"I heard you recovered part of your memory?" Tsunade asked Kumiko who stood with Kakashi in the woman's office. Kumiko nodded her head in response. "Can you describe the memories to me?"

Kumiko had to think for a moment, trying to reflect back on the memory to see if she could describe it. But the moment she forced her mind to think about the horrible scene, she didn't feel that she could do it. She didn't want to remember it. It was too painful to have to see again. And besides, it wasn't such a simple memory.

Kumiko shook her head. "I don't know. I can't really… I don't know how. I'm sorry." The girl apologised.

"It's alright." Tsunade responded, understanding it must be difficult. She then thought for a moment. She wanted to figure out what Kumiko had remembered. It could provide useful information, even if only a bit. She would take anything for now.

Tsunade eventually came up with an idea, but she hesitated, unsure of if it's the best idea. As she contemplated saying it aloud, Kakashi caught on to what she was thinking. "You want to ask a Yamanaka to help, right?" He asked.

Tsunade was mildly surprised he managed to realise that, but not enough for it to cause a reaction from her. "I am…" She responded, still in thought. She then turned to Kumiko. "Kumiko, would you be alright if I bring in someone who can see your memory?"

Kumiko was unsure. When she turned to face Kakashi for help answering, he just shrugged. It was clear he wanted Kumiko to decide this one for herself.

"Don't worry, it won't hurt or anything. I would bring in someone capable of seeing into your mind so they can see the memory." Tsunade reassured, seeing the girl's hesitation. Kumiko thought for another short moment before nodding her head.

Tsunade asked Shizune to go find Yamanaka Inoichi, one of the most skilled of the clan when it came to viewing memories. It didn't take her very long to return after she found him.

"Is this the child?" Inoichi asked once he was in the room. Tsunade nodded in response.

"She had amnesia, but she remembered something recently. She can't seem to describe it, so I'd like you to have a look at it. It could give us some helpful information." Tsunade explained. Inoichi nodded, having been given a brief outline of the situation from Shizune on their way there.

After Kumiko confirmed she agreed to allow someone else to see her memory, Inoichi placed a hand on her head, the contact making it possible for him to view the memories stored inside.

The room was silent for a moment while everyone waited for Inoichi. "I can see why it would be difficult for someone her age to describe." He said once he was done. "The memory itself is very chaotic, and can be difficult for people her age to process, let alone try to describe. And there's also the fact that her emotional state probably doesn't let her really take the time to think about it."

"Is it that bad?" Kakashi asked, a bit concerned to know just what this girl had seen but showing no sign of it in his voice.

"For a child, especially one that's not from a shinobi village, yes."

"Are you able to allow us to see it?" Tsunade asked. Inoichi considered it for a short moment.

"It's possible to transfer the images from my mind to yours as I receive the images from her. But are you sure you want to see it?"

"I'm sure we've seen worse." Tsunade responded.

"But that was from the eyes of a trained shinobi. This memory is from the eyes of an innocent child. It's completely different. And it's likely some of the emotions attached to the memory will also be transferred."

"I'm sure we can handle it." Kakashi responded.

Inoichi hesitated for a very brief moment before deciding it was alright. They were right, it's not like they all haven't seen worse.

The feeling of seeing images from someone else's mind was strange to Kakashi, and he wondered how the Yamanaka's managed to deal with it constantly. But soon, the odd sensation from the jutsu would be buried by the cruel memory it showed.

They were right. This scene definitely would be difficult to put into words. Even Kakashi, who had seen many battlefields, almost had trouble making sense of it. Though, he realised, that was likely because it was registered in Kumiko's mind as chaotic. He was seeing things as she had remembered them, after all.

She was in a seemingly small village. Everything was on fire and the only clear sounds were screams, flames, collapsing buildings, and more screams.

She was running, and Kakashi could feel the desperation and terror she had felt. The scenes she ran past were horrible. The whole village was littered with people dying or already dead. There was blood splattered across the rubble of the destroyed buildings and the ground. At least some of the people were left mostly intact. Others weren't as lucky, and Kakashi could tell that their killers likely found joy in killing them.

It was in her panic that Kumiko tripped over the arm of one of the more intact corpses. When she turned to face the direction she had been running from, the intensity of her fear grew. It didn't take long to know why.

The two enemies that had attacked them the week before on their way back to Konoha were approaching, slowly as if they almost enjoyed tormenting the poor girl. "What's that look for? It's not like they cared about you. Why should you care what happened to them?" The one in the purple commented.

"Come. Your purpose is to become a tool for The Lady." The red one then said. Kumiko crawled backward, not daring to take her eyes off of them in fear that something would happen once she did.

"You need to get as far away from here as you can." Another voice said. The newcomer was a well-dressed woman with strawberry blonde hair. She seemed to be barely able to walk, and she held her left shoulder as blood soaked through that spot on her shirt. She walked over to stand between Kumiko and the enemies.

"You absolutely can not die. If you do, everything may be destroyed." The woman told Kumiko. But Kumiko wasn't able to move immediately, almost paralyzed by fear. "Go!" The woman urged.

This brought Kumiko out of her fearful state and prompted her to stand up again and continue running. When she glanced back, the innocent child witnessed the enemies murdering the woman in a gruesome way.

As sadness and guilt started to fill the girl, it was clear that she started crying as the image grew only slightly blurrier from the tears. It wasn't long before the enemies started catching up. Trying to stop the girl from moving, they threw several weapons in her direction, many of them hitting, but none of them in immediately fatal spots. They weren't trying to kill her… yet, anyway.

Kumiko was surprisingly fast considering her short legs, but she wasn't fast enough to outrun the enemies. Before the enemies could reach her, more people showed up to stand in their way. There was a group of five people, and each seemed as if they were able to fight, even if only a bit. It was likely these people had been trained.

"You need to get away from here. Go somewhere they can't find you." One of them said as Kumiko got to where they were. That person then started doing some hand seals. Kakashi didn't quite know what jutsu it was for, since the pattern of the seals was mildly unfamiliar to him.

Before the person could finish their jutsu, the enemies seemed to catch on to what they were trying to do. The red one quickly performed some hand seals. Both jutsu were performed one after the other, but it seemed that the jutsu from the enemy hit just before the other person used a jutsu to teleport Kumiko away.

Neither the teleportation jutsu that was used nor the jutsu that the enemy had used were very familiar to Kakashi. They were different from the ones he's seen, and he's not sure if they function differently or if they're the same but with a different activation method.

Kumiko had been teleported to a forest-like area. The girl was no longer able to run, and being temporarily away from the danger, it didn't seem like she had to at the moment. She was walking, but from the unstable way she moved, Kakashi could tell that her injuries were definitely affecting her. The memory didn't allow him to feel any physical pain she felt, but he imagined she had probably been experiencing quite a bit of it.

She walked for a bit, balancing herself with the trees, until everything started spinning, and it seemed like her vision was fading. She could only go a bit farther before everything went dark, with only the sound of her hitting the ground.

That was where the memory ended. "The next memory after that is when you were bringing her to Konoha." Inoichi explained. Well, at least that explained the many wounds they'd found her with.

"That explains why she was left dying, but not yet dead. Though I still don't understand whether they wanted her alive or not." Tsunade commented.

"If they wanted her dead, they could have easily killed her when they threw their weapons at her." Kakashi commented, then thought for a brief moment. "But if they wanted her alive, they wouldn't have left her with injuries that almost killed her like they did."

"I doubt we'll figure out their intentions by just standing here. I'll consider what our next steps should be. You're all dismissed." Tsunade dismissed everyone after a short moment of thought.

Kumiko was glad to leave. She didn't like thinking about her newly regained memory, and the conversation seemed unpleasant. She didn't completely follow everything that was being said, but the idea of people wanting her dead was not a pleasant one.

Kakashi was even more glad to leave. He didn't realise just how painful it would be to see the memory from Kumiko's perspective. Although it seemed most of the emotions in the memory were muted, the ones he could feel, even if less extreme than they actually were, were awful. It wasn't the part about feeling them through the memory that phased him, though. It was the fact that Kumiko had experienced it, and at a much larger scale.

He hated seeing the girl in pain. He didn't want to lose the cheerful, curious Kumiko he had gotten used to. But why did he care so damn much? She's just a random child, and even if she's been stuck to his side for the past month, there's no way he could possibly be getting attached. He refused to, because if he ever had to give up Kumiko to send her home, getting attached would just make it too difficult.

He didn't want to admit it to himself. But he was running out of ways to think around the issue. He would have to face it sooner or later, the fact that Kumiko had become a part of his life that he didn't want to lose. The fact that he was attached and didn't want to let her go anymore.

It was when he made this realisation that he became glad that Kumiko was attached to the sleeve of his shirt. It helped him feel like they weren't going to be separated, and it was oddly comforting.

But this realisation just made the girl's situation even more difficult for him to accept. Knowing that this child that he cares about has had to go through something terrible, to know that there are people who may want her dead, to know that she is forced to deal with something that she never chose to have. And the fact that some people refuse to see her as anything but 'it'. An object, rather than a human being.

On their way back to Kakashi's apartment, he decided he would bring Kumiko to grab a piece of cake. She had been cooperative in letting them see her memory despite how painful the memory was for her, so at the very least she deserves to eat her favourite food. Kumiko wasn't about to decline.

It only took a couple of days for Tsunade to call Kakashi and his team. "Kakashi, Sakura, Sai, I'm sending you three on a mission to Kumiko's village to try to find any information you can." Tsunade told them.

"Hey! What about me!?" Naruto raised his voice, not wanting to be excluded from the mission.

"I'm leaving you to look after Kumiko." Tsunade answered. Everyone in the room was surprised, and they wondered if that was the best idea.

"This mission might require stealth, and considering your personality, you aren't very well suited for that type of mission." Tsunade started explaining. "I believe Kakashi is the most qualified to look for some of the information we need, so I have to send him. After what happened last time, I want to keep Kumiko in the village for now. It would be especially dangerous sending her back to her village. And so, I'm going to have you look after her while Kakashi is gone."

"But why me?"

"Yeah, are you sure Naruto's the best choice to look after Kumiko-chan?" Sakura asked.

"We don't know enough about the enemy. Although I hope you won't have to fight, I want to send a medic ninja like you just to be safe. Besides, there may be injured people left in the village, even though it's been over a month already. That's why I'm assigning you to this mission." Tsunade explained. "As for Sai… he's good at collecting intel, and I believe he'll be useful on this mission." And though she didn't say it, she thought Sai would be an even worse choice to look after a child. Everyone agreed, even though it was never said aloud.

"But why does it have to be someone from our team?" Sakura asked. She really didn't think this was a good idea. If leaving Kakashi with a child was a questionable idea, leaving a child with Naruto was an even worse idea.

"I doubt Kumiko would be willing to go with anyone else. She has spent the most time with your team, so she's more likely to be comfortable enough with one of you."

It made sense. Other than the occasional situation with other teams, such as when Guy's team broke into Kakashi's apartment with his team, Kumiko didn't interact much with the others.

"But why does it have to be me?" Naruto whined. When Tsunade gave him a look that suggested she didn't want to repeat herself, Naruto understood the previous reasoning. He wasn't happy about it, but he reluctantly accepted.

"Is that alright with you Kumiko?" Tsunade then asked the girl. She didn't understand the reasoning, but she did understand that they were trying to take Kakashi away. She held onto Kakashi's shirt sleeve tighter in response.

Kakashi sighed, knowing he'd have to try to convince her. "Kumiko-chan, it's really important that I go. I can't bring you with me this time. You don't want to see those scary people again, do you?" Kumiko's grip tightened even more. She seemed even more unwilling to let him go. Kakashi realised too late that she would likely be worried about something happening to him, as it had for her village.

"It's okay, we won't run into them, and I'll be sure to come back. I shouldn't be gone for longer than a week. I promise I'll come back, but for now you need to go with Naruto." Kakashi tried again.

Kumiko looked clearly sad, and continued to hesitate. But she didn't want to hold him back from doing things he needs to do. She doesn't want to become an inconvenience. Though she was pouting slightly, she eventually gave a small nod to say she would agree to let him go. "Thank you Kumiko-chan."

The team was scheduled to leave the next day. Kakashi had spent the day making sure Naruto cleaned his apartment before allowing Kumiko to stay there, and he spent the night making sure both his and Kumiko's things were ready while the girl slept.

The next morning started with Kakashi meeting with Naruto to leave Kumiko with him. Kumiko had been reluctant to let go of Kakashi, but remembering why she agreed in the first place, she finally let go and went to Naruto's side. Kakashi hoped everything would go well.

He then left to meet with the rest of his team so they could start their mission. They don't even know where the village is, so the sooner they leave, the sooner they can find the village, find the information, then return. And because of this, Kakashi arrived early.

It didn't take long for the other two to arrive, and Sakura was surprised to see Kakashi already waiting for them. Sure, he'd been on time recently, but early!?

"Alright, let's not waste any time." He said once his team arrived and they left. It was obvious that Kakashi was in a rush to finish this mission, though he tried to hide it. He wasn't doing a very good job of it.

But as much as Kakashi wants to hurry and finish the mission so he can be with Kumiko again, he's willing to take as much time as they need to find the information they need. Especially if that information includes something about the seal so they can properly fix the issues with Kumiko's seal. The sooner they can fix it, the better, and this mission might be his best chance at finding more information about it.

The team decided that they should start from where they found Kumiko again, though they were careful to remain mostly hidden as they travelled. The enemies may still be around, and although they don't have Kumiko with them this time, there's no guarantee the enemies won't still choose to attack them. There's even a chance they could try to use them to convince Konoha to give them Kumiko.

As such, they decided they would all travel in a group, despite splitting up being the quicker option. Kakashi had somewhat seen what direction Kumiko had walked to get to the spot where she was found, so he decided that that would be a good way to start.

He wasn't sure how far the teleportation jutsu had brought her from her village, nor was he sure of the direction, so going this way was mostly a gamble. But thankfully, it paid off. Although they didn't end up taking a very direct path to the village, they had gone in a close enough direction that Kakashi's dogs were eventually able to smell the destroyed village.

It was left in a very similar state to what Kakashi had expected. The buildings were all still destroyed, and there were still traces of blood left underneath some of the rubble where it had been protected from any rain. Many of the bodies were gone, though, and Kakashi suspected that someone had probably been respectful enough to bury them.

"This is Kumiko-chan's village?" Sakura asked, shocked to see the horrible condition it was in. Kakashi had informed them about its destruction, and a bit of the situation he'd seen in Kumiko's memory, but seeing just how bad it was came as a surprise to Sakura. It was worse than she thought it would be, and it made her heart ache for poor Kumiko.

"Let's search the village for any books or scrolls or anything that may contain information. Try to be discreet about it in case the enemies are around. If you run into any survivors, expect them to assume you're enemies, and don't harm them." Kakashi instructed. The two nodded, but before either of them could leave, a voice spoke.

"What do you want with this village?" The somewhat older woman asked, and the group turned their attention toward her. Her tone was harsh, as if she thought they had bad intentions. "As you can see, there's nothing here to steal. And if you're here about the village's secret, that's gone too." The way she spoke made it clear that she was trying to chase them out of the village.

She had shoulder length, straight light blond hair that had streaks of grey in it to show her age. Her clothes weren't in the best condition, but that should be expected at this point. She looked to be likely somewhere around her late fifties.

"We're not here to try to take anything. You see, we happen to have found someone from your village, and we're trying to find out more about her situation." Kakashi told the woman, trying to give the impression that they come in peace, not to tear everyone to pieces. He hoped a small smile would help, so he gave a small one-eyed smile, as he tends to do.

The woman looked skeptical. "What could you possibly hope to learn? This place has been destroyed, and most of us were killed. If you found a survivor, you should count that person lucky. There's nothing to find here that they don't already know." Although her voice was still harsh, it was much less so.

Kakashi continued smiling and using a peaceful tone, but there was a hint of darkness behind it this time that would be undetectable to most. "Except for the demon that she carries."

The woman's expression changed to shock. She had absolutely not been expecting someone to mention that. She wasn't sure if that meant they were enemies that wanted the demon, or if they had actually found the container.

"The child has amnesia, and the only thing she could seem to remember was the fact that this place was destroyed. She doesn't have any information about her demon or her seal, but that information is kind of important for us to know so we can know what we're dealing with." Kakashi explained.

It was only then that the woman noticed the symbol on their hitai-ate. She didn't see the symbol very often, as they had rarely been visited by shinobi. "You're Konoha shinobi?" She asked. The three nodded. "Did you really find it? The demon's vessel?"

Kakashi didn't like the way the woman addressed Kumiko, but he tried to continue smiling anyway so he could appear more friendly. If this woman decides to believe they're enemies, they would completely lose their chance of trying to find information here.

"Yes, we happened to have found her about a month ago. She's residing safely within Konoha at the moment." Kakashi answered. "Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot we don't yet know. Such as what this supposed 'demon' is, and about the seal. We're here to learn more. Do you mind telling us what you can?"

The woman considered whether or not to trust them before eventually deciding to bring them back to her place, explaining she had some of the books and scrolls that had managed to survive the attack kept in her basement.

"That demon has been kept within this village for a long time. In my lifetime, I have seen four different containers for it so far, including the current one." The woman started explaining as they walked.

"Four?" Sakura was shocked. This woman didn't seem to be super old, so to have seen so many…

"The containers tend to be short-lived. The oldest one in the past couple centuries was only thirty-one." This information surprised everyone, and it caused Kakashi to worry.

"Why are they short-lived?" He asked, trying and succeeding to mostly hide his worry from the woman.

"Because it doesn't always take very long for the next vessel to be born. The moment a new vessel has been confirmed, the sacrifice ceremony is held and the demon is transferred." She explained. "If we wait too long to transfer the demon, the vessel eventually loses its potential, and we can't predict when another one will be born."

"How do you know when someone is capable of being the vessel?" Sai asked.

The woman looked at them and pointed to a spot just above her right ear. "They're born with a crescent shaped birthmark." She answered, implying that the birthmark would be at the spot she was pointing out. Kakashi hadn't noticed Kumiko had a birthmark, but he realised it was likely because her hair always covered it.

"I assume the old vessel dies when the demon is extracted from them?" Sai decided to ask to confirm the woman's previous explanation. The woman turned to face forward again as she walked ahead of them to lead them to her place.

"They do. They have the demon sealed inside them when they're newborns, so it naturally starts to adjust to having it there." She explained.

"But why seal it inside of a person? Why not seal it somewhere else?" Sakura asked.

"Because anything unsuitable that tries containing it gets destroyed. It is only possible to keep the demon sealed within select containers. Even we're not sure why it's like that."

"What happened to Kumiko-chan's parents when she became the vessel?" Sakura decided to ask.

The woman looked at Sakura confused for a moment, before realising who she was talking about. "You gave it a name?" She asked, having clearly not expected it.

"Yeah…? Why shouldn't she have a name?" Sakura asked, beyond confused.

Kakashi expected the answer, but it still filled him with anger. He was thankfully able to hide it from the others, but he struggled to try to suppress it. "When they are sacrificed to the demon, the containers stop being human, and become solely vessels to contain the demon. There's no need to give a container a name, though I suppose you wouldn't have known. It doesn't really matter, anyway." The woman answered, as if it was no big deal.

The fact that she sees nothing wrong with treating a human child as an object is awful, and Sakura, too, found her anger rising, though she was also able to hide it. Sai, however, was all too familiar with the idea so he wasn't as phased by it. He himself had only recently gotten his name, even though it was originally meant to just be a code name for a mission.

"Once a potential vessel is born and sacrificed, their parents just continue on with their lives. The container is generally kept away from the people in the village, except for the occasion where they're allowed outside. The parents whose child is chosen as the sacrifice will often choose to have another child after their first failed. I'm not sure about the current vessel's parents specifically. But it's likely they died with the others in the attack."

This answer hurt Kakashi. Kumiko's parents didn't care for her, just because she was chosen to have a demon sealed inside her? How could anyone bring themselves to just abandon their child like that, especially such a nice child like Kumiko?

But for the sake of gathering information, he decided to push everything to the side for now. "Are there more survivors?" He asked.

"There were a few. I was lucky. I ended up buried under one of the fallen buildings, but only my leg was injured. I survived the collapse by some miracle, but the enemies thought I was dead so I wasn't attacked." She explained. "Most of the survivors decided to leave the village, fearing they would return. Only some of us stayed behind."

Author's Note:

This part was more difficult to plan than it was to write, so I eventually just decided to let my hands deal with the story instead of leaving it to my mind. I'm hoping it turned out alright. It was mostly just a lot of information. Also, I'm sorry if the ending seems a bit abrupt. I didn't realise how many words I had until I had already made this my longest chapter so far, so I decided to try to find a place to end it.

Also, just a note about the memory: I know it probably doesn't seem nearly as chaotic as the characters made it seem. That was because that part was written from Kakashi's perspective of seeing Kumiko's memory. He was able to mostly make sense of it. I chose to write it like this because I wanted you guys to understand what was happening. But yes, the actual memory is a lot more chaotic than it may have seen.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! With Christmas around the corner, I can't guarantee when the next part will come out (I'm going to be spending tomorrow and most of Christmas Eve trying to make my parents' presents by hand as I have been for the past couple years, and that's going to take up most of my time, and then, of course, Christmas day might be a bit busy). I will try to get the next part done soon enough, though, so that you guys don't have to wait too long for the continuation of this!