Obito-Sensei Chapter 74
Understands Hatred
The assault on Konoha would later be regarded as a pyrrhic victory by some and a disaster by most.
More than a thousand Rain ninja were dispatched to Konoha, three of which were S-rank: less than two hundred returned, and all of the S-ranked ninja perished in battle. Conversely, Konoha took brutal casualties, with more than two-thousand ninja dead and thrice that injured. Civilian casualties exceeded that by more than double, and minor injuries among the entire population were uncountable due to the scale of the battle, the sudden deep winter, and the rampant flooding that half the village experienced. However, of that number only one of Konoha's S-rank shinobi, Hiruzen Sarutobi, perished in the battle, passing due to Sasori's vicious poison before aid could be administered thanks to his advanced age. Though nearly all of Konoha's S-rank ninja were grievously injured and removed from service for at least two weeks, the Sandaime was the only one to die.
In a war between villages, trading three of your S-rank ninja for a single one of your opponents would never be considered a good decision. However, the disaster didn't end there. Rain had also lost the Sanbi, which was captured by Jiraiya and Minato at the conclusion of the battle, and its promising new Jinchuriki Haku Yuki, the first of its S-Rank ninja to die.
It didn't matter that it should have been impossible for Sakura Haruno and Tenten to kill Haku, and that that impossible event ultimately decided the course of the invasion; impossibilities were a part of any battle, and the reality of the situation didn't care about the likelihood of events coming to pass.
So then, how could anyone call what Rain had accomplished anything but a disaster? One would have to be deluded to regard it as anything else, surely, let alone a pyrrhic victory.
But many across the world took notice of what had happened to Konoha. The villages were hidden, but such events could not be kept secret. Even if Konoha would continue to demonstrate its power in the weeks going forward, for the first time in the reign of Minato Namikaze the seemingly indomitable Hidden Leaf had been bloodied.
Konoha had been definitively shown to not be invincible, and Rain had proven its power on the world stage by bringing the most powerful Hidden Village in existence to the edge of disaster with a fraction of its forces. To many in the Hidden Rain, this was a costly victory, but a victory nonetheless. Revolution was impossible without sacrifice, and those who had died in the Hidden Leaf were martyrs of the most glorious kind.
Many in the Village Hidden in the Leaves tasted, and some for the first time in their life, the uncertainty that almost all the world lived with; the realization that strength did not guarantee safety and that their home could be attacked and their lives destroyed by invaders from without: that they were not untouchable.
It shouldn't be surprising that most of them reacted poorly.
###
Sakura couldn't say when the battle had ended. Maybe it never had.
She'd staggered after Naruto, his burned arms held stiffly at his sides as he guided her and Mikoto to shelter. They'd stumbled into a gutted store and Mikoto had fallen again, sprawled out face first on the ground bleeding everywhere. Sakura had fallen too, Naruto watching over the both of them, her face pressed against the cold snow that had accumulated everywhere.
Haku.
She'd passed out, her resolve finally dry.
Sakura had no idea how long she was unconscious. When she'd woken up, there had been people everywhere; the three of them had been dragged somewhere, a triage center, and medical ninja were treating them. There were a lot of them gathered around Mikoto. Nothing had really made sense, and so she'd passed out once more, her body too weak and her mind too tired to drag her consciousness back together.
The second time, she'd lain there for some time looking up at the sky. Her whole body hurt; her neck was covered in a cast that kept her from moving her head. The sky was blue again; it was still cold, but it wasn't snowing anymore.
The last of Haku was gone.
She should have cried, but what was there left to cry about? It was her fault that Haku was dead; she just had to move forward knowing that. After a long time, Sakura had sat up. Naruto and Mikoto were still there; there were guards posted nearby, more ninja, some injured, but they'd ignored her as she'd investigated her teammate and Sasuke's mother. They were both still unconscious: they'd drained themselves completely saving Kushina, and been just as injured as her on top of it. Sakura observed it all dispassionately, barely thinking, and then started walking south.
One of the ninja had tried to stop her; she'd looked at him, and he'd backed away.
Now she was walking, guided by her instincts and struggling to stay on her feet with every step. It was quiet; occasionally Sakura passed people running around and shouting orders, a woman sitting and crying, a lost child, but for the most part a deadly tranquility had settled over the Village Hidden in the Leaves. The world itself was in shock, hesitant to acknowledge what it had just witnessed.
Sakura didn't have room in her head to think about the political or military implications of Rain's attack. Her head was filled with death and betrayal, cloying thoughts that muted everything as she moved forward. She wanted to be filled with hatred, but instead she was numb. Her hatred had rushed out of her the moment she'd seen Haku's hands separate from his body.
Haku had thought this was for the best, even if he hadn't wanted to do it. Rain probably did too. But that's what everyone thought, good or evil, shinobi or not. That was the system; that was the world. People would always try to accomplish what they thought was right, and in doing so, commit atrocities.
Right now, Sakura understood you could hate someone for that, but didn't know how to hate anyone except herself. Konoha had done the same, turning Rain into a battleground despite it being a neutral country. If she were blameless, maybe she could have cast blame.
Eventually, she reached her neighborhood.
It was near where Naruto's mother had been trapped in that Akatsuki seal, she dimly noted. Only about a kilometer away. Most of it was gone. Ninja had battled here, and most of the structures were burned down or shattered, missing walls at best.
Some of them had been replaced by pillars of bone. A forest of bones had sprouted here, impossible structures of unbreakable white that twisted into the sky and were covered in deadly spikes. There were still bodies on some, and ninja rushing around removing them.
Sakura stopped, staring.
Her home was gone. Bloody bones had replaced it.
There weren't any bodies. But that didn't necessarily mean anything.
Where's mom, she wondered to herself, the question urgent despite how small it seemed. Where's my mother?
She circled the property, marveling at how completely the place she'd grown up in had been obliterated. Kimimaro had reduced it to nothing and left it a monument to his power. Would the bones eventually fall apart, or were they just a permanent feature? Was the man even still alive, or had Kushina, glorious and golden, finished him off? She hoped so, if only because she couldn't handle the idea of Naruto losing his mother.
But Kushina had already been so hurt, and the seal had broken. Were both her and Naruto's mothers dead? She couldn't even call it too cruel; there wasn't a bottom to the cruelty people were capable of.
Sakura started walking again, content that there weren't any bodies around her home.
A hospital would be the best place to look, she thought. If her mother was alive, she'd be at a hospital, or maybe one of those temporary triage centers like she and Naruto had been left in.
She started circling where her home had been, looking first for nearby triage centers. There were many, but her mother wasn't at any of them. Nobody stopped her as she wandered; the village had more important things to worry about than a single dazed ninja, and Sakura was surely not the only one moving about in a haze.
Maybe she was at another far across the village, but that would be too hard to find. Sakura settled for heading to the closest hospital, the central one. It was thick with people gathered in the streets and its corridors, injured ninja and civilians left on gurneys wherever there was space, some still crying out or grunting with pain as they waited to be attended to. Sakura weaved through the crowds both within and without the hospital, feeling as light as air and guided by an intangible force.
Eventually, she found a harried medical shinobi fielding questions from twenty different people at once. Sakura waited patiently until the man had shown off panicked apprentices and grieving families, and then approached. He sighed when he saw her in his peripheral vision, and then caught her eye.
He straightened up, looking right at her. Almost looking frightened, but everyone did. It was a frightening day.
"My name's Sakura Haruno," she said. Her voice sounded horrible; it was the first time she'd spoken since she'd woken up, and Sakura didn't recognize her own words. "I'm looking for my mother. Mebuki Haruno. Registration number 7601."
"Let me grab a chart," the man said after a moment, still not breaking eye contact with her. He backed away like he was faced with a wild bear, and for the first time Sakura wondered what she looked like, why people were steering so far clear of her. She found that she didn't care at all.
She stood there for several minutes, unmoving, until the medical ninja returned, brushing his bedraggled brown hair out of his eyes as he read over a clipboard.
"She's here, and alive," he said, looking up at her. He was nervous, only maintaining eye contact for a second before looking back to the paper. "Room 507."
"Thank you." Sakura headed towards the elevator, saw how many people were waiting, and decided to take the stairs instead.
It was only four floors up, but she felt lightheaded after the first flight. She had to stop and pant, leaning against the wall as she desperately tried to get air through her shredded throat. It was just like after the Chunin Exam. Where was Sasuke, she thought for a moment. Maybe he could carry her up the stairs again. She wouldn't mind that one bit.
But Sasuke might be dead just like Haku was, so after a minute Sakura started climbing again. She had to do it herself, because no one was coming to save her. If she wanted this not to happen again, she had to be the savior.
By the time she reached the fifth floor, all of her limbs were shaking and black splotches raced across her vision. She was still so hurt, so tired. Only dumb stubbornness had kept her going this far. She limped along the wall, falling into it so that she wouldn't go to the ground instead, and eventually made her way to 507, stopping outside it with a grunt. The door was closed, so she pushed it open and dragged herself inside.
Her mother was there, hooked up to an oxygen machine and with several different IVs in her left arm. Her right arm was gone, and her face was a mess; a huge bandage covered everything to the right of her nose. Her eye was probably gone, and maybe some of her jaw.
Sakura stood there taking it all in, searching for a feeling. But nothing came.
Rain tried to take my mother from me, she thought. I guess that makes sense. After what happened, they must really hate me.
Had that been what Haku had been trying to say? I really hate you?
'Maybe. After what you did, you'd be foolish to think he was trying to say anything else.'
You're a traitor, Sakura, she thought. No one will ever trust you again.
She stumbled to her mother's side, sinking down next to her bed and taking her hand. It was warm; she was still alive, no matter how badly hurt she was. She wouldn't die, but who knew when she would wake up.
"Mom…" she muttered, squeezing, feeling consciousness slipping away again. Everything hurt: maybe if she went to sleep, it would stop, at least for a while.
'Mother…'
Sakura fell asleep sitting down, her back propped against the bed and her mother's hand in hers.
###
When Naruto woke up, the sun was starting to set . He stirred awake, feverish and stiff. A thin blanket had been pulled over him, and he shifted, feeling it brush against his hypersensitive arms. When he opened his eyes, the sky was red, and he took his time looking around, feeling as though he were in a strange and timeless dream.
There were people all around, some resting, others patrolling. He was in an open air triage center, the village quiet. Even when people spoke, they did so in a murmur, conscious of the exhausted and the casualties that surrounded them. A gentle breeze fluttered his sheet, and Naruto slowly pushed himself up, drawing some attention from a passing doctor. The man didn't look like a ninja -he was a little too paunchy for that- but he still moved decisively, with the same sort of instincts that Naruto recognized in himself.
"Don't push yourself," he said, and Naruto felt a twinge of irritation. "Your wounds aren't fully healed."
His throat was sore, but he forced the words out anyway. It felt like his mouth might tear; his lips barely parted. "I can fix that," he said. "Soldier pills?"
The doctor frowned. "I don't recommend that," he said. "It'll only delay your full recovery-"
"I'm a medic," Naruto said shortly, looking around at all the other casualties. "I need to help."
The man paused, started to say something, and then paused again. Then he left without a word, and returned about a minute later with a pouch of vibrant yellow pills, each a ball about the size of a knuckle.
"What time is it?" Naruto asked. "How long has it been?" Looking around, he couldn't see any pink hair; his heart picked up, pushing a bit of life into his body. "Where's Sakura?"
"It's 5:20," the man said patiently. "PM. Are you looking for someone?"
"My teammate. A girl with pink hair. She'd been…" Naruto rasped, coughing up the rest of the sentence as bile. He jabbed a ring around his neck.
How had she gotten those ridiculous wounds? They'd been senbon entry wounds, he realized. What kind of ninja could have gotten that many senbon into Sakura's neck without killing her?
The answer was obvious, even if he didn't want to think about it. Haku. Haku had been that kind of ninja. The guy had loved using needles, and he'd been crazy accurate with them. Not only had Haku brought the snow, but Sakura had fought him.
If she'd shown up to rescue him and his mom in that state… Did that mean that Haku had run away, or that Sakura had won? Naruto didn't know which one would be worse.
"She wasn't here when I arrived," the doctor said, "but maybe she'd been moved. I'll ask around: take your time on that pill."
Naruto chewed slowly even though the pill tasted like dried snot, and energy bloomed throughout his body. The pain in his arms and head flared up, and he brushed his hands across his arms like he was wiping away what was left of the burns, replacing the skin and repairing the muscles completely. With the soldier pill, he gradually felt wired, like his blood was being recycled for something hotter and heavier. He shook his hands out, closing his eyes and breathing deeply; the headache, a symptom of exhaustion, only got deeper, and that was only the start of it. He was sure that by the end of this he'd be unconscious, not asleep.
Naruto didn't know how long he breathed like that, trying to center himself before the doctor came back.
"She left several hours ago," he said, and Naruto sagged in relief. "She was stable." He didn't know how that was possible, given how she'd looked, but maybe Sakura had only lost a ton of blood and the injuries had looked worse than they were. A blood transfusion might have been enough then.
"Okay," Naruto said. "What about my mom? Kushina Uzumaki?"
The doctor shook his head. "I'm not sure."
Naruto pondered that. He wanted nothing more than to be at her side, but he also knew that right now he probably wouldn't make a difference there. He made his decision.
"Then who needs the most attention?"
He spent the next thirty minutes there among the emergency medical tents and free-standing gurneys, methodically tending to lingering injuries. At this point, everyone who was critical had been moved to a hospital for more advanced treatment: the worst Naruto dealt with was a broken neck, and it was only a minor vertebrae fracture. When he was done with it and had fitted the neck brace, the woman, a chunin who had been thrown off a building, gave him a nervous grin.
"You'll be fine," he assured her. "Just don't turn your head for a week. That's what this is for. It's mostly fixed, but you could aggravate it."
"Thanks." She hesitated. "You're the Hokage's son, right? Naruto Namikaze?"
Naruto wordlessly nodded, and the chunin fidgeted. "Could you thank him for me?" she finally asked. "He saved me. I don't know if he even noticed, but I couldn't move… I thought I was done for. He killed the Rain bastard that was about to finish me off. I barely even saw him."
Naruto stared at her, and after a moment she shrank back. But before she could ask if she'd done something wrong, he spoke.
"I'll tell him," he said quietly, dragging himself up and moving on. When he'd seen everyone, he was sure that Mikoto was gone like Sakura was. She must have been moved to a hospital as well.
"Which hospital is the worst off?" he asked, and the medical ninja directed him to the south, towards the central hospital. Naruto started walking, observing the destroyed streets.
Why did this keep happening? When would it stop? He trudged through the streets, picking his way through debris; there were ninja and civilian volunteers everywhere, picking up rubble and clearing the occasional body. Wave, and Rain, and now Leaf. In three weeks, he'd been at the center of three disasters; that was a curse, certainly. Was it following him and his teammates around? Were they causing it? It didn't seem possible, but it being random would be even worse.
Naruto had learned medical jutsu because he wanted to be able to fix up his friends. The idea of being able to keep people safe even if they'd been hurt had appealed to him; that was the core of his nindo, he was pretty sure, protecting the people important to him. Protecting someone was all well and good, but being able to heal them when you couldn't protect them was even better. Especially when the world had been proving so thoroughly over the last month that sometimes you couldn't protect someone. He hadn't been able to keep his mom safe, but at least he'd been able to give her the strength to suppress the Kyuubi.
Naruto didn't want to think about whether his mom was alive or not. The seal had broken. He was pretty sure about that. But if his dad had come in time, maybe he'd have been able to repair it. And his dad was always on time. To Naruto, that was his most defining trait.
What was his dad doing now? How would the Hokage have to react to something like this? Rain had gone psychotic; the attack on Amegakure had driven them insane. Naruto was filled with crazy contradicting emotions that occasionally made his teeth chatter and his migraine spike. He could understand being driven crazy by what had happened; it was really easy to see himself in that position, Kabuto's smiling face and burst eyes running through his head again and again.
Just kill everyone who could threaten you. Yeah, that made sense to him. But while Naruto could sympathize with what had happened to Rain, how they might have been driven to commit this unbelievably stupid atrocity, most of him just jittered with hatred. They'd tried to kill him. They'd tried to kill his mom. They'd tried to rip the Tailed Beast out of her so it would kill all his friends. He hoped his mom had torn Kagami and Kimimaro to pieces, and in an ugly way that Haku hadn't gotten away; that someone else had killed him, so Sakura hadn't had to.
Maybe he was getting better at handling disasters like this, having been through so many. Practice made perfect, and they were all getting a lot of practice.
All those thoughts and more rushed through Naruto's mind on his journey to the hospital, and kept going as he made himself available there. An exhausted medical ninja pushed him into the rotation, and Naruto found himself setting bones and closing lacerations for hours. The sun set, hiding the devastation of the village; most of the western half had been flattened, and the area around the Hokage tower was a sodden wasteland. Naruto gathered that the Sanbi had been unleashed over there, and had rampaged until Obito and his dad had stopped it. He couldn't imagine fighting a Tailed Beast by yourself, not after seeing Gaara, but it just went to show how insanely strong his teacher and father were.
The Sanbi had been captured, the rumors went. Rain had lost a powerful weapon, and most of their ninja that had attacked were dead or captured. News like that fed the hatred in Naruto's heart and gave him the strength to keep going, keeping up his pace even as other medical ninja were forced to rest or dropped from exhaustion.
It was almost ten o'clock when he found Sasuke.
It wasn't an intended meeting, and Sasuke wasn't one of his patients. Naruto just spotted him across the crowded floor and chased after him when he was finished up with his current patient, a ninja who'd been patiently waiting to have a copper pipe that had somehow pierced his side without hitting anything vital removed. The pipe had formed a vacuum with the flesh it had removed, keeping the man from bleeding out, and he joked with Naruto as it was pulled out about keeping it as a souvenir.
Sasuke trudged up the stairs without noticing Naruto, who stumbled after him.
"Sasuke," he rasped out, and his friend turned around.
He looked terrible, even though he was basically uninjured. There were huge bags under his eyes, and he looked over Naruto with a slowness that was uncharacteristic of him. Naruto tripped up the stairs and, after a moment of hesitation, wrapped his arms around him. Sasuke stiffened, and then wrapped one arm around Naruto as well, squeezing him hard before letting go.
"You okay?" Naruto asked, and Sasuke nodded.
"I'm fine." He raised his arm, covered in welts and patches of white skin; nasty burns, already healed, from boiling water or steam, if Naruto had to guess. "This was the worst I got. Everyone else…"
He trailed off, and Naruto nodded, feeling a bit more solid in the presence of someone he'd been through with this before. "Is Hinata okay?" he said, suddenly realizing that Sasuke had definitely been on his date when everything had started. Unless it had gone really bad.
"No," Sasuke said shortly, and Naruto swallowed.
"Is she here?" he asked, and Sasuke nodded.
"She and the rest who were poisoned," he said, turning and starting back up the stairs. Naruto followed, drawing up beside him. "They're all confined to the third floor."
"Poisoned?" 'Again?' he couldn't help but think. Things were moving in cycles, and getting worse each time.
Sasuke gave a grim nod. "There was a mercenary. Sasori. I think he must have been from the Hidden Sand, once upon a time. He used puppets with poisoned weapons. Hinata and I ended up fighting him, along with a lot of the main counterattack. We got him, but… Everyone…" He blew out a heavy breath. "Everyone except me went down. It's something horrible. They're not dying, not right away. It's paralyzed them first, and is slowly shutting down their bodies. The older ones… the Third Hokage's already died."
Naruto stopped at that, pondering the enormity of what Sasuke had just said. The Third Hokage was a legend: he'd been around for basically as long as the village itself had been. He'd spoken at the academy many times, and known every ninja's name by heart. A kind old man with a great laugh, but still someone who seemed strong even if they had some wrinkles. The idea of him being dead made Naruto sick to his stomach. Rain had taken something from them they could never get back.
"Who's-?" he started to ask, but Sasuke beat him to it.
"Rin," he said, and Naruto nodded. Rin was an incredible medical ninja. If anyone could handle that poison, it would be her.
"Have you seen Obito-sensei? Or Sakura? What about your mom?"
Sasuke shook his head. "Obito's alive, but I don't know where he is. I haven't seen Sakura or my mother. Did you?"
"They both saved my mom," Naruto said frankly, and Sasuke breathed out in obvious relief. "Sakura and your mom looked pretty hurt, and I think we were dragged to the same place, but when I woke up they were both gone. I don't know where they could have gone."
"Maybe Sakura went home," Sasuke said, turning and continuing back up the stairs. Naruto followed him, his legs aching with each step. "Mom might be here. Or in another hospital."
"Maybe," he said. "I'll come with you, take a look with Rin. Maybe I can help."
Sasuke glanced back at him, and Naruto caught his eye. For the first time he could ever remember, Sasuke looked hopeless. No matter what had happened before, Sasuke had always either forged forward or knuckled down and figured it out; even when his arm had been destroyed, he'd just accepted it as the price of fighting Gaara. But right now, his resolve had been scooped out, and he just looked tired and afraid.
"This is why you learned medical jutsu, right?" he asked, and Naruto understood.
"Yeah," he said. "This is why."
Sasuke led the way up to the third floor. The whole floor had been allotted for victims of the poisoning, and they were spread out through a central operating theater and circling individual rooms, dozens of people gripped with paralysis and full-body pain, twitching and whimpering in their beds. Hinata was there, her skin as pale as her eyes, and two chairs had been pulled up next to her bed.
Naruto wasn't exactly surprised to see Neji in one of them, but he also wouldn't have expected that Hinata's cousin would be there. He had a cast covering one of his legs and his upper body was wrapped in bandages, but he sat resolutely at her bedside, his Byakugan active as he poured over his cousin with an intense focus. He barely shifted when Naruto and Sasuke approached; the only indication he gave of noticing them was a slight twitch of his mouth.
Sasuke slumped into the other chair, and this time Naruto was surprised as his friend took Hinata's hand, gently holding it and keeping it at Hinata's side as she vibrated with agony.
Maybe the date had gone well after all. The thought made Naruto smile, even if just for a second, before he spoke to Neji, his voice even raspier than before. Using it wasn't helping much.
"Where's Rin?" he asked, and Neji nodded to his left. She must have been in one of the private rooms on that side of the building. He nodded back and turned to go, before he realized he had to ask something else.
"Is Sakura here? In this hospital?" he asked, and Neji's eyes flicked towards him, irritation plain on his face. Naruto raised an eyebrow, and the Hyuuga sighed, seeming to take a moment to search around.
"She is," which Naruto also hadn't expected. "Upstairs, in room 507. Her mother's there."
Ah. Naruto swallowed, said thanks, and went to find Rin. He'd wondered that, just for a second, when Sasuke had said that Sakura might have gone home. His memory for the village wasn't perfect, but he was pretty sure the mall he and his mom had fought in had been pretty close to Sakura's house. If her parents had been home…
Naruto thought a ninja was someone who protected people; his dad thought it was someone who sacrificed; at times like this, he was pretty sure they were both wrong and a ninja was someone who was good at compartmentalizing. One thing at a time: he had to speak to Rin first.
He went room to room, poking his head in and only finding more dying people in the first three. Rin was in the fourth, accompanied by a full forum of medical ninja and another one of Naruto's old classmates. They were all surrounding Shikaku Nara, the Jonin Commander.
Shikamaru Nara was leaning against the wall, watching as a full team of staff attended to his father. He glanced over as Naruto came in, but didn't say anything, just watched. As far as Naruto could see, he was unharmed.
Naruto slipped into the circle of medical ninja: Rin was at the center, right at Shikaku's side, and seemed to be directing the group effort. As far as Naruto could tell, they were all trying to figure out how to save Shikaku's life.
"It's most analogous to heavy metal poisoning," said one of the ninja Naruto didn't know. Several of them were glancing at him with vague recognition, some confusion. The knowledge that he was a medical ninja too wasn't universal, not nearly. "But it's self-replicating. If we could just remove the tainted cells-"
"Wouldn't work," Rin said, her voice clipped. She looked rough: her head was bandaged, and one of her arms was in a sling. Every time Naruto had seen her hurt before, she had just healed herself: was she saving her chakra for other people, or had the injuries been so bad that even medical jutsu hadn't been enough? "They're binding to their neighbors. Just tearing them out would make chemo look like a peck on the cheek. Next."
"Have we contacted the Hidden Sand?" A woman spoke up. "Sasori was one of theirs. Surely they'd have an antidote?"
"If it's not a recent invention, maybe," another of the doctors argued. "But even for a ninja messenger bird it would take too long. Most of these people have twenty, thirty hours at most."
"And our teleporters are dead or disabled," Rin said with a sharp nod. "Except for the Hokage, but he's not leaving the village. Not again."
"So it's like heavy metal," a third said. "Treat it like heavy metal then. We could introduce another binding agent and have them pass it naturally-"
"We don't know what the poison is, or what would bind with it without just creating another toxin," Rin said, obviously frustrated. "We'd be playing trial and error for days that they don't have-"
"We've got samples of the poison, right?" Naruto spoke up, and Rin fixed him with a look that was entirely business. There was no friendship or familiarity there at all, and for some reason that helped Naruto focus. "Sasori's dead. He must have left some behind. It can't be identified?"
"Joining in, Namikaze?" one of the medical ninja asked, obviously surprised, but when Naruto nodded he continued without missing a beat. "It's a bespoke compound; whatever Sasori created it with, it's not a terrestrial element."
"Current theory is an unknown meteoric metal, or something chakra-synthesized," Rin said, and Naruto nodded, understanding enough to know how much worse the situation was than he'd figured. "Either way, it's only interesting trivia for the timeframe that we're working with. The rest of the poison is a simple enough base, but the mystery element is binding to cells near the point of injection-"
"By weapons?"
"By weapons," Rin confirmed, "and spreading throughout the body, subverting white blood cells and rupturing the cell walls when it's supersaturated. The paralysis occurs first; the poison is directed towards the nervous system through manipulation of the chakra system. After that, it runs wild across the whole body."
"It's like a genjutsu as well?" Naruto said, and Rin nodded. "How?"
"A jutsu-shiki on a molecular level. It must have been Sasori's life work," she said, and Naruto took a deep breath, completely overwhelmed. He understood jutsu formulas, but the idea of creating one that could fit on a molecule was just dumb, let alone making it complicated enough to replicate itself. The chakra control that would be necessary for something like that was something that only existed in the realm of the theoretical.
And Sasori had taken that talent and turned it towards something as basic as poisoning people. Naruto clenched his fists, overwhelmed with contempt and hatred for someone he'd never met who was already dead. What made someone such a piece of shit that they'd do that instead of literally anything else with their life?
"What if we…" Naruto trailed off as Rin looked at him impatiently.
What if they subverted the formula? Yeah, neat idea, but how? You needed to understand how a jutsu formula worked before you could hope to turn it against itself, and a molecular one couldn't just be looked at with the naked eye.
"Have we analyzed the formula?" Naruto said, a wave of exhaustion washing over him. Rin shook her head.
"It's in progress. We have some Uchiha and Hyuuga on it," she said, and Naruto nodded.
"Then I'll pitch in when that's done," he said. "Sorry for butting in."
He turned to leave, and Rin called after him. "Take a nap," she said, and Naruto waved over his shoulder. "And no more soldier pills. We need everyone at their best."
How had she known? He must have been jittering. Naruto left without another word, but it was only when the door closed behind him that he realized Shikamaru had followed him out.
They watched each other for a second, Naruto wondering if he would say something.
"Thanks for trying to help," Shikamura eventually said. "You okay?"
Naruto shrugged. "I need to rest. I will be." He paused, having no idea what to say next. "I'm sorry about your dad."
"Ino's and Choji's are both dead," Shikamaru said bluntly, and the boiling hatred in Naruto's heart started burning him from the inside. "If mine goes too, it'll be a clean sweep."
"Are they alright?" he asked, and Shikamaru shrugged back at him.
"They're alive. Choji's back got broken, but Rin said he'll be okay." He stared off down the hall as a group of people ran by, one of them carrying a defibrillator. "It hasn't really sunk in yet. We'll see how things go."
Naruto followed his gaze, words he couldn't bring together curdling in his chest.
"When this started," he rasped, "I couldn't believe it. I never thought Rain could do something like this."
Shikamaru looked back at him, obviously curious.
"After we came together in Waves, after what Sakura said the Akatsuki was about, I thought everything was going to work out. That I'd be a ninja for both the Hidden Leaf, and Rain, and things would just… go well. That it would be like Fukami City, but this time we'd stop bad things from happening instead of just cleaning up afterwards." He closed his eyes, crushing down his grief. "But now, I just want them all to die. I had friends in Rain, but a lot of them died when it was attacked by Cloud. Now, I just want the ones that made it to run away, and the rest of them to die. I don't think I can ever forgive them for this."
He stood there for a second, vibrating with the import of his words, and then coughed into his elbow. A bit of blood ended up on the inside of his arm; Naruto stared at it, feeling a scab in his throat that had come loose.
"Do you think that makes me a bad person, Shikamaru?" he finished. "To think that about people who were my comrades, even if it was just for a bit?"
Shikamaru thought it over, his fingers curling and uncurling as he pondered the question.
"You're not a bad person, Naruto," he said eventually. "It's just a bad world."
"You think?" Naruto asked, and Shikamaru nodded with a grimace.
"Yeah," he said. He turned. "I'm going to stay with my dad. Rin said that it will help them to have people around."
"It will." Naruto felt a sudden surge of determination. "It will. We'll cure him, Shikamaru. All of them. I won't let anyone else die."
Shikamaru chuckled. "Everyone's going to die eventually," he said with a sarcastic smile. "But you do your best, Naruto. We all appreciate it."
Naruto left the poisoned ward behind and headed upstairs, towards room 507. He wasn't sure what he would say when he got there; he just wanted to make sure Sakura's head was still attached. The hall was full of walking wounded awaiting treatment, but everyone let him pass without issue as they quietly spoke among themselves, counting their losses and plotting revenge.
When he pushed the door open, Sakura was awake. She sat in a plastic chair that had been dragged between the room's bed and the window, staring out into the darkened village with her hand placed on her mother's leg. Mebuki had been savaged: Naruto could tell at a glance that she was missing an arm and an eye, and considering that she was still unconscious she was definitely in a coma.
Every time he thought he couldn't hate more, he was proven wrong. He stood there for a moment taking Sakura in; her neck was in a cast, and most of her body was covered in fresh bandages. Her eyes were unfocused, lacking their usual fire, but she turned towards the door as he opened it and locked eyes with him.
"Hey," Naruto said, his throat thick. "You alright?"
Sakura blinked, and then shook her head.
"You?" she croaked out, sounding even worse than him, and Naruto shook his head as well. He stepped into the room and spotted another chair, dragging it to the other side of the bed and collapsing into it.
"At least we're the same," he said, and Sakura hiccuped, like a laugh had died halfway out her mouth. They fell into silence for a while longer, maybe a full minute, before he spoke again.
"The snow…" he said, knowing it both was and wasn't a question. Sakura nodded.
"It was him," she rasped, and Naruto closed his eyes.
"He went to you?" he asked. "What…?"
Sakura's expression didn't change.
"He's dead," she said, her voice flat.
Haku might have been an amazing ninja, but Sakura had been the better one. Naruto stood up, shuffling around the bed and acting entirely on instinct. He painfully sank down on one knee and wrapped both his arms around her in an aching hug, his head pressed to hers. He couldn't imagine what she was feeling. There weren't any words he could come up with to express it.
Naruto didn't know how long they were stuck like that. Sakura was like a statue, staring ahead and barely breathing. There were no tears, no shudders; it was like she was frozen.
"Is your mom alright?" Sakura eventually whispered, and Naruto pulled back. His cheeks were wet; even if Sakura hadn't cried, he had. It was a quiet thing, a measure of grief for someone important to her, even if Sakura herself didn't seem ready to acknowledge it. "That chakra she used…"
"I don't know." Maybe he had too much trust in his mother, but Naruto didn't find himself too worried about her. The last he'd seen of her, so gloriously golden and obviously powerful… she'd looked like she could take on anything. He hadn't understood what he'd seen, but it seemed that she'd taken the Kyuubi's power for her own.
"Tenten was with me," Sakura continued after a moment. "Haku almost killed her. That's why I…" She stopped. "I don't know if she's okay," she eventually said. "I got her to a medical ninja, and then I saw the barrier. I haven't seen her."
"She's okay," Naruto said, with absolutely no idea of whether that was true or not but knowing in his bones that it was the right thing to say at that moment. "She's tough. We'll go looking for her once things have calmed down."
"Yeah?" Sakura asked, and Naruto nodded, squeezing her shoulder.
"Yeah. She'll be fine," he said, feeling her warmth and solidity. He dragged his chair over to sit next to her, settling in like his body was made of lead.
Right then in that very moment, Naruto had never been more sure that he loved Sakura Haruno. Like a brilliant spark surrounded and defined by an abyss: being in that room with her made him feel stronger and more alive than anything had since he'd woken up. It was selfish, but at that very second he never wanted to leave her side ever again. If they stayed together, protected each other, nothing this horrible would ever be allowed to happen again.
"I have to sleep," he said, and Sakura nodded. "Doctor's orders. Will you keep an eye out?"
"Yeah," Sakura said. Naruto was already leaning back in his chair, his head slumping forward as he allowed exhaustion to overwhelm him again. "No problem. I can do that."
Naruto drifted off alongside her and her mother, and slept with the peace of the dead.
###
Kushina was pacing in a place between life and death.
The seal had been rebuilt. Of that she was sure, because she wasn't dead. But something had gone wrong, or been ruined by her desperation. The reforged seal was imperfect: her body was no longer entirely her own.
The Kyuubi was here, pacing restlessly with her on the other side of a massive wall of bars. It looked for all the world like a hungry dog, probing for a weak space where it could break through and devour her. It was withered, its skin clinging to its bones; the chakra she had stolen from it hadn't yet been regenerated, and so it looked as frail as she felt.
ARE YOU PROUD? it asked, gnashing its teeth.
"I guess?" Kushina said, stopping her pacing and watching as it did the same. "I mean, I doubt anyone else has ever pulled that off, right?"
TRUE ENOUGH, the Fox said, obviously irritated. MY CHAKRA HAS NOT BEEN STOLEN SINCE THE TIME OF THE JŪBI. IN THAT, YOU HAVE SURPASSED YOUR ANCESTORS.
"Cool," Kushina mused. "Doesn't really help now though. Do you wanna make another deal?"
The Fox smiled, all teeth. THERE'S NO NEED. I'M SURE YOU CAN FEEL IT; THE SEAL WAS SHATTERED, AND IT SEEMS THE OTHERS WERE NOT ABLE TO FULLY REPAIR IT. YOUR STOLEN POWER BROKE ITS FOUNDATIONS. MY FREEDOM IS A GUARANTEE.
It reared up, sitting in an almost human pose as it leered down at her. YOU WILL BE RECYCLED, MOST LIKELY. A DEFECTIVE WEAPON. I WILL BE TRANSFERRED… BUT THERE WILL BE A CHANCE FOR FREEDOM IN THAT MOMENT. I WILL SEIZE IT.
"I doubt that'll happen," Kushina retorted. "For a lot of reasons. But even if I did get put down, there's no one else that could hold all of you. And splitting you would be suicide for whoever did it."
IT MATTERS NOT. I HAVE NO INTEREST IN A DEAL. The Kyuubi sat back, scratching at its chin.
Kushina pondered that, trying to seize some awareness of her real body in the meantime. No good: she must have been so fucked up after her battle with the Akatsuki that she was trapped here now, her mind and soul just kicking around in her chakra system and communicating with the only other inhabitant.
In a way, this was probably the closest to Ninshu she'd ever get. She laughed, amused by the rogue thought, and the Fox scoffed.
YOU WILL DIE ALONE,it said. YOU'RE TOO DANGEROUS TO BE AROUND OTHERS NOW.
Kushina found that she barely cared about the Kyuubi's mocking tone. After being enveloped and almost melted by its chakra, its words couldn't even sting.
"What did you mean by that, anyway?" she asked, and the Fox snarled at being ignored. "Or was it just more garbage?"
ABOUT WHAT?
"Stolen power," she said, and the Beast grunted. "'You have already lost?' That sounded like something spoken from experience, but you said no one else had managed to nab your chakra." She turned it over in her head again, finding that with nothing else in existence this was taking up the entirety of her focus. "Or did you mean Madara?"
DON'T SPEAK HIS NAME, the Kyuubi warned, and Kushina scoffed.
"Oh please," she said, moving closer to the bars. The Kyuubi drew closer as well, lowering its eye to glare at her. "How can you be that old and still be such a baby? So he bossed you around for a bit; haven't you had a couple decades to get over it?"
YOU OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW THE BURDEN OF SLAVERY, the Fox rumbled. THAT MAN WAS AN ABOMINATION EVEN AMONG SHINOBI; ONE WHO WOULD DO ANYTHING TO ACHIEVE HIS AIMS. HUMANS MAY FIND SUCH AMBITION ADMIRABLE, BUT IT ALWAYS LEADS ONLY TO DESTRUCTION.
"Always?" Kushina asked.
ALWAYS, the Kyuubi snarled. I DO NOT KNOW WHERE HUMANS CAME FROM, BUT THAT IS SURELY THE REASON THEY HAVE LIMITS; THAT THEY AGE AND DIE. A TERRIBLE MISTAKE WAS MADE IN TEACHING YOU THE SECRETS OF CHAKRA.
Kushina frowned. "That sounds personal." She said, and the Fox shifted. "Are you that old, Kyuubi?"
The Fox didn't respond, so Kushina started pacing again. Even if she was just imagining the motion, it still helped her think. She'd never been able to do that and sit still, and probably never would. "You said you came from the Jūbi and the Sage of Six Paths. I'm not big into mythology beyond the important stuff, but I've heard that he was also the one to teach people how to use chakra; first as Ninshu, and then that became Ninjutsu. You're real; the Jūbi was real; that means he was probably real too, and that legend might be right."
She stopped walking. "So when you were… born, I guess, could people not use chakra yet?"
The Fox regarded her with a look Kushina couldn't read. There was a deep malice in its eyes; she knew that if there were nothing separating them it would kill her and claim its freedom without hesitation. And yet, there was also a consideration there. For the second time, Kushina wondered with some more grounding if the thing was more than a baleful demon.
THEY COULD NOT, it finally said. THE SAGE PASSED HIS TEACHINGS ONTO THEM, BEFORE THEY WERE CORRUPTED, DEBASED, AND DESTROYED.
"Was that the purpose you mentioned last time?" Kushina asked. "You were there when the Sage died. What did he tell you?"
THAT IS NOT FOR YOU TO KNOW. IT NEVER WILL BE. The Fox glared at her. DO YOU TRULY BELIEVE STEALING MY POWER ENTITLES YOU TO MY SECRETS?
"Not really, but what's the harm?' Kushina said, cracking a grin. "If you're right, I'm just gonna die anyway. It's not like I'll get a chance to spread anything around."
The Fox didn't respond, closing its eyes and remaining silent. Kushina didn't mind: she kept pacing, and kept talking.
"Assuming I've got everything straight, which I probably don't," she continued, "creating a bunch of incredibly powerful and immortal creatures and telling them to keep your legacy going would be a hell of a way to ensure your teachings stay on the right track. But the problem there is that, well, things obviously didn't go right. You said yourself that the Sage's teachings were corrupted. So if that was the purpose you all were given, you definitely failed. I'd be embarrassed to talk about it too."
Still no response. Kushina wasn't dissuaded.
"Is that what all that hatred is about?" she asked. "When I took in your chakra, I realized how deep it was, but it seemed shallow to me at the same time. As far back as I know of, people have been terrified of you, always showing up and destroying places. But you've got that ability to sense malice, and I bet you're a terrific sensor aside that. Maybe you were destroying places that were abusing chakra? That would definitely make shinobi all over terrified of you."
Still nothing. Kushina pressed on, feeling in her gut that she was getting somewhere even if she wasn't 100% correct.
"Was that your goal? Terrifying people out of using chakra? Or just punishing the people who misused it?"
She thought about it, and then shook her head. "Or maybe it was just trying to follow your purpose. I bet the Sage told you to help connect people, right? But with Ninshu gone, the best way to do that would just be to destroy the worst concentrations of Ninjutsu. And before the villages existed, that would have been the great battlefields and empires that you smashed, y'know…"
She stopped, tapping her fingers against her side. "But that doesn't really solve the original question of how you failed in the first place? How come Ninshu wasn't preserved, if something as strong as the Tailed Beasts were meant to look out for it? Or did you just ignore daddy's instructions?"
That finally broke the beast.
The Kyuubi slammed into the cage, and Kushina felt her body and soul rattle from the force of it as the Bijuu tore at her chakra system, trying to rip the seal apart, to rip its way out of her and kill her. She gave it an insolent smile as it raged against the bars, slamming its body into them and gnawing at her mind with teeth too large for its shrunken mouth. The seal might not have been able to be perfectly rebuilt, but it still wasn't something the Kyuubi could break through. Its rage shook her and stopped her heart for a moment, but the moment passed and Kyuubi was still standing.
BE QUIET. Its voice was even louder, surrounding her and dominating her senses. It blew away the false void they were standing in and left them alone, glaring at one another as naked souls. YOU KNOW NOTHING.
"Well, enlighten me then!" Kushina said, spreading her arms. "Cause you sure as hell can't kill me, Kyuubi! If you want to shut me up, tell me I'm wrong! Cause from where I'm standing, it seems you're just a failure!"
SILENCE!
Kushina laughed. "Failed to keep the Sage's teachings alive, failed to escape Madara, failed to beat the First Hokage, failed to break free from my clan; even failed to kill me! Have you done a single thing right?"
IT WAS NOT OUR SIN! the Kyuubi roared. It towered over her, its rage vast enough to shatter a mountain and yet helpless and restrained, breaking around Kushina like a crimson tide.
"Whose, then?" Kushina needled. "If you're not going to take responsibility, who should?"
The Kyuubi stopped, its anger freezing, and that was infinitely more frightening than anything Kushina had seen it do before.
It stared down at her, eyes narrow, chest heaving, claws scoring through emptiness.
YOU ARE TRYING TO DRAW THIS FROM ME, it growled. WHY? WHAT DOES IT MATTER TO YOU, KUSHINA UZUMAKI?
Why did it matter to her? Kushina barely knew; she was just chasing a thread she could feel teasing at her nose, nothing more. She took a second to think it over, the oppressive darkness of the void pouring over the both of them.
"I never thought about the start of all this before," she eventually decided. "It didn't matter to me. But if you don't know history, you're just doomed to repeat it, y'know?" She shuffled her feet, having nothing to kick. "I think I might have fucked up too much already to make a difference. But another ninja war is starting now; it seems that no matter what, they'll just keep happening. I'm thinking that if anyone can change that, it will be you."
No response, no world-shaking anger, so she kept going. "Because I saw in that chakra that you're not just hatred. I was taught that you were a demon, that you'd only do things to manipulate me and try to break free, but that's obviously not the case. I don't know what you are, but it's more complicated than that; that's for damn sure."
Silence; absolute silence, because in the void there wasn't even the sound of her heartbeat, or wind, of her clothes shifting against her skin. Complete and utter silence, the kind the human mind wasn't meant to experience.
Then, the Kyuubi's voice once more, pure chakra wired to her soul by an electric and raw connection that had been birthed by the seal's destruction.
THE SAGE CREATED US, it said, and Kushina looked up at it, trying to read expressions on a face that suddenly seemed far more human. BUT WE WERE NOT HIS ONLY CREATIONS. HE MADE SONS IN HIS IMAGE; ASURA AND INDRA, MEANT TO CARRY ON HIS LEGACY AND PROVE THE JUSTICE OF NINSHU. IT WAS THEY WHO BETRAYED HIM; BETRAYED US. IT WAS THEY WHO CORRUPTED CHAKRA.
It was a statement too vast in its implications for Kushina to immediately break down, so she went with her first thought.
"Mikoto said the Uzumaki were descended from one of them," she said. "Asura."
YES. The Kyuubi sounded thoughtful, its 'words' full of feelings Kushina could barely handle. Regret, disgust, fear, disappointment… love.
The last more than any other rooted her in place and filled her with doubt.
ASURA AND INDRA BOTH CREATED COUNTLESS DESCENDENTS, the Fox said. THEY SAW IT AS PART OF THEIR MISSION, I FEEL; MOST HUMANS SEEM TO THINK CREATING MORE OF THEMSELVES IS NECESSARY. EVEN THE SAGE DID IT, AFTER ALL. HE BESTOWED UPON THEM DIFFERENT GIFTS, DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF HIMSELF. TO ASURA, THE STRENGTH OF HIS BODY; TO INDRA, THE CUNNING OF HIS MIND.
It settled down, the void closing in and drawing it and Kushina closer together. The bars were still there, invisible, but Kushina felt like she was right before the great beast, dwarfed by its titanic presence and yet somehow, for this strange moment, regarded nearly as an equal.
FROM THAT BODY YOUR VITALITY WAS BORN, A FORM MIGHTY ENOUGH TO SURVIVE CONTAINING EVEN ME. FROM THAT MIND CLARITY WAS BORN, MINDS AND EYES KEEN ENOUGH TO SEE THROUGH THE FACADE OF THE WORLD.
"The Uchiha?" Kushina said in a moment of sudden epiphany, and the Fox nodded. The motion was so unsettling in its humanity that Kushina flinched, and the Kyuubi sneered at her.
YES. BUT NEITHER OF THE SONS WERE PREPARED FOR THE BURDEN OF THE SAGE'S TEACHINGS. THEY SOUGHT POWER, DOMINATION; THEY COMPETED, AND CHAKRA, A BINDING FORCE, BECAME A TOOL FOR MURDER IN THEIR HANDS. The Kyuubi's voice was distant now, coming across a gulf of millenia as it pondered an alien past. WITH HIS FATHER'S CUNNING, INDRA ENSLAVED US, AS MADARA DID AND THE OTHER UCHIHA STILL DREAM OF. AND WITH HIS FATHER'S STRENGTH, ASURA DEFEATED AND SCATTERED US, AS YOUR CLAN AND THE SENJU DID BEFORE I CAME TO BE IMPRISONED IN YOU.
"Which of them won?" Kushina said. "In the end, if they were trying to come out on top…?"
THERE WAS NO VICTORY, the Kyuubi growled. THEY KILLED EACH OTHER, AND THEIR FOLLOWERS SCATTERED TO FURTHER SPREAD THEIR CORRUPTION AND DOMINATE THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD. THEIR BATTLE CONTINUES TO THIS DAY THROUGH PROXY; THE SENJU AND UCHIHA CONTINUED SLAUGHTERING EACH OTHER UNTIL THE BLIGHTED VILLAGES WERE CREATED, BUT SUCH THINGS ARE TEMPORARY; THE KILLING WILL BEGIN AGAIN SOON, THOUGH PERHAPS WITH NEW NAMES AND FACES.
It was way too much to digest; Kushina didn't doubt for a second that the Kyuubi was telling the truth, but what an insane truth. She stood there trying to come up with a witty response and failing for an embarrassing eternity, and finally just sat down.
DOES THAT SATISFY YOU? the Kyuubi asked, and she shook her head.
"So you see anyone who uses Ninjutsu as one of the Son's followers?" she asked. "Even if they don't know it… they're carrying on Asura and Indra's legacy, instead of the Sages."
CORRECT.
"But killing people over that… surely you can see how humans would see that as unjust?" Kushina asked. "People are born into things they don't understand, y'know. Everyone using Ninjutsu, they don't understand what it means to you. To them, it's just a tool. I doubt you would go after people using swords or bombs with as much hatred."
ALSO CORRECT, the Fox mused. I AM NOT STUPID. IT IS UNJUST. I HAVE CONSIDERED THE NEW REALITY; THAT EVEN IF NINJUTSU IS ALL THAT REMAINS OF NINSHU, THERE MAY BE THOSE WHO TRY TO USE IT IN THE WAY THE SAGE INTENDED, DESPITE ITS WARPED STATE.
"But?"
The Kyuubi fixed her in place with its massive eye. BUT I AM A BEAST, DREADED ACROSS THE WORLD AS A FORCE OF ANNIHILATION. ONLY THOSE WHO WISH TO HARNESS MY POWER FOR THEIR AMBITIONS SEEK ME OUT. PERHAPS I MADE ERRORS IN MY YOUTH THAT FIXED ME ON THIS PATH, BUT IT HAS BECOME MY DESTINY TO DESTROY, JUST AS NINJUTSU DOES. IN THAT, I SHARE THE BROTHERS' SIN. I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO TEAR DOWN ALL THEY'VE BUILT, AND SO, I SEEK OUT THOSE FILLED WITH THEIR EVIL.
Kushina didn't have an answer to that; there was already too much. The Kyuubi wasn't a demon; it was both more and less than a person. A creature formed from raw immortality and given an impossible quest that it was now trying to fulfill the only way it knew how. How could she negotiate with something like that? She'd been hoping to learn some new context, but this new framing seemed even more hopeless than the old one. She was the unwitting inheritor of a millenia old grudge; the whole world was, because Ninjutsu had been just that efficient, coming to dominate everything just like it had been designed to. The "Shinobi System" that her son and his friends had drawn out, that Minato had been so steadfastly trying to smother, wasn't just the countries and and Hidden Villages of the world and their competitions and rivalries: it was the very underpinning of human history, an unknown tale of misused power and destructive ambition.
It was all way too much, but at the same time, Kushina was a simple person at heart, so after a while she managed to shove all that to the back of her mind and focus on something that had been niggling at her. She could deal with that later, assuming she was still alive; for now, she wanted one more puzzle piece to try and pull things together.
"One last thing," she said, "and then I'll leave you alone."
WHAT COULD IT POSSIBLY BE NOW? the Fox asked. WILL YOU NEVER BE SATISFIED?
"Hey, it's your fault we're stuck like this," Kushina groused. "But forget about that for a second. I've just been thinking, the Sage named his sons. Asura and Indra. What was his name?"
The Fox hesitated, but the question had clearly piqued something in it, and after a moment it spoke.
HAGOROMO, it said, and Kushina nodded.
"Thanks," she said, and then pushed forward. "And what about you?"
The Fox stilled; Kushina couldn't read it. The electric connection had faded, but she ventured the question once more nonetheless.
"He created you; you were basically his kid. All of the Bijuu would have been, even if you were the piece of something bigger," she said. "If he named his sons, well, why wouldn't he have named you?"
Kushina stood up straight and gave a slight bow, the honest kind she'd give to someone she was meeting for the first time.
"And if that's the case, what's your name, Kyuubi?"