Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

Pain reached me in bursts, I was thrown between darkness and a red mist of pain with no escape from either, first my chest and then my side in small jostling thumps. Occasionally sound reached me, it might have been that I occasionally broke from the depths of unconsciousness or that I was awake all along and too tired to hear what was being said.

"Minato… oh god… bleeding… Konoha… faster" I heard more but the words bled through me like a sieve, eventually it all went silent or perhaps I had passed out again.

An indeterminable time later somewhere distantly in my slumber I eventually felt something pull my abdomen, kind of in a painful way but it felt so distant and I couldn't pay attention, I was so sleepy.

The first time I really woke up it was night time I tried to scratch an itch on my chest but found one of my arms had been bound and when the other hand reached my chest it found it encased in bandages. It was only a few seconds after this that everything that happened came back to me, it seemed even chakra couldn't heal a bifurcated abdomen straight away. I couldn't sleep the rest of the night and I lay there going over the events of the mission over and over in my head. Why hadn't I sensed the missing nin? I can usually sense people with high chakra reserves. Inevitably my mind kept going back to being tortured. It was my first experience actually being tortured though I remembered having training on it in my previous life. If you couldn't take a quick way out most advice was to repeat a word or phrase in your mind or out loud to the exclusion of all else because inevitably you will say something in the haze that torture can subject you to you could say anything so to repeat something innocuous was the safest way to protect the information you had. I was only glad it hadn't gotten that far. Astonished I was alive, I had thought myself beyond saving when I saw the flesh being ripped from my chest cavity.

Eventually morning came, I watched the sun light the sky from the window of my room and shortly after that Tsunade came into my room after noticing I was awake.

"You have luck in quantities hitherto unheard of kid, I'll leave your full injury report until later because you'll be here for a while so here are the headlines. You had a puncture wound in your abdomen that somehow hit nothing but a smaller vein and your appendix which we removed, the brunt of the damage though was to your abdomen where your entire upper chest was degloved and much of the underlying flesh was ripped and shredded." she shook her head, "When you arrived back here we put you on a blood transfusion but we almost couldn't get the blood into you fast enough. You'll be staying in the hospital for another week yet, if you're wondering what day it is it's been 3 days since your mission."

I nodded, Tsunade looked angry enough that I didn't want to say anything that would get her more irate.

"Since you've been asleep we've taken the opportunity to perform many of the medical examinations you would have gone through on returning from the mission, they'll be in later today."

I nodded again but wanted to ask a question, "What about everyone else?"

She scoffed, "split in two down the middle and he still wants to know about his team," she muttered, "Kushina had some burns but she'll be out later today, she's been coming by to see you but..." she gestured in my general direction "Minato and Kakashi got out mostly unscathed. Kakashi will probably be by as soon as visiting time starts, can't get two minutes without you guys being under my feet. Minato might not be by anytime soon, I hear he's raising hell to the Hokage and the intelligence division in general though I don't know the details and don't care. Try not to move, the bandages will be itchy but don't touch them, I'll send someone to change them tomorrow."

I filed away all that information and whilst I was Tsunade must have walked up besides my bed.

"And kid?" I looked up at her and shrunk back at the look of fury she was giving me "If you ever come into my hospital in that state again, I'm going to beat you back to health."

I nodded furiously and Tsunade stood up sighing and left saying she would be back later with my examination results.

Kakashi arrived just as Tsunade said with the start of visiting hours and breathed a sigh of relief seeing me awake. In truth he looked like he wanted to hug me such was his relief. Instead he took a seat beside my bed.

"Minato is blitzing the information division because of…" he took a look at my bandaged body and gulped, "what happened."

"I heard from Tsunade. I was thinking I might do the same back when I was propped up on a spear by a missing nin" I said darkly.

"You should have seen Kushina, she was the reason we knew there was something wrong. We heard your scream of course but when Kushina couldn't find you she kind of went crazy," he shuddered, "Minato had to calm her down and by then we'd lost your trail, there were just bodies everywhere."

I nodded, that explained why it took so long for them to find me.

"Ko. About what happened to you. Are you ok?" I knew he wasn't talking about my physical health. I thought about it before I have my answer.

"I don't think I'm the same person than the one that was sent on the mission but…" I shrugged, "I would not like myself to become dyed in the colors of the events of that day. I would prefer to be defined by how well I can withstand such hardships." I said frowning down at myself.

Kakashi seemed to see how uncomfortable I was and changed the subject "Minato should be here later today, he's asked me to let him know if you wake up."

I smiled "I wouldn't like to be on the other side of an angry Minato, I almost feel sorry for the information division. Almost."

Kakashi nodded seriously, "I've seen it first hand. Scary"

Kakashi left close to midday and it was approaching late afternoon when Minato arrived looking surprisingly severe with Tsunade in tow.

"Hey Minato, no need to look so upset, look I'll survive, I'll be fine." I grinned looking between Minato and Tsunade when their expressions didn't change at my joke. I realised there must be something else.

"Your results came back kid. You have a serious problem" Tsunade began.

I tried to sit up, bad news was always better taken sat comfortably. "What's the problem doc?" I asked trying for some levity.

"Well the good news is your injuries are fine, the poison you were infected with was a common Suna variant I invented the antidote for in the last war. Your physical injuries will heal given time. The bad news is your chakra imbalance" I frowned. I knew I had a large amount of yin chakra but I didn't realise it would be a problem, "you have such a large amount of Yin chakra it's forcing your body to grow at an incredibly accelerated rate, but you already knew that, the problem it isn't slowing down, it actually seems like it's speeding up since you started using chakra more often. At its current rate you'll be around 8 feet tall in 2 years but you won't live that long, a body your age growing so quickly will tear itself apart. Until we can figure out a solution I am removing you from the mission roster and banning you from training."

I looked at Tsunade shocked. I couldn't stop training, or taking missions, I started to protest but Minato interrupted, "She's right Ko. I've seen the results myself and I've already spoken to the Hokage."

I sat back reeling in shock

"You'll be staying here for another week to recover from your injuries but after that until a solution is found you'll be on long term leave from your shinobi responsibilities." Tsunade said. She seemed to see I understood and she left me with Minato.

Minato for his part sat next to my bed and began talking about other things, probably trying to distract me from my situation but it was all I could think of. A pit had opened in my stomach and it felt like I was falling in. After a few minutes I turned to Minato.

"Could you get Kushina to bring me all of the scrolls on sealing I have access to." I said suddenly. I looked at Minato apologetically, I belatedly realised I had interrupted him.

Minato smiled "Sure thing, I'll ask her to bring them around first thing in the morning."

I couldn't think of a single seal in the scrolls that might help but I knew if there was any way to fix a problem with this magical thing people called chakra I could probably find it in something equally magic like fuinjutsu.

Kushina brought me the scrolls the next day only there were more than I remembered, when I mentioned this she nodded muttering "right they won't have told you yet." She went to the door and closed it and then sat down next to my bed.

"Have you heard of Biju Kei?" she asked, it rang a bell I had heard of it somewhere in some book in the library.

"Aren't they chakra demons?" I ventured, I had dismissed most of the scroll dealing on this subject because at the time I had considered it some kind of fanciful tale.

"Something like that," Kushina confirmed, "To restrain them and stop them from killing thousands we seal them away in the only thing strong enough to hold them - people. Those people are called jinchuriki. Most of the hidden villages have one though I don't know if they're all accounted for at the moment. Anyway, the leaf village has the nine tailed fox demon."

I nodded frowning not sure where this was going.

"Do you remember what you saw during the mission? When we came to rescue you?" she asked.

I did, I remembered great malice, a visible red chakra that seemed corrosive even to my chakra sense. I nodded, "Which one of us has the nine tailed sealed in them?" I asked

Kushina smiled sadly and said "It's me, and it's part of the reason I've unlocked the next grade of seal scrolls for you, these scrolls deal mainly with the sealing of biju and something called the eight trigrams sealing style but I couldn't unlock it for you until you were told about me. Luckily," she grimaced looking again at my bandages, "Or unluckily for you with what happened on the mission Kakashi and you have both been given clearance to know about my little problem."

I laughed a little at hearing her describe it like that "Doesn't sound like a problem to me Kushina, if you weren't as awesome as you are I wouldn't be laid here, I'd probably still be skewered on some rock still." I joked a little but it was true.

Kushina smiled, "Thank you Kei."

I felt a little embarrassed as I didn't feel like I had done anything worth thanking me so to hide the fact I through myself into the scrolls in front of me, Kushina laughed a little at my discomfort and said she would be back later.

I spent every moment that remained in that hospital bed reading through scrolls trying to come up with a solution, the problem was there wasn't any scroll that went into how to limit your own chakra, after all why would someone limit their own chakra? When the week was up and my bandages were removed for the last time I found myself stood in front of a mirror in Tsunade's examination room examining the scar I now bore across my abdomen. It was worse around the chest area where white, shiny skin stretched eventually bleeding into the darker coloured skin around it, lower down it was a pencil thick line that ended about an inch lower than where the spear impaled me.

"I'd clear you for light exercises but that would probably exacerbate your chakra problem," Tsunade mused, "I'm going to recommend that you get as much rest as possible for the foreseeable future, at least until we figure that problem out."

I nodded glumly.

I was still getting used to the idea of no longer being able to train when I wanted to when I arrived back at my home where I found Kushina and Minato waiting.

"We know about your chakra issue and with you having some spare time on your hands we've decided to induct you into our secret sealing project." Kushina explained,

I sat down opposite them looking at the incomprehensibly complicated seal laying between us, "This wouldn't be related to that thing that happened during our genin test would it? The thing with the yellow flash?" I asked.

Judging by Minato's flinch it was and Kushina rounded on him "You tried to use the seal before it was even ready?! Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Kushina suddenly remembered what she was talking to me about though and turned back and nodded confirming, "this is the same seal, it was originally created by the second Hokage but we've been trying to modify it for Minato's purposes and having a little trouble and we figure having another brain looking at the problem might make things clearer."

"I see," I said nodding still transfixed by the seal, "I'll see what I can do but it'll take me a while just to understand how this works."

Kushina laughed "Don't worry about trying to understand it, the second Hokage was a genius and so is Minato but even he only understands around 80% of it even after all this time, just take a look at it over the next few days and let us know if you see anything that doesn't seem right."

I did a double take "You're going to leave this here with me?" I asked

"We've really hit a wall at the moment so some time away will probably do us some good, we'll be back in 3 days - we've got a short messenger mission to take care of - so we can listen to your thoughts then." Minato said and I must have become transfixed with the seal again because when I next looked up they had gone.

I had too much to do despite not being able to do much so I analysed the scroll without sleep for 2 days making notes on it's design, function and flaws. It seemed Minato was trying to adapt it so that he could use it and so that it fit on a Kunai's handle, neither seemed easy tasks with the size of the seal and the way in which it had been designed for its original user. The function was something that I found my mind shrinking back on several times trying to comprehend it, it was no wonder no one really understood the seal what it was designed to do was create what my old world would have called a wormhole with chakra, essentially punching a hole in space with chakra alone - I think this may have to go down as the most ridiculous use I have seen for chakra - and then pulling through the body of the user. Interestingly whilst I could understand the usefulness of it being an instantaneous transfer it did not need to happen straight away, or at least it seemed like it and slowing down a certain element of the seal might result in a kage bunshin effect with a chakra construct in your own image appearing on the other end of the seal for perhaps a few minutes before you were pulled through as well. By the time I felt I almost fully understood the seal and had written down my notes on improvements and possible new functions I was struggling to even sit up straight I was so tired, satisfied with my work I made to retire to my futon but I didn't even make it that far.

"Ko!... Ko!" I blearily woke up staring into a blurred face, luckily the blonde hair gave it away.

"Minato sensei?" I groaned sitting up and wiping my eyes.

"What were you doing sleeping on your living room floor, you had me worried." Minato remonstrated.

I shook my head to bring me back to alertness, what was I doing on the floor? "I was working on your seal." I replied, "I think I figured it out."

Minato looked at me skeptically, "I think you might have just dreamt that." he said chuckling.

Had I? Kushina was here as well but she hadn't said anything yet, she had seen the notes in my still open notebook and I remembered it wasn't a dream.

Kushina looked at me the color dropped from her face a little, "Kei, how do you know this stuff?"

"What do you mean it's in the scrolls you gave me?" I said confused

She shook her head, "Not that, these formulas, some of these seem to be calculating energy from mass and it's acceleration but the rest…" She passed the notebook to Minato, "Maybe you'll be able to make better sense of this."

Minato started looking at the notebook and I sat quietly with Kushina sitting down next to me whilst we waited, Minato's brow grew more and more furrowed in the quiet 10 minutes that follows, occasionally pulling out a scroll himself as if double checking something before he turned to me.

"I think I understand about 80% of what you've written Ko, which is about on par with the scroll made by the nidaime so that makes sense. You'll have to explain some things to me."

So I guided Minato through the math behind the seal, why it wouldn't work as it was, how the seal worked in principal - at least in layman's terms, I wasn't sure I fully comprehended how it did what it did either - and the steps the seal went through every time it activated. I thought I might have been going too fast as I even took him through some of the formulas for physical reactions from my old world but he seemed to connect them in his mind as if he had already expected something of the sort all along. I thought myself intelligent but in these moments with Minato I could really tell I was a long way away from being anywhere near as fast as he was and comprehending concepts and then applying it to what he already knew. I even showed him my idea for slowing or delaying the transition and how it might be done simply by rotating one facet of the seal almost like a clock and Minato looked at me in awe when we had finished, I halfheartedly rubbed the back of my head not entirely sure what to do with my hands.

"Well what's the verdict?" Kushina spoke up. She had started to fall asleep as soon as we started talking numbers.

"With what Ko- er, I mean Kei," Minato modified seeing the look on Kushina's face, "Has worked out I think we might have this this seal complete in just a few weeks." He grinned as he closed the notebook with one hand.

Kushina suddenly perked up again and grabbed me in one of her patented bone crushing hugs, "I knew you'd know Kei, I just knew it." I tried desperately to seek assistance from Minato to escape the asphyxiation I found myself in but he nervously avoided my gaze.

I spent the rest of the week reading trying to figure out a way of dealing with my chakra issue and I started to find a promising lead in some of the newer scrolls Kushina had granted me access to, specifically the ones related to the eight trigrams sealing style. After all if it could seal away huge constructs made out of chakra why couldn't it store some of mine away, it seemed particularly promising since some of the example seals didn't seem to be designed to completely lock away the chakra but to leak some back over time, I figured if I could find a way of adapting such a seal to myself for the Yin half of my chakra I could essentially limit my Yin chakra as much as I wanted to.

Kakashi and Minato visited most days with Minato insisting that even though I was out of commission at the moment and couldn't attend meetings at the training ground there was no reason to leave me out of daily team meetings and rearranged to have them in my living room. I gave him updates on where I was in figuring out my issue and he gave advice where he could though he did say he was only beginning to learn the eight trigrams sealing style himself. Kakashi for his part gave me a great deal of comfort simply by coming to visit, I had begun to feel useless staying at home all day but by coming to visit me he distracted myself from myself.

It was only after around 2 weeks of this that I felt I had a workable solution, it was a variation of what the scrolls described as a four symbols seal but modified so that it would only hold back Yin natured chakra, showing it to Kushina she had nodded and confirmed that it should work as a solution to my problem but with no one to test it one and issues of the body being outside her experience she suggested setting up a meeting with Tsunade.

It was a few days later when I got the opportunity to have a meeting with Tsunade, apparently she had been busy creating a new division called the medic corps, whilst having a very sparse membership at the moment she was hoping to draw more students of medicine in so that the standard of shinobi medicine could be raised.

When I arrived at the hospital she very quickly grabbed me and pushed me into a room.

"So I hear you've figured out a solution to your Yin production levels?" She asked, she wasn't one to waste words.

I confirmed I had and laid out what I had in mind with a copy of the seal I had created layed out on her desk, she took two moments to look at it before turning to me.

"I hear you're a sealmaster so usually I'd defer to you in this area - I'm no master of seals myself. But since you'd probably push ahead no matter the risks I thought ahead a little and brought someone with a more independent eye."

Tsunade gestured to the windows where, crouched and wearing his trademark grin, Jiraiya was stood.

"How's it going kid?"

AN: Another suprisingly hard chapter, hopefully these get easier. Not too much action but I hope you enjoyed. See you in the next chapter.

Bonus round: Review responses part 3: Electric Boogaloo

Had some quite positive reviews recently, thanks for that, there were some reviews that indicated that a chapter wasn't any good or disappointing but didn't give a reason why which doesn't really help me preventing the same issue happening again in the future. I suspect the issue is the same issue I myself fear having never written anything longer than a few sentences - that the pace may become laborious or too quick or that characters sometimes act out of character. There was a super long review saying they couldn't get past chapter one for a bunch of questionable decisions relating to Keiko's character but most of them were explained later or in one case early on in the first chapter like Minato apologising for burning down his orphanage - it's literally the third thing Minato says to him. If you can't get through the first chapter or even fully read it I can't really help.

Someone said Hokage should be capitalised - absolutely right and at some point I'll go back and edit the chapters already done, I've made extra sure I have in this chapter. Thankyou for that.

Oh there was a great review about Keiko acting immature considering he's actually 120+ years old and not a child - this may be my fault! I have tried a few times to imply this in some places (the one springing immediately to mind being when Minato is walking Keiko to the academy) that Keiko may be old mentally but his brain is still the brain of a developing child and the chemicals going around in his brain will on occasion make him act more excitable as if he were a child but I might not have made this as clear as it should have been. As for the forgiveness stuff Keiko can see the reasoning behind why they did what they did, he's even said he might have handled the situation in a similar way, he still felt betrayed though, especially from Minato which was why he had a private word with him but Keiko feels you can't just hold onto a grudge when someone has done something you could even imagine yourself doing and then even apologising for it.