Human

Whirlpool Arc

Finale

Kushina

Her old house was still.

Everything had settled. Wood no longer creaked and adjusted, the sound of blood no longer dripped onto the foundation of the house through the floorboards. The sound of silence roared in her ears even as darkness loomed at the edge of her vision. She could see the room before her, but it seemed so far away. To make matters worse, it kept changing between the old, warm home she had known, and the dank, dusty ruin it now was.

Somewhere chakra surged. An immense wave of power washing over the ruins of the village all at once. It was the most chakra she'd ever felt from anywhere except for….

It was the three-tails, Kushina realized distantly. The temporary vessel had been tampered with, and their time was up.

Kushina had to get up. Had to stop them, had to save Rin, and reseal the three-tails.

She had to do a lot of things, but she couldn't find the strength to move. She couldn't find the strength to get up again and fight against the two strongest opponents she'd ever faced in a life or death situation.

Kushina had battled them, and she had lost.

The single, rusted old kunai had been cleaved in two, and she'd fallen as a result. What remained of her village had not produced a way for her to win, to prove that the Uzumaki deserved to survive, to live on. To prove that they could come back from annihilation.

When would the suffering of her people stop?

When would it be enough?

Somewhere in the village thunder clapped and a beast roared its defiance.

The surging of chakra produced another wave of incomprehensible power.

Whoosh!

The sound of dust falling from the ceiling registered in her ears, and moments later the light tickling of it falling on her skin.

Creak!

Of the house shifting and settling as something buffeted it, chakra she concluded. Or perhaps the force of the air being pushed around by chakra.

CrashI

Glass breaking as a cabinet was knocked from the wall in the kitchen. Her kitchen.

Bang!

A building collapsing somewhere nearby. Her village was being destroyed again.

Boom!

The thunderclap from another bolt of lightning.

Roar!

A sound so close and so loud it could only belong to a monster.

Hiss!

The sound of her blood, boiling as chakra seeped from her seal. Rage was all she knew in those moments on the floor. Rage stemming from hatred of the enemy ninja, for coming to her home and threatening her and her student. Rage stemming from loathing of herself for failing to overcome the enemy, to protect Rin, and find another member of her clan. For not being better she loathed herself.

The smells of home, of dust and blood faded away slowly as her vision came into focus, and were replaced by the metallic tang of blood and electricity. The weak, far away stillness displaced by a rushing, itching, burning power. Beneath her, the floorboards splintered and cracked as the chakra from her seal came rushing forth.

And finally, she could sense what had caused those sounds. Ameyuri and Kushimaru were battling against the three-tailed beast. And they were losing.

The chakra being thrown around was so severe and so intense that she couldn't sense Rin at all. If she was even still alive to sense in the first place.

Her hand tensed, and she felt her elongated fingernails bite into the splintering floorboards.

Strength was returning to her. The bleeding had stopped. Kushina saw red, not from her blood or her hair, or even the nimbus of chakra that now cloaked her, but from the nigh uncontrollable rage that fueled her strength.

Kushina sat up with a snarl, only vaguely aware of her overlong canines digging into her gums. The pain was an afterthought, because even if she did draw blood, it would heal itself anyway.

She wanted to fight. To roar her defiance and superiority over the Three-Tails, and to prove that she was the most powerful. The part of her that was cognizant of the fact that those desires were not necessarily her own, wrestled them into submission. She needed clarity, control, a level head.

Getting to her feet, Kushina took in the house consciously for the first time since she'd been a child.

The door was shattered from where she'd been unceremoniously tossed through it. The floor was a mess of splintered wood still damp with blood. And the kitchen was a dusty ruin of broken glass and destroyed cabinetry.

A distant part of her remembered the fond memories of the place, but the boiling rage that now gave her strength kept her from doing more than giving her surroundings that cursory glance. There would be time to go through the rubble after.

Kushina stepped through the door, her chakra splintering the wood. Something beneath her feet sizzled and went up in smoke. She looked down, trying to find the source, but there was nothing. She did notice the gleam of something gold under the floorboards.

The sight that greeted her was one of destruction and chaos. The Three-Tailed Beast was the size of a small mountain, roaring its defiance and doing its level best to put down the two small figures that danced around it, buffeting it with water and lightning release jutsu.

They were having little effect.

Kushina leapt to the rooftops, bouncing from building to still intact building, until she was just a hundred meters from the tailed beast.

Distantly, at its massive feet, she saw the tiny body of Rin. Her power surged and the density of her chakra cloak increased. Her desire to rip-tear-kill everything nearly overcame her, and she wrestled it back down.

She was on a knife's edge.

The metallic smell of lightning about to strike filled the air, and Kushina tensed. From somewhere above her and to her left, she heard the telltale thunderclap of a lightning jutsu, and when it struck the tailed-beast in the eye, Kushina took advantage of its roar.

With the beast so clearly focused on squashing Ameyuri, she made her way to Rin's side. When she was close enough to sense the chakra, albeit no more than a faint fluttering, of her student, Kushina let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

Rin was still alive, and there was still time to save her life.

The complication, however, was that the intricate seal she'd drawn to move and contain the Three-Tails was completely destroyed. The ink on the dirt had been ruined by the chaos, and the temporary container had been destroyed.

Which meant the only intact seal remaining was the one it had originally come from. The one on Rin's heart. Resealing it there might very well kill Rin, but not trying would certainly do it.

The question was, did she have time to take out the mist ninja before Rin was out of time? She didn't think it was worth the risk, but trying to subdue a tailed-beast while fighting two enemy ninja was ill advised at best. Realistically, it was suicide.

Her one advantage was that Ameyuri and Kushimaru either did not know or did not care that she was back in the fight. Kushina took full advantage of that fact, and when Kushimaru was knocked unceremoniously aside by a massive sweeping blow from one of the Sanbi's three massive tails, she took to the rooftops.

She caught Kushimaru by the neck before he could hit the ground and slammed her fist into his face. The force of the blow rocked his head back, the Nuibari fell from his grasp into the ruins below them as they soared over the buildings. He grunted in pain and gripped futilely at her forearm, trying to break her grip.

"H-how?" He rasped an instant before he was slammed unceremoniously through the roof of a building.

Kushina hopped away from the rubble, red chakra carving divots in the ground as she skidded to a halt and waited for Kushimaru to get up. He wasn't dead. Kushina could still feel his chakra, but she'd caught him off guard, and separated him from his swords. She'd bought herself time.

His chakra was unmoving within the building, and Kushina took the extra second to take note of where the Nuibari had landed. Both blades were point down in the dirt some fifty feet away in the space between a half collapsed wall and a pile of splintered wood. Out of the fight for now. Kushimaru would have to come at her with something else.

And that gave her the advantage.

From within the ruined building, rubble shifted, and Kushimaru's chakra fluttered with activity.

A barrage of needles burst from the house, thousands of small pieces of metal poised to pierce her flesh rained down and sought their target.

Kushina clasped her hands together, interlacing her fingers, and channeled chakra into a tempest of swirling air and wind. Dirt was kicked into a dozen dust devils, splintered wood and shattered glass were flung about, another building creaked and collapsed under the deluge, and the needles were batted away.

Wind was Kushina's element, and she had more power now to affect the air than she'd ever dared hold before.

With a roar she focused her energy and pushed.

The glass, dust, dirt, wood, and other rubble launched themselves at the house. With a loud crash, what was left of the building was pulverized by the whipping winds and shrapnel. Kushimarus chakra flickered once, then twice, then dimmed as he was flung away.

If nothing else, he was unconscious and unable to continue the battle. It was hard to say if the dimming of his chakra was to a life threatening injury without looking, but Kushina couldn't spare a moment.

Kushina wasted no time, turning and dashing back down what clear places there were to maneuver. She used chakra to propel her across the village. To an untrained eye, she would have looked like nothing more than an orange blur.

Ameyuri was still leaping about, shooting lightning at the tailed beast, and Kushina intended to put her down for good.

With each thunderclap and blast of lightning jutsu, Kushina could sense Ameyuri flagging from fatigue. They'd been in a combat situation that had only escalated for something close to an hour at this point, and expending that much chakra would no doubt exhaust even the most seasoned combat veterans.

To make matters worse, the attacks seemed to be doing little more than pissing off the Three-Tails.

It took Kushina only moments to cross the ruined village, and she collided shoulder first with Ameyuri when she touched down after a particularly intense lightning jutsu.

Together they tumbled, exchanging blows fiercely. Ameyuri's sword against Kushina's chakra hardened and claw-like fingernails.

In her berserker state, Kushina was able to force Ameyuri back. With the part of her brain that still held rational thought, she steered Ameyuri to the place where she'd originally set her trap. When they were within the radius of effect of her seal, Kushina slammed a fist into Ameyur's chest, sending the other woman staggering backwards.

And then Kushina made a hand seal.

Kiba slipped from Ameyuri's grasp, falling to the ground with a thump. Ameyuri cursed and doubled over to collect her sword, but it would not budge.

Kushina closed the distance between them, and attacked. It was more of a street-fight than a proper battle with taijutsu. Kushina's form was wild and sloppy, her mind not able to focus through the onslaught of hate-fueled chakra.

But Ameyuri still could not keep up. Kushina was faster and stronger.

Eventually, Ameyuri was knocked to the ground by a kick to the knee, and the fight devolved into an intense grappling match.

After thirty seconds of rolling through the dirt and over rotted wood and shattered glass, Kushina was sitting on Ameyuri's chest. The other woman struggled in vain against Kushina, but was pinned. The surging chakra coming from Kushina was searing Ameyuri's flesh, and Kushina found herself enjoying the agony she was inflicting.

"How… the fuck… are you alive? We've landed at least three killing blows on you" Ameyuri managed between attempts to struggle free and grunts of pain.

Kushina bared her teeth in the gross approximation of a smile. She was drunk with the anger and power of her tailed beast. "The Sanbi isn't the only tailed beast, ya know?"

Ameyuri's eyes widened with realization and fear. "N-no!"

Kushina laughed, a twisted, dark sound that was not her own. But the whimper from Ameyuri that followed it was like music to her ears.

"You've caused enough trouble, don't you think?" Kushina snarled.

"We'll let you and the kid go," Ameyuri said desperately.

"As if you had a choice." She was going to enjoy killing this one. And it had been so long since she'd had the freedom to kill. Kushina raised her hand above Ameyuri's head, fingers down and elongated nails poised over the eyes. It would feel wonderful to cause this woman pain.

Behind them, the Three-Tails roared, and another building collapsed under its flailing.

Kill her, a voice that was not her own commanded.

And oh how she wanted to. This psycho woman had taunted her over and over again about the death of her family, of her people.

But she wasn't in the habit of killing people if she could help it.

And hadn't she embraced the chakra of the Kyubi because Rin was in danger?

Kushina's hand trembled as she fought herself for control. Kill or protect?

Ameyuri stared at her hand with wide, fearful eyes. She drew shallow, panicked breaths and her body shook with a combination of terror and pain.

Kushina stared into her dark eyes. She wavered.

"By rights, I should kill you," Kushina said. Her voice was too deep and gruff to be her own, and she hated the way it sounded. "Your village is responsible for the death of my family, my clan, and the village of my birth."

"I know," Ameyuri said. It was a statement of fact, not an apology. Even so, Kushina could feel the fear in Ameyuri's chakra. The horrible power of the tailed beasts did that to people. The scope of the power was so large, and the horrible intent of the chakra so vile that people just shut down. It was impressive that Ameyuri could talk at all.

"I hate you. I don't know if you took part in the raping of Uzushiogakure, but I heard you talk about it as if the genocide was good. As if it could ever be justified."

"I was too young to go," Ameyuri admitted. "But I would have. It would have been a privilege to go in my village. It would have brought honor to my name"

Kushina screamed, wild with hate and rage and drove her fist downward.

There was a moment of silence even in the collapsing ruins of the village. But it was broken by the soft patter of liquid dropping onto the dirt. Kushina stared at her fist, buried into the ground beside Ameyuri's head, and realized that she was crying.

Ameyuri's eyes were scrunched closed, waiting for the end.

"I vowed that I would get strong enough to build it all again one day," Kushina said. "That I'd become the Hokage of the Hidden Leaf and use my power to rebuild my home."

Ameyuri opened her eyes. "And have you become so powerful now, Jinchuriki?"

"No," Kushina admitted. "I wasn't strong enough to beat the two of you without my demon."

"You are the first person I've ever met that fought more than one of the Seven Swordsmen at the same time and won," Ameyuri said. "We aren't given the swords to keep as our own until we're marked as S-Ranked in another village's Bingo Book."

"It wasn't enough. My people are still gone, and what was left is now debris." Behind them, the Sanbi roared, and the earth shook beneath them as it rampaged.

"You aren't even in the Bingo Book," Ameyuri continued. "It shouldn't be possible for a no-name shinobi to stop us, Jinchuriki or not."

"I have a name," Kushina said. She was surprised how tired she sounded. Not from the battle or her injuries, though they contributed to her exhaustion. This was a tiredness of her soul. She was tired from the years of being ostracized. The hard hours of being forgotten and looked over even as she excelled and surpassed her peers and superiors.

Kushina was tired of holding on to a legacy that only ever made others look upon her as inferior.

The anger and the hate that fueled her ability to use the Kyubi's chakra were still present, but Kushina realized they were no longer in control. That vitriol had been replaced by a heavy sadness and resignation. Kushina knew she wasn't going to kill Ameyuri. At least not like this.

"Kushina," she said at last. "Kushina Uzumaki. I think I'm the last one. I fear I'm the last one."

Ameyuri's face was twisted with agony and coated in a thin layer of sweat.

"Battling you has been an honor, Kushina Uzumaki."

Kushina looked at Ameyuri for a long time. The fight had gone out of her, and Kushina knew she was no longer a threat. She released the woman and rolled off of her.

The two of them panted side by side for several moments. The only sounds were their heavy breathing and the roaring destruction of the tailed-beast. Ameyuri lay on her back, broken and defeated and only half conscious. Kushina sat, cloaked in orange chakra, and trying to center herself enough to face the Sanbi.

Sealing would be no good if she couldn't focus.

"Are… all… Jinchuriki… so powerful?" Ameyuri asked, voice thin and weak.

"I don't know," Kushina admitted. "I'd never met another one until my student showed up as one after whatever botched mission she'd been sent on."

"I… see…"

Kushina turned to look at Ameyuri, and was surprised to see the other woman staring at her.

"Why did you do it?" Kushina asked. "Why turn her into a weapon of mass-destruction and send her back to us?"

Ameyuri tried to shake her head, but instead hissed in pain. "We… didn't. Our… beast… went missing. We were sent to… get it back."

Kushina didn't know if she believed Ameyuri, but there was no telling sign of the lie. No shifting of the eyes, or shuffling of the chakra that would indicate a deception. She didn't have the focus to deep-dive that conversation right now.

Insead, she said: "I see."

Ameyuri coughed violently. Kushina could see her body was broken, but her chakra showed no signs of burning out. She'd likely lose consciousness soon, but not her life.

"If you can walk, you and your teammate should get out of here," Kushina said as she got back to her feet. "I have to reseal the Three-Tails."

Ameyuri hissed as she tried to sit upright, but the scorched clothes and burned skin did little to help her other injuries, and she collapsed back to the earth before she'd gotten more than halfway there. "I don't think so, Uzumaki. I'm spent and too hurt to move."

Kushina nodded. She could feel Ameyuri's chakra slowing, the agitated buzz of her lightning nature relaxing.

Chains sprouted from Kushina's back and wrapped themselves around Ameyuri. The woman grunted with pain as she was lifted from the ground and moved farther away from the three tails. Kushina deposited her there without even turning around. And when Ameyuri was propped up against a large slab of cracked concrete fifty feet away, Kushina let the chains return to her.

It was time to face the Three-Tails.

She strode to what had been the large main street of the village, and stood face-to-face with a monster.

In her life, Kushina had never attempted to harness more than what the Hokage called 'two tails' worth of the Kyubi's power. As far as she understood it, a Jinchuriki could access the chakra in stages.

First, the eyes would change to match the beast sealed within you. In that state, a Jinchuriki's power was augmented, but they were still in complete control. Then the chakra would manifest physically and cloak a Jinchuriki in it. At that point, Kushina often found herself struggling to wrestle with the rage of the beast and the darkness of her own personality flaws and biases.

And this was the level of power Kushina used now. The power she'd grasped to defeat the Mist Ninja.

After that, a Jinchuriki could manifest virtually limitless power by doubling the potency of the chakra cloak. This was what the Hokage had called Tailing. According to him, the previous Jinchuriki of the Nine-Tails, her own great-great aunt Mito Uzumaki, had been able to harness a cloak with three-tails worth of chakra before succumbing to madness.

The fox sealed within her had nine-tails.

Kushina had never even managed one.

Chains burst from her body. Not the two that she often employed for battle, or to help Rin with her chakra, not the seven that she'd previously been able to manifest. Not ten, or twelve, but fourteen chains of golden chakra sprang from her body.

Kushina howled and let the chains extend, farther than they'd ever gone before. When the chakra chains reached the limit of their range, Kushina forced more chakra from the nine-tails seal. The Sanbi roared its defiance as the chains wrapped around it. Around its legs, its neck, and its tails. They wrapped around its body and lifted it off the ground. A mountain of chakra that, despite everything, Kushina lifted from the earth.

One chakra tail had formed, but Kushina still did not have the strength to force the Sanbi back into a cage.

She needed more.

Her body trembled with the exertion of grappling a tailed beast on her own, with the strain that she'd put her body through, and with the massive amount of chakra that she was forcing through her.

No one person was built to do this. Not alone, and certainly not like this.

But Kushina had no other choice. If she didn't manage the impossible, Rin would die. And what kind of Hokage would she be if she let her student die? No, failure was not an option right now.

She reached within herself and pulled up more of the horrible power contained within her.

A second tail of chakra formed. Her control slipped. She wanted to let all of her power out, wanted to destroy the Three-Tails and prove she was the mightiest of the nine. Kushina snarled, eyes wild with power.

The chakra chains began to tighten around the Three-Tailed beast. It let out another cry, and Kushina hoped it was afraid. Afraid of the fate it would meet by her claws. Hands. Kushina had hands. These thoughts, she knew, were not hers. But they were such strong thoughts, and she'd never felt so powerful before. Why not just let them run free while she basked in her own glory?

The chakra chains wrapped themselves tighter, and lifted the Three-Tails a little higher off the ground. Just a little more power and she'd be able to destroy the Three-Tails, she'd prove herself the better.

But Rin would die.

Kushina argued with herself, or the tailed beast that sought control, or whatever part of her wanted to kill the Three-Tails. She couldn't do that. Not now. Not ever.

She had to keep control.

Had to be the bridge that let the Three-Tails cross back into Rin's seal.

She strained, not against the massive force she grappled with, but against her own desire to let go, and forced herself to stay present. She had to do so for just a little while longer.

As the third tail of chakra began to form, Kushina forced herself to create another chain, this one to wrap itself around Rin and bring her close to Kushina. The effort of controlling something separately from the rest of the chains nearly made her pass out, but she widened her stance and gritted her teeth. All she had to do was focus.

Inch by inch, the chain that had wrapped itself around Rin made its way back to her, and Kushina could feel that she was stretched too thin. There were so many things to keep herself in control of that she felt like she was going to be ripped into a thousand tiny slivers of herself. Rin, the chakra chains, the Three-Tails, the Nine-Tails, her own rage and hatred, the control of her chakra, and her bone-deep exhaustion all swirled around within her as she heaved and strained against the impossible forces outside and within her.

Once Rin was at her side, Kushina made a series of hand seals, sending chakra up her chains to the Three-Tails, and down the one chain to Rin.

Kushina braced herself. She was going to be the conduit. The missing ink that had been intended to connect them again later. Kushina could funnel it through herself to Rin.

She had never tried something like this before, but there were three things she absolutely knew were true about what she was going to attempt. One, it was going to take a long time. Two, it was going to hurt like hell. Three, it could kill one or both of them in the process.

As Kushina weaved a sealing jutsu, the world shimmered around her.

Chakra moved in great heaving motions like waves in a storm, battering her as she stood stalwart on a precipice facing oblivion.

When the sealing started, foreign chakra passed through her that burned like molten metal, igniting her nerves with fiery, white-hot pain. Kushina screamed in agony, vision blurring, and fell to her knees. But still she persevered. She held on.

To what, she was not sure. Hope, perhaps. Or maybe it was her own stubbornness.

It went on forever. And the forever that it lasted was horrible and agonizing, and somehow impossible and possible at the same time. At a certain point, it must have been a thousand years later, Kushina felt the dam give way. The Sanbi gave one last massive roar, and was pulled back into the seal it had come from.

The surge of chakra was like a thunderbolt to every part of Kushina that could feel pain. She stiffened with a wordless cry of agony, her chakra chains flickered from view, and she fell face first into the dirt beside Rin.

Uzushiogakure was still, the Swordsmen were defeated, and the Three-Tails was nowhere to be seen.