I didn't have much of a childhood. Old Man Hokage kept me safe, but I was almost always lonely. The only people who tolerated me where the Old Man, the Ichirakus and a handful of ANBU. The Old Man could only spare about an hour every week. The Ichirakus were always kind to me, but they didn't have much time for me either being busy in their ramen stand. I never saw the ANBU unless there was trouble and they never interacted with me much. Ironically, Itachi was one of the few that did. Finding out later that our moms had been best friends, I'm sure that he knew her. I'm sure the connection they had to my parents were the reason he and Kakashi looked out for me more than the others. I made a couple of friends on the playground, but they never lasted more than a day due to their parents or watchers telling them I was dangerous or bad or just keeping them away.
On a cold winter day when I was five I happened to see three older boys tormenting and pushing around girl my age. I stepped in and yelled at them to stop. They decided to pick on me instead and I took a pretty good beating. They eventually got bored and left. The girl I had saved from their bullying came out of hiding and apologized for getting me beat up. Before she could say much a young man with the same pale eyes came and took her away and without even checking to see if I was okay, only saying that I was not a proper associate for a clan heiress. Not long after the Hyuugas left the ANBU watching me appeared to make sure I was alright. He apologized but said that he didn't think it was appropriate for him to stop a playground fight. I limped home to find that someone had thrown a brick through my window. I was too worn out to do anything about it.
That night I lay on my bed shivering and feeling sorry for myself. I drifted into a waking dream and appeared in a wet sewer with a gate made out of vertical bars. A gentle voice called to me and I slipped through the bars. I met a red-haired woman with pale skin and a round face. She told me to call her Tsukiko. She comforted me and taught me how to return.
I returned most nights for the next year. She taught me to read and write and how to access and control my chakra.
After a full year, she told me she wanted to tell me her story. She said that she was one of nine chakra creature called bijuu made by the Sage of Six Paths a thousand years ago. Her real name was Kurama, but that that name was too masculine for the form she was currently using. She chose the name Tsukiko because remains of the monster she was made from was sealed into the moon. She told me that in the days of the First Hokage a proud and amoral man named Uchiha Madara had captured her in a mind-control illusion and forced her to attack the First. The First's wife, Uzumaki Mito sealed Tsukiko into herself to stop the attack. She spent many decades chained within Mito. Mito mostly ignored her.
When Mito was approaching the end of her life, she sent for her great niece Uzumaki Kushina to take her place. Tsukiko was sealed within Kushina for about two decades. Kushina sometimes used Tsukiko's chakra and Tsukiko got to interact with the world a little that way. However, after more than forty years trapped within a human, Tsukiko was bored and belligerent, so Kushina didn't like to talk to her. Eventually Kushina got married and became pregnant. When she was giving birth a masked man with a Sharingan extracted Tsukiko from Kushina and hypnotized her. Tsukiko admitted at that point to being the Kyuubi. The masked man forced her to attack Konoha. Kushina's husband, the Fourth Hokage, freed her from the masked man's Sharingan hypnosis, but by there was no way to leave quietly. She admitted that she may have been too angry by then to just leave. The Fourth and Kushina sealed her unto their newborn child, Uzumaki Naruto, at the cost of the Fourth's life. Kushina died in the process as well from wounds, exhaustion from childbirth, and having the Kyuubi yanked out of her. She admitted that she had tried to kill me in order to stop being sealed again. She said that the ignorant villagers thought that I was she which was why I was treated so poorly. She told me that the form she appeared to me in was that of my mother Kushina.
At that point she broke down into tears and begged for forgiveness and pled with me to keep visiting her because we were both lonely. I fled from my mindscape. After three days without visiting her, I found that I missed her. I decided that most of what she had done was not her fault and that she was my only real friend. I resumed my visits and she resumed teaching me. She did change her features slightly from then on saying that she wasn't trying to replace my mom, but she kept her straight red hair and added fox ears and her nine tails to her human form.
She said that bijuu chakra was too different from human chakra for her to teach me any ninjutsu or genjutsu, but she had spent enough time before being sealed in human form to teach me some taijutsu. She also had learned a substantial amount of fuuinjutsu after learning that her bijuu brethren had been sealed. She began to teach me that as well. Ironically, a lot of what she knew was Uzumaki fuuinjutsu. Since they were the premier seal masters, she had spent a lot of time in Uzushio. I paid extra attention after hearing that it was my clan's heritage and that both of my parents were seal masters.
A full year after confessing her nature to me, Tsukiko told me about a plan she had devised a long time ago, but had never trusted anyone enough to help her with. She said that the bijuu, being chakra constructs were especially susceptible to being sealed. They were also very vulnerable to the Sharingan and the Mokuton due to the Uchiha and the Senju being descended from their creator. Incidentally, the Uzumaki are also descended from the Sage of Six Paths via the Senju. She had devised a way to turn herself into a youkai, but never followed through with it because the ritual left her vulnerable to the co-participants. After having been sealed for over fifty years and having been enslaved twice she definitely wanted to do it and she trusted me. She said that the ritual needed a female and a fox in addition to me and her and that all the participants would become kitsune youkai. She said that theoretically the female and the fox could be the same, but that due to the amount of chakra she had, it would be better to have another human and two foxes.
I agreed to do the ritual and she said that I should look for a female that I trusted to help. I thought of my only female friend, Ichiraku Ayame, but Tsukiko said that any participants in the ceremony without active chakra would be regressed to infants. By this time, I had been attending the Shinobi Academy for a year and so I was acquaintances with several girls. Unfortunately they were all fangirls with one exceptions. I had, of course, recognized Hinata from our earlier encounter. She seemed fascinated with me and frequently stole glances at me. I also noticed her following me. I thought it might be because I had rescued her from the bullies, but she later told me it was because I always bounced back from any setbacks and she envied my confidence. After six months, I approached her and we became friends. After another six months I confessed to her that the reason no one liked me was because the Kyuubi was sealed inside of me. She was a little nervous, but she trusted me. Tsukiko taught me how to bring Hinata into my mindscape using seals. Hinata was very nervous, but did it. Incidentally that was the first time that Tsukiko showed me her default giant kitsune from. That was very intimidating. Two months later we let Hinata in on the plan. After some serious thought, she agreed with the caveat that we find a way to let her stay close to her sister.
By that time, I had been sneaking into the Shinobi Library and various clan libraries to find techniques. That was much easier, by the way, once Hinata started helping. All the doujutsus are "cheat mode." Tsukiko had us find chakra paper and started training us on elemental chakra. We hit a breakthrough when we found my parent's home and that it was protected by seals which let me through because I was their child. There we found the Shadow Clone Technique in my mom's notes. Tsukiko had been hoping to find it since she knew my mom used it to train and to be multiple places at once. We also found notes that allowed me to replicate my mom's chakra chains plus lots of useful fuuinjutsu notes. I also figured out how to do my dad's two signature techniques. Sorry, Baachan, you lost that bet before you made it. And yes, Ero-Sannin, it only took me a few weeks to figure it out. I actually recreated my progress while I was "learning" it with you so you can stop feeling smug about it taking me longer than you saw to learn it. Anyway, Tsukiko and I were able to figure out several fuuinjutsu that allowed me to increase the durability of a Shadow Clone, to remotely and automatically send it additional chakra, and to remotely sync memories. We also created a seal to limit the clones' abilities so that we don't accidentally Hiraishin by reflex in our clone bodies.
By the time a year had passed since we had included Hinata, we were ready. We created our persistent clones and snuck out of Konoha. I dumped three tails worth of Kyuubi Chakra into a special storage seal in my clone before we left. It's almost all used up by the way. Kind of ironic that we used most of it up "training" me how to use it, isn't it, Ero-sennin? We headed to Uzu no Kuni, since it was abandoned and isolated. We also hoped to find some hidden Uzumaki heirlooms. We caught male and female fox kits along the way. They were hard to find near Konoha-too many vindictive idiots. We completed the ritual in the ruins of Uzushio once Tsukiko had regenerated her chakra. The ritual worked perfectly. Hinata and I gained a few years in apparent age, while the others became infants. Once Tsukiko gained enough control to shapeshift, she spent most of her time our age.
On the year anniversary of becoming youkai, I asked Hinata to marry me and she accepted. Three months later we were married in a quiet village in southern Hi no Kuni under a Disguise Technique and assumed names. I snuck in later to fix the names.
There's not much more to tell you. The mission to save Gaara got me thinking. If we leaked that the Kyuubi is gone would Akatsuki stop trying to collect them? Whatever they're trying to do might be pointless without the Kyuubi. It might save some of the other jinchuuriki. It might stop them from attacking Konoha, like they did Suna, if they know we don't have a jinchuuriki anymore. I had thought of offering the ritual to Gaara, but Shukaku is too unstable and it's too late now anyway. It might be something we can trade for concessions from Kumo or one of the other villages, though.