The adoption process went smoothly, and soon after the council meeting, Naruto officially became Jiraiya's daughter. Although they were now truly father and daughter, Naruto still refused to call him 'Tou-san' to his face, only ever using the term behind his back. It was quite amusing for Arashi as the pair acted like 5-year-olds, when mentally one was over forty and the other in her mid-twenties.

There was also the problem of their individual futures differing from each other. Jiraiya obviously only remembered until he died by Pein's hands, while Naruto remembered even a decade more after that. So while Jiraiya thought her as the 15-year-old from a few days ago, for Naruto, he was a ghost from ten years ago, a faded whisper of the past.

It took some time and Naruto sharing most of her memories with the man using her special seals to get used to their memory difference, but within a week, they were back to how they had been in the future, able to read each other's thoughts by a single glance. It was quite creepy, for them to glance at the other and then hand them a scroll like they had been asked for it verbally.

It also wasn't quite awkward now that they had some age difference mentally as well.

Before the sealing, the father-daughter pair spent most of their time in Uzushiogakure's library, studying scroll after scroll of Fuuinjutsu, both of them using their utmost limit of Kage Bunshin and only sleeping the bare necessity.

After a week of being legal family, the time came for the Kyuubi no Kitsune's sealing. It went without any difficulties, and soon enough, Naruto became Kurama's official Jinchuuriki again. The past Kurama merged with the future Kurama, and the timeline finally accepted Naruto as a part of it, allowing her to rewire her seal to allow freedom to the fox again.

There was one small problem though: after the sealing, Naruto now had an extra Yin half of Kyuubi chakra in her again. Kurama's solution for that was depleting the extra chakra with a couple of Bijuudama.

Let's just say that the water surrounding the island of Uzushio was much deeper now. Also, mysteriously, the east of Uzushio now completely lacked sea life within it. The night before this was noticed, some villagers claimed they saw humongous balls of light being launched away from the island.

This became one of Uzushio's biggest unsolved mysteries, and the answer was only found around a decade layer, with Naruto unintentionally blurting the fact out when she was muddleheaded. During those ten years, rumours raked the village of a guardian spirit who purified the sea around the island every once in a while to cleanse it of evil energy and ghosts. People even named this spirit 'Uzu no Hogosha', the 'Guardian of Uzu', but that's a story for another time.

{}

Naruto sat in the Uzukage's office, hands clasped in front of her as she rested her chin on top of them, eyes cloudy and expression thoughtful. Jiraiya and Arashi were stood at her sides, both with pensive looks, eyes glued on the map in front of them.

It was a map of the Five Nations, but the part they were focused on was limited to Uzushio's borders with Kiri and Iwa only, with many scratches and circles covering the areas.

The three were currently going over every single place they thought the attack could come from, and with Jiraiya having lived through it before, albeit not participated due to Konoha's failure to realise the attack until it was over, they knew more profound details and could make more credible guesses, helping them save time by a large margin.

After some time, a glint appeared in Naruto's eyes, and her hand swept forward, a brush attached to it, marking another small area they hadn't noticed yet.

"This place as well. There's a small village located here, and they can easily take it over with five ninja due to it being a civilian village. Then they would have more resources to fight alongside achieving a small disturbance in our trading, lowering our resources."

Both men nodded in agreement, and Jiraiya opened his mouth to comment, but before he could, he was cut off by the door slamming open and a sweaty and panicked Chuunin entered the room.

"Acting Uzukage-sama, Mito-sama has passed away!"

{}

The funeral was held three days later, one which every single occupant of the village participated in. It was quite simple, leaving flowers, lowering the casket, and an honouring speech. It took merely two hours to finish, merely two hours for a woman famous for decades to be buried, but most stayed behind for some more time to pay their respects to the fallen Uzumaki legend.

As Naruto approached the photo of her deceased ancestor with a solemn look, she felt slight wetness on her shoulder. Looking up, she saw that the rain clouds had formed, and raindrops were starting to fall.

It reminded her all too much of Sandaime-jiji's funeral, she found to her morbid fascination. How fitting, for even the sky to shed tears for this legendary figure's demise. She left the white lily in her hand beneath the framed photograph where hundreds of other flowers alike lay, apathetic to her now drenched hair and clothes sticking to her skin uncomfortably.

"And yet another legend has fallen," she spoke in melancholy. From her side, she could hear the Uzumaki Royal Family grieving, but she paid them no mind.

Her eyes held no sadness, no tears spilling, for she had buried thousands of comrades, half with her own hands, and she simply bowed in respect after her quiet last words to the hero in front of her. A hero that fought battles that went down in history, who acted even more heroic than the leaders of society, who had already seen all that is to be seen.

This was the least she could do when she was the one who ended the fragile life she still held onto after many years, as when the Bijuu of a Jinchuuriki was extracted, they fell incredibly weak, most even dying. Mito had managed to hang on for a week due to her magical Uzumaki blood, but even the greatest of Uzumaki couldn't survive after losing the source of energy that kept them alive for many years, especially when they were at such an old age.

Thirty minutes later, the blonde straightened back up, spun on her heel, and walked away. Her face held no emotion and her eyes held no light, yet with every step she took, the rain lightened and lightened.

As she took her final step out of the funeral avenue, the rain completely stopped, and the sun shone once more, gently lighting up the photograph once more.

Heroes may fall, but new ones would arise.

That day, Naruto took upon her predecessor's will, and thus became the start of a legend to be remembered for thousands of years.

The legend of the Yellow Maelstrom.