Human

Whirlpool Arc

Chapter 6

Rin

She braced herself for the inevitable end that would accompany the shadowy figure, muscles tense, and eyes locked in terror on her pursuer. Except something large and powerful and within her crackled beneath the surface and ordered her to move. Rin did not stop to question what it was, but she did stumble away from a blade as equally as amorphous as its wielder. Where had the shadow blade come from? One second it hadn't been there and the next it had been.

The shadow lunged at her again while she was off balance, and this time her ninja training took over. She let her backwards momentum carry her and transitioned from an awkward stumble to a purposeful back handspring that carried her over a headstone and into another row of graves.

It advanced, unimpeded by the graves, walking through them as if they weren't there. It swung again.

The shadow's blade passed harmlessly by her and she fell into the first stance of the Taijutsu style that Kushina had taught her. Adrenaline kept her focused, despite her racing heart and trembling limbs, and she waited for the shadow to swing its blade, which resembled a sword, again.

When the attack did come, Rin was ready, she stepped towards her assailant and spun around so that the sword whizzed past her left shoulder and then struck at the shadow with her right fist.

She made contact.

She mostly made contact.

Her fist plunged into the shadow in much the same way a person might plunge their arm into a bucket of water. It had no visible effect in a combat sense, and Rin yelped in pain. It was cold. So cold that it burned. She yanked her hand back and retreated from the shadow, back through the headstones where she could take a measure of her opponent.

It watched her go, sword held loosely in one hand. Otherwise it made no outward indication that it regarded her as a threat, or that she could escape it if she did run.

When she stopped it moved— slowly, purposefully, inevitably— towards her.

Rin glanced around the graveyard, and found nothing immediately obvious that would help her to fend off her attacker. She couldn't fight it head on, but maybe she could outrun it long enough to find some other solution.

She could use chakra against it. Destroy it with Jutsu. A powerful enough attack with fire might— no. No.

Her chakra was poison. Fire Jutsu were out of the question.

But what if—?

No.

A fight was not winnable right now. She took off with a deep breath, sprinting between the gravestones away from the shadow and towards the city center of Konoha. As she ran she rubbed at the knuckles on her freezer burned hand. It throbbed painfully, and the skin on her hand was a bright, angry pink.

The graveyard gave way to a side-street, and Rin followed it onto a more major road, zipping past the buildings as fast as her legs would carry her.

She needed a safe place to hide, where the shadow couldn't find her. Somewhere she could formulate a plan.

But where?

Her first thought was her house, but something told her that such an obvious choice wouldn't give her much time to actually collect her thoughts before she was found again. But if not her own home, the place she would feel the most safe and secure, then where?

Perhaps the large training ground where she had been trained up in her ninja squad would work, but that was a large open space with very little cover. If she was to hide, it would not do.

Deciding on someplace random, Rin checked to make sure the shadow had no line of sight to her, and then slipped into the nearest building. It was a small apartment walk-up, obviously civilian owned.

It was perfect.

Rin had never been here before, and there was no reason to suspect she would have chosen this particular place to hide.

She took the stairs three at a time, trying the apartment doors on each landing. On the third floor, she found an unlocked door.

The apartment was small but well cared for, and Rin made her way into the small living room. It was clean, and Rin ran her fingers along a small blanket that was thrown over the back of the couch in the center of the room.

It felt much different than it looked. It was coarse and almost spongey.

Feels a lot like my sleeping bag , Rin thought. She didn't have long to ponder why, because from the kitchen of the apartment came the shadow, and Rin felt her stomach drop.

How had it found her so quickly? How had it made its way to the kitchen without her even noticing?

She flung the wrong-feeling blanket at the shadow and all but threw herself out the door and back down the stairs. Rin stumbled as she reached the ground and used the wall of the building to propel her back down a side-street.

Rin didn't know how far she ran, but she took random turns and let her feet carry her far, far away from that apartment.

She ran past houses, shops, the ninja academy, and several clan compounds. She ran until her lungs burned and she was sure she'd slipped down every side alley she found, and that nobody could reasonably have followed her while moving at the pace that shadow figure seemed to walk at.

In the middle of the large road that led to the gates of the village, Rin stopped, hand on her knees to catch her breath. After a moment she noticed that the streets of Konoha were empty. Not a single person was on the main street, and she didn't remember passing by anyone while she'd made her dash away from the graveyard or when she'd run from the apartment.

It was broad daylight.

It was impossible to traverse the Hidden Leaf Village at any time of day without passing at least a dozen people. A ninja village never slept. Missions were a twenty-four seven kind of thing, and there were a not insignificant number of shops that were open around the clock to cater to those that came and went at all hours as their missions demanded of them.

So then how was nobody around? It didn't make sense.

Then again, Rin thought. Nothing has made sense at all since I got back to the village.

And then a thought fell over her. A cold, horrible thought that gripped her heart and made her doubt everything.

If I got back to the village.

Was she dead?

That seemed unlikely. From the way that her heart hammered in her chest, to the way her hand ached from its icy burn, and the way she was covered in a thin layer of sweat from her mad sprint through the village, she had to be alive.

She had to be.

But then that would mean that the shadows she'd seen around the Whirlpool village had coalesced and created a false version of her own home.

Her solution was in the Whirlpool village. A place she had no desire to ever return to.

Rin glanced around for the shadow, and for once saw that it had not yet caught up with her. She turned her back to the village, and stared at the large gates leading out into the world, or at least some odd imitation of it.

The way she saw it, she could stay here and look for someone or something to help her here in the village, or she could go and try to put an end to it in the Whirlpool village.

She stepped towards the gate.

Kushina

Kushina strained against the unfathomable power of the tailed-beast sealed within Rin. Her adamantine chains trembled against the chakra that roiled and pulsed outward in waves. The sheer force of it was something Kushina had never contended with before, and she worried that, perhaps, she would be unable to hold it at bay— let alone shove it back into its container.

The house they'd taken over groaned under the pressure of chakra, and the sound of cracking wood joined the chaos, but Kushina did not move. She would stay and fend off the tailed-beast if it was the last thing she did. A house collapsing on her wouldn't change that.

Rin thrashed violently, and Kushina was lifted off her feet by the chakra emanating from her. The roof of the house gave way under the force of chakra, and Kushina was buffeted by splintered wood and dust.

Chakra surged from Rin once more, redoubling its intensity, and Kushina heard her chakra chains creak through the deluge of collapsing house and dust.

No!

Kushina grit her teeth and more chains tore through the back of her shirt and snaked their way across what was left to the room to encircle Rin and exert more pressure against the too-close to escaping Three-Tails.

Her body trembled as she again touched the ground. Her feet dug into the ruined wood, and the splinters dug their way into her skin. Kushina's usually unflaggable chakra was stretched thin, nearly as far as she'd ever tried to spread it all at once. Her vision went to static, but she held on. Until eventually, thankfully, the tumult died down and Rin's sweat-soaked form went limp once again.

She let out a shaky breath, relief flooding through her. That had been close. Too close. But it was over now, and there was still more time, if only barely.

The problem, as Kushina saw it, was that there was no more time to wait, to prepare, to make it safer to try and change Rin's seal. She was degrading, and the chakra from her tailed-beast was ripping her apart.

Kushina didn't know if it was best to wait for Rin to wake, or to try and pull the tailed-beast into its temporary seal while the girl was still asleep. In either case, there was a chance Rin would die. And no matter what, Kushina knew she would feel responsible if anything happened to her.

Wait or start? Kushina asked herself. Wait or start?

She stood in the wrecked house, breathing heavy, covered in debris, and staring at the too-still form of Rin for a long time, going back and forth.

Hesitating.

Avoiding.

In the end, she knew it was time. Nobody from Konoha had come, and it had been weeks. Over a month by her count, since she'd last been in the village. Since she'd passed a message back and taken Rin away from home. They were alone, and it was up to her to fix it.

With a nod to nothing in particular, Kushina dug her supplies out from the rubble, and moved them to the training field. She made two more trips for the tailed-beast container and for the seal containing all of the extra chakra Rin had been storing.

With everything assembled, she set about placing things where they would be most useful to her, and double and triple checking that she had everything.

Once she was set up, she pulled Rin's chakra battery to her and reached out to it with her own chakra. It was full of energy, but it was barely half of what she wanted, and perhaps a quarter of being the best case scenario.

If she started now, Rin would have perhaps an hour to live, and Kushina would have to work quickly and efficiently. But it was possible. Kushina had gone over it a hundred times. The theory was sound. Transferring the tailed beast to a temporary cage that would contain it for a handful of hours at most, and connecting Rin to a source of chakra that would keep her body alive while she worked on the seal without.

One hour.

One hour to do what had never been done before.

Kushina went back to the house, and retrieved Rin from the ruined mattresses, picking her up gently, and cradling the girl against her chest. She took Rin to the training field, and laid her gently on the ground in the center of the field.

"Hang on, Rin," she said. "I'm going to fix this, okay? Just hang on."

She grabbed her brushes and ink, as much as she had left, and prepared them gently, purposefully.

And then Kushina drew.

First a circle around Rin, to represent an endless loop of energy. Unbroken. She lined it with symbols for stability, for serenity, for water, earth, lightning, wind, and fire. The elements, contained within an endless coil. For heaven, earth, yin, and yang. And from there she drew lines, arcing out in eight spider-like tendrils onto the ground. Each an anchor, grounded by a representation of the chakra gates: Opening, Healing, Life, Pain, Limit, View, Wonder, and Death.

From each anchor, connected to one another in concentric rings from a center. Ripples spiraling. A whirlpool, funneling energy to a point. Control. Surrender.

The spiral continued to Rin, and when Kushina once again arrived at her charge, she knelt and removed Rin's shirt so she could ink the girl's skin. The spiral continued, funneling energy ever inward until it would concentrate in place around Rin's belly-button. A focal point.

She arced tendrils of ink out from Rin and formed the anchors of the eight gates on Rin's skin, where they existed beneath the surface.

Kushina's hands were steady as she worked, and as the web of chakra-laden paint grew from the Rin, to the ground, and outward from there. Connecting, in their time, the container for the tailed-beast, and the seal containing the additional chakra for Rin.

When she was finished, dawn had broken and the warm sunlight splashed across the ground, illuminating Kushina's work. Tens of thousands of brush-strokes covering an area some fifteen square feet.

Kushina wiped her face, smudging ink across her nose and cheek, and went to double check her work.

Rin never stirred.

"This is it," Kushina whispered to herself. "No going back now."

She knelt beside Rin and formed the seals and unraveled the seal on Rin's heart.

The effect was instantaneous. The three-tails shot out in a pillar of energy so large and so bright that Kushina closed her eyes. She anchored herself to the ground with her own chakra to keep from being blown backwards by the sheer volume of energy that was being released.

It was over as soon as it started, the seals were in place and crafted masterfully. Before the beast could fully form, it was dragged away from Rin and into its container — a small urn that shook violently once the beast was within.

Kushina watched as the seal that sprawled across the ground lit up with the extra chakra from Rin's battery seal and pumped energy into the girl's body.

Rin's breathing was ragged, but present, and Kushina felt relief flood through her. It was working!

She started the work again, drawing with the ever-diminishing supply of paint the path that would draw the tailed beast from its temporary container and into the newly crafted seal on Rin's body. One stroke of the brush, and then another and another. It took shape, and Kushina knew it would work. Knew that Rin was going to be safe. Knew that—

There was a trembling in the air as the barrier seal that kept the Whirlpool Village hidden from the world broke and faded away.

And then Kushina felt them. Two sources of chakra, powerful, controlled, cold, and coming straight for them.

Kushina swore loudly, but got to her feet all the same, and darted to the edge of her work, drawing new seals beyond the border of her masterwork. She drew four seals, as quickly as she could before tossing her brush to the ground and forming the Ram seal.

For a moment, Kushina seemed to shimmer in place. And then there were five of her. The original and four copies, all solid, tangible versions of her. And they took up places at the four new seals.

A purple light flickered to life boxing in the copies of Kushina and Rin and the massive seal behind them. Kushina nodded at her hasty work. A four-points barrier seal could keep in, or out, pretty much anyone if they did not know how to remove the seal.

She walked a dozen paces away from the seal, to the large open road leading to the center of town, and waited.

She did not have to wait long, not with ninja of their caliber. Kushina could feel their chakra as they approached, two ninja with enough chakra between them to level a city. They appeared before her in the blink of an eye. To the untrained eye, they may as well have appeared out of thin air. Kushina raised an eyebrow when they stopped before her. A man and a woman, both wielding strange blades. They wore headbands from the Hidden Mist Village and Kushina recognized them as members of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, the most elite fighters from the village.

And now they were here, standing ten feet away from Kushina. From their body language and the way their chakra seemed ready to spring out of them, it was clear they were looking for a fight.

The man was very tall and very thin. He wore the mask of a hunter ninja, and his straw colored hair spilled out from every direction. He carried two pointed blades connected by a fine length of ninja wire. The woman was shorter, but her hair was as red-brown as dried blood and arranged in one of the oddest hairstyles she'd ever seen. Her swords were short and had spiked protrusions along their lengths.

Both of them eyed her curiously. It was to be expected. How could they have planned on finding an Uzumaki here after all this time, and one who was clearly doing something with Fuinjutsu at that.

"Well, well," the woman said, voice like a growl. "Look what we found. A little Uzumaki trying to save her dead village."

"What do you want?" Kushina asked.

"You have something of ours," the woman said. "Something you stole from us."

Kushina raised an eyebrow. "I didn't steal anything, ya know?"

The masked man scoffed. "We have incredibly accurate intel. A woman matching your description made off with our tailed beast."

"You mean the one you forced into my student against her will. The one you planned on leveling Konoha with?" Kushina asked.

"We did no such thing!" The woman barked.

Kushina ignored her. "It seems to me that you lose the right to call it your tailed beast when you do something so evil and so stupid. Now, if you don't mind, I am in the middle of something."

"Either you give us the tailed beast, or we take it by force," the masked man said.

Kushina sighed. She didn't have time for this. Rin didn't have time for this. "Not gonna happen," she said.

"Then you die," the woman said, mouth splitting in a wide, devious smirk. Kushina saw her sharpened teeth. They reminded her of a shark.

Ameyuri Ringo, Kushina realized, was her name. She had finally put a name to the face (and the swords) she'd seen in the Bingo Book hundreds of times. She carried the twin blades called Kiba, which were supposedly the sharpest blades ever forged by the Hidden Mist.

And the other was Kushimaru Kuriarare. He carried the Nuibari. Konoha had less information about him. Not enough of their own forces had survived encounters with him to have an accurate assessment of his skills.

This was bad. The Seven Swordsmen had their deadly reputation for a reason. They only took the most gifted sword wielders from their village, and they were often sent on the most dangerous missions. Their success rate, at least as far as anyone in the Hidden Leaf was aware, was nearly one-hundred percent.

While she was a Jonin herself, and the Jinnchuriki of the Nine-Tailed Fox, Kushina was unsure if she could defeat them, and even if she could, if she could do it fast enough to still save Rin's life. They were likely far more combat experienced than she was. The Leaf Village, for all that they needed her strength, were hesitant to send her into active combat, both because of her status as Jinchuriki and because she was the last living pure-blooded Uzumaki.

"I would prefer if we could save the fighting until after I finish what I was doing," Kushina said, praying for a delay of the inevitable.

Ameyuri laughed. "Do you hear that? She wants us to let her finish harnessing the power of our tailed-beast."

Kushimaru drew his blades. "An outcome we cannot allow. The Mizukage wants his prize."

"That he does," Ameyuri said. And then she, too, drew steel.

Kushina cracked her knuckles, and drew a kunai from the holster on her leg. She palmed it carefully, so that her opponents would not see the sealing paper wrapped around the handle.

"Aww, does the little girl not have a sword to play with?" Ameyuri taunted.

"Sorry. I left mine at home," Kushina replied. And then she threw the kunai.