"Tsunami-chan?" Kurenai said softly. "I felt your chakra spike. Are you alright?"
"Yes," Tsunami said equally softly. "Let's move away a little bit so that we can talk."
The other two genin and their clients were asleep. Tsunami did not want to wake them. When they were at enough distance that they would have little chance of waking the others, Tsunami reached out her formerly-injured hand in the dark and grabbed Kurenai's hand with it.
Kurenai gasped. "Your finger grew back!"
"Not exactly," Naruto said. "It got restored when I changed to my other form—which took a lot more chakra than normal. I was worried that my other form would also be missing a finger."
"That's great, Tsunami-chan!" her teacher said. "I was worried when I couldn't find your finger. It must have gotten caught in the Iwa nin's fire technique."
"They can reattach fingers?" Tsunami asked.
"Yes," Kurenai answered. "If they aren't too damaged and proper care is taken. I can't do it, but I could have preserved your finger for when we got back to Konoha." She paused. "What are you going to tell the others?"
"I'll tell them it's a rare healing bloodline that pops up in Uzumakis sometimes," Tsunami said. "It's more or less true. From what I can tell, my mother could do the true transformation as well due to the Fox. I expect that I'll pass on the Fox to one of my descendants when I get too old, just like Mito-obasan did to Kaachan."
"Hmm, that could work," Kurenai said. "I would, however, keep the fact that it healed hidden from our client and her staff. It's better not to have any rumors floating around. You can tell Hinata-chan and Sakura-chan when we head back to Konoha."
"Alright, Kurenai-sensei," Tsunami responded.
"Head back to bed, Tsunami-chan," Kurenai directed. "Even with the unholy amount of stamina you have, this day has been really trying for you. Get some rest."
"Okay, Sensei," she responded, heading back to her sleeping mat.
A subdued group left the campsite the next morning. Tsunami waved off any concerns about her health. She followed Kurenai's advice and wrapped up her hand so that it was hard to tell that her finger had returned.
Luckily, they were able to make it to Takimitsukeru by evening. After a brief hesitation, Kurenai directed the genin to remain outside the Daimyo's palace while she met with the Daimyo and received the remainder of the payment due Konoha.
They spent the night in a hotel in the city. Kurenai signaled that they should remain quiet about the mission and its results before sending them to bed.
The next morning, they left Takimitsukeru at the distance-eating shinobi travel pace. After they had traveled for an hour, Kurenai had them slow to a walk.
"Normally, I would have had you meet the Daimyo with me," she said. "It would be a good experience for you—especially Hinata-chan and Tsunami-chan, based on their goals and backgrounds. However, I decided that Tsunami-chan's injury would raise too many questions."
"Wouldn't it have been advantageous to gain more sympathy, Sensei?" Sakura asked.
"Normally, that would be true, Sakura-chan," their teacher replied. "However, this time. . . Why don't you show them, Tsunami-chan?"
Tsunami nodded and unwrapped the bandage on her formerly injured hand.
"How!?" Sakura exclaimed.
"I healed it through a rare Uzumaki bloodline," Tsunami said. "Not all of us have it, but it shows up every generation or two."
Sakura slammed into her and hugged her fiercely. "I'm so glad that you didn't lose your finger because of me, Tsunami-chan."
Tsunami awkwardly returned the hug. At one time, she had had a small crush on the girl as Naruto, before her attitude and fangirlish behavior had turned him off. "It's okay, Sakura-chan," she said. "Even if I couldn't have healed it, I would have done it to save one of my friends."
Sakura nodded and blinked back tears as she released her.
"Does Naruto-kun have the bloodline too?" Hinata asked.
Hesitantly Tsunami nodded. "He does, which is unusual that we both have it. Our mom had it too, but before that the last person who had it was our mom's great-great-aunt. There's no guarantee that any of our kids would get it."
"Why hide the bloodline from Taki no Kuni?" Hinata asked. "I thought Konoha liked to showcase its bloodline abilities?"
"There's a balance between showcasing talent to increase Konoha's reputation and protecting our shinobi from assassination or kidnapping—especially rookie genin," Kurenai said. "In general, policy is to hide stuff like this until our shinobi are strong enough to fight in the Chuunin Exam Finals. Sometimes it can't be helped—such as when they are members of a prominent clan, but Hokage-sama was explicit in Tsunami-chan's case because she doesn't have clan members to help protect her."
The rest of the journey passed without incident. When they arrived in Konoha, they all reported the mission to the Hokage. After the basic report was finished, Kurenai dismissed Hinata and Sakura so that they could discuss Tsunami's "bloodline" under a privacy seal.
After listening to Tsunami describe how she had recovered her finger, the Hokage thoughtfully smoked his pipe. "What are the limitations of this, Tsunami-chan? Do you know?"
"I think the only limitations are being aware enough to transform and having enough chakra," she replied.
"Do you think you could tap into the Kyuubi's chakra to do it?" the Hokage asked.
Tsunami started. "I don't know. I've never actually used the Fox's chakra." She glanced at Kurenai and decided to be circumspect. Her sensei did not know about her mom's presence in her seal. "A feature of my seal kicked in when I was five and had enough chakra to support it. This feature buffers me from the Kyuubi's chakra and influence. This is why people like the Hyuuga and the Aburame haven't twigged to the fact that I as Tsunami am a jinchuuriki. The only reason they know that I as Naruto am a jinchuuriki is that they knew me before the feature took effect."
"There was actually a minor panic when that happened," the Hokage admitted. "Some of my shinobi were afraid you had released the Kyuubi."
"Huh," Tsunami said. "I hadn't realized."
"We didn't want to alarm you," he replied. "I had Jiraiya-kun check your seal while you were asleep."
The Hokage dismissed them and Tsunami returned to her apartment after stopping by Ramen Ichiraku for her fix. Kurenai had given them three days off to recover from the mission.
The next Wednesday, Naruto attended training with Kakashi's team. As was customary, Kakashi had them do taijutsu-only sparring. As usual, Sasuke beat the other three, although this time his match with Naruto was close. Naruto and Kiba split their matches and Shino lost all of his. By early afternoon, Kakashi ended the training. Kiba and Shino both excused themselves to go do some clan training.
"You want to go again, Dead Last?" Sasuke asked after they were the only ones left.
"Sure, Jerk," Naruto responded.
Kakashi had made them promise that any extracurricular sparring they did would be taijutsu-only. He had explained that using weapons or ninjutsu while sparring unsupervised was a recipe for disaster. Naruto and the others suspected that was why most of the sparring they did in team training was taijutsu-only as well. Kakashi was too lazy to supervise them closely.
Naruto managed to eke out a win against Sasuke by outlasting him.
Sasuke lay on his back, panting, to recover. Naruto lay down next to him in order to relax.
"How were you Dead Last in the Academy?" Sasuke asked.
"You remember how I said that Mizuki sabotaged my final exam?" Naruto said. "He also sabotaged my other tests and classwork. He wasn't the only one either—the teacher I had before Iruka-sensei did it too. I'm actually as good as my sister—she's a little better in taijutsu, but I'm tougher. I probably would have graduated just slightly behind her at number five if it weren't for Mizuki and others like him."
"Why would they do that?" Sasuke asked.
Naruto hesitated. Sasuke was becoming a friend of sorts—a friendly rival, at least. The Hokage had told him he could tell others about the Kyuubi if he trusted them, but he hesitated.
Finally, he answered, "I inherited a weapon—a very powerful weapon. Hokage-jiichan tells me it belonged to my mother before me, but he won't tell me any details because he says that if I let others know, it could be a danger to myself and Konoha. The weapon is very powerful and dangerous, but can only be safely handled by Uzumaki. There was a leak when I was a few days old that let many of the adults in the village know that I had the weapon. Most of the shinobi in the village are a little wary of me because of the weapon, but they mostly treat me alright. The civilians, on the other hand, are freaked out because of some accidents that happened with the weapon in the past. They treat me like a burning explosive note about to go off. They think that if I don't become a shinobi that the weapon will be less likely to be deployed. Some shinobi are of the same opinion. Unfortunately, most of those seem to be at the Academy. Ever hear the expression, 'Those that can't do, teach?' There's a certain amount of truth to that. The weapon is utilized via a seal and that isn't a topic you need to know in order to teach at the Academy, so I don't think that many of the instructors there understand it."
Sasuke grunted. "People are stupid." After a brief pause, he asked. "So only an Uzumaki can control it? You can't duplicate it?"
"Jiichan said that only an Uzumaki can hold it long term. It would be detrimental for anyone else to try. It is one of a kind. I wouldn't know where to begin to duplicate it and would be very hesitant to try. To tell you the truth, I don't even know how to use it. It's so destructive I'm hesitant to try and figure it out."
Sasuke grunted.
"You looking for an advantage against your brother?" Naruto asked.
Sasuke grunted in agreement. After a few moments, he asked, "How did you know about that?"
"Kiba-kun told me about your response during team introductions," Naruto responded. "It wasn't hard to figure out who the man you wanted to kill was."
Sasuke grunted again.
Naruto had an evil thought. "He also said you wanted to rebuild your clan. Why haven't you gotten started at that?" He paused and then went in for the kill. "Most of the boys in class were convinced you were gay—seeing as how you ignored all the girls that were after you."
"I'm not!" Sasuke protested. "Most of the girls in class weren't worthy of pursuit."
Naruto laughed loudly.
Sasuke smirked. "The only one in our class I would consider is your sister. She and Hinata-san are the only ones that aren't worthless fangirls and Hinata-san is too shy and insecure."
Naruto stopped laughing. His dual life had left him unsure of how he felt about dating, but the idea of dating Sasuke as Tsunami turned his stomach.
Sasuke waved away his incipient protest with a grunt and said, "Don't worry about me chasing your sister or bringing down the wrath of the fangirls upon her."
Naruto interrupted him to say, "Tsunami-chan can easily handle any and all of the fangirls."
Sasuke grunted in affirmation before continuing. "I'm still too young to be thinking too seriously about dating and what comes after—too much can happen between now and when I would get married. Besides, any girl I attach myself to is likely to become a target for Itachi."
Naruto grunted in response.
The day after training with Team Kakashi, Team Kurenai resumed their normal training/mission schedule. After a week of D-rank missions, Kurenai said they were ready for their second C-rank. Kakashi had taken his squad on their first C-rank the previous day, so Tsunami did not even have to think of a way to get her as Naruto out of the next training with them.