It's Tuesday! I hope you like it. I may not have an update next week, things are crazy at work right now. But I'll be back with an update on 1/3/23!
"This is going to suck isn't it?" I ask Kairi and Ichika as I look down at my finished Calavera. My hands are firmly in my pockets. My thumb idly runs along my prayer beads on my right side. Uzu rituals are soothing to me.
Even though almost all of them are related in some way to death.
"It might, everyone's experience is different," Kairi says. "But the longer you put it off the more anxious you will be, and you should have a clear head for this, Kikuko."
"I know," I mumble as I pull my hands from my pockets. I reach out and grab my new mask before I carefully place it over my face.
"Be careful, Kikuko. Come back home to us." I bite my lip and nod. Kairi explained the dangers of this. That there's a chance that I'll be stuck in Yomi and unable to come back to the world of the living.
But the risk is worth it if I can save one of my precious people.
As soon as my mask is locked into the correct position, I no longer see Kairi through the eye holes.
At first, all I see is darkness. My right hand moves on its own, diving into my right pocket and wrapping around my prayer beads. I take a deep breath as I run my thumb over each bead with each breath I take.
After fifty breaths a woman appears in front of me.
"It has been some time since a living mortal has come to Yomi," she says. Her voice is warm, welcoming. But her eyes are sharp. Her black hair flows freely down her back. She wears a white, ornate kimono with gold accents. This is Izanami.
I carefully rest on my knees as I bow before her, pulling my hand from my pocket to rest below my head.
"You may rise, child." She says and I stand up slowly. When I look up at her again, the area around us has changed. We're in the mask workshop, but Kairi and Ichika aren't here. Instead, the room is filled with people with bright red hair working and moving around us.
But none of this looks real. It's like I'm looking at everything through a filter that shadows the world.
Izanami smiles at me when the thought crosses my mind.
"I did not think I would ever see another Calavera, but here you stand," she murmurs. "Who are you?"
"Uzumaki Kikuko, Yondaime Uzukage and Princess of Whirlpool." The woman in front of me raises an eyebrow as she tilts her head slightly.
"You guided your people home," she says after a moment. "And gave me a lot of work at once. Do you know how much paperwork I had to fill out to send so many people to the pure lands at once?"
"No, but I'm sure it was a lot. I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm glad they could make their choice." A choice to go to the Pure Lands or stay in Yomi. Yomi isn't inherently bad or good, you just continue life in the same world, just in a different plane. It allows you glimpses of your original plane in death to keep up with loved ones.
But you can't make the choice to go to the Pure Lands if your soul is still tethered to the living world in some way. And in the case of those from Uzushiogakure, not being buried properly is the tether to the living world.
"At least you're honest," the woman in front of me laughs. "Despite the paperwork you forced upon me, you will be granted two favors for your work as a child. You honored your ancestors, and you honored the shadows." I open my mouth to ask her about the shadows but she cuts me off.
"You also will gain two more favors, one for your upkeep of the shrines to your ancestors and myself. The other is for your commitment to your rituals. When many first encounter the darkness they scream. You went to your prayer beads."
"Now," she says after a moment, "why did you create your mask?"
"To protect my precious people," I say instantly. Naruto's ninja way has rubbed off on me.
"Hm," she hums. "The deer was right."
"The deer?"
"Giving the seemingly obvious answers while not giving me the real answer at all." She repeats the words Ren said to me when I first got to Uzushiogakure.
"But I do want to protect my precious people, Jashinists target Uzumaki 'ttbane!"
"That was not the first thing you thought of when you were told what a Jashinist does," she says as she sits down on one of the mask workbenches.
"I, well-" my cheeks heat up.
"Speak," she says.
"It pissed me off ya know? The universe works on the basis of equivalent exchange, you can't trade innocent souls for your own gain 'ttbane!" The woman across from me smiles.
"I look forward to meeting you again, Uzukage-sama," the woman says. "Your toll is paid and your mask is active. All you need is to place a drop of blood from the one you wish to seal on the center of the storage seal."
I try to say something but my knees hit the floor. When I look up again I'm back with Kairi and Ichika. The world seems almost too bright now.
"Did you eat anything?" Kairi asks
"No," I roll my eyes when I take off my mask. "I wasn't offered food, either."
"Good," Kairi nods. I smile a little as I look at the seagull. Always the worrywart. Besides, if I ate in Yomi, I probably wouldn't even make it back to the land of the living.
"My mask is good and ready to go," I say as I put it in a storage seal on my right forearm. It's tiny and I hope to hide it with a tattoo the next time I'm in Kumo. Maybe I can get a marigold. "I was also given four favors."
"Four?" Kairi screeches.
"Uh, yes?" I look over at Ichika to see whether or not that's a good or a bad thing, but she looks as shocked as Kairi.
"For what?" Kairi demands before I can ask what's going on.
"For honoring my ancestors, for honoring the shadows, for taking care of the shrines, and because I went to my prayer beads when I was in the darkness instead of screaming."
"Only you, Kikuko," Ichika shakes her head.
"What?" I ask as I move from resting on my knees to sitting on the floor and stretching out my legs. "And what did she mean by honoring the shadows?"
"It's common to get one favor, uncommon to get two, but to get more than two on your first encounter," Kairi shakes her head. "You're just as unpredictable as your brother."
I throw out my hand and give her a peace sign. She just sighs.
"And the shadows?" I ask again.
"The Nara clan is connected to Izanami-sama, although their connection is different than that of the Uzumaki," Ren says. I look over to see the deer walking into the room. I smile and rush over to hug him, he laughs and nuzzles the side of my head, careful to not hurt me with his antlers.
"Is the connection to the shadows?" I ask him as I pull away. "Everything looked a bit darker in Yomi."
"It is," he nods. "But I can't explain further until you've married into the clan."
"Not you, too!" I whine. All the summons laugh at me, but I can't even fake anger. I'm too happy to still be alive and here with them to care about their teasing.
"You can learn the basics of Bomba, but no one can teach you steps to follow," the words from Ena, a distant cousin in my dance classes, come to the front of my mind. I look down at dad's kunai.
Sword of shinobi's love.
Dad's and Tobirama's Hiraishin both relied on the symbols they used on their kunai. Tobirama's make no sense, which is not surprising at all. The man was paranoid as hell so it doesn't surprise me that he would find a way to put something so essential in a jutsu like this in a code.
"Wait," I say out loud as I trace dad's kunai.
"Hmm?" Ichika asks from my lap.
"I think I might have figured it out?" I squeak.
"You were supposed to be resting," Kairi deadpans from her spot on her perch in the living room. Soma snickers from beside her.
"Solving elite jutsu off the top of her own head is resting for Kiku-chan," he says. I stick my tongue out at him before turning back to the kunai.
"The Hiraishin, it's more like a summoning contract than the shunshin, right?"
"Right," Kairi nods.
"In the summoning contract, the blood that runs through the summoner is what allows the summons to come to their exact location when they call for them."
"That's right," Soma nods emphatically.
"So whatever is used as the seal for the Hiraishin needs to be what ties the user to this world and this dimension! How did I not see this before?"
"What?" Kairi deadpans.
"Tobirama mainly used codes for things essential to village and personal security," I say as I pull a blank kunai out of the bag dad gave me. I've yet to actually write on a single kunai. I was too afraid before. "He obviously wouldn't want someone to know what he valued the most, especially when he was Hokage! It could be a threat to village security."
"But your father's is easily understood," Kairi murmurs as she looks over one of the kunai. "It literally says 'Sword of a shinobi's love.'"
"But they'd think it was dad's love for the village! It's not that at all!"
"How is it not that? He was Hokage-"
"You've never read Jiraiya-ojisan's book and it shows 'ttbane!"
"I've been too busy keeping you alive brat!"
"Love you too, Kairi. The main point of Jiraiya's book is that the main character, Naruto, stops the cycle of hatred in the world!"
"Jiraiya includes that in his porn?" Soma asks as he tilts his head.
"His first book isn't porn!"
"Mmhm and why were you reading Icha-"
"Soma!" I hiss as I look at the seagull. He looks so proud of himself as Kairi sighs and Ichika cackles in my lap.
"What I'm saying is that dad's seal, it's meaning isn't tied to his love for Konoha, it's tied to his belief that every action a shinobi does should be done out of love. That if shinobi started to look at the world through the lens of their love for their fellow shinobi that they could stop the cycle of hatred to bring peace."
"That's," Kairi pauses, "highly idealistic."
"It was dad's ninja way 'ttbane!" I sigh as I look down at the blank three pronged kunai in front of me. "He wouldn't have that ninja way if it wasn't for his experiences in this life, he wouldn't have it if he wasn't the student of Jiraiya-oji or if he didn't grow up in one war just to fight in another."
"What are you saying, Kikuko?" Ichika asks as she moves her head from my lap.
"I'm saying that dad's ninja way, the words he used on the kunai, could only tie him to his dimension, because in other dimensions and other times, things change." I pause to take a breath. "And that means that only he could use those kunai. Or someone close enough to him that knows the meaning and knows the inner workings of the Hiraishin could use that kunai. The only people that could've been would be me, Naruto, mom, and maybe Jiraiya if he wasn't out spying all the time!"
"Oh," Soma says after a minute. "That actually makes a lot of sense."
"And it was so obvious this entire time!" I whine as I drop my head on the table in front of me. "But now I have to do all the mental gymnastics about my life and my trauma before I try out this stupid jutsu!"
"Just don't dive too far into your mindscape and you'll be fine," Kairi says as she fluffs her feathers.
"Sí, sí." I say as I close my eyes. I try to focus on things that make me, well, me. I think of my connections to mom, dad, and Naruto. I could put something that represents each of them.
But a part of me hopes that there's a dimension out there where we're all together. Alive, and happy. Maybe we're even able to leave Konoha to visit Abuelo, Abuela, and tía Kahana.
My mind goes back to my time in the academy. Lunches spent under a large Konoha tree with Shikamaru as we played shogi and watched Naruto, Sasuke, and Choji play ninja around us.
I think of dinners with our Anbu team, all of us crowded in our tiny kitchen as we struggled to cook something somewhat decent.
My time with Jiji in the fuinjutsu room also flashes in front of my eyes. I think of his pipe and the smoke that billowed out of it as he focused on his seals. The sounds of brush moving against paper or tapping against an inkwell are some of the only sounds that still ground me to this day.
I remember Jiji looking down at me, so proud when he said that he believed that I would return to Uzushiogakure.
The looks on Minoru, Reiji, and Sensei's faces when I told them I was going to come to Uzushiogakure. Their unwavering confidence in my abilities.
I remember the first time I stepped through the barrier into Uzushiogakure.
The darkness of the wave crashing over the barrier before the island came back to life.
Mom's laughter on the wind.
Signing the summoning contract with Ichika, her pouncing on me as soon as I summoned her for the first time.
The footsteps of the deer as we walked through the forest to get mom's scroll. Ren and Ai brushing against my shoulders with each step. Feeling at one among the large group of deer.
Meeting my cousins for the first time, the coffee they gave me filling me with warmth.
Training with Bee-sensei, finally using lightning with my swords for the first time.
Quiet mornings with Kisame on the docks as I recovered from my run-in with Root agents.
Learning bio fuinjutsu over the last week and finally feeling like an Uzushiogakure shinobi.
Dedicating myself to the village during my coming of age ceremony.
Dedicating myself to myself in both of my ceremonies.
Learning that I had been nominated for the Uzukage title by my brother, cousin, and elders.
Wearing the Uzukage hat for the first time.
I sigh as I raise my head up from my arms. I slip all the kunai back in their bag. I pat Ichika's head in my lap and she moves it so she's laying on the floor instead. I carefully stand from the small table in the living room and grab my kunai bag before I head towards the front door of the house.
I slip on my sandals and soon I'm walking through the dirt paths of Uzushiogakure. I can sense that Kairi is the only one to follow me, Soma was half asleep as I passed them on their perch.
Soon I'm at the top of the Uzukage tower, standing in my office. It's fairly empty like the Hokage's office in Konoha. There's a desk in the center of the room with a deep blue chair behind it. To the side of one of the many windows in the room behind the desk is a perch for both Soma and Kairi.
The door to the hidden office is once again hidden by a genjutsu seal behind a painting of the mountains that surround part of the island. There's more hidden seals throughout the room. Some are defensive. Some are offensive. Some are for simple things like storing extra supplies.
One is storing a fuinjutsu table and supplies. It lives under the windows behind the Uzukage's desk, right between Soma and Kairi's perches. I see Kairi fly to her perch out of the corner of my eye as I place my hand over the hidden seal.
Soon the fuinjutsu table with its matching cushion appears in the room. This table is more advanced than the others, it's made with the same charred wood as the ones in the mask workshop in the storage temple. I put my bag of kunai on the top of the table before I turn around and open the second drawer of the large desk in the room.
I pull out two small boxes before I turn back around and sit on the cushion at the fuinjutsu table. One box is a simple plastic. I open it and soon a brand new pipe sits in my hand. It's a dark wood like Jiji's was, although instead of having black accents, they're a deep azure color.
I put the pipe down on the table in front of me before I focus on the next box. It's made of light wood. I open it and see the tobacco inside of it. I spend the next couple of minutes awkwardly putting tobacco in the pipe before I light it.
I don't cough after my first puff of the pipe like I thought I would. I take a few more puffs of the pipe and feel the smoke burn my eyes slightly.
It takes me right back to the fuinjutsu room in the basement of the Hokage tower in Konoha. Back to my foundations of learning fuinjutsu. I breathe in the smoke once again before I turn my attention to the fuinjutsu table in front of me.
I hover my hand above some of the storage seals and a couple of seconds later there's a pen and brush organizer, ink well, and blank tags that sit on the back part of the table. I pull one of dad's kunai out of my pouch and sit it down on the left side of the table before I pull one of the blank kunai out and place it in the center of the table.
I reach for a brush and dip it in the permanent black ink and take another deep breath of smoke before I let it out the side of my mouth. I continue to hold the pipe in my mouth with my teeth as I draw the first part of the new seal on the blank kunai handle.
I've modified seals in the past. Combined seals, too. I made my earth seal on the palm of my hand.
But I've never made my own seal from scratch like this. My earth seal was based in elemental fuinjutsu theory. It had all the elements of what a seal of that type should have. This is my first time making a seal up on my own.
At the top of the handle I write the kanji for smoke. The element that reminds me the most of my early fuinjutsu training.
Below that I write the kanji for water, my primary elemental nature.
Under that I draw the mountains that are at the center of my earth seal. My connection to Ichika is just as strong as my connection to Kairi and Naruto. My time in the mountains training are some of my fondest memories of my first few months in Uzu.
Next I write the kanji for wind. The next part of my dedication to Uzu and my second elemental nature.
Under wind, I draw the symbol of Uzushiogakure. "I dedicate myself to the whirlpools. Unrelenting and all consuming. May they bring me comfort in times when I have lost control. May they carry me home in this life as they have the last."
The memory of my coming of age ceremony comes easily and fades after I finish the whirlpool. Not only will the whirlpool represent my tie to the whirlpools, but it also represents my tie to the village.
Under the whirlpool, I draw a symbol that reminds me of the other village I have ties to.
I draw an antler. The Nara practically raised me and Naruto. On nights when I struggle to calm down my racing heart after a nightmare, my mind often goes to the quiet we found in the Nara forest. I don't know what I would do without their love and support.
Just as I don't know what I would do without Ren and Ai. The two summons have been a rock for me. A steady reminder of the bonds I keep with Konoha. But more important than that, they are a reminder of loyalty.
Under the antler I quickly write the number twenty. I continue to struggle to feel like a member of the Nara family and a member of our Anbu team's family. But my team was the place I felt accepted, loved. No matter how far apart we are, I still feel Reiji and Oda-sensei's chakra through the bracelet Sensei gave us.
At the bottom of the handle, under the twenty, I draw a single line that curves in two spots. It looks like a bird flying in the distance.
Without Kairi's steady presence I would not have survived my own darkness in the months and years after I arrived here in Uzushiogakure. She is the one who sits with me when I can't sleep. The one who goes with me on each of my nightly walks. The one who listens to my ideas and knows me better than myself.
I move the brush back to its holder as I wait for the ink to dry.
"To someone who doesn't know you, this would look much like Tobirama's," Kairi says as she looks down at the kunai in front of me.
"I still think he was a paranoid bastard," I say before I take one last breath of smoke. I cough for the first time when I hear Kairi's next words.
"You say that, but I'm sure if you were born in another time you'd end up with him instead of Shikamaru."
"What?" I cough. Kairi cackles.
"You have a type, mija."
"He looked nothing like Shika!"
"Suffering geniuses with zero emotional intelligence," she deadpans.
"You're so mean to me," I whine as I stand from my place at the fuinjutsu table. I rest my pipe on the table as I grab my newly finished kunai. There's no point in arguing with Kairi.
Especially when she's right.
I walk out of the tower with Kairi cackling on my shoulder as we walk down one of the main streets of Uzushiogakure. I stop at the first training grounds, a small clearing with a creek running on one side and trees surrounding the other sides.
"This is either going to go great or horribly wrong," I say as Kairi flies to one of the low hanging branches.
"I believe in you, Kiku-chan," Kairi says. Her voice is warm, a tone she rarely uses. Warmth fills my body at her confidence as I look down at my kunai. I take a deep breath, channel chakra through the kunai, and throw it at a tree across the clearing.
Everything moves too fast and all at once.
I'm surrounded by darkness for a moment, it reminds me briefly of shadow walking. I feel like I'm flying. But then there's a bright light and I'm suddenly hitting the ground hard. The world spins around me as I open my eyes. It's blurry, but I can see that I'm across the clearing from where I was a second ago.
Kairi laughs freely and I turn my head from her, bend over, and puke into the bushes.
She starts laughing even louder. And after I've had my mini pity party, I join her as I pull my kunai from the trunk of the tree. This is going to take some getting used to.