Author's notes: I'm not sure how I managed to space for so long on posting the second half of chapter 6.

I'm amused with how Kurama has taken on such a life and personality in this chapter.

o-o-o

o-o-o-o

o-o-o-o-o

It's an unfortunate state of affairs when your best friend in the world is a cranky, dorky, nine-tailed demon trapped behind your belly button. And such was the way in Kushina's world, because she didn't really have any friends in the Academy, much less outside of it, until her final year, and that was when Inuzuka Tsume and Mitarashi Kokoro entered her life like an inevitable collision with disaster. They first stuck together in class because she, Tsume, and Kokoro were all a little too alien for the rest of their classmates, and they figured that there was strength in numbers, and eventually, this need to put on a brave front to the other students morphed into a genuine friendship.

("If you're all going to be weird, then you can be weird together. It's the world's most bizarre form of found family.")

Kokoro was intelligent and witty, and though she had a bit of a cruel, sadistic side that was often aimed at the instructors and many of the other students, she was fun to be around, and Kokoro seemed to understand how alone Kushina often felt. Kokoro once said it's because Kushina was the closest thing to a sister that she would ever have, since Kokoro also struggled against being overshadowed by the talents, skills, and general maleness of four older brothers. Kokoro actually reminded Kushina of a human Kurama, to which he took great insult and sulked for weeks on end.

Finally tired of the ongoing sulk, Kushina told Kurama after a month of barely tolerating it that this was proof that even big, mean, nine-tailed demons could still be babies. Their argument degenerated into a lengthy exchange of, am not, are too, am not, are too. Kushina wondered if it was possible to learn how to metaphorically pinch Kurama, just so she could end an argument instead of getting dragged into it, time after time.

Tsume continued to not to be the sharpest kunai in the kit, but she made up for her lack of mental acuity through sheer audacity, loads of genuine heart, and her too-cute and frightfully brilliant nephew always on tow. While Kushina knew peripherally that Tsume's great-grandmother/guardian was an abusive woman, she still struggled with the lingering bitterness on how Tsume was soft and a bit pampered by Aunt Natsumi, Oyubi, Hidarime, Aunt Bashira, and a number of other Inuzuka clanswomen… and even dear Sakumo.

Yeah, Kushina knew where she stood with Sakumo, compared to Tsume.

Kushina understood that Tsume was disabled in a profound, invisible way, and she watched Tsume struggle with things that came effortlessly to Kushina and Kokoro, like math, memorization, and metaphors. She truly loved Tsume, and it was because she loved Tsume that Kushina felt that if Tsume needed that much pampering from everyone - gosh, including Kokoro and Kushina - then maybe it wasn't appropriate for Tsume to pursue the path of a kunoichi.

Pampering aside, Tsume was still Kushina's best friend, along with Kokoro… Well, Tsume was Kushina's only other friend, which – by default – made Tsume her second best friend. Even when Kushina was growing up in Uzushio, she never had two people her own age who were so close, so concerned with her wellbeing, and who just wanted to be with her because they liked her. Kushina was used to people liking her because of how Mito had groomed her for the Kyuubi, because sycophants can be found anywhere, and she was used to people liking her because she was an admittedly delightful child, but it was hard to make friends her own age.

oOoOoOo

Kushina was eleven years old, when she and her best friends wound up together on a genin team, except it was hard to say that they were a true team, because Tsume got pulled for a classified mission with her great-grandmother before Sakumo could find out and protest ("What's so special about Tsume?" Kurama asked Kushina. "She barely has any passing skills as a kunoichi; the only value she can possible offer is bait."). Seeing the disappointment and fear on Sakumo's face when he learned of this mission made Kushina's tummy clench in hurt and betrayal, made worse by Kurama's observation. Her heart also burned with guilt, remembering the private letter that Tsume had written to her about being on a special mission, and how Tsume hoped Kushina would remember her.

Sakumo was Kushina's sensei because he was one of the few aware that she was the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki, and he was also one of the few who had the skill and intelligence to teach her successfully despite - or with - the Kyuubi. Sakumo was Tsume's sensei because he had specifically asked for Tsume. Poor Kokoro felt like an afterthought, as if Hokage looking at the three girls and figured that they might as well be a package deal if Sakumo was getting assigned two of the three.

Intellectually, Kushina knew that Sakumo's nindo was to never leave behind his teammates - she had seen him in action, living up to his word and protecting her at the near-cost of his own life. And besides, Tsume was the baby sister to his lover, the aunt to his son. For all intents and purposes, Tsume was essentially Sakumo's sister-in-law, so Kushina intellectually understood that Tsume had a right to Sakumo's heart. Emotionally, Kushina felt like she was as much an afterthought to Sakumo as Kokoro was to the Hokage.

Tsume had an entire clan looking out for her – Kushina had no one, really. Sakumo was always watching out for Tsume, always pampering her like so many other people. Even Team Seven (Jiraiya and Minato) asked about Tsume whenever they crossed paths with Team Four. Deep in her young, juvenile heart, smothered with bitterness and the cold rationale of his nindo, Kushina felt that that if he was forced to choose between her and Tsume, Sakumo would immediately pick Tsume. Sakumo was always searching for Tsume after she was separated from Shinzou, always refusing to believe that the legendary Hell Hound would've allowed herself to be defeated long enough to lose an Inuzuka girl-child to the enemy. He immediately suspected that something more was afoot when Tsume's death declaration was made.

But despite Tsume's shadow always lingering in her lengthy absence, forever serving as a reminder that there was a teammate that Sakumo cared more about than the other two, it was just him, Kushina, and Kokoro in the field. Not even the fact that they were in the middle of a war could make their time together anything but glorious.

("Oh, what a silly, foolish mortal, you are.")

Four glorious months with the first man who ever made her feel special; four glorious months with Kokoro constantly at her side, and never once did she and Kokoro need to backtrack and explain their ideas in simple words. They got each other, and they weren't sidetracked by an impulsive companion chasing a shiny idea like a hound bolting after a squirrel, or whose nose managed to outpace any speed of thought that Kokoro or Kushina could counter with. Sakumo indulged both of them with his smiles and his compliments and his guidance, as if they were the most important people in the world (well, right after Inuzuka Hidarime and little Kakashi, but Kushina didn't mind being second-best to Sakumo's lover or his son. She accepted her placement on that level of priority).

Those four glorious months suddenly seemed so tarnished, so petty, so meaningless when Kushina was forcibly confronted with the truth of her pampered best friend.

Kushina had cringed at the idea of Danzo traveling with her and Sakumo's team to and from Uzushio when she was eight years old, and would've thought that he would be the worst sort to rescue her from her Kumo captors. She forced herself to put up with Danzo only because she desperately wanted to learn more fuuinjutsu.

Tsume, on the other hand, willingly ran across five countries, more-or-less dragging Danzo along, following Kushina's oh-so-distant scent with every intention of rescuing her best friend.

("Well, to be fair to you, sweetcheeks, the Brainless One doesn't have the concept of fear, no matter how much it seems Danzo has tried to cultivate such. Even Danzo can't work such a miracle in a week's time. The important question we need to ask is this: did your friend cross five countries barefoot? I thought you humans required shoes for that sort of travel.")

That long-held casual, lingering bitterness tasted sour in her mouth as she and Minato dragged said barefooted, chakra-exhausted Tsume away from Lightning. The memories of thinking that Tsume was soft and pampered stung Kushina to the depths of her soul as she listened in mounting horror to Tsume's half-conscious confession of the hell she had been trapped in while Kushina and Kokoro happily frolicked and enjoyed being absolutely free of Tsume's presence.

Kushina was too young and too inexperienced to fully understand what Tsume had been babbling, but Kurama - that rotten bastard who made it so very hard to love sometimes - seemed all too happy to explain what had been implied. Kurama's explanation was graphic and extensive on what the Iwa nin must've done (who knew the bastard could summon flow charts in her brain?), and even snidely added that Inuzuka Shinzou had most likely and very willfully abandoned Tsume like a hot rock the moment Shinzou saw incoming enemy nin. Or maybe even paid them to take Tsume off her hands.

Kushina was a few months into her eleventh year of life when she learned how overwhelming guilt and shame made you feel, to the point where you wanted to die to escape the horrible feelings.

Iwa had destroyed Uzushio. Iwa had killed Masao and Mito and Naoki - and yet knowing what Iwa did to Tsume for four months while Kushina had been delighted with Tsume's absence hurt more than losing her aunt and her home village combined. Kushina never thought there would be a pain that could surpass a nine-tailed demon being forcibly stuffed into a mortal child's body, and yet her heart hurt more than she thought she could bear as she imagined Tsume's trauma and suffering (easily, because of flowcharts). Even Danzo, a harsh and brutal man, treated Tsume with an unusual level of care and kindness. If it had been Sakumo, Kushina would've thought that Danzo was, well, pampering Tsume.

How horrible was Tsume's suffering that it flipped Danzo's personality upside-down, even just temporarily?

Kushina desperately wished that she could give anything in the world, even her own innocence, to make Tsume soft and pampered once more. Kurama seemed stunned at this admission, and then reluctantly stated that not even one of his tails would be enough to erase such damage.

When they finally reached the camp in Grass, Kushina prayed that Tsume remain safe. How much trouble could her friend possibly get into? Granted, this was Inuzuka Tsume, but they were amongst thousands of friends and allies. How was Kushina supposed to suspect that anyone could get into an unreasonable amount of trouble when you butt heads with Inuzuka Shinzou?

("You know, there's something to be admired about a ninety-year-old woman who gets more hate than a thousand-year-old demon like me."

Oh, shut up, you old fool. I expect a thousand-year-old demon to be malicious and cruel. An Inuzuka woman is supposed to protect her clan's children. Shinzou is held to a different standard.

"So, you're saying that Inuzuka Shinzou would make a better demon than me? Challenge accepted!"

No! No, that wasn't what I was saying and you know it!

"Too late! Here, have another flowchart. This is what delicate mucous membranes look like when they've been shredded. Note the dcelicious amount of blood.")

One would think that the new wounds incurred from such a confrontation was enough karma credit to keep Tsume rolling high off the hog and living up to her well-deserved pampered life, and Kushina had felt it appropriate that Shinzou would die right after Tsume's triumphant return - although Tsume didn't seem all that triumphant, with one arm wrapped in a cast and the other tattooed with lengthy stitched lacerations as she spitefully threw a handful of ashes into the wind, so Shinzou probably had the last word.

Mito's dying words to Kushina had been to intimidate and threaten the nine-tailed fox demon from beyond the grave should he hurt Kushina. Kushina sometimes wondered what life would've been like if Mito had instead been Tsume's great-grandmother.

Kushina still kept desperately hoping that things would improve for Tsume, because Kushina was also so busy trying to be a friend for Kokoro - everyone was so happy to see Tsume was back, and they surrounded her with love and care while poor Kokoro was left on the wayside like an unwanted broken doll, forgotten and discarded. Even though Tsume's life had been horrible and Kushina couldn't shake the guilt of how she had rejoiced in her friend's absence, Tsume was once again surrounded by the people she loved, and Kokoro didn't have that. Kokoro didn't even have the physical presence and support of her older brothers, called to separate fronts by the war, and Kokoro had lost all chances to crawl out from of their shadow into her own light when she was left paralyzed.

When Shi delivered Tsume's forehead protector, drenched in blood, Kushina and Kokoro feared that this was the end, that there wasn't any more time to reconcile differences. It was a relief to see Tsume alive – albeit battered and sorta loopy on morphine when she was returned to the wagon train, although it was clear that Tsume had lost even more blood than what she had spilled onto her forehead protector. With everything that had happened, Tsume's brutal rape in the ravine, saved only by Sakumo's timely arrival, shouldn't have been shocking.

Except that it was.

Because there was something so terribly haunting in Tsume's eyes, made all the worse because the marks left on her soul completely and utterly lacked the fright that should've followed the heels of the explicit trauma.

Kokoro later privately told Kushina that it shouldn't be surprising that Tsume placed such little value on her own life, to thoughtlessly fling herself into danger just to help someone like Danzo. After all, her own great-grandmother only made a lousy thousand ryou selling Tsume into sexual slavery - why should Tsume feel like she deserved not to be raped when the value of her life amounted to nothing more than a paltry sum to the mother-figure whom Tsume had desperately tried to please all her life?

This was the hardest of all truths for Kushina to accept: Tsume wasn't pampered. Her brain was essentially like Kokoro's physical body: half-broken, kind of useless in some ways, and all too aware of the loss of what had once been. Tsume's family and friends surrounded her like the ninken that now carried Kokoro around. Other people had to be the wheelchair for Tsume's brain, or she'd be left on the wayside like an unwanted broken doll, forgotten and discarded.

Kushina felt everything keenly. She felt love, hatred, fear, ambition, friendship, desire, and sadness to the bottom depths of her soul. Her mind and her heart were scoured deep by her emotions, and she embraced everything with a passion that Kurama often complained about. She felt a profound sadness as she wondered if Tsume struggled to hold on to love, ambition, dignity, desire, and friendship the same way she struggled to hold on to pain, suffering, and loss. Kushina wondered just how empty a life was if all the memories - good and bad - were constantly fading into the background, never influencing, always vague. People were shaped by their experiences; they grew, they learned, they evolved, and they took on new dimensions.

If your experiences barely shaped you, if you could never remember the lessons that you learned, what kind of person were you going to be? Would such a person ever have a concrete identity? It was no wonder that Tsume so often looked like she was out of place everywhere she went, because she couldn't remember the life she lived and where it was even taking her.

oOoOoOo

Kokoro didn't share in Kushina's worries. Kokoro said that everyone underestimated Tsume's talents and memories, but Kushina was half-sure that Kokoro spoke with her own lingering bitterness and jealousy. Kushina never wanted to be jealous of Tsume again.

When they were assigned to the circus and Kushina watched Tsume from a distance, tossing the tigers raw meat and giggling as she attempted to talk them into eating the meat from her hands like they were a pair of domesticated birds, Kushina asked Kurama if there was a chance that Tsume could even be scared of the nine-tailed demon.

Kurama had actually given this question solemn consideration - he usually scoffed at Kushina's thoughts and feelings. "No. If I hadn't seen her in all these situations you all keep getting dragged through - and really, wasps and honey badgers? - then I wouldn't believe that a person incapable of fear could exist. I am greater than all of that. But if she were to ever stand before me in all my might and glory, were I to be free once more to roam this world, I think she'd grab a stick and try talking me into a game of fetch."

Kushina couldn't help but think that maybe Tsume would've made a better jinchuuriki. Even though Kushina knew she was supposed to do her best to smother the Kyuubi with love, her efforts were always shadowed with a terror of what could happen should the Kyuubi was ever released from his prison. How deeply and truly could you love something that terrified you? She didn't fear of what would happen to her, but rather what would happen to all the people she cared about. It was a terrifying realization to know that one wrong move could potentially wipe out an entire village's existence. The responsibility of protecting everyone's lives was, quite frankly, more than any single thirteen year old child should bear alone.

"All vessels are wretched, putrid meat suits fit for nothing better than to feed earthworms and maggots. She would be no better, and indeed would be a great deal worse." With a grumble, Kurama reluctantly added, "She'd get me killed. I'm an immortal being, and yet she would still find some way to get me killed."

Oh, you'd just come back, eventually, I'm sure of it.

"I wouldn't trust Tsume not to flub up and somehow make it permanent. Never underestimate the ingenuity of the half-witted."

oOoOoOo

September 15th fell on a Thursday when Kushina was twelve years old, and it was the day she fell in love with Namikaze Minato.

Thursdays were reserved specifically for Kushina's one-on-one training with Sakumo. Sakumo reserved one day a week, when they weren't out of town on a mission, where he focused solely on each of his genin. The other two genin completed whatever research, homework, or training that Sakumo assigned them. Tsume got Tuesdays, Kokoro got Wednesdays, and Kushina got Thursdays. Kushina's homework or assignments on Tuesdays and Wednesdays generally tended to be geared towards fuuinjutsu, and they were normally two grueling days with Danzo or Jiraiya overseeing her studies. Jiraiya wasn't so bad – Minato usually accompanied him, and Jiraiya was much better behaved with Minato there to supervise. Kushina wasn't sure how that worked, but was grateful that Minato's questions refocused Jiraiya to their studies on hand better than Kushina could. Danzo usually left her feeling like she was a hopeless idiot wasting his time. As such, Thursdays were heavenly.

That same Thursday, September 15th, was also the fourth anniversary of the fall of Uzushio, when her childhood home was destroyed by Iwa, and Kushina had watched people die to protect her. The heartache and homesickness never got better with each passing year, but this time, Kushina was determined not to spend the evening alone with her guilt and grief ("What am I? Chopped liver?"), just as she had the previous two years. (The first anniversary had been a sleepover with Kokoro, and watching two of her older brothers demonstrate the best way to gut a man without slicing the liver – because that would make the target bleed out faster than you could extract information – served as a gruesome distraction from her memories.)

Wednesday night, she carefully cubed the chicken, making sure that everything was uniform, and faithfully recreated Shisouzan's famous orange-vodka marinade, even though she nearly singed off her eyebrows when she lit the marinade on fire and the fumes made her dizzy. She carefully submerged the cubed chicken in the marinade, making sure each cube was below the liquid's surface. She had searched three different markets before she found the ripest, sweetest pineapple, and the point of her knife slipped and sliced deep into the fleshy pad of her thumb as she cored the pineapple. The laceration didn't bother Kushina, but seeing the blood on the pineapple made her heart drop.

"Don't be a baby. Wash the blood off, the pineapple is fine. I won't tell anyone if you don't, and the only one with the nose who might notice would be Kakashi. And frankly, given the company he keeps, he couldn't possibly be that picky over his food."

Kushina scrubbed the pineapple until it lost half its flavor, with the sweet juices running down the drain with the water. It was the only pineapple she had, and she used greater care to avoid cutting herself as she finished slicing it in cubes uniform to the chicken. She felt like a lousy ninja because she had made such a rookie mistake with a kitchen knife. She cleaned and peeled the pearl onions, eyes watering the entire time, and debated on whether she should slice the miniature peppers, or leave them whole.

"Throw them in the garbage. I hate peppers."

Just for that, Kushina made sure she chopped the peppers to the same size as the pineapple. "You don't have a vote in my diet," she told Kurama in great irritation. "I like peppers, and so does Sakumo." It was one of the few vegetables in which she enjoyed its raw and cooked forms. Besides, Kurama always complained about how her beloved ramen was nutritionally lacking and how too much would stunt her growth, so he should appreciate how she enjoyed at least one vegetable.

Last, but not least, because she knew how much Kakashi loved it, she carefully sliced the eggplant into disks. She weighed the slices down in a salty brine with a chipped plate, and then placed the bowl into her fridge. She had read somewhere that this helped decrease the bitterness before it was cooked.

"I don't see why you have to bother making a fancy dinner for tomorrow. You're the only one who actually cared about what happened to Uzushio. I, for one, celebrate its demise." Kushina grit her teeth and imagined Mito returning from the dead to yank off one of Kurama's tails. "Nope; you still can't make me feel bad."

After putting away the food in anticipation of tomorrow's dinner of sautéed eggplant and pineapple yakatori, Kushina carefully scrubbed and mopped her little apartment until everything gleamed. She lived in a special block of low-income utilitarian apartments, reluctantly built by the Konoha Clan Council to house orphaned genin and chuunin. The pay grade for genin was so poor, especially without the support of civilian or shinobi clans, that a normal apartment in Konoha would need two or three roommates to pay the rent. Uchiha Kagami personally covered 50% of the cost of three five-story buildings, with each floor containing ten studio apartments, just to double what the Council had been willing to pony up. About 5% of her rent was going back to Kagami as reimbursement. For punishment on overhearing her complain about the size of her apartment one time, Danzo skipped their Fuuinjutsu lesson just to make Kushina do the math. She learned that it would take nearly 170 years for Kagami to be fully reimbursed at the current rate of rent percentages collected from all the units, not accounting for inflation. And then Danzo made her write a personal thank you note to Kagami (twice! Because he deemed the first to be "sloppy and inadequate, you ungrateful cretin"), and witnessed her tuck it in the mail with her next rent payment, sent a week early.

Kushina knew that she should be grateful that she had her own place, but she pined for a larger kitchen, where she could have an oven instead of a double hotplate that she had to set up on her crooked kitchen table, salvaged from a dumpster three blocks away.

"And yet, you still have more room in your living space than I do. It's very cramped in here. Have you ever thought of the physics of cramming a mountain-sized chakra god into a little girl's solar plexus? Seriously, the least you could do is let me go for a run. Training Grounds 44 will do nicely. I could romp with the tigers and leeches."

Kushina still wasn't talking to Kurama by the next morning, when she arrived at training grounds #18 for her one-on-one time with Sakumo. She focused hard on his directions as they spared across the lake. Sakumo was trying to get her to use her golden chakra chains by threading them through the water. He theorized that she should be able to control them the same way that Kokoro could control her chakra threads, rather than flinging them willy-nilly at her target. Trying to turn her chakra chains into prehensile weapons required a greater control and concentration than Kushina was used to using, and she often wanted to declare it an impossible pipe dream.

But Sakumo believed in her. He believed in Kushina in a way that no one alive did, and Kushina forced herself to grapple the chakra chains and twirl them through the air and water, forming them again and again. She learned that she had to use her yang chakra separately from the golden chakra, in order to control the direction of her chakra chains. She also had to yell at Kurama internally whenever he tried to slip some of his own chakra into the equation. After eight hours of constantly struggling trying to channel two chakras (and fend off a third), she was finally able to curl a chakra chain into an Uzu spiral, keeping it aloft in the air the entire time.

The chakra chain dispelled as Kushina lost her focus and squealed with delight. "I did it! I did it!"

Sakumo wiped sweat away from his brow. The sun was unusually warm this late in the afternoon. "I knew you could do it. Congratulations, Kushina. You are well on your way of becoming one of the most powerful kunoichi in our known world."

Laughing and squealing, Kushina threw her arms around Sakumo in a tackle-hug that knocked both of them over into the lake's pristine water. Kushina broke through the surface, pushing her sodden hair out of the way. "Sensei, we have to celebrate! Come have dinner with me, tonight!" She didn't want Sakumo's satisfaction at Kushina's hard-earned success to be weighed down with the memory of Uzushio's destruction and his fallen comrades, so she made her offering a celebration.

Sakumo waded to the shoreline. "Oh shoot, I'm sorry. I'll have to take a raincheck on that."

Kushina stopped cold, lake water lapping at her knees. "What – why?"

Sakumo turned with surprise as he squeezed water out of his hair. "It's Kakashi's birthday, Kushina." Oh. Oh. She had completely forgotten that Kakashi had been born the same time that Uzushio had fallen. "Tsume's made plans to serve unadon, and I've already promised her that Kakashi and I would be there." His face creased in concern at her own expression. "But I know that we would all love it if you join us," he said rapidly. "You have truly made magnificent progress and you've earned the right to be proud of yourself – we can celebrate your success along with Kakashi's birthday… What's the matter?" He stepped towards Kushina and reached for her, but the damage had already been done.

"N-no, thank you. That's fine. I didn't mean to intrude, Sakumo-sensei." Kushina struggled not to burst into tears. "I'll take you up on that raincheck some other time." She spun around in the water and fled, barely causing a ripple on the surface, her delight in her success crumbling away like ashes. She didn't look back when Sakumo called her name.

Tsume is making dinner.

Nor could she graciously accept Sakumo's offer, because old resentments came roaring to the forefront, bitter and acidic like an esophagus full of bile. She thought that she had let it go, but she hadn't – she had only buried the resentment deep, and everything was now digging its way to the surface. Because… Because no matter what she did, the hold Tsume had on Sakumo's heart would always remind Kushina that she would never be first, no matter what. Sakumo would always be more of a father to Tsume than he ever would be to Kushina.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair.

Tsume already had a father, and she spent every Wednesday with Nara Shikake. Tsume had Tuesdays with Sakumo, and multiple afternoons, and however many evenings. Except for Kushina's one-on-one Thursdays, whatever time spent with Sakumo was also spent with other people, like his son or the rest of their team.

Kushina was so damn tired of having to share.

She ran without stopping from Training Ground #18, and her hitched breathing wasn't because she was tired. The tears didn't fall until Kushina reached her apartment. Kushina scrubbed at her mouth as she slammed through her apartment door – the wooden barrier was too fragile to withstand the brunt of her forward momentum, as she was too frantic to try using her key on the lock.

"Calm down, people will notice."

"I don't care!" Kushina shrieked. Ever since she had become a genin, the ANBU who guarded her had been reassigned. She was lonely and desperate and wanted so badly to cook dinner for someone, to not be left alone with the burden of Uzushio's memory. She kicked the garbage pail over to her fridge, denting the metal with her sandaled toes. "What's the point? Why? Why did I even fucking bother?" She dumped the eggplant, brine and all, into the pail. It was followed by the bowl of pearl onions and green peppers. "I hate her!" She threw the blood-free pineapple into the garbage. "I hate her!" The chicken and the orange-vodka marinade splashed everywhere as she yanked it out of the fridge. She threw it so forcefully into the garbage pail that the glass bowl shattered and sent shards flying upward. The kitchen wall vibrated as she slammed the fridge door shut. That felt good, so she opened and slammed the door shut two more times, then pounded on the fridge with her fists, ignoring how the blows drove glass shards deeper into her hands. Blood smeared across the refrigerator's pale white surface, emphasizing the dents her fists made in the metal. "I hate her I hate her I HATE HER!"

"No, you don't."

Kushina sunk her hands into her hair and let her legs fold beneath as she sobbed. Blood dripped into her hair, but no one was around to notice how much her hair already looked like freshly-spilt blood.

"You don't hate Tsume, kit. You're jealous of her."

Kushina folded her arms around her knees and buried her face against her legs, and let four years of pent-up emotions free. She hadn't cried when Uzushio fell. She hadn't cried when Sakumo crumpled upon receiving Tsume's death declaration. She hadn't cried when the Kumo nin chained and dragged her nearly four hundred kilometers northwest.

"Listen to me. You're jealous of how Tsume has family, which you lost. You're jealous of how Tsume has two father figure, when you have none. You're jealous of how Tsume lives in a home that's too large for just her and those wooly mammoths everyone mistakes for dogs, while you're stuck in a shoebox."

The last time she cried, really and truly, was when she realized that Tsume had spent four months being raped and brutalized while Kushina cheerfully celebrated being absolutely free of Tsume's friendship. Her tears hadn't just been because Tsume was hurt – she had also cried because of the pain of shame raking razor-sharp claws across her heart.

"You're jealous that you have a seal that barely restrains a magnificent creature that is myself, and Tsume doesn't. But most of all, you're jealous that Tsume gets to forget about the things that hurt her, and you can't."

Kushina pounded on her head. "Shut up!" Of course it would take a thousand year old demon to cut through the emotional tangles of her friendship with Tsume.

"Listen to me – and I'm only going to share this once, because I'm in such a generous mood. My father once told me that comparison is the thief of joy. You've been letting it rob you blind since you met Tsume in the aftermath of your home's destruction."

And before Kushina could respond to that – Kurama had a father? — a knock and a cleared throat interrupted their conversation.

"I don't mean to intrude," Minato said softly as he entered her studio. "Your door was open." The door was open – it also hung from its hinges, half-broken from the force of Kushina slamming through it.

Kushina buried her face against her knees. "Go away." She scrubbed her cheeks against the material of her pants. They were still damp from her fall into the lake, stained with mud from the lakeshore. She was also getting blood smeared into the fabric, and marinade that splashed on the floor was soaking her butt. Instead of doing just what she ordered, footsteps approached her. "What do you want?" she muttered as she scraped the mud with a fingernail. She tried to calm her breathing, but started to hiccup instead.

"Oh, world dominance and a library of Fuuinjutsu the size of the Hokage Tower."

Kushina sniffed as she looked up from her knees. She squinted tear-blurred eyes at Minato. "Was that a sense of humor? I didn't know you had one."

Minato's smile was small but genuine as he crouched down, eye-level. "It's hard to have a sense of humor around my sensei. He once told me that the best way to understand a man is to walk a mile in his shoes, and if it didn't help you understand the man, at least you were a mile away with the poor slob's footwear, which would make it really hard for the guy to chase you down." He studied Kushina with eyes as bright as today's clear skies. "What's the matter?"

Kushina sighed. "What are you doing here?"

"I live on the floor below you. Everyone in the building noticed when you came home. I guess I was the only one brave enough to see what's troubling you."

Figures. It seemed like every time she turned around, Minato was there, in the background. Ever since their first day in Academy… It shouldn't have surprised her that he would also be living in the same damn building. She forgot that he was as much an orphan as she was. Kushina scrubbed at her face with one hand, and made shooing motions with the other. "Nothing. Nothing is troubling me, so you can go away now."

Minato wordlessly tilted the garbage pail and looked sideways at the perfectly good food that she had thrown away. It had cost her the pay from two D-rank missions. Anyone remotely familiar with her appetite and how she never passed up food would instantly know that something was wrong. Upon realizing this, Kushina felt her face burn red with embarrassment.

Minato's expression was unreadable as he slid the dented pail away from the fridge. He leaned forward and rested one hand lightly on her left kneecap. His hair was so blindingly bright that even under the dim kitchen light it shown like a distant sun. "Kushina, I think nothing is the problem. You're alone; surrounded by nothing."

Kushina felt her breath catch in her throat as she hunched. Stupid hiccups. "Why would you care?"

"You're not alone. I'm always here with you. Always. Here. Right here. On account of how I can't go anywhere."

"Because when you're alone, that's when no one's there to keep you afloat while you drown in your emotions." He caught her hand and squeezed it gently. He was as tranquil as a gently-drifting dandelion seed. "Aren't you tired of trying to keep your head above the water?"

She weakly tried to pull her hand free. "I've been alone since Uzushio fell, four years ago, today."

"Why, yes, I do not exist. I'm not tied up in your life, every waking and sleeping moment, forever lurking in the background, crammed into your abdomen. Don't mind me, I'm just gas bubbles."

Minato was silent as he turned her hand over to inspect the shards of glass still imbedded, the puncture sites leaking. He traced the lifeline in her palm with a finger, smearing the blood. "Let me help you," he said, not lifting his bright blue eyes to meet her own gaze. "I'm here. You don't have to be alone."

Kushina was so tired of the loneliness and the burden that came with it. In some regards, it hadn't felt right to enjoy anything, because joy reminded her that the dead of Uzushio had been robbed of their life while she had escaped with her own.

Well, darn it, Kurama was right – comparison was the thief of joy. And he was going to be even more insufferably smug with her admission.

Kushina just… she just wanted to be wanted. "Okay," she whispered to Minato. "I've got a set of tweezers in my first aid kit. I keep it under the kitchen sink."

It was a brand new first aid kit, given to her long ago as a housewarming gift by Owl-san. Minato paused briefly to look at the expiration date – the antibiotic ointments and wound cleaner had expired two years ago. "Huh." He said nothing else as he pulled the glass shards out of her right hand. By the time he had finished pulling shards of out of the left hand, the holes and bleeding had healed in her right hand. "You know, Aunt Natsumi once told Jiraiya-sensei that the secret to her vitality was inheriting the Uzumaki regeneration from her sire."

Oh. Kushina had no idea that Aunt Natsumi was probably related to her, however distantly. She didn't know if she should be delighted or terrified.

Minato leaned into Kushina's space, resting his hand against the fridge Kushina sat against, and pressed his forehead against her own. Her entire field of vision was consumed with blue blue blue eyes and a lock of highlighter-yellow hair. Her skin tingled where it touched his, and his breath was warm across her face. It smelled like apples. Kushina suddenly felt like she was the most important person in Minato's world. In a flash, she realized that the reason he was always around wherever she turned was because he genuinely liked her for who she was, and he didn't have any expectations for her – she didn't have to be good at whatever she did, she didn't have to hold up the legacy of Mito… she didn't have to be anything but herself. "Kushina, would you like to get some ramen? My treat."

The smile spread across her face before she even realized it was there. "Sure." And as he helped her to her feet, and led her out the broken apartment door, still holding her hand in his, Kushina felt her heart swell with love for this remarkable boy. They sat together at the old man's ramen stand, Kushina laughing as Minato – using the salt and pepper shakers to demonstrate his tale – told her about the time Jiraiya mistook a pizza deliverer for a casino player to whom Tsunade owed lots of money, and the ensuring chase across Pinkerton as the deliverer insisted on living up to the pizza company's motto of "we get it to the right person every time" while Jiraiya unsuccessfully tried to escape a persistent civilian who was also the local parkour champion.

"The pizza, by the way, was cold by the time it finally got to us. Jiraiya-sensei had the audacity to say that we should have a refund, but Hotaru felt so bad that she gave the guy a tip that was three times more than the original cost of the pizza itself, and Osamu has been a fanboy of parkour ever since."

Kushina laughed until she almost cried, and finally found something that she hadn't realized she needed more than companionship and acknowledgement.

She finally found the strength to forgive herself for the resentment, the guilt, and the bitterness that had plagued her since Mito first sent her to Konoha, six years ago.

oOoOoOo

Kushina was thirteen years old when she realized that it probably takes a village to raise someone like Tsume, so she gathered Minato, Hotaru, Osamu, and Mikoto when the circus train stopped for the night, and attempted to recruit them over a small fire. She didn't have a village, because in Konoha, Tsume was surrounded by her clan, but she had a small part of a circus, so this would just have to do for now.

Inochi raised his hand in the air like he was in a classroom. "Soooooo - why the hell am I here again?"

She had also nabbed the Ino-Shika-Cho team, but that was a given, because Shikaku was too slow to outrun any trouble his sister was going to get into that wasn't a rampaging demon-reincarnated war horse, and his teammates would never abandon him to the whims of Inuzuka Tsume. Or at least that's what Kushina had originally calculated. Given the looks of panic that crossed Inochi and Chouza's faces as Shikaku curled up to take a nap beside the fire, she may have severely underestimated their sense of survival, and vastly overestimated their supposed legendary sense of teamwork.

"Oh, hell no - Inuzuka Tsume can take care of herself," Inochi declared with a shake of his fist.

"She really can't," Minato said. "Well, she can and she does, at least in the short term. But she's been sent off who knows where into the wilderness without adult supervision." He waved his hands vaguely westward, as if demonstrating where the vast wilderness was located.

"Eh." Mikoto shook her head. She was the oldest of the Konoha nin that Kushina had gathered around the campfire that was separate from the rest of the circus train, and Kushina had really only included her because Mikoto and Tsume trained together under Aunt Natsumi, and because Kushina and Mikoto appeared to be stuck together as part of their circus personas. (Aunt Natsumi was Aunt Natsumi to everyone but Sakumo, Danzo, and Orochimaru. Even Enkan was calling her Aunt Natsumi by the fourth day in Konoha.) "I overheard Sakumo and Yuu earlier. She was sent off to join Jiraiya-sensei as a pre-pre-show for the circus's arrival tomorrow."

Minato held Mikoto's gaze, and repeated himself very slowly. "Without. Adult. Supervision."

Hotaru giggled. "Tsume-chan is sometimes more responsible than Jiraiya-sensei, yes, but the ninken outnumber her and Jiraiya-sensei, and we know that they're not exactly sensible creatures. Besides, Jiraiya-sensei will be able to protect Tsume-chan in case of physical danger - he's always looking out for us."

"Except in onsens," Osamu muttered.

"And hot springs," Minato added, ticking off each finger as he and Osamu spoke.

"Festivals."

"Gambling parlors."

"Weddings."

"Bars."

"D-rank missions that involve any sort of manual labor."

"C-rank missions that involve any sort of manual labor."

"The IRS."

"Internal Affairs." Minato ran out of fingers and started on his toes.

"The Uchiha police."

"Jury duty."

"Paperwork and mission summaries."

"His foster mother's birthday."

"Angry spurned lovers."

"Dates."

"Husbands and boyfriends of said dates."

"Orochi's Pizza Delivery."

"Potential illegitimate children."

"Tsunade-hime's loan sharks."

"Annual vaccinations and physicals."

"Spiders and centipedes."

"His evil foreign downstairs neighbor, Finkle-san."

"Finkle-san's seventeen billion cats."

"His landlord."

Minato shook his head. "No, he's gotten better about the landlord ever since the landlord put in tile flooring with black grout that makes it easier to clean up and hide bloodstains so sensei can pass his annual inspection." Minato and Osamu went silent for a moment as Hotaru rubbed her temples. Then Minato shrugged with a dark look on his face, as if he was remembering an incident that involved every aforementioned subject in which Jiraiya had failed spectacularly to look out for his students. "But other than all of that, he's watched out for us."

"Wow," said Mikoto, blinking. "I am… I am so very sorry. And also very impressed and curious at these very specific examples. I'd like some more details on that pizza delivery."

Any confidence that Kushina might've had in Jiraiya had dried up and blown away like last year's leaves. It once again reinforced her suspicion that she couldn't trust most of the adults to look after Tsume - Aunt Natsumi and Sakumo were probably the only adults she could trust, just on principle. Maybe Danzo, in a desperate pinch, but the less she involved him, the better. She wouldn't put it past the man to try experimenting on her, because Danzo knew Kushina was a jinchuuriki. It would be up to her and her somewhat-questionable companions to make sure that Tsume came through this without any more bad experiences like what she had suffered in the Second Shinobi War.

"Forget it," Inoichi said as he stood. "If she needs this many babysitters, then she's better off not being a kunoichi, much less becoming a chuunin." He and Chouza started to leave, but paused as the fire's perimeter to look at Shikaku, who hadn't budged from where he was curled up on his side beside the fire. "Dude, I know she's your sister, even if you didn't get to be actual official siblings until like, what, two years ago? But you're not her keeper."

Shikaku opened his eyes and considered the dancing flames. Then he sat upright and rolled his shoulders, languidly stretching. "Do you want to watch and keep her out of trouble, or do you want to do damage control afterwards?"

Inoichi rubbed his mouth. "Theoretically, what kind of damage could she cause that we would be stuck trying to control?"

Shikaku sighed and folded his hands in front of him, resting his chin on a shelf created from his crossed thumbs. "She's a desperate-to-please genin with something to prove, disguised as a wild child raised by wolves who will most likely be allowed to roam the countryside with just her ninken. We'll set to travel through at least six countries, barring any disastrous events that may require a retreat back to Fire, and you ask me what sort of damage she could cause until we reach the Autumn Suna Bizarre. The sky is the limit, my friends. The sky is the limit."

Inoichi crossed his arms and frowned in through. "Huh. Desperate to please, you say?"

"Yes. Such is her nature."

"With something to prove."

"Indeed. She's going for the chuunin rank, which means she's going to try and outthink herself."

"Well, shit." Inoichi and Chouza joined them around the fire once more, the former on the brink of panic, and the latter quietly disconcerted.

"To be fair to Tsume," Minato put in quickly, "trouble finds Tsume without her looking for any. She's merely reacting to S-rank situations that most of us would have difficulty managing, and I think that's an important thing to realize. As a chuunin, you're going to run into unexpected situations, and I think she's done a marvelous job at surviving the unexpected. We could all learn from her." Kushina couldn't help but adore Minato for his defense of her best friend.

Shikaku's eyes glinted in the firelight. "Then I guess we're just going to have to make sure she avoids S-rank situations. Man, how troublesome."