Disclaimer: The characters are Masashi Kishimoto's property, I own the OCs.

Characters age:

Akane: 7 (40)

Itachi: 7 (23)

Shisui: 10

Naruto / Sasuke: 1 - 2

Kakashi: 15

"I'm off for a week." Itachi raised his head at that. They were at their spot; it was the second week of summer vacation, and she was leaving?

"Where?"

"Uzushio with Kushina-san." She touched her stomach. "She knows now and is taking me there to dig up some information."

"Do you know more?"

"I can't talk about it." He frowned. Wasn't he involved in that? "Look, if I find something about why you're here, I'll let you know. When it comes to me…I don't know everything, and it's a clan secret."

"The Uzumaki clan is not really active anymore," he countered quietly. It was too big of a subject for her to keep secrets.

What if there were side effects and she didn't tell him about it? How could he help her then?

"Have you told me every Uchiha secret?"

"It's different." She sniffed; her arms crossed.

"You're a hypocrite." He clicked his tongue, looking away. He was, in a way but… "I don't want to fight now. We're leaving, so you might see a lot of Naru. Get prepared to run after him, and Sasuke."

"Noted." She leaned her face toward him.

"Are you upset with me?" He shrugged. He kept repeating to himself that if Akane wasn't saying anything, then it was not that bad. "Itachi, really?"

"Can you at least tell me if it's dangerous or not?"

"Not that I know." He sighed and looked back at her.

"I'm not…upset. I'm not pleased either."

"I have to go." She stood up but kept her eyes on him. He raised a brow at her.

Then, she knelt next to him and kissed his cheek before running away. The Uchiha put his hand on his cheek and didn't fight the blush creeping up his cheek. His child body did not react the way he wanted it to when it came to affection from Akane, he was nervous regarding puberty. But ,except for one hug, Akane and him had not really shared any physical gestures of affection.

He had not felt her lips on his skin in two years, and even if they were children, his heart was still beating wildly in his ribcage. If Akane kissed him then…did it mean she loved him again?

No, he couldn't allow himself to think that, or he might be disappointed later on. He wanted a strong friendship, where they could talk and rely on each other. It was the priority, and then, he would ask her on a real date when the foundations were solid enough.

As Akane had said, Naruto spent quite a lot of time at his house. Him and Sasuke were playing, and he was there to watch over them. He didn't mind though. Naruto had been there for Sasuke when Itachi couldn't, when Sasuke didn't want anyone. Having them build their friendship earlier was good, and Sasuke wouldn't be lonely.

As expected, Naruto ran away. Itachi went after him, Sasuke behind him. He could have caught the kid quickly, but if he ran around then he would be tired and would sleep.

"I agree with Minato," he heard his mother say in his father's study.

"So do I, but you know like me the majority won't. They see the police force as the only power we have in the village and they're not ready to give it up." The police force?

"But Minato is right in saying everyone should be involved in Konoha's protection. We should find a way to open it to all shinobi and kunoichi starting the rank of chuunin." He heard her move. "And the police would be more efficient if it opened up."

"I know Mikoto, but as I said…well, Minato is working on a way for us to be more included in the village before doing this." His father took a deep breath. "What he told me regarding the Kyuubi attack cannot be known by the clan, at least not yet."

Itachi left swiftly when he noticed Naruto was about to fall from the engawa. He caught him, grabbed Sasuke and left just as his father opened the door, looking on both sides.

He sighed when they were in Sasuke's bedroom. He was sadly not surprised his kinsmen were angry once more about how they were treated. He had been taunted by Tenma already, and Izumi had scared them off once more. He had been too focused on seeing him alive to care about what he was saying. And, it wasn't as if it was wrong. An Uchiha was behind the Kyuuba Attack, just not a member of the village.

Madara was another issue he could not deal with right now. Depending on how things would go, he would face him when he'd lurk around the Compound but until then…if he didn't show up, he wouldn't go look for him.

Later that week, he met up with Shisui and asked him what was happening in the clan meetings.

"You would be included in them if you were a genin," Shisui replied, throwing a kunai with a harsh glint in his eyes.

"Shisui," Itachi simply said, not hiding he was annoyed with him.

"Come on, you sound like a thirty-year-old scolding his kid when you say my name like that!" Shisui complained. "Seriously, it is as you could expect. People are mad about the way they're treated by the villagers. What is funny is that they don't talk about how they're sometimes straight-up rude for no reason." The older Uchiha sighed. "Maybe it is a blessing in disguise that you're not in the meetings yet. They make me lose hope sometimes."

"Don't." Shisui looked down at him. Itachi had clenched his fists by his sides, a determined frown and gaze on his face. "We'll change their mentality." Shisui poked him on the forehead.

"Never change Itachi. You need to keep a positive goal to have positive changes, right?"

He should graduate soon. He didn't want to, but it would be for the best for the clan. It was Minato, he would know how to use Itachi in a way to hopefully appease everyone. His youth and charisma had charmed the whole village after all.

Itachi would be happy to be his pawn if it meant saving his clan, for real this time.

"On a more serious note, how long are you going to stay at the Academy? We both know you could graduate if you wanted to." He shrugged. "You know, if you start having faith in your relationship with our Uzumaki friend, you'd see you can graduate." He glared weakly at Shisui. "Don't give me that look. You're crushing on her and she's crushing on you, it will be fine." He blinked.

"She is?" Shisui laughed and Itachi hid his smile behind his collar.

"Yes, she is! Congratulations, you're going to have a girlfriend way earlier than me." Shisui smiled at him. "More seriously, you guys look like you've known each other for even longer than you and me, give this some credit." Well, he had been in regular contact with Akane for seven years now, which was longer than with Shisui.

"I wanted to wait until she graduated too," he admitted to Shisui. He sighed.

"Yeah, I figured. However, Akane can kick a lot of butts too, so I don't think you, or even I, must worry about her until she's a chuunin." It was true, Akane wouldn't struggle with genin missions. She was training a lot more with Kakashi-san than them after all.

Shisui was right. He could graduate now and his relationship with Akane would be just fine. He did not want to spend less time with her though, and the Academy was a good way to see her often. Not only that, but her life was different from before.

As in, before, she had told him he was the only important thing she had in her life, so when he'd be over, she'd make sure to spend as much time as possible with him. He enjoyed it, a lot, to feel important to someone. No matter the reputation and the crimes, he had found one person who wanted him around as much as possible, which he had not had in years. Now she had other people, and even if it was selfish and possessive of him to think it, he was not the center of her world anymore.

It was good. It meant her life was a lot more balanced and that their relationship, no matter how sad it had been making him feel since he realized it, would be less toxic than before.

He had to let her exist on her own so that they could have a good, healthy relationship later on, without the need to get in a bubble closed to the outside world.

That night, when he lay down in bed, he took the decision that graduating would be the best for everyone, including him. He was itching to go back on missions and actively be a part of Konoha again.

"I don't think Kakashi is necessary Minato." Minato-san looked at her, then me as we were at the gates. Then, he looked at his student.

"Do not let them get out of your sight." Kakashi gave him a thumbs-up.

"Minato!"

"I mean, convincing him was hard enough Kushina-san, let him have some peace of mind with sending Kakashi with us," I told her, done with her not being happy to be sent with a bodyguard. "He'd come himself if he could."

"Thank you!" Kushina-san narrowed her eyes at me, and I hid behind Kakashi. "You know why I am acting this way." She sighed and leaned forward, cupping Naru's face in her hands.

"I know Minato, it is just…frustrating." She kissed her son on the forehead and straightened up. "We'll be back in a week top." He nodded and Kushina-san kissed him on the cheek.

"Is Naruto going to have a baby sibling?" I asked Kakashi innocently, the couple turning beet red.

Kushina-san glared at me, knowing I was not innocent, that I knew how babies were made and I was just enjoying making fun of her. Huh, she would turn as red as her hair, it was funny to see.

"We're off now!" We left, Kushina-san waving at both her husband and baby boy above her shoulder.

Once we were out of view, she punched me on the head. I cradled it, looking up at her with tears in my eyes. She didn't even hold back against me!

My relationship with her had changed. I felt better not having to beat around the bush and pretend I was a kid around her, thus at the house most of the time as Minato-san was working as the Hokage. Doing Fuinjutsu together was a lot better and stimulating than…ever before. I meant, before before. I had not done Fuinjutsu with another Uzumaki, or Seal Master, since Harusame-san in Kiri, and Mom. If anything, I felt like I had a new perspective on everything, and the same went with her.

She did not like my comment on how her work was…old-school. She was twenty-six, it was understandable but still…she didn't like it.

We were becoming real friends and not just relatives. She still saw herself as my aunt and told me it would not change because Yuurei or not, she was born before me. But it was more a relationship you'd have between two adult relatives than one child and one adult.

She was way too happy picking outfits for me to annoy me.

We reached the beach after four hours spent traveling, Kakashi carrying me because I was not fast enough. I was doing my best to train my body, but stamina and muscles and anything that made you good at taijutsu took time and regularity. Kakashi would say I was quicker than an Academy student or genin. It was nothing next to my old speed and I hated it.

"Is there somewhere we can get a boa…" Kushina-san unsealed one, interrupting Kakashi. "I should have known."

"Come on, on board kids." We did and Kushina-san gave the oars to Kakashi. He followed Kushina-san's instruction, her eyes becoming more and more distant.

I leaned against her without a word. I heard her breathe out before she put her arm around me. At some point, as an island was visible in the distance, she told Kakashi to stop. She left to inspect a rock coming out of the sea and came back.

"There used to be a barrier around the island," she explained as we were moving once more. "I checked if it was really gone."

We were on the boat for maybe an hour and a half before reaching the shore. The beach was quiet and deserted, only the waves and the seagulls above us were making some sounds. I was even afraid of speaking because the silent was so deafening and…solemn.

"Kushina-san, should we go check on that thing?" I raised a brow at Kakashi while she nodded.

"Yes, I'm going to check if it is still locked up."

"What are you talking about?" I looked at Kakashi, confused. "You've been here before?" He looked down.

"You don't remember?" I shook my head. "Later then." I followed them, looking around.

Uzushio was not as big as Konoha nor Kiri, but it was big nonetheless. The old harbor was in the center of the village in a cove. The water was clear, you could see old sunken ships at the bottom of the sea, one having its highest mast shyly poking through the still water. The old, traditional houses around the harbor, some of them on stilts with boat garages, had clearly been pillaged. The few of them still having a roof had, sometimes, old, crusty blood that had sunk so deeply in the wood that it had stained it. As we walked deeper in the ghost village, I kept an eye on Kushina-san. On the outside, she was keeping a cool head.

It was still her hometown though.

We made a right turn at a crossroad, the Uzumaki whirlpool visible at the top of the stairs in the distance. The houses became rare and we reached the inside of a cliff that had been used by men before. There was a white stone archway, the right side missing, and then a stone door in the cliff.

The most shocking was the blond woman in front of it though.

"Tsunade-sama." She perked up and turned around, a teenage Shizune-san next to her.

"I thought you'd be here before me Kushina," the Sannin replied, her hands on her hips. Damn, her boobs really were…big. "Anyway, the way to the Eien Hansen is still solidly locked up." What now? On our right and left, there were other doors but destroyed, the inside out of reach.

I looked around and a purple spot attracted my eyes. I trotted around to it and picked it up. It was a doll, a ragdoll, with a purple dress, foam coming out of her head on the right as it was torn.

I gulped and clenched my hands on the doll.

I knew it.

It was mine. I sniffed as Kakashi crouched behind me.

"Dad took me here," I whispered to him. "I…I didn't remember."

"It's okay," he replied gently. When he stood up, he stretched out a hand to me. I took it without hesitation, keeping the old and disgusting doll against me with my other arm.

My parents fled the Hidden Mist due to the Third's regime when I was one and settled down in the Land of Hot Waters. It was the Third War though, there were a lot of battles in this country, but we were…happy, and a family. My brother was sick, the same thing Itachi had before, but still a prodigy, and strong, and smart. I had few memories of him, but I remembered loving him and admiring him. My dad, in the little memories I had, was a loving and funny dad.

This picture had been tarnished when, one day, as Oji-chan, Kakashi and Onii-chan were sleeping, he grabbed me and left in the middle of the night. At first, I remembered thinking we were going on a secret adventure. It had soon turned to fear when I found myself in a tower, in the middle of a seal on the ground, my dad drawing symbols on me. Oji-chan came before he could finish, and they fought. Kakashi took me and ran. Dad saw it and used Adamantine Chain to get me through Kakashi. Kakashi had his back turned to the attack, but I saw it.

I saw my brother, Fubuki, jumping in the middle of it, his blood splashing on my face.

I was brought back to reality when we were around a fire, the night settling in. The sunset was on the horizon. We were now on top of the stairs I had spotted before, in what used to be the Uzumaki Compound. You had a beautiful view of the village, the harbor and the sea. From where we were, I would see the sunset casting specks of gold on the water.

"Thank you for coming Tsunade-sama." I looked at Kushina-san. She was the one to contact her then?

"It's normal, I am part of this clan as well." She looked at the sea in the distance, a nostalgic look in her eyes. "I have not been here since I was dispatched after the attack. It is…"

"Frozen in time," Kushina-san finished for her. "As I was walking through the village today, I remembered my childhood here and where my parents would take me as if it was yesterday." She took the kettle she had put on the fire and put boiling water in her ramen cup, as well as mine. "At the same time, it feels like a lifetime ago." Tsunade-sama glanced at the fire for a second before her hazel eyes met mine. She smiled gently at me.

"You have grown." I blinked. "You probably don't remember me because of the shock, but that day, I was with Kushina and Akiko." I opened my mouth a little.

Indeed, I had no memory of her there, or the after period. My mind blacked out everything after Fubuki's death out and jumped straight to me in the hospital after that, Mom gone already.

I bowed my head, not knowing what to do. I never had any interaction with Tsunade-san before, I had seen her at Naruto's wedding and that was pretty much it. I had no idea we were related until they told me in this lifetime after all.

I stuck to Kushina-san for the evening. The next day, they sent Kakashi and Shizune to inspect the Academy. Once they were out of sight, Tsunade-san crouched in front of me with a frown.

"There is nothing telling you are a Yuurei." I widened my eyes in shock and sent an accusing glance at Kushina-san. "Don't be mad at her, I knew about Yuureis before her. She just told me there was one now. Your secret is safe."

"Oh. Thanks." She stood back up and looked at the other Uzumaki.

"Have you explained everything to her?" She nodded.

"Anything I found thanks to your indication dattebane."

"Alright, let's go find what remained in the Compound regarding Yuureis. Masashi-ji-chan had to know, like the Uzukage, we'll inspect his office later."

"Who's Masashi?" Tsunade-san looked at me funny.

"Your great-grandfather and the last leader of the clan." She pursed her lips, her eyes suddenly distant. "We never recovered his body after the attack, yet he would not have let this happen on his watch." She sighed. "This is another subject."

"Huh…what do you mean 'clan leader'?" They both looked down at me, confused.

"Akiko never told you? Even before?"

"She never pipped a word about Kiri or anything Uzumaki-related to me, she took all of that to her grave when I was sixteen." Kushina-san widened her eyes for a second before clenching her fists.

I had not told her that Mom would have died on me anyway.

"I never knew I was related to you until two years ago almost," I continued. "I mean, Dad…anything connected to him just…" I never finished; they knew.

"Well, would Mamiko-oba-san have stayed in Uzushio, you may have not been here at all, or with a very different life. However." Tsunade-san stopped in front of a big, wooden door. The red was dull by now. "We can talk about this side of your family later." She knocked her polished nail on the door. "It needs blood to recognize our right to get inside, it…Kushina, go ahead." She shot her a surprised look, but she obeyed.

I raised a brow at Tsunade-san when she looked away the second Kushina-san started writing in fuin with her blood. That was weird for a medic.

The door now opened in a loud and sinister creaking sound; I followed the two others women inside. It was a lavish, expensive traditional house, even more so that Itachi's. It was dark though, the window covered in opaque dust.

Light flooded the room out of sudden, Tsunade-san coming back as both Kushina-san and I were rubbing our eyes.

"There's an emergency lightning circuit that works with fuinjutsu. Anything in here can work with it."

"Anything?" I repeated, in awe. Kushina-san snickered.

"Not bad now, is it?" I nodded.

We spent the day in the place. I coughed a lot because of the dust. However, I did not see any signs there had been a fight or anything in here. Most of the stuff I found were related to Uzushio politics, so it was not really interesting.

I entered a bedroom. It was big. I walked around and opened the closet. Old, expensive men clothes were there, most of them traditional, but most of all dusty. I coughed when I opened it and closed it back. From the size of the room, I'd say it was this Masashi's bedroom. I went to the dresser and picked up a picture frame. There was a man with short red hair and harsh black eyes next to a beautiful woman. Her pale blue eyes were kid, like her smile and her hair was curly and red. I frowned when I noticed, there was a picture behind it. I opened the frame, and another picture was revealed. It wasn't as yellowed as the first one, but still was. It was a young woman on the picture, maybe seventeen, in a red battle kimono, long wavy red hair falling on her shoulders. Red bangs were framing her face and kind, black eyes.

That…was she my grandmother? Dad's mom?

I opened the drawer and found a bunch of opened letters, tied together by a string. They were yellowed too.

I put them in my bag, as well as the picture frame in which I had put both pictures back. When I reunited with Tsunade-san and Kushina-san, taking a deep breath of the sea air once outside, they told me that had found nothing related to Yuureis and that the Uzumaki clan seemed to be in turmoil before Uzushio was destroyed, with no heir.

"I mean, there was an heiress and an heir but for that, Masashi would have needed to swallow his pride," Tsunade-san corrected Kushina-san. "And you Akane?"

"I found letters and pictures." She raised a brow. I showed her the picture. "The letters are from my grandmother; I recognized the name of the place she sent them from. It's in the Land of Water, on an island the Yuki Clan used to live on before moving to Kiri." Tsunade-san raised a dubious brow but didn't comment.

"Let's go check on Kakashi and Shizune." I nodded at Kushina-san.

We found Kakashi in the Academy library, reading whatever books were still readable. The left side of the building only had the first floor left, the wall not standing anymore. Shizune had spent all day going through the administration and headmaster's office, only to hand Kushina-san something shyly.

The Uzumaki froze.

"Thank you Shizune-chan," she said after a few seconds of silence.

She didn't say what it was.

The next day, we left Uzushio. The village took only a quarter of the island, the rest of the Land of Eddie now covered by wildlife. We would hear movements in the bushes and in the trees and such. We were not walking quickly because no one knew the area. Tsunade-san was walking in front of us, only using her memories to guide us but they were old, and the place had changed. We reached a big, clear lake by the end of the third day.

"Huh…Tsunade-sama…isn't that…"

"Where the clan library used to be, yes," she finished for her. "With the amount of knowledge there was in it, I wouldn't be surprised if it was sunk on purpose." I walked to the edge of the lake. The lake really was crystal clear.

I put a knee on the ground and put my finger in the water. I took a deep breath and spread my chakra in the water. Uzumakis were sensitive to chakra because of how much we naturally had. It made it easier for us to be sensors, we all had a natural ability to it given we had good chakra control. Being a Yuki member meant I had a natural affinity with water and snow.

I was spreading my chakra in water like a spider web. If there was chakra somewhere, I would detect it. After a dozen of minutes, the lake was big and I was careful not to rush my job or I'd pass out, I detected something deep in the lake, on the right. It was big, like a barrier.

"It's that way!" I stated, pointing at the western side of the lake. "At the bottom of the lake." I stood up, only to fall on my butt. "Oh, too much chakra used at once."

"Have you seen your size and the size of the lake?" Tsunade-san asked me, Shizune-san glowing hand over my head to check if everything was okay. "Your chakra reserve will expand with age, like your control, but as long as your chakra pathway is not entirely finished, you won't be able to use it to its full potential."

"And it's finished at…"

"Between the age of ten and puberty," Shizune-san informed me.

I never had to worry about this before so…I would train to control what I had access to only, without really using it.

Training as a kunoichi was putting a lot of my childhood training into perspective. That would also explain the graduating age in Konoha. Why have shinobi and kunoichi on missions if they could not use their chakra entirely due to their age?

"Awakening a kekkai genkai before that tends to make the pathway more fragile until adulthood."

"Damn me," I muttered. Did it mean that I would not be able to really go back to my level before I reached adulthood?

When did I finish puberty? Sixteen or something? Then was it physical adulthood? I hoped so.

Kakashi volunteered to dive and have a first look at the thing. I gave him a breathing seal, something I came up with in Kiri. It was essentially the same base as any filtration seal, except it was for breathing underwater. It would absorb the water, then send the oxygen in the mouth and nose and expelled the water.

"He'll be fine Akane," Kushina-san told me as I was bent over the water. I couldn't see anything.

"What if he has a cramp?"

"Then I'd say he can handle it because he handled worst?"

He came out after five minutes.

"There is a very active barrier down there," he confirmed, showing us his burned hand. "The building seems intact, it's almost as if just the piles had snapped clean."

"Have you seen seal points around the building?"

"It's on the building, I've seen it with my sharingan," he replied to Kushina-san. "It seems to be running on its own as well."

"Who is feeding the seal chakra though?" Shizune-san asked to no one in particular.

"All right!" Kushina-san stated, tightening her high ponytail. She turned it into a bun and stretched out her hand to me. "Seal please." I gave her one. "Get ready Akane." I nodded and put the seal on my mouth. "Now, Akane and I are going down there. Just know that Uzumakis were very protective of their seals and knowledge, so when we break the barrier or go through, there may or may not be a summon that could appear." She grabbed me and threw me in the lake as I yelped at her action, before she jumped too.

I didn't waste time on that, although I would remember it, and followed her down as quickly as my small legs and arms were allowing me to. I gathered chakra on my hands and feet, much like Kushina-san, to be stable on the barrier without it repelling me. Essentially, we were getting our chakra in sync with the barrier, so it did not consider us as enemies.

It was…the go-to way to deal with an unknown barrier outside of a fighting situation, at least on the hands, the feet were because we were under water.

The barrier was a sphere around the building that you would not see with the naked eye. The building seemed intact. Kushina-san and I moved away from each other, trying to find the weakest point of the barrier. She found him before me, at the top. It seemed there were three seals making up the barrier, directly applied on the building, so the top would be the focal point where they would meet and be the weakest. You'd think three seals meeting would be the strongest point, but no. It was the weakest, because it was where the chakra met the others and synchronized with them, so it would not be a strong as the birth point.

If that made sense.

I pushed Kushina-san away like I could and put my feet on each side of the target. Then, I drew my arm back, fist clenched and turned the water around it to ice, the explosive seal on my glove ready to be used. I smashed my ice fist on the target, released my seal at the impact to blow the ice up and send it in the target.

Kushina-san swam back, then came back. I was glaring at the target.

Nothing. Kushina-san made me move aside and put her hand on the target. I watched in awe as the tip of an Adamantine Chain left the palm of her hand and sunk, although with difficulty, in the target. It made a breach big enough for us to slip inside.

I landed on my feet, lost my balance and fell on my butt. Kushina-san landed nicely next to me, looking around.

"It is totally dry, and we can breathe just fine dattebane!" she exclaimed, shocked.

"Whatever seals they used, they made sure that in case of emergency the library would be nice and comfy in its own little bubble." I tapped the ground with my foot. "We must be thirty meters down but there's no water pressure, everything is dry, yet the flora is not dying…" I walked around and stopped right behind the barrier, watching fish go in front of us, as well as the various flora moving with the water. "It's awesome!"

"Shizune-chan did bring up a good point, how can this still be running if it was sent at the bottom of the lake when Uzushio was destroyed?" I shrugged, not knowing the answer.

I went to one of the seals on the building. It was big, bigger than me. I inspected it, making a clone to carry me on their shoulders to inspect the top while Kushina-san was doing the same.

You had some space-time indications in the seal to keep it as it was, the emergency element…ha, forbidden to everyone. I inspected the others, then the front door. The seal on that was strong, but would respond to Uzumaki blood, so it was fine.

"It's in old fuin," Kushina-san said. "You understand it?"

"Yeah, I learned it to decipher very old thing," I replied idly, my finger tracing the seal on the side of the building. "We'll come back at some point; we should modify the way to get there to allow members of the clan to come here."

"Akane, I'm not sure. We don't know what it runs on and…" My finger stopped on the seal and I raised a brow.

"It runs on Natural Energy." She widened her eyes. "These seals imitate the way someone creates Senjutsu and they do that non-stop to keep the seal running. Damn, that's fucking smart and…" She punched me behind the head.

"Language dattebane!" I glared weakly at her. "And seals absorbing Natural Energy to turn it into Senjutsu and so they run autonomously? I've never heard of it!"

"No offense, but you left when you were six and Mito-san had left too, she had no way of knowing everything going on in Uzushio." She pursed her lips. "What we have here is proof of how little we actually know about the entire Uzumaki's Fuinjutsu skills, and how far we are compared to the Seal Masters who lived here." I shook my head. "I thought I was good; this is genius."

"And how are you going to modify them then?"

"I won't, you will." She widened her eyes comically and I dispelled my clone, landing on my feet. "Don't look at me like that, I am seven. These seals are incredibly complex and Natural Energy can be disturbed very easily. My chakra control is nowhere close to what it used to be and is nowhere close to yours. I can tell you what to do, but you must do it."

"If I fail, we drown."

"Then don't fail. Now put me on your shoulders." She did and held my legs as I was drawing the seal on different sheets of paper. Once I had them all down and on the ground, I started the modifications.

Allowing Uzumakis in meant changing the distribution of chakra in the whole seal…lowering the protected zone…I'd need to redefine the zone protected by other seals to redistribute the chakra evenly…

I could feel Kushina-san's eyes on me as I was going through the modifications, on all-four on the papers. The balance with Senjusu was complicated, so using blood directly as the ink would be better as blood was life, and what was more natural than life and death?

I stood up after fifteen minutes, Kushina-san's eyeing my work seriously.

"So, can you do it?"

"It seems…logical seen like this…did you learn to change seals like this in Konoha?"

"No." It was in the Bloody Mist. Change seals, make them turn against their users…

"Alright, let's do it." She started by the seals on the ground, dropping a drop of blood in her ink to make them. Then she made two clones so they would change the seals at the same time. I sat on the steps in front of the doors, looking up at the barrier, waiting.

There were blue lights on each side and the barrier shrunk. The weaker point was still up, but there were two new, weaker seals joining the other three. From the protected there was before, only maybe five square meters in front of the steps of the door remained.

"I'd call that a suc…" A huge crab crashed in the water, knocked out. "So, apparently we missed something," I stated, sweat dropping at what appeared to be the Sannin's work.

With her still bleeding finger, Kushina-san opened the door. They closed themselves in our back. We shared a look and glanced around.

"It feels like we're thrown back in time." Kushina-san glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. "Well, more than I already did." The room's walls were filled with books up to the ceiling.

However, I ran straight to the whatever forbidden section there had to have here. There, between two shelves on the right was a door, a seal tag on it. I bit my forefinger to make it bleed and put it on the seal.

It turned blue, then purplish and the door was unlocked. There was no knob on it, so the seal was the only way to get inside.

There were scrolls on pedestals, other seals on them. One was bijuus and jinchurikis related. One was about Uzumaki clan's secrets. I raised a brow when I saw the word Otsutsuki on the third one.

Now that was interesting. The Otsutsukis were unknown until the war. However, the Uzumakis had been gone for decades by that point. My guts were telling me that Uzushio's destruction happened for more reasons than just the village being considered too strong.

With that being said, it was a whole other can of worms I did not want to open now.

"There you are," I whispered, taking the scroll with 'Yuurei' written in old fuin on it. I barely touched it that the seal tag keeping the scroll shut shone purple, the fuin symbols moving briefly to form the word 'greetings' before going back to normal.

Huh, that was…unexpected.

I barely opened it that diaries started to fly out of it. I was soon buried in them.

"Akane?" I stretched my hand out and Kushina-san pulled me out of the diaries. "Are those diaries?"

"I think so." She took one and flipped through it.

"Twenty-fourth Yuurei…this is five-century old!" I looked at the others. "Did these diaries belong to the Yuureis before you?"

"Maybe, it would make sense, especially if they documented their lives before and after." We counted, the diaries coming to a hundred. Knowing the Uzumaki clan was most likely founded nine centuries ago and that the last occurrence of a Yuurei was also almost a hundred years ago…

We had eight centuries worth of documentation regarding the world and the Uzumakis and Yuureis.

Fuck.

Kushina-san must have had realized the same thing because she dropped to her knees with eyes wide open.

"Help me put everything back in there." It broke her out of her thoughts and she did.

I sealed the Yuurei scroll, and the Otsutsuki one, in a scroll of my own. I struggled to seal them due to the number of seals there were on and in them, but they ceased to fight me off when I forced a little.

"There is one more place to investigate and then we can go home," Kushina-san informed as we were leaving. The door locked itself behind us, the seal on it shining blue, like various lines on the building.

We swam back to the surface, only to find a young Pakkun sleeping in the shade of a tree. He yawned and stretched out as we joined him.

"They left for the shrine, Kakashi left me here to guide you."

"Pakkun!" Pakkun hid behind me when Kushina-san tried to grab him.

"Keep her from touching me and I'll let you touch my paw pads kids!"

Heh, who knew Kushina-san would scare dogs off?

Thanks for reading. I hope you have liked it, please do let me know in reviews!

Bye!