Ch.27
"What do you mean she failed?!" Kurama asked Minato in utter disbelief after Naru came back from the first major test of the academy. "Naru is brilliant! How could she fail?!"
"She failed. It was a survival test, all that Naru did was use you to heal herself or sustain herself throughout the test." Minato told his wife.
"Then she should have fucking passed! That's blatant discrimination! Was there a no-Bloodline or other technique rule?!" Kurama demanded with a snarl.
"Yes. There was. This test was about how they would live if they didn't have chakra." Minato sighed in long-suffering at his eldest's antics once more causing problems.
"Great, so she has to take the make-up test. At least this time tell her she has to use what they are testing for rather than being a smartass about it." Kurama grumbled bitterly.
"Yes, in six months. She was informed or I assume she was, but she could have been talking to Shukaku or Goku or someone else when it was explained. She has her mother's attention span combined with my intelligence. She gets distracted easily if the material doesn't hold her." Minato stated with a rub of his brow.
"I resemble that remark!" Kushina called from down the hall where she was practicing her seals.
"It's easy to forget how sharp our hearing is." Minato whispered to Kurama and she rolled her eyes. She had finally converted Hurama into a werefox as well and had informed everyone about it. This way, when she lets more of her true self show, it was less risky. The Uzumaki are already being considered 'The Youko Clan' by the demon-ostracizing civilians.
"So is Naru grasping the material or not?" Kurama asked to get back on track.
"From my one-on-one studies with her, for the most part. She has gaps and when I asked, she said she was talking to a Biju, sketching an animal or making up some prank to play. Oh and she ditched class last week with the Nara boy and his friends." Minato said with a scowl.
"Great. I knew she had problems with discipline when not at home, but this is bad. What do we do?" Kurama mewled, only for a pony-sized fluffy vixen to trot into the room and wrap them both in a few of her nine tails. "Kushi~?!"
"C'mon you two, enough agonizing, come with me. We're having a chat with Naru as biju. I think if we tell her sooner, she will be less mystified by your siblings."
"We're not Biju. Kurama is." Minato pointed out.
"For all I understand, since you two actually had souls and were splintered off from me, unlike my hand-crafted Dolls, you two and Hiata, at worst, are mini-biju. Especially since you take beastly forms when in the Network unlike the artificial Dolls." Kurama shrugged in the fluffy embrace of her wife's tails while the vixen sniffed Naru out.
"Eh, sounds more like the gold and silver brothers." Minato said, giving a so-so motion with his hand, while also suspended in a fluffy embrace.
"Ew, no! I shit those fuckers out after they gave me serious indigestion and somehow both survived my chakra and incorporated it! I blame them being genetically related to my father, even if it was distant. No, you three are more than those parasites ever were." Kurama declared firmly with a finger against Minato's lips, which he nibbled on playfully and his wife laughed.
"But he does have a point. I'm not really attached to your chakra in the Doll, more overlaid onto it like how a Jinchuuriki works." Kushina commented as she wobbled her head to and fro. "Now, where is that daughter of mine?"
"Naru's on the roof!" Narue barked as the foxhound girl was visibly concentrating on turning back into a human. Narue lucked into a Bloodline ability due to being born to a Werefox mother and a Ninken father. Naruto could do it too, but as a pure fox and it was likely that Naruko could too, but was possibly keeping it a secret out of embarrassment or something silly like that.
"I hate how she came to be, but I still love my little girl." Kushina gushed as Narue started chasing her tail with adorable panting and yips like the puppy she was.
"Wait, the roof?!" Minato yelled before wiggling out of Kushina's tails and rushing outside.
"When did she get up there?!" Kurama exclaimed before feeling Naru falling and cracking her head through the seal. "She just fell and hit her head! Flooding her with my chakra!" Kurama reported while being carried by Kushina. They followed the screaming to find Nobu and Naruto on the roof, shouting down at where Minato was cradling a rapidly recovering Naru.
"Again!" Naru slurred with a dumb grin as she drooled with her eyes focusing more.
"Not again you blessed idiot!" Kushina shrieked at her daughter, who winced, likely more from the pain her rapidly healing concussion caused from the loud noise. "What on earth were you thinking?! No, right, you don't think! Honey, we need to have Inoichi-kun look inside her head, this is not healthy." Kushina mewled to her wife and husband, the vixen stuck between distraught and fury.
"Should we get down?" The boys asked.
"How did you two get up there?" Kurama panicked as she retrieved the kids from the roof with her tails, which she had sprouted instinctively and casually extended to wrap them up and bring them down safely.
"A ladder." Nobu pointed to the ladder just down the wall.
"Those things are heavy, how did you get it out of the shed and up against the wall?" Minato questioned while still holding his now downtrodden daughter.
"Onee-chan did! She picked it right up! She's super strong!" Naruto declared excitedly.
"I think Naru is letting your chakra go to her head." Kushina grumbled.
"Well, I can't exactly tighten it up without trapping myself…" Kurama wilted in dismay.
"I can think of a few things, but it will disrupt the Doll Network and we may lose Kushina." Minato muttered as he picked Naru up and the parents began leading their children inside.
"Why haven't you suggested this before?" Kushina asked as she folded her arms.
"Because you don't have a soul and I'm pretty I would lose a lot of the control of my body without half of my soul." Minato sadly to his wives.
"Wait, I'm not a ghost possessing a body?" Kushina whimpered.
"No, you're Kushina, but you're her lingering ego. So…like a ghost, I guess, but your soul continued on to the Pure Lands. I was going to the Shinigami's stomach, either as a half soul or full. I was going to miss the Pure Lands no matter what." Minato explained.
"Wait, wasn't Orochimaru-kun supposed to do something about that?" Kurama brought up worriedly, because she had forgotten how fragile the existence of her wife and husband were. Then the spike of Loss and Despair from remembering Shikazu was gone hit and she breathed in a shuddering gasp, silently willing herself not to burst into tears.
"Yes, but the plan kinda went to shit because of Root. As for Kushina, we would have to use Impure World Reincarnation to drag her soul from the Pure Lands. I could technically reverse Hiata's Doll status too, but my conditions and Kushina's lack of her soul needs to be dealt with first." Minato stated and then set Naru down on her bed since he had led them to her room. "Rest, think on why we are so upset with you, never do it again, no ramen for a week."
"Not the ramen~!" Naru wailed, immediately bursting into tears over her precious ramen.
=Fox=
"I don't have a soul. What's happening to me then?" Kushina sniffled as she drank tea and an empty box of tissues next to her. "Are my babies after Naru without souls too?"
"They do, I'm sure they do." Mikoto soothed her friend, who had begun sobbing again in her existential dread. "Besides, Minato-kun won't leave you in this state. He'll revive you fully."
"For sure. Besides, who's to say you couldn't get your own soul? Are we just born with them or do they form as we live?" Tsume suggested and Kushina sniffled and nodded.
"Right…Kurama assured me that souls aren't made from nothing, they form from experiences of the living. I guess I'm still too young then." Kushina sniffed and laughed. "I'm only 5 years old! Hah! Wait…then if children die when they're too young?" Kushina asked in dread.
"They have souls, just small and indistinct." Kurama assured her wife, having been quiet and coping with her own dark feelings.
"I have it!" Minato exclaimed upon approaching their place in the garden, holding up a seal tag as he drew near. "A seal variant of the Edo Tensei that won't require a new body. I have no idea if it'll work, but if it doesn't, well, nothing should happen besides maybe nausea."
Before anyone could protest, Minato slapped the seal onto Kushina's back. The tag burned, then Kushina began screaming and her connection to the Doll Network was violently severed and the feeling of a foreign yet familiar hostile chakra buffeted Kurama. It speared into the network in the last moments of Kushina's connection.
After that, Kushina collapsed onto the couch and changed into her, to Kurama, ultra-sexy werefox body that combined the woman's human figure with soft fox fur and other features. Despite her arousal, Kurama had the sense of being crucified to a molten ball again before those spears vanished. The memories of Kushina's horrible and painful seal came fresh in mind.
"Ugh, what happened? I was speared in the abdomen by the Kyubi, then met my mother? Why do I feel like I've done more than that? Did my chakra return from the seal? Minato's alive?!" Kushina yelled as she spotted Minato before blinking in confusion. "I already knew that? Why is the room spinning? Why am I covered in fur?"
"Honey, stay calm, let the past several years catch up with you." Minato advised while sitting next to her and Tsume had moved next to Kurama, defensively in fact. Kushina began to hyperventilate as her eyes took in her body, moving rapidly from side to side as she began to shake. She even cupped her bosom and loosed a weak, hysterical laugh.
"I have fluffy boobies…I'm married to the person who killed me…I always figured you for a Yandere, Kurama-chan." Kushina joked in a fragile tone. "At least I'm not a Doll anymore, so the irony of the tables being turned is over. Hopefully I'm not stuck like this." Kushina whimpered as she calmed down a bit and then she became her human self again. "Well…that's good."
"Kushina?" Tsume asked in worry as the woman grew more unhinged despite seeming to have calmed down. "You're not about to murder us all, right?"
"No, no of course not, Tsume-chan~! Father of my Daughter Naruko because I got fucking raped by your piece of shit ninken!" Kushina shrieked, frothing with fury and once more became furry.
"I think you need to see Inoichi." Minato suggested
"Good idea, husband ours! He might be able to sort out ghost-me and dead-me! Oh did you know Hiata-chan died? You pulled me from a chat with her!" Kushina then turned full fox and leaped to the rooftop in the direction of T&I.
"...Oh shit!" Kurama cursed and leaped to her feet. "Get two more of those seals, hubby! We need to slap them on Hiata-chan and Yahiko-kun!"
=Fox=
"So, I wasn't actually alive, but at the same time I was and from what Hagoromo-dono said; after Doll-me died, I would have fused with him upon his arrival in the Pure Lands." Yahiko stated from next to Hiata Hyuga, who was serenely furious, because dead-her had come to terms with her passing and was reunited with her deceased family. She was less pissed than ghost-her was though, because she at least got to see her parents and other loved ones.
"Yes and now you're out of the Network because this process forces my chakra out of the Dolls when converting them into your new permanent bodies. The effects of being former Dolls though is… unknown. Tsunade has stated after her tests that you're are aging again without my chakra constantly regenerating and preserving your cells." Kurama informed the two former Dolls, who were taking this much better than Kushina, who was in a session with Inoichi.
"The decay rate is slower than a normal human though. I'd guess you've both gained a lower Uzumaki life span of 150-200 years, not even their regular 300 or rare 400." Tsunade commented as she pointed to a diagram for one of her kids, who was eagerly being a mama's boy and trying to become a medic-nin at superspeed. 5 year-old Nuwaki was very bright.
"So we'll die, eventually. That's good, at least. I'll likely live to see my great, great, great grandchildren." Hiata smiled serenely, some of her fury abating at the thought.
"Yes, yes, religious beliefs. Even if it meant meeting my father again, I have no desire to leave this realm. I am a demon, after all." Kurama huffily reminded.
"I'd say more of a kami." Yahiko chuckled.
"...Huh? My grandmother was the Demon Queen, so my father was half demon and I was born of a unwilling incestuous situation involving her being sealed, my father taking her power into himself and then giving birth to my siblings and I. How does that in any way lend me to be a kami?" Kurama demanded of the blond, who has met her father in the afterlife.
"We consider Hagoromo-dono the Kami of Ninja. This has granted him divine status in the Pure Lands. Since you are his daughter, that means you are a kami by birth." Yahiko suggested.
"I'm in favor of Kurama being the Kami of Seals." Tsunade said ironically.
"Whoa, whoa, stop! Something just tingled deep inside me, don't." Kurama hissed worriedly.
"Or the Guardian Kami of the Forest." Hiata teased with her cool sadism.
"Shut up!" Kurama squeaked, feeling all warm and fuzzy in a new, risky way as she blushed.
"You both are making her uncomfortable." Yahiko reprimanded the two adults.
"We're just teasing." Both women countered.
"Yeah, teasing in a way that might do something to me! I like how I am, please do not try to change me." Kurama insisted with a sigh.
"Uh, right, sorry." Tsunade apologized. Hiata just looked a little sheepish as she poke her index fingers together. "Anyway, potential godhood aside, at least this resolves the issue of anyone Kurama revives being a part of her, so long as their soul is not in the Shinigami's stomach."
Kurama suddenly felt Naru getting stabbed!
=Fox=
"Gah! Let go, little freak!" The robber Naru was trying to stop screamed as she dug her teeth into his arm while the other tried yanking his knife out of her side, but she was grasping it!
"No! Imma be Hokage! I'll protect people!" Naru declared through her teeth on his forearm as she clung to him while Furama started to snarl upon approaching the scene. Then, the woman she was helping slammed the man over the head with her bag and he dropped like a sack of radishes! "Blech! Are you okay?!"
"Are you?! You have a knife in you!" The woman exclaimed, picking Naru up much to Furama and Gama's displeasure, woman turned in the direction the hospital.
"Yeah, it stings, but I heal real fast. Just, uh, c-could you yank it out? I can't finish healing with it in me." Naru asked, since it was in her side and to the back, so she couldn't reach it well.
"Are you mad?" The woman demanded as they neared the place of healing.
"No? I am really will because of Ba-chan." Naru whined before spots filled her vision. "Oo~, pretty colors~..." She slurred and the woman began nearly jogging.
=Fox=
"She got high, on chakra-dampening poison?" Minato asked Tsunade in utter bafflement.
"It was still killing her, but yes. She may have even recovered on her own if she was a little older." Tsunade explained before looking at Kurama. "You would likely respond the same way, the same goes for anyone using your chakra. That is to say, any Dolls."
"Why did she try and stop a robbery?!" Kurama demanded in dismay.
"From what she's said, she's going to be Hokage and nothing hurts her because Ba-chan heals her so much that she is invincible." Tsunade told the vixen.
"Oh no~! She's already in her 'invincible' stage~!" Kurama wailed in further despair.
"Yes, something that isn't help when the great Kyuubi babying her constantly." Tsunade sighed.
"What am I supposed to do? I can't stop my chakra flow without restricting myself." Kurama stated and Minato sighed.
"It seems, drastic times call for drastic measures."
=Fox=
*Sniff* "Ohm~..." Naru whimpered down at the spicy curry udon she was being forced to eat instead of ramen, even prepared by Teuchi when she came to him!
"You need to learn not to be so reckless." Ayame chided the girl, who was being specially treated to a side-passion of her family: curry. Usually the curry was served as a ramen, but because Naru was being punished, Teuchi was just fine with blocking Naru from her precious ramen. Besides! Experiencing other foods will make the girl grow more worldly!
"Why can't I heal her?" Kurama whimpered next to Minato, who was holding the woman's hands. "She's in so much pain~!" Kurama sobbed along with the determined girl still chewing on the thick, spicy noodles to try and spite her dad.
"She won't learn if you do. I'm almost done with the seal." Minato declared with resolve.