AN: New chapter.
Even after his father had tucked him into bed, Naruto was one energetic child. He wasn't prone to getting up out of bed (having a Dad who could teleport anywhere would do that) but he also didn't have to get out of bed to have fun.
"Jade-chan!" His excited whisper carried across the room. "Jade-chan, you there?"
A silent answer followed, the shadows of the darkened one twisting into swirls, a certain weight being added to them as they oozed across the ground.
Despite the room being empty, the kid knew she was around.
"Can you tell me a story Jade-chan?"
She was always around.
Like now, when she emerged from the shadows beneath his bed, ruffled his blonde hair, and dropped to sit on the edge of his bed. He was already sitting up in bed, a wide smile on his face easy to see despite how dark the room was.
"Sure." She smiled. "How about I tell you about when I first met your Mom and Dad?"
It wouldn't be as…graphic as the real thing but it would be entertaining enough to put the kid to sleep.
"You know how your Mom has that big bad fox sealed inside of her, right?"
"Yeah!"
"Well, some bad people figured out she had that big bad fox sealed inside of her and tried to take her away…"
Nineteen Years Ago…
"So…you're a twelve-year-old with a demon sealed inside you and those guys kidnapped you to have the monster fox in your gut fight on their side?"
"…I mean…That basically sums it up." The redhaired girl could, in the end, only shrug and agree with her mysterious savior's summary of it all. Once she had suddenly appeared, the chaos that had swept through her captors at her sudden appearance, and the mad dash she had made towards freedom in the fight that had broken out, they had found a spot to rest.
"You know, this isn't my first time dealing with demons. But never sealed inside people. We always kicked ours out our dimension." Her blue face briefly contorted into a wince, something the younger girl with her noticed.
"Are you hurt?" She hadn't seen her take any hits in the brief fight she had with two of the Hidden Cloud Shinobi, had given her the chance to surprise the third holding her with a hidden kunai, but that didn't mean she wasn't injured after the fact, when she had already been running away.
"Not like you think." The blue skinned woman could only drop back against the tree she was leaning against, frown as she felt a pull she really didn't like. It was the telltale signs that she couldn't stick around, that she was going to get sucked either into the Shadow Realm or someplace worse sooner rather than later. "I'm…kind of a demon too."
Courtesy of some ancient book and Shadow Magic going haywire in her hold, changing her from an adult woman into a weird mix between Shadowkhan and human, all while dragging her into a dimension that was decidedly different from how Tohru had described the actual Shadow Realm. Hurtling through volatile magic and into there hadn't given her the chance to guess at what she had been dragged into. The aftermath of floating through it for a truly senseless time, adrift as a shadow, let her piece together it was a space between dimensions, one that you only accidentally wandered into. For lack of a better way to describe it, she would call the mess she fell into from time to time the Shadow Realm.
One she really didn't look forward to going back to.
Popping out at random worlds, some almost recognizable and others completely foreign, wasn't as fun as movies made it out to be.
It was awful but there wasn't much else she could do but let, for lack of a better term, the waves rock her around until hopefully she managed to land back home.
"And I guess demons like me can't stick around this world for long." She could feel the pull grow stronger, want to take her away like it always did. At the frown that covered the girl's face, she gave her best attempt at an encouraging smile, tried to ease her worries. "Hey, don't worry about me. As much as this may stink right now, I've got friends trying to get me back where I belong." 'At least I hope they can.' Falling into other dimensions wasn't exactly something she, Jackie, or Uncle were that familiar with. They were usually trying to stop something coming into theirs. "Besides, I think it was pretty lucky I fell where I did. Saved you, didn't I?"
It took more effort than she would like but she managed to reach a hand out, ruffle the vibrant red hair on the girl's head. "To me, that's a pretty fair trade off."
"But…" The red-haired girl didn't say anything, couldn't.
It just wasn't fair.
The woman in front of her hadn't even asked questions, hadn't hesitated, when she had shown up. She had saved her without a second thought. She shouldn't have to go away. Even if she was telling the truth and she really was a demon. She had helped her, stopped the worse from happening when her kidnappers had figured out she was leaving a trail of her hair behind.
There had to be something she could do.
A dozen half remembered lessons came to mind, hours spent in the libraries of Uzushiogakure coming with memories of seal after seal, of their varied uses. Some were only good for storages, others for sealing increasingly powerful beings, and others for binding one to another.
One in particular stood out, one that had been used by the Uzumaki Clan in the past.
She bit her lip, violet eyes gaining a sudden stone-cold determination.
"What if I figured out a way to keep you here?"
"Kid, you don't want to get involved in any demon magic. Trust me. Besides, like I said, I'll be fine."
"No! This is hurting you and you can't hide it! You saved my life! Let me do the same! Then we'll be even!"
Present…
"And so, once your Mom and me kicked some serious butt, your Dad showed up." Her abridged retelling was a little bit outlandish, involved about five times as many Hidden Cloud Shinobi and his Mom definitely didn't fight off half of them with an arm tied behind her back.
A glance to the blonde in bed proved he was already fast asleep, the kid obviously more tired than he let on when he had called out for her.
Jade only shook her head with a smile, made sure to pull the covers up.
"Alright, we'll finish the story later. Night Naruto." With the room as dark as it was, it was easy to vanish into the shadows, appear right outside it.
This time, her sudden appearance didn't surprise Minato. He was finishing up cleaning up after dinner with the help of a Shadow Clone.
"That was quite the story you told Naruto." Minato's smile let her know he heard the whole thing, Jade only stepping up to replace the clone at the sink.
"All true obviously." Jade laughed.
They worked in a comfortable silence.
"How's Kushina?" He couldn't seem to help but ask about his wife, the mission she was on stretching on for nearly two weeks now.
"She's not in any danger if that's what you want to know." Jade had kept an 'eye' on her shadow since she left, took a moment to focus in on it. She couldn't hear or see what was going on around Kushina but she could feel her general mood, just like that the Shadowkhan could do for her. "She's getting bored of all the sitting she's doing but that's about it. And all the sand's pretty annoying too."
"I'm still surprised they reached out like they did. Surprised me even more when Kushina jumped at the chance. It's not like her to take extended missions like this. At least not now."
"I guess it doesn't matter why she felt she had to go. Let's just hope she comes home soon."
"Yeah."
AN: And a bit of what happened when Jade showed up has been revealed.
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Peace.
