Hello again. This is Cindy for the third chapter of Misty Vortex. Now, for those of you who actually read this, thank you, and thank you those of you who reviewed. It is much appreciated, especially since I don't want Kasumi to turn into a Mary-sue if I can help it. She's supposed to be mentally inclined, where as the bloody habanero (A.K.A: Kushina) is physically inclined. It doesn't mean that Kushina is stupid, I'm just saying she's not as smart as Kasumi is.
Now getting onto reviews.
Kani-leek-lover: glad you like the story! Yeah, Kasumi was meant to be the type to read a book more then she would want to go outside. She has already learned every seal she could, what with an adult mind? But add that with near photographic memory, and she can remember things, even if she can't make it. On the other hand, she isn't as physically strong as her sister, which balances her out. Either way Kushina and Kasumi couldn't be more different in their personalities.
Native-x: glad you liked it, and I hope you give a bit more next time. Don't get me wrong, I love the feedback, but I would appreciate reviews that tell me what I could fix. Either way, thank you, and hope to hear from you again.
Littlebirdd: yeah, I've seen that type of thing. It annoys me to no end to see Mary-sue's like that. I've stated it before, but Kasumi is going to be more mentally inclined then physically. She will still be able to travel the distance of 20-30 miles a day at Jõnin speed, but she has the mental capacity to rival a Nara. Hope that little bit of info helps.
With that done, let's get this chapter started!
Disclaimer: I own nothing except any non cannon characters, events, or items. Viewer discretion is advised.
Kasumi was now three years old and by this point she was completely independent from anything and everything when it came how she acted. She was a smart child, that much was sure, but she was an awkward one as well. This stemmed from the fact that she was more mature mentally than others her age. The biggest example of this was when people her age tried to talk to her when she went out to play with kids her age. She stood there completely unsure what to do before she grabbed a book that some of the ten year olds were having trouble reading, and she sat down in the grass under a sakura tree, the mist from the ocean rolling in as well making her seem almost like a ghost.
After that she started to get into board games as well and she didn't play anyone but the adults more than anything. As it turned out it was more her instincts that had helped that one elder beat the other before, as when she played the same Elder after she could actually talk, she lost with him not losing a single piece. Instincts could only go so far, and the fact that it made her see just how large the gap between herself and the smartest of the clan, it made her more determined to exercise her brain more than her muscles. She still worked on those as well, but she spent so much time on her brain building exercises that she was subpar compared to most Uzumaki in terms of physical fitness.
Kushina had tried many times to get her sister more involved with the Physical side of being an Uzumaki, but it never worked out in the end. The mental fatigue that she got just from playing Shogi, Go and Chess took so much energy out of the girl that if she tried doing everything that Kushina did, she would have ended up so exhausted that she wouldn't have been able to move for a couple of days. At the same time though it could end up with her almost dying from exhaustion, so the whole family stopped trying to get her to be more physical than most, as she was still better than most shinobi in the world in terms of fitness.
Take now for example, Kasumi was sitting in front of her father, the current Uzumaki clan head, with a concentrated expression. This was the seventh game that they had started in the last hour, and in the last six, she had lost all of them in 5 moves or less. From what she remembered her father was the head for a reason, and that wasn't just because he was the heir to the Uzumaki line. It was also due to the simple fact that he had managed to beat the head elder once before. It hadn't happened again, but it wasn't because of winning that he had become clan head to begin with.
Kasumi hesitantly put a hand out towards her dragon king, as she had actually managed to promote a piece, as this game had lasted longer, before she took her fingers away from it and moved one of her silver generals, and she moved it one space forward, only for her father to put his pieces into position to make it so that she couldn't move anything without endangering her king, while also having another piece in just the right place to where it couldn't be anything but Checkmate.
Kasumi's eyes roamed over the board quickly in a desperate attempt to see if there was any way out of the current predicament, before she let her head hang in depression.
Her father let out a small laugh he said "Hey hey, Don't get so depressed Kasu-chin."
Kasumi leveled a hard look at her father as she said "Otousan, you're not a teenager, quit with the "Chin" you add to my name."
Now it was her father's turn to get depressed, and just as her mother walked into the room. The redheaded woman gave a snort as she asked "What's got you depressed this time? Did Kasumi-chan beat you?"
Said redheaded girl gave a snort of her own as she said "Nah, I just called him old. He keeps adding 'Chin' to my name. He doesn't do that to Neechan."
"You're the baby. You're father didn't have all that much time to be around Kushina when she was a baby you know." Her mother stated with a soft smile "Politics and all you know."
Kasumi let out a loud groan as she looked towards her mother with big teary eyes "Please don't make me go to Obachan's 'Lady Classes' again. I can't take any more lessons on how to be a-" She stopped for a second as she straightened her back and made her voice slightly raspy "- 'Fine young lady that can be the husband of an important figure' As she puts it."
Her mother gave a quick sigh as she said "You know, I sometimes wish you weren't so smart Kasumi. Other times I look at your sister, and thank Kami that you were a quiet baby."
Kasumi let out a stifled laugh as she let a smirk crawl on her face "Just don't let Neechan hear you say that. Both me and Otousan know exactly where her temper comes from."
"Oh?" Her father suddenly stated "Does that mean that you don't have a temper either? I seem to recall a certain mature three year old that reacted violently the first time she lost to me in Shogi."
Kasumi's face lit up in embarrassment as she crossed her arms with a huff and looked away. Yes she had gotten a little upset the first time she lost... Ok a lot upset, but her dad had all but owned her the first time they played Shogi. Not one single piece had been lost by the clan head, but Kasumi on the other hand, had completely lost it as she had flipped the board upside down, with a pissed expression. From what her mother had told her afterwards, she didn't look scary despite this. Heck, if anything, she just looked cute with her angry expression. That had both embarrassed the small girl, and pissed her off even more. Enough even to be able to use the one thing that all Uzumaki woman had in their arsenal.
The Floating hair.
Anyone that knew the Uzumaki knew exactly what that entailed. When an Uzumaki woman is pissed off, there are usually a couple of levels as to how far it when. First level was just the angry expression. The next level usually entailed eyes that were completely whited out, and most people knew then and there not to piss off the woman anymore than she already was. The unlucky ones who didn't receive the Floating hair anger level that usually resulted in pain for the one they were pissed at. This was usually due to the fact that when the Uzumaki women were pissed off, they used Chakra enhanced punches to deal more pain. It was literally like they flooded the limb with Chakra and then punched anyone who was the cause of their anger.
Her punches weren't strong enough to hurt anyone as her body wasn't exactly that strong to begin with, but it was enough to know that she had inherited the infamous Uzumaki temper. Not all of the Clan had such fiery tempers, but a good number of them did. Kasumi was one of the rare ones that had both the mental aptitude of a planner, and the temper of the Uzumaki. It wasn't due to her temper that she lost her match's though, but her temper did cause her to get into trouble after the matches were don't.
Later that night, Kasumi was thinking over everything that had happened so far as she could remember. The first was that she seemed almost aware of her birth, as she remembered the day after she was born as well. There was also the fact that she didn't right away recognize the language that her parents had started to talk when she was born. Baby's didn't have that problem most of the time though, she didn't know exactly what it was.
Kasumi froze for a second as she felt a pain go through her forehead, before a memory played in her head.
A girl with brown hair and grey eyes was at a stove cooking some eggs with an almost blank expression on her face, with almost no emotion showing in her eyes. Behind her were two people. One of them was a man in a suit, or what was left of a suit. His white dress shirt was stained and from the smell, the stains were due to him being drunk. Across from him was a woman with brown hair just like the girl, and grey eyes as well.
The girl flipped the eggs a few more times, before moving them onto a plate and setting them in front of the two adults in front of her. She didn't make a move from where she was, her emotionless gaze just staying right where it was, as if she was waiting for something.
Eventually the man picked up a fork and took a bite of the egs, only to spit them out right away, and turn towards the girl, an ugly sneer on his face "I said sunny side up and lightly spiced! You can't do one thing right can you?!"
The girl didn't respond right away, but she eventually did with an equally dead tone "I'm sorry father, I will make you more if you do not want them."
The man stood up and got in her face, never hitting her though "I don't want more you idiot! I want you to do things right!"
The whole time the man was yelling at the girl, the woman at the table didn't say anything as she elegantly ate her food, a regal look on her face even. The whole time, however, the man continued to yell at the girl, not even bothering to care that the neighbors could hear everything, but they couldn't prove anything so the girl was stuck with this treatment.
"Are you going to answer me you idiot?!" The man yelled, spit flying onto her face in the process.
She didn't react right away once again, but once again she eventually did with an almost dead tone "Again i am sorry father, I will make you more so you do not have to-" The girl was interrupted by a loud crack filling the air.
Kasumi shook her head as the memory ended, but she was left with chills down her spine when she realized that those memories shouldn't have been her's. She didn't know where those memories even came from, but she knew that it had scared her. Being a mature child or not, she was still a child and she didn't know a lot about the harshness of the world. Her mother had even stated that she didn't want her children to know the harshness yet.
Shivering once again, Kasumi got up from her bed and she traveled through the house trying to find her parents room, but she stopped when she heard her mother's voice say "I don't care! Why do we have to send both of our children there? There are other children that have the same chakra!"
One of the elder's voices was heard afterwards as he said "The main family has stronger blood than any other Uzumaki, Kuina. You know this."
Kasumi's mother let out a growl as she said "I don't care! You expect me to willingly give up not one, but two of my children to them? You must be crazier than Uchiha Madara was!"
Another old voice, this one female, gave a disapproving sound as she said "Kuina. You must understand that should such a beast actually be free, there is nothing stopping it from coming to just outside our village and killing everyone just because no one could contain it."
Kuina stayed silent for a few seconds, before her shaky voice, Indicating she was crying, said "I'm sorry. Its just... Their my girls. My only children, You can't expect me to be alright with it ok? I'm going to miss them so, so much when they leave. I understand that one of them will be the backup in case something goes wrong, but I just hope to see them again afterwards."
Kasumi didn't know exactly what was going on, but she knew enough to know that she wasn't welcome here, so she walked back to her room, and then took a right instead of a left, bringing her into her sister's room. Said sister was dead asleep, snoring even, as Kasumi walked in and climbed into the bed with her sister. Kushina jolted awake at this, though when she saw her sister, she gave a soft look.
"Imouto. Is everything ok?" Kushina asked with a bleary look and tone.
Kasumi buried her head into Kushina's longer red hair as she said, loud enough so Kushina could hear "Nightmare."
Kushina stared at her little sister for a few seconds trying to remind herself that even if her younger sister was more mature, she was still a kid and was prone to nightmares just as much as adults. Of course due to this, the older redhead hugged Kasumi to comfort her, and not to long after that they both fell asleep.
Despite what Kasumi had said, Kushina knew that it wasn't due to a nightmare. Her little sister was never this shaken up due to a nightmare. She was shaken up, that much was true, but never to the point that she was trembling in her sister's arms. Kasumi was always the more mature of the two of them, and the fact that she was scared, that meant that something horrible had happened, and that scared her even more. Kushina would never admit it, but she was a lot more scared of things than her sister was, and that alone was enough to cause her to worry about what it was.
Kasumi looked up towards her sister with tired eyes, before she mumbled out "Promise you won't ever leave me?"
Kushina, despite being only two years older, knew that there were some things that you couldn't promise, and this was one of them. With a barely hidden grimace, Kushina said "Kasumi, I ca-"
"Promise me. Promise you wont leave me." Kasumi said with barely restrained fear in her voice, causing Kushina to look towards her sister with a soft expression.
"I promise Imouto. I wont leave you." Kushina said with a tone that showed that she was going to do whatever she could do to keep the promise. Being a Kunoichi was a dangerous business though, and she knew that there were things that could lead to her death, but she was going to be damned before she didn't try to keep her promise.
Kushina had expected Kasumi to say something else after that, but instead she found that her sister was sleeping soundly. A small smile graced the features of the older sibling, before she fell asleep as well, both of them hugging each other that showed just how close they really were. This was the scene that both of the parents found their children in a few hours later when they went to check on them, and it brought a smile to their faces.
Well, thats pretty much it for this chapter, you can expect to find the next chapter soon, so I hope you like it when it gets to that point. Thanks for reading!