danzo's judgment. He's the only one of Tobirama's apprentices who made a reasonable attempt to learn from me when Hashirama was still alive, and I feel like he deserves something for surviving the misfortune of being Tobirama's favorite. Ah, come, sit here, Kushina-chan."

Kushina did as she was directed. Sakumo gently dismissed Masao and Naoki, directing them to prepare Sadao's body for cremation. After they had been alone for several minutes in silence, an elderly serving women, whom Kushina thought looked familiar but couldn't exactly place, brought tea and dinner.

It wasn't very good tea - it had too much moss as a filler, but Kushina knew there was few goods left from the prolonged siege. Dinner was served with tea, and was much more plentiful to come by, seeing as the food was freshly roasted swamp alligator and marsh tubers. The alligator wasn't bad, because it tasted like chicken, but Kushina swallowed the marsh tubers without chewing because they were salty and had a weird texture that she never liked in the first place.

"I was a fool," Mito said, holding her teacup but not drinking from it. The steam that curled around her face made her look gaunt and predatory. "A doddering old fool. I had thought that the swamps would eventually deter and kill the Iwa nin, if not the Kiri nin. As it turns out, there's far more of them than what the ochi flytraps and alligators can feast upon, the mosquitoes don't even like them, and there aren't enough snakes that like to sink their fangs into Iwa flesh. Not that I can blame them." Mito's lip curled. "I wouldn't want to sink my teeth into anything as filthy as an Iwa nin. Just goes to show that coral and sea snakes have a better taste than the alligators and ochi flytraps. The gods alone know that the Kiri nin get along with the snakes just fine."

Sakumo said nothing as he drank his tea. He didn't even make a face at the bitter aftertaste that Kushina couldn't prevent when she took a sip.

"I am the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki." Mito's eyes flickered to Kushina. "Iwa wants me, but only because of the Kyuubi. The Kiri nin just want to get rid of Uzushio. The Kyuubi cannot fall into either's grasp."

"Ah. You intend to transfer the Kyuubi into Kushina." Sakumo's eyes turned to Kushina. "Is this something Kushina-chan is prepared for?"

It sounded like Sakumo would fight Mito if Kushina said no. Her heart swelled, because she didn't think that anyone before actually cared about what Kushina thought or felt. She had been preparing to be the jinchuuriki since she was a toddler, and that had been a fate agreed upon by everyone but Kushina. But it was because she had been preparing since she was a toddler that Kushina knew she had no choice. The Kyuubi was too powerful not be kept in check. "I don't think that a person can truly be prepared for the Kyuubi, Sakumo-sensei. But I know that this is my duty, and so I accept it."

Sakumo studied Kushina for a long moment, and she felt the weight of his sorrow and resignation. To Mito, he asked, "How long will it take?"

"If I had twenty fuuinjutsu masters, it would take less than six hours. Alas, there are two remaining that the barrier hasn't claimed already or will be claiming, and myself. I had originally calculated two days, but that was when I included Danzo's assistance into the calculation. Without him... I don't know. Three days, perhaps. We don't have three days, though - the barrier will fall before then."

"What can I do to gain you time?"

Mito's eyes were cool. "Keep Iwa and Kiri as far away as much as possible. The more attacks against the barrier, the faster it drains. It will fall in less than two days at the rate they're attacking. I must warn you - it's highly likely that you will die out there, and then we're all up the shit creek without a paddle, because there won't be anyone to safely squirrel Kushina back to Konoha. We are surrounded on all sides by our enemies."

Sakumo smiled. "I wouldn't worry about that. Being surrounded simply saves me the energy of chasing them down."

Mito answered with her own smile - its edge was more vicious than Sakumo's. "Ah. I can see why you got sent in place of Danzo. We may indeed have a fighting chance, then. Although you'll need that infection in your arm treated so you can be healthy enough to kill others."

Sakumo rubbed his chin. "But what about after? Kushina will be incredibly valuable to Iwa and Kiri - will you have any nin left to help us bring Kushina back to Konoha?"

"When the transfer is complete, I and my remaining forces will drop the barrier if it's still standing, and attack the enemy forces head on as a distraction - they will have no way of knowing that I am no longer the jinchuuriki. Noncombatants will scatter out of Uzushio, and you can slip out with them."

"Ah. I can work with that, as well. Now, about this infection..."

There weren't any antibiotics left in the medical supplies, and of the two living med nin, one was too young and the other was too unskilled to destroy the swamp infection in Sakumo's arm.

Sakumo shrugged and stretched his neck side to side, vertebrae popping. "At least it isn't my sword arm. Now I kinda wish I hadn't eaten dinner, but oh well. Looks like we're going to have to do what our not-so-distant ancestors did before modern living brought modern innovation." He grinned at Masao, who gagged as he peeled away the foul bandages. "Your cousin would be so proud."

"Ah, yeah. Danzo may be old school, but not that old school, I suspect." Masao's face was pale as he took deep gulps of fresh air. "Actually, I think he'd have stern words about you getting wounded in the first place, because the infection is secondary to that." He finally covered his nose with his sleeve.

"I can see the look of disdain in his face even now. 'You fumbling buffoon, it's a fucking houseplant - if you can't even dodge a damn shrub, how did you become ANBU?' I mean, never mind the fact that the flytrap probably would've turned tail and ran if Danzo glared at it."

Kushina wilted. Sakumo had only been trying to rescue her when the vine flayed open his arm with razor-sharp thorns - what kind of words and disdain would Danzo have for her, who had been lured by the ochi flytrap in the first place? She, who had gotten poor, dear, sweet Kei killed in the first place?

Feeling as though this was the least she could do, Kushina forced herself to watch as Sakumo nonchalantly stuffed a rag in his mouth, and allowed Masao to pin his arm down so Naoki could scrape away as much infection and dead tissue from the wound as possible with a wire brush that had been fire-sterilized. As fresh blood and pus pooled beneath Sakumo's trembling arm, Naoki stepped back and Mito stepped forward with a flat length of metal that burned white from Sadao's funeral pyre.

Kushina hoped she would one day forget what the stench of burnt human flesh smelled like. But she didn't have time to think of much else, and she wished her Konoha companions good luck as Mito led her away for the transfer ceremony.

"Remember," Mito said, just before the ceremony started, "you must love the Kyuubi. Teach Kurama what it means to love. I know that he's rather difficult, and he likes to think that he's more evil than he actually is, but there's nothing that can't be solved with a good hug and a strong drink. And no," here, Mito poked her own forehead, "I'm not letting you loose enough to get that drink, Fuzzbutt-san. Nice try."

Two and a half days later, the two fuuinjutsu masters were dead, Mito looked like she had aged three decades, and Kushina felt like her skin had been peeled away with acid, her bones removed, and her organs replaced with sawfish. Everything hurt, including the tips of her hair. It felt like her body was straining at the seams, as if she was an overstuffed rag doll. Kurama's lurking presence stirred in the back of her mind, like a toxic blast tag sizzling just before being triggered. She felt the minute leak of demonic chakra creeping through her body - just a little, just enough for her body to build a tolerance to it, just enough that her body was always in a slight healing mode - and wondered how her great-aunt had endured decades of such a presence.

Mito carefully picked herself up off the ground, swept back hair that had gone stark white in the sealing ceremony, and reached down to pull Kushina upright to her feet. She helped Kushina dress, because even the slightest brush of fabric felt like a flame-sterilized wirebrush scouring away gangrenous flesh. Kushina thought of how Sakumo willingly stuffed a rag into his mouth, thought of how he had smiled at Mito and told her that the whole process wasn't any worse than two weeks of being eaten alive by mosquitoes, and decided that her Will of Fire should be no less than that of the Konoha-born Hatake Sakumo.

"Stand strong, now," Mito told Kushina. And then, gripping Kushina's shoulders tightly, she looked into Kushina's eyes - through Kushina's eyes, through the cage, and directly at the Kyuubi, and said very sternly, "You will protect Kushina, or I will come back from the other side of eternity to rip off each and every one of your nine tails, buster."

The Kyuubi's reply would've made Kushina blush if she hadn't already spent two weeks with Sadao.

When they emerged outdoors, the barrier was still standing, and so was Sakumo and Naoki.

Masao had been killed in action only four hours prior.

As Mito gathered the survivors of Uzushio, as she split volunteers between protecting and covering the retreat of the noncombatants, and those who would follow her into battle and to certain death, Kushina turned her eyes upon Uzushiogakure.

It had been built upon a solid island that was too high to be submerged during high tide - granite stone that rose from the swamps, sturdy and reliable. The buildings had been fashioned from harvested cypress trees, with seals and mythical creatures carved into the frames over doors and windows, held up by pillars created from sea-worn rocks, and decorated with shells and cypress cones. From the building that she and Mito had exited, Mito's home since she had left Konoha decades prior and took most of the Uzumaki clan with her, she could see the weathered seals for strength and fortune and memory. Sirens in various poses seemed to swim across the woodwork, as if they were frolicking around the Fuuinjutsu seals. She turned her eyes to the house that she had grown up in - it was empty, since her parents were killed in the attack that prompted Mito to send Kushina to Konoha three years ago.

But she knew those seals as well. Love. Wisdom. Patience. Sand cranes had been her family's chosen guardian, and her father had even let her carve one into the lowest left corner of the door's trim. Kushina tried to commit everything that she saw to memory, knowing that this would be the final time she would see her homeland standing in one piece.

She turned her gaze back to her people. The few families still present with young children looked determined; the children looked grim and resigned. Sakumo slipped away long enough to fetch the gigantic scroll that Mito had given him. He strapped it to his back after wrapping it in several layers of oilskin to protect it from damage. Kushina studied him in worry as he quietly exchanged final directions with Mito. He seemed to be guarding his right arm again, and it wasn't just her imagination that there was a high line of red across his cheeks.

But Kushina had no more time to consider if a small part of infection had been trapped when Mito seared his wound shut, that perhaps the bacteria had continued to grow and multiply in the last few days beneath the scab. Mito raised her arms in the air, and unleashed hell upon the Iwa and Kiri shinobi when the barrier dropped. The enemy was long in grudges and tragically short in memory – they had forgotten that the legendary kunoichi had been legendary before she accepted the Kyuubi.

Naoki led in the front, Byakugen activated so she could lead them safely through Iwa and Kiri nin, alligators, and other predators that thrived in the swamps. They made very good time since they were no longer trying to be slow and sneaky. They were like a battering ram, Naoki's Gentle Fist obliterating anything that crossed their paths, and Sakumo's lightning chakra-wrapped saber demolishing whatever accidentally survived Naoki.

Despite the flagging exhaustion, they managed to make it to Fire's border without any casualties, and had even kept a number of survivors who desperately kept up with Kushina's lagging pace. Upon reaching Fire, they met up with another group of Uzushio escapees, four in total: a young woman with a toddler, and two teenagers. They looked so vulnerable and so frightened that Sakumo and Naoki agreed to let them join.

The teenagers were actually disguised Iwa shinobi. When they realized that only Naoki and Sakumo were of any real threat, they attacked at dawn the next day, when everyone else was waking up and still a little groggy. The first slammed a kunai into Naoki's abdomen while she was distracted and trying to open up the last of their food supplies - a can of pickled herring. Naoki smacked her palm against her attacker's head, making it explode into a mass of jellied brain matter and blood from overapplied Gentle Palm. The other teenager detonated blast tags, and lunged for Kushina through the smoke with kunai raised. Kushina shoved the younger children out of the way and twisted, trying to protect her vital organs. She felt the bite of the kunai slam into her thigh as she fell backwards, and then saw a lightning-wrapped blade thrust overhead. The Iwa nin impaled himself onto the saber, ozone and burnt blood filling Kushina's nostrils. Two adults and one child were killed instantly by the exploding tags; four adults had been wounded in various degrees from the shock waves, debris, or shattered ear drums.

Sakumo pressed his vest into Kushina's thigh, focusing all his concern and care upon her. For just a few seconds, as he verified that she would survive, Kushina was the center of his world. And then his focus shifted from her to his final teammate. Sakumo held Naoki's hand as she bled to death from the dissected aorta.

"Don't tell my family that I died over a fucking can of pickled herring," Naoki said. Her face was serene despite how the blood burbled and squirted around the base of the kunai, her other hand white-knuckled on the hilt.

Sakumo pressed his chapped lips against her bloodied knuckles, and he gave Naoki that special smile that made Kushina feel so special. "As far as famous last words go, you want to try anything better?"

"Don't leave my eyes behind."

"Now, that's just cliché for a main house Hyuuga."

She flashed her teeth at Sakumo as her breathlessness made her voice distant and far away. "You rotten asshole. I'd much rather hold your hand while dying than, than Danzo's. He's a worse asshole."

"Much better, my dear. I knew there was a spunky streak in you."

Sakumo made sure that the children ate the can of pickled herring. It almost felt like a punishment. "You need to keep your strength up. We still have over twenty kilometers to go before we reach Konoha, and we must make it before dusk." He attended more thoroughly to Kushina's thigh, dressing it with scraps that he tore from Naoki's shirt. She reached out and pressed her hand against his sweat-drenched forehead - it burned.

"Hey, hey." Sakumo pulled her hand away. His hand was clammy and cold, but his face lit up with a soft, kind smile as he affectionately tapped her nose. "Don't worry about me."

Kushina wanted to scream, cry, beat someone. She felt useless. She felt Kurama skulking behind her eyelids, ready and willing to loan a paw, which she knew would easily destroy everyone, including the noncombatant children that Sakumo and Naoki had agreed to bring along to Konoha, whom Naoki had more-or-less died for.

After they packed up their campsite, Sakumo directed everyone to turn their eyes away, including the adults, and he used his chakra saber to hack Naoki's head from her body and tucked it in the bag that once held the can of pickled herring. Kushina made herself watch - she didn't know what she could've done to have saved Naoki's life. Maybe if Kei had still been alive, maybe if she hadn't been lured by the ochi flytrap, maybe if Sakumo's arm and body weren't ravaged by infection, that would've been enough to save everyone.

And maybe, if she hadn't been Uzumaki Kushina, if she had been someone else, then there wouldn't have been any need to go on this journey to inherit Great-Aunt Mito's burden.

("You're welcome to drop this burden at any time, sweetcheeks. Right over there, in fact. I'll be sure to take out Kiri, and then Iwa, after I obliterate your meatsuit, in memory of my last prison, may she rest in pieces.")

Nine kilometers from the Konoha, when dusk was beginning to settle and Sakumo continued to push them onward, nearly as slow with his illness as the young children were with their exhaustion, insisting that he knew his way home even in the dark, a toad popped into existence in front of Sakumo. He stumbled to a stop, almost delirious from fever.

"Hi. So, uh, Jiraiya was just wondering how much longer you're going to be. Think you can pick up your pace a bit, dude? The bigwigs are getting kinda antsy with your delay."

Sakumo's mouth moved, as if he were shaping words. He swayed on his feet, and Kushina tensed in case she had to catch him. Then he thrust the bag with Naoki's head into the toad's arms. Legs? Limbs, at least. "We're getting there. Take this to the Hyuuga Head."

"Dude. What is - whoa, dude! Whoa! It's a decapitated head! And you want me to take this head to a head? What is wrong with you, Hatake?"

"No. Clan head. Get going."

The toad promptly dispelled, taking the head with him.

Five kilometers to go, Sakumo collapsed, unconscious.

Within ten minutes, two people were instantly there - Tsunade herself, along with another medic, Dan. While Tsunade ran a preliminary scan on Sakumo, split his arm open at the burned scab, and stuffed a couple of summoned, albeit protesting, slugs into the laceration, Dan quickly checked everyone else out. Jiraiya arrived in the midst of this, standing some distance away so he wouldn't inadvertently get in the way of Tsunade or Dan. When Dan was able to conclude that no one else was severely injured (Kushina ignored her leg because that was healing right up, and to be fair to Kurama, he was shielding most of the pain from her), he pulled Sakumo's limp body onto his back, and followed after Tsunade.

Kushina watched Sakumo disappear, swallowed up by the lush oak leaves, and desperately prayed that she would see him again, that he would once more turn that soft, kind smile on her and make her feel special even when she was covered with slime and mosquito bites, and had gotten one of their companions killed by a carnivorous plant. She tugged at Jiraiya's sleeve. "He's going to be all right, isn't he?" She tried not to let the tears in the back of her eyes show.

Jiraiya crouched down so that his face was level with hers. His hand, which he probably meant to be comforting, felt heavy upon her shoulder. "Tsunade-hime is the best. If anyone can save him, she will - I swear. Besides, he's got so much to live for - his son was born three days ago. There's no way he's going to die after something like that just happened." Most of the survivors were exhausted, almost too tired to push onward, no matter how desperate they were to finally reach the safe haven of Konoha's walls. Jiraiya summoned several toads to carry the noncombatants.

"Okay, dude, just so long as it isn't a head. I gotta draw the line somewhere, and I'm drawing that line here and now after what just happened. I am traumatized, yo."

Kushina declined riding. "I'll run."

Jiraiya studied her for a moment. "You sure you can keep up with me?"

"Of course!" Kushina made a fist and lightly punched his elbow. "I am Uzumaki Kushina! I'm heir to Uzumaki Mito, and I'll run forever before I drop, and someday, I'm going to be Hokage, believe it!" She had to keep running, to stay on her feet. She felt the weight of spirits on her back - Kei, Sadao, Masao, Naoki, Mito, and even the stalwart Sakumo - and she knew that they would carry her over the land just as surely as she carried their memory.

Jiraiya's pace was slow for her, because the spirit is willing, but the eight year old flesh was kinda weak and quite exhausted. After two kilometers, he eventually grew impatient with the snail pace, and hoisted her onto a broad shoulder.

To add insult to injury, the ANBU at the gate had to identify everyone and collect demographics before they would allow them full entrance to Konoha. On one hand, Kushina could understand that - perhaps a better veto process of the stragglers that they had met up with might've revealed the e shinobi sooner, before they could've attacked and killed Naoki - but on the other hand, Kushina was starving, and so exhausted that she couldn't physically stop moving, because if she did, she'd probably collapse like Sakumo.

Jiraiya had her go sit with Inuzuka Tsume and baby Kakashi. Kushina hadn't been too impressed with Tsume in the Academy, thinking that the Inuzuka girl was soft and pampered, and not the sharpest kunai in the kit. Her impression didn't change too much when the older girl offered her jerky stashed away in a diaper bag, except the personal opinion was amended to allow for Tsume's oblivious innocence. Kushina was too tired to even be jealous - what would Tsume know about physical pain, like a demon being stuffed into your body, or the loss of family, friends, and home?

But Kakashi and Kuromaru sure were cute. It was hard to be upset when your companions just liked you for being you and didn't care if you were foreign outsider.

oOoOoOo

Kushina was nine years old when she was more-or-less abandoned in Konoha, and she resented it. After all, Kushina was just a young orphan, tasked to hold the Kyuubi in check and to love him. She was a strange outsider in Konoha for all that it had been an ally to her mother village. If it weren't the always-lingering malice and alien intellect dwelling in the back of her mind, and the ever-vigilant ANBU that the Hokage assigned to watch after her, Kushina would've been totally alone and utterly free of adult supervision.

(ANBU were great for keeping her to task on wearing clean clothes, eating food other than just ramen – the horror of vegetables! – and keeping a decent bedtime, and Owl-san even taught her the valuable life skill of balancing her checkbook and bank statements, but they kinda sucked in the whole emotional department. And thank all the gods involved in her life that Danzo was too important with front line duty to be assigned any frequent shifts with him. He was brutal when teaching her fuuinjutsu from the scroll that Mito had gifted him, although Kushina felt like she ought to be grateful that he was willing to share her heritage with her. It was just one more piece that was stolen from her, and she silently resented it.)

Kushina didn't have any clanspeople left to pamper her - all of the other Uzushio survivors would leave Konoha shortly before she turned nine years old, abandoning the life of Hidden Villages and the life of the shinobi. Kushina was all alone to carry on the legacy of Uzushiogakure, and she had to fight for everything that she wanted - respect, dignity, authority, skill. It wasn't easy manipulating two different chakras at the same time, especially when both were as massive and as strong as a tempest in a teapot. It was like funneling a river through a drinking straw, and she also had to do so while learning to love a grumpy personification that liked to think it was evil incarnate, but was actually a gigantic, cranky dork. (Kurama then insisted that he wasn't. Their argument degenerated into a lengthy back-and-forth, are too, am not, are too, am not, are too, am not, that would probably still be going to the day she died if Sakumo hadn't decided to drop by on an impromptu visit.)

oOoOoOo

Kushina was nine years, four months, and three days old when she sat upon the stone head of the First Hokage, and looked over Konoha. She was resigned to her new home. But love was the key to taming the Kyuubi, Mito had told her before Kushina was sent away from Uzushio the first time.

("Is not!")

And if she filled her heart with resentment and bitterness, then there wouldn't be any room for love. And Mito would come back from the Great Beyond just to lecture Kushina on how negativity was a toxin that saturated everything else.

("Phhht. Senju Tobirama had this jutsu to summon back the dead. Knowing Mito, she probably reverse-engineered it so she can return later… Ah, shit. Now I can no longer live in peace, knowing that there's a chance that my former prison could return at any time.")

And, apparently, since it bugged the Kyuubi so much if Kushina was happy, then she was going to be happy. She was going to fill her life with happiness, and sunshine, and all the delicious, delicious ramen, and smother the nine-tailed fox demon in love, believe it!

("Gah, no! If I hear any more of the believe it, I shall go mad!")