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“Keep your hand steady when you apply the ink, Kushina; that’s it.”
Mito’s white, withered hand guided Kushina’s over the scroll, as the latter dabbed ink after the pattern detailed in the book of basic seals lying out on the floor beside them. Kushina bit her lip as she drew the brush across the translucent scroll paper. She needed to get this right. It was a basic seal; an Uzumaki Kushina’s age shouldn’t have a problem with it. Besides, this was a seal that Mito herself had created as a young woman—a seal to set jars of ink inside, so they could be stored indefinitely without drying out. Kushina couldn’t stand the idea of not being able to master a seal her own teacher had created. (For what time they had left together.)
Minute by minute, stroke by stroke, the seal neared completion. “You’re done with the first step,” Mito told Kushina, when the latter was done copying the seal out of the book. “Now, you must apply chakra to the seal—and I can’t help you with that, Kushina,” she added with the barest hint of a smile, as Kushina opened her mouth.
“That’s not what I was gonna say,” Kushina hastened to assure her. “I just wanted to know how much chakra I have to apply, you know?”
“I see.” Kushina thought she heard a laugh behind Mito’s low voice, but she didn’t quite have the heart to puff out her cheeks and glare as she normally would if Mito laughed at her. “Well, you don’t have to apply much for this seal—just enough to make the ink glow.” That was another innovation of Mito’s: sealing ink that briefly glowed gold when chakra was fed into it. “Just be careful, and apply sealant afterwards.”
Kushina gritted her teeth and started on the second part of the sealing. If copying out the design from the book was painstaking, this was downright torturous. Applying chakra to a seal successfully required incredibly fine-tuned chakra control—add too little, and it just wouldn’t work; add too much, and not only would it not work, it could malfunction in potentially disastrous ways—and Kushina’s chakra control was subpar for a girl her age.
It’s only going to get worse once I’ve got the Kyuubi to deal with, Kushina reminded herself, feeling suddenly as though someone had pierced her skin with about a thousand senbon. I’ve gotta get as good at this as I can while Mito-sama’s still…
The girl pressed her hand flat upon the scroll, off to the side rather than in the center of the seal. Oh, sure, the ink was quick-drying (very quick-drying), but Kushina could better monitor her progress if she could actually see the ink lighting up. She took a deep breath, and started to channel chakra into the paper.
Will I ever be able to do this fast? Kushina wondered in frustration as she slowly, so very slowly, poured chakra into the paper. She had seen Mito activate seals like this in the blink of an eye, exerting perfect chakra control in spite of the Kyuubi. But Kushina could only do so slowly, watching as the symbols lit up, and grimacing when some started to glow more brightly than others. Though dubious, Kushina applied a quick coat of lacquer sealant when she was done, and turned to Mito. “How’s this?”
“Hmm, let’s see.” Mito bent low over the scroll, her lips slightly pursed. Kushina watched her impatiently, biting back the urge to say that she knew that Mito already knew if the seal was good or not. Though Mito had aged extremely badly for an Uzumaki, especially a full-blooded one, her eyes were as sharp as they must have been when she was younger. Surely she’d be able to spot any flaws right away.
Mito pressed her palm to the seal and shook her head. “You have managed to distributed chakra to all sections of the seal, Kushina, but not evenly. The seal is unstable.”
Kushina eyed her. “How unstable?”
“In all likelihood, the ink jars would start leaking out before too long.”
“Oh.”
Without another word, Mito rolled up the scroll and put it away in one of her cabinets. She had to press hard against the cabinet doors to get them to close, which Kushina thought worriedly was a new development; she couldn’t remember Mito having trouble with something like that when she first came to live with her. “Are we already done?” Kushina asked instead, not quite willing to point out what she had seen. She didn’t want to give credit to it.
“Indeed, we are,” Mito said briskly. “Remember to put the ink and sealant away before having supper.”
Kushina sprang to her feet, her long hair crackling. “I can do it, Mito-sama!” she protested. She rushed over to where Mito was standing, tugging insistently on the old woman’s sleeve. “Really, I can! I was just impatient, you know? Let me try again!”
Mito stared down at her, silent. She stood in a shaft of late afternoon sunlight, which poured through the sitting room like a waterfall. Her bone-white hair and the spotless white of her kimono were brought almost to glowing, and her turquoise-blue eyes gleamed hard and smooth as polished stone. “Kushina, what are the requirements for being a good fuinjutsu practitioner?” she prompted Kushina evenly.
Already, Kushina could guess where this was going. She shuffled her feet on the wooden floorboards, winding a lock of hair around her right hand, but at last sighed and repeated, “’A good fuinjutsu practitioner has a good memory, a patient mind’—“
“’Excellent chakra control, and steady hands,’” Mito finished. “And a good fuinjutsu practitioner,” she added more gently, “does not attempt seals when nearly totally drained of chakra. You did well on the other seals we practiced today, and you’ve expended all the chakra you safely can in one day. Now put the other materials away and come eat.”
It was over. It was always over once Mito used that argument. But this time, Kushina found herself compelled to say, one more time, “I really can get it, Mito-sama; just let me try one more time.”
Mito frowned sternly down at her. “No, Kushina.” Though she did not shout, nor even slightly raise her voice, the steel in her voice was as palpable as the cold blade of a kunai against Kushina’s skin. “You may resume trying after you come home from the Academy tomorrow, but not before.” Her frown lightened slightly. “You may review the book we looked through today after supper, but no more than that.”
Kushina nodded slightly, staring down at her feet.
Later that evening, Mito would ask her, “When did you become so desperate to master seals in a single day? You used to be content to master them over several days.”
“Oh? Oh!” Kushina forced a grin on to her face. “Oh, that! N-no reason. It’s just that I almost had it; I was sure I could do it perfectly if I just tried one more time. But you’re right; it’ll go better if I get some rest before trying again.”
Once Mito’s eyes were off of her, Kushina let the grin drop. She rubbed the knuckles of her right hand, bruised nearly black after an hour or so at the punching bags at the Academy, hitting her bag rather harder than she needed to. Mito hadn’t noticed it—or, probably more accurately, she’d pretended not to notice.
Actually, something surprising had happened today, in relations to her punching bag. Eventually, Kushina had hit it so hard that its hook tore from the ceiling and it fell flat to the ground, kicking up little clouds of dust. She hadn’t noticed how bruised her hands were until after the bag had fallen; frustration had built up inside her until she needed to hit something, and that same frustration numbed her to any pain she might have felt.
The punching bag had fallen. If only Kushina’s other problems would cave under her fists as easily.
-0-0-0-
When Kushina was first brought to Konoha, she had been told that it was because there was an old Uzumaki sealing master living there who wanted her as an apprentice. She’d practically vibrated with excitement, while her aunt and uncle, looking oddly sad, all things considered, had told her to sit quietly while they talked with the emissary from Konoha in private. When they came back, they had each knelt down in front of Kushina, their faces twins for worry.
“Kushina, child, we will miss you.”
Kushina frowned at them, her excitement starting to gutter. “What’s the matter? I can always come see you when I’m on vacation. You can come see me too, you know.”
“It… It’s not that simple, Kushina.”
They hadn’t explained what they meant, and Kushina had not understood. She’d figured them for cheapskates, if they weren’t even going to visit her while she was learning from Mito in Konoha. And what were they so sad about, anyways? It was a huge honor for one of the sealing masters to pick you as their personal apprentice; even someone Kushina’s age knew that. It was traditional for apprentices to live in their master’s home. Kushina would spend her apprenticeship in Konoha, and come home to Uzushio when she was done. She didn’t see what everyone was so sad about.
Kushina went to Konoha, and got right to work learning fuinjutsu from Mito. She found her lessons interesting, and her teacher amiable. Kushina soon found herself thinking of Mito the same way she had thought of her mother, when her mother was still alive—here was a woman she would very much like to be proud of her. Here was someone she did not want to lose.
The first curveball was thrown Kushina’s way when she was made to enroll in Konohagakure’s Shinobi Academy.
“Wait, no one told me I was going to become a Leaf shinobi!” Kushina had protested when she was first told as much. “I thought I was going home once I finished my training.”
Apparently not. Well, if Kushina was going to have to be a Leaf nin, she’d be the absolute best of all of them. There was no way she was going to let any of her classmates show her up.
But after this revelation there eventually came worse news.
Kushina curled up in bed, clutching her knees to her chest, glad for the darkness—there was no chance of her catching sight of her face in the window or the mirror in this all-encompassing darkness. She breathed in short, shallow gasps, praying to all the gods she knew that she wouldn’t start whimpering or crying, or make any noise loud enough to bring Mito into her room, asking what was wrong.
It had been weeks since she was told the truth. It should have been enough time for her to get over it, or at least enough time not to fall to pieces every time she thought about it. Kushina ground her teeth, blinking away the moisture that started to gather at the corners of her eyes. She didn’t have any way out of it, so she should just suck it up and deal with it, shouldn’t she?
But it’s not fair…
Kushina hadn’t been brought to Konoha to be a student, or even a shinobi. Uzumaki Kushina had been brought to Konohagakure no Sato to be a sacrifice. At the end of the year, Mito, the previous jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi, she would die, and Kushina would become a living sacrifice in her place, cut off from home, and cut off from ordinary humans.
The least they could have done was give her a choice.
-0-0-0-
The sun was still high in the sky when Kushina left the Academy. The other students poured out in droves, like ants from an anthill some kid poked at with a stick. They rushed home in groups, while Kushina lagged behind. Kushina had no desire to make it home as quickly, and made no protest if they came a little too close when they ran past her. Picking fights outside of school was a lot safer than picking fights inside of school, and there were plenty of kids at the Academy whose teeth Kushina would have liked to knock in. But lately, she didn’t have much energy for fights, even the sparring matches that, provided she didn’t get carried away, wouldn’t have gotten her in any trouble.
I couldn’t keep my mind on the fight, anyways. Kushina rubbed her forearm, wincing when her palm met sensitive gooseflesh. I just…
“Kushina? Hey, Kushina! Wait up!”
The tones of a familiar voice ringing out in the air and the thud of feet against the dirt path stopped Kushina. There was Mikoto running towards her, the highly-polished steel of the insignia on her hitai-ate flashing in the sunlight. When she caught up to Kushina, she smiled, panting from exertion, and pushed a stray lock of hair behind her shoulder. “I tried to catch you at the Academy gates,” Mikoto said breathlessly. She took a swig of water from her canteen and went on, in a more normal voice, “But you weren’t there. You’re not wasting time getting home today, are you?”
“I’m sorry,” Kushina mumbled, avoiding her gaze. “I didn’t know you were back.”
“That’s alright,” Mikoto replied airily. “We finished the mission ahead of schedule. I got back a few hours ago.” There were patches of bright pink at the tops of her pale cheeks, and her dark eyes shone. The mission she was on must have gone well.
Mikoto was an older girl Kushina had met not long after coming to Konoha, when she had still thought she was here as a student, rather than as a sacrifice. Mito and Mikoto’s grandmother Tsukiyo were friends—well, maybe it was more accurate to say that Tsukiyo looked up to Mito as some sort of mother figure, which struck Kushina as a bit odd; given that Mito had married into the Senju clan, Kushina wouldn’t have thought that an Uchiha would want a close relationship with her. But evidently, Tsukiyo was a former student of Mito’s, so that might well explain it.
Regardless of the apparent oddness of their relationship, Tsukiyo visited Mito on a semi-regular basis, these days whenever she was home from the front, and while her daughter was not often with her, her grandchild usually was. Kushina and Mikoto had found it expedient to play with one another, but that had quickly grown to genuine friendship. Kushina had had so few friends in Konoha—she still had few friends in Konoha. At least Mikoto never made smart remarks about Kushina’s hair or her accent, or the fact that she was from a different land. Mikoto actually wanted to know about Uzu, which was more than could be said of anyone else Kushina knew in Konoha. Even Mito didn’t ask too many questions about her homeland, thought Kushina lately wondered if that wasn’t simply because it wasn’t a place Mito could return to.
Kushina hadn’t seen as much of Mikoto since the latter had become a genin. She’d been so swamped with D-ranks that pretty much the only time Kushina saw her was if the two of them crossed paths while Mikoto was carrying out a mission. When she thought about it, it looked like Mikoto’s hair was longer than it had been the last time they’d seen each other; it was past her shoulders now. I hope I graduate soon; I’m sick of never getting to see her, and never getting to leave this place.
“So, your first mission out of the village,” Kushina noted with some envy, as they headed on towards Mito’s house. “How’d it go?”
Mikoto shrugged. “We were just escorting a merchant to the next town over. It was pretty quiet.”
Kushina scrunched up her face. “Seriously? That’s a letdown.” If she had to be a Konoha shinobi, she hoped she never got stuck with such a boring mission. Geez, I know she’s too green to be sent to the frontlines, but it sounds like they didn’t even run into any bandits. That’s really boring.
But Mikoto didn’t seem to share her opinion. “It might not be the same as infiltrating a castle or taking down an enemy fort, but I’m not complaining. Every mission is important to the well-being of our village.”
“You’re quoting Rina-sensei,” Kushina pointed out, eyebrows raised. They’d both had Rina-sensei at the Academy, and the woman was always spouting stuff like that.
“I’m quoting her because it’s true, Kushina. Besides, I’ve only been a genin for two months. Who’s going to assign me anything more dangerous than my last mission to someone so new?”
“Yeah, but you’ve gotta admit, escorting some merchant sounds dull.”
“I didn’t think it dull,” Mikoto said firmly.
Clearly, there would be no reasoning with her. Kushina let the matter drop.
The wind played through the green leaves of the trees as they walked on. Kushina snuck a glance at Mikoto, but quickly turned away, hoping her friend hadn’t noticed her looking at her. Her stomach churned.
Mikoto didn’t know yet. She didn’t know the real reason Kushina had been brought to Konoha. She didn’t know that, at the end of the year, Kushina would become a jinchuuriki, a living sacrifice to cage a demon, and that the leaders of this village would sell Mito’s life to do it. She still thought that Kushina was here to be Mito’s apprentice, to become a shinobi, and that she was, and would remain, fully human.
When the news was first broken to her, Kushina was told repeatedly that she must tell no one. She could never allow anyone to learn that she was a jinchuuriki—only her husband might know, if ever she chose to marry. But she had to tell someone. Once Mito was gone, there wouldn’t be anyone close to Kushina left who knew. She needed for there to be someone who knew. Kushina wanted better for herself than having to bear this burden alone.
But she said nothing, at least not now. Kushina had been told that if she confided the secret to anyone not already in the know, there would be consequences, but more than that, another idea stayed her tongue. How would Mikoto react if Kushina told her the truth? Even hosts of minor demons and non-demonic evil spirits found themselves outcasts; the host of a bijuu, if widely-known to be such, would surely fare worse. Would Mikoto understand, if Kushina told her what was going to happen? Or would she just turn her back?
Kushina’s stomach lurched painfully. She was already the resident outcast at the Academy, since she was from another land and was so ‘unladylike’ in her short temper. The idea of ‘foreigner’ and ‘moocher’ and ‘Bloody Habanero’ being replaced with ‘monster’ and ‘freak’ and ‘demon’ made her feel as though her insides were trying to crawl out through her mouth. The few that were friendly to her would turn their backs, if they knew.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Mikoto said suddenly. “Mother and Grandmother are already at Mito-sama’s house. Mother wanted to make supper for her; it’s going to be miso soup with nori, tofu, trout and mushrooms tonight, and she’s brought over some dango she made this morning.”
“Oh.” For once, the idea of having Mikoto and her family over for supper didn’t sound at all fun. “Okay.”
Mikoto put her hand on Kushina’s shoulder, making the younger girl jump. “Hey, Kushina.” Mikoto’s dark eyes searched Kushina’s face. “Are you alright? You’re not usually this quiet?”
Yeah, and I’m not gonna win any acting awards, either. Kushina plastered a grin to her mouth, as big and as fake as the one she had showed Mito a couple of days ago, and gave a squeaky laugh. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine! Just tired, you know? Our teachers’ve been working us into the ground.”
Mikoto frowned slightly, but slowly, she nodded. “I’ll be they have. It’s about the same time of year it was when they started pushing my class harder, when I was in your year. Just remember to take a big lunch to school from now on, okay? You’re going to need the energy.”
“Yeah, sure, sure.” For the life of her, Kushina couldn’t tell if Mikoto had bought it. Even if she hadn’t activated her Sharingan yet, Mikoto’s eyes were exceptionally sharp—she’d picked up on something Kushina didn’t want her to more than once. But what she also knew was that Mikoto didn’t press, at least not at first. So long as Kushina managed to behave normally in front of her, Mikoto wouldn’t worry any more than she already did. She wouldn’t ask Kushina any more questions.
When they reached Mito’s house, the two girls found Mikoto’s mother Hiromi poring over a soup pot, and Mito and Tsukiyo sitting side by side on the low wicker couch in the sitting room. Mito, who from her slightly bent back Kushina suspected had shrunk somewhat with age, looked small next to Tsukiyo, who despite being around sixty or so was taller than most women Kushina had met, and many men as well. The latter two appeared to have been talking, but stopped when Kushina and Mikoto stepped inside.
Tsukiyo spoke up first, her keen black eyes meeting each of theirs in turn. “There you both are. Mito-san and I were just talking about you.”
Mikoto clasped her hands in front of her, her face growing faintly pink. “Grandmother, I told you, it really was a simple mission. If I had been sent to the front it might be different, but this wasn’t anything special.”
“It’s more than I was trusted with, at your age,” Hiromi spoke up suddenly from the kitchen, without so much as turning around.
Tsukiyo nodded vigorously, shaking a few wiry strands of gray hair loose from her long, thick braid. “The same goes for me.” She leaned forward from the couch and smirked at her granddaughter. “If the Hokage has you protecting our country’s tradesmen, that means you’re finally being given the chance to prove your worth to the village. You should be proud.”
Hiromi and especially Tsukiyo were always going on about Mikoto needing to ‘prove her worth’ to the village and its leaders. Kushina had never understood why they so often felt the need to tell Mikoto as much, especially since it was usually about things that would have already been Mikoto’s duty as a shinobi anyways. It usually roused some curiosity in Kushina, but not today. She did, however, notice that Mikoto’s face had gone from pale pink to bright scarlet. “Mother… Grandmother…”
Mito pressed her fingertips to the back of Tsukiyo’s hand, lighting on jutting, knotted knuckles. “Tsukiyo, I think you and Hiromi are going to overwhelm the poor child if you keep on like this,” she murmured. Without waiting for Tsukiyo to answer, Mito addressed Mikoto, “The only time you should deny praise totally, Mikoto, is if it is for something you did not do. Otherwise, accept genuine praise for what it is. You never know how long it will be before you receive it again.”
The recipient of her advice nodded awkwardly, her face still red. “I suppose you’re right,” Mikoto mumbled dubiously, probably only to avoid any further talk about her mission.
Her grandmother, at least, seemed to have gotten the message, for Tsukiyo turned her piercing stare away from Mikoto and on to Kushina. “I hear your fuinjutsu training has been going well. A few snags, but still well,” Tsukiyo said with a commiserating look on her narrow face. “Has my old teacher been working you as hard as she did me?”
Kushina opened her mouth, trying to compose herself enough that any answer she gave wouldn’t come out as a screech. But the responsibility of answering was soon taken out of her hands—Mito remarked, almost primly, “I don’t remember setting anything resembling a punishing pace for you. As I seem to recall, you had already become a shinobi by the time you were my apprentice, so it wasn’t as though we could regularly devote hours at a time to fuinjutsu training. And you certainly didn’t complain about the pace I set for you being too hard back then. You were always wanting to learn something new, always wanting to go on ten minutes more—you were worse than Kushina.”
“That’s only because I didn’t know any better,” Tsukiyo retorted, though she was grinning. “How could I? I was just a kid.”
Mito raised a finely-plucked eyebrow. “Indeed.”
Thoroughly forgotten by the two women as they bantered back and forth, Kushina wound a lock of her long red hair in her hand, her lips mashed shut. The ground felt a little as though it was shifting beneath her, as though an earthquake would soon come and knock her flat. She wondered for a moment if Tsukiyo knew that Mito, her old teacher, was a jinchuuriki. She wondered if Tsukiyo knew that Mito was going to die at the end of the year, so that the Kyuubi could be transferred to a younger, stronger host.
If she stayed there in front of all of them, listening to them talk and enduring the scorching feeling of their eyes on her skin, she was going to be sick. Kushina was sure of it; she would be sick. She was already feeling hot; it was only a matter of time, if she didn’t do something. She sucked in a deep breath. “Erm, Mito-sama?”
Mito looked away from her and Tsukiyo’s conversation, and replied somewhat distractedly, “Yes, Kushina? What is it?”
“I… I’ve got a lot of homework. I think I’m just gonna stay in my room until it’s done.”
Mito frowned at her, and Kushina was afraid that she’d tell her that it was only polite to stay in the public part of the house, even if it meant doing her homework in front of guests. Mito had always been a stickler for proper behavior; Kushina could expect to be soundly scolded if she ever came home from the Academy with a note that she’d been fighting. But after long, quiet contemplation, Mito nodded. “Yes, you may do that. I’ll let you know when supper is ready.”
Leave given, Kushina wasted no time in making for the cool quiet of her room. She huddled by the door and cupped her hands around her mouth, her breath coming out in short, shallow gasps that (shockingly) did nothing to calm her down. Kushina took a hand away from her mouth to press against her chest instead.
One, two, three, four; no, five…
At last, the thud of her heart beneath her flesh calmed, and there came floating to the surface of Kushina’s mind something she could do. I need to know more about what I’m dealing with.
-0-0-0-
Asides from Mito’s cabinet in the sitting room, there was a room in her house where she kept many musty old books and scrolls, which she occasionally brought out for Kushina’s training. A lot of them had to do with sealing, but Kushina had been here long enough to figure out that there were many more topics to be read about in Mito’s little library than simply sealing. Kushina knew that Mito had sealed the Kyuubi into herself; it stood to reason that she had some books on the nine bijuu tucked away in there somewhere.
It was the weekend, so no lessons at the Academy to worry about missing. Mito had gone out, which was something she did so rarely that Kushina couldn’t help but take it as a sign that this was the perfect day to sneak into the library.
Her first obstacle was the padlock on the door into the library. Kushina had never tried the lock before, had never seen a need to try to break into a room her teacher clearly wanted other people to stay out of. However, there wasn’t going to be any helping it this time. Kushina checked the sliding doors for any sign of tags or other traps. Finding none, she looked over the padlock and the metal door handles it was chained around for any hidden symbols, the seal-traps that were so common on doors guarded by shinobi. Again, nothing.
I guess Mito-sama doesn’t expect people to try to break into her library, Kushina surmised, grimacing. Mito’s was a trust she was loath to abuse, but she had to know. She couldn’t become the Kyuubi’s jinchuuriki without know what she was getting into.
Well, those lessons on picking locks Kushina had learned at the Academy sure were gonna come in handy now. Kushina worked on the lock for a few minutes, sticking her tongue out slightly in concentration, until finally there came a hard, loud click, and the padlock popped open. Though she hadn’t heard the front door open, Kushina still took a long look around her, scanning the sunlit hallway on either side of the door, before unwinding the chain from the library door and slipping inside.
The library was no taller than any of the other rooms in the house—ten feet high, or so. It also wasn’t a whole lot bigger than either Kushina or Mito’s bedrooms, which made Kushina guess that the room wasn’t being used for its original purpose. The room was packed with bookcases stuffed with books, and slightly slanted shelves stuffed with scrolls. Kushina gawped, amazed. She’d never imagined that a single person could have so many books and scrolls in one place. The only time Kushina had ever seen more in on place was when her class had been given a tour of the Konoha Shinobi Archives, and Kushina suspected Mito’s collection could rival even theirs.
Mito’s library was not particularly well-lit. There were several windows in the room, but the bamboo blinds had been drawn down over them, leaving only thin slivers of light to break through the thin gaps between the blinds and the windows, illuminating the dust motes that floated lazily in the still air. It was also extremely cramped, affording only a scant amount of room to walk around in between the shelves and the bookcases. Good thing I’m not claustrophobic, Kushina thought gamely as she began to search.
It was slow going. The shelves and bookcases were labeled by topic, but not in alphabetical order, and a lot of the time there was only one book or scroll per topic. Kushina didn’t want to read about weather patterns in Kaze no Kuni, or horse trading among the nomads to the west of Tsuchi, or the fundamentals of weaving, thank you very much. After a while, she began to wonder if Mito wasn’t some kind of collector or preserver of old books and scrolls; the topics were so disparate that she couldn’t imagine that Mito could be genuinely interested in all of them.
After a while, Kushina lost track of how long she had been searching. Her heart pounded unevenly at the slightest sound, be it the floorboards creaking, a tree branch tapping one of the windows, or a bird flying past outside. If Mito came back before she was done, Kushina knew she wouldn’t have time to get out of the library and replace the padlock on the door before Mito realized something was amiss. Come on, come on. Kushina bit her lip, her nostrils flaring. It’s gotta be here somewhere.
Finally, she came across a topic that might actually prove useful. ‘Demons.’ Her heart racing, Kushina pulled a heavy book off of the bookcase, coughing spasmodically when drawing it across the wood sent a cloud of dust flying into her face. She sat down with it near one of the windows, taking advantage of the light that managed to escape the blinds.
The table of contents listed out many unfamiliar names, though Kushina could guess that they were the names of demons shinobi had fallen afoul of at some point or another in history. Towards the end, there was a chapter a measly five pages long, entitled ‘Bijuu.’ Kushina flipped to it, and began to read.
Really, all it was were a few illustrations followed by blurbs. The one for the Kyuubi read, in fading letters, ‘Kyuubi no Youko, most powerful of the nine bijuu. Its many rampages over the centuries, each of them devastating to the land, have led many to call it a natural disaster.’
That’s not very helpful. I already knew all of this! Neither could the book possibly be all that up-to-date, if it didn’t even remark upon the fact that the Shodai Hokage had captured the Kyuubi (As far as Kushina knew, Mito sealing it into herself wasn’t common knowledge, so that might not be in even the most recent books).
The illustration was the first hint Kushina had ever had of the Kyuubi’s appearance, beyond the typical ‘giant fox with nine tails.’ It was done in black ink, no color and fading, but the still-bold black lines would have left an impression regardless of that. The look in its eyes particularly, the sheer malice Kushina found there…
Kushina shut the book firmly, and got the others down from the bookcase.
The first couple she perused told her no more than the first had; the third, nothing at all. These books certainly had been here a long time; occasionally, flipping one open would let loose a dust cloud, making Kushina cough fitfully again and again. Could it be that none of them could tell Kushina anything useful about the Kyuubi?
But eventually, Kushina did start to find pertinent information.
‘The Kyuubi no Youko has long been described as malevolence made flesh. Its chakra is so noxious that any plant matter that comes into contact with it must wither and die. Humans and animals in its vicinity are poisoned by its chakra; most die, and for the living there is no cure but time.’
Her hands clenched upon the hard cover of the book, Kushina mashed her lips together. She had been told nothing of the Kyuubi’s poisonous chakra, not by Mito, nor by the elders who had told her what her fate was to be. Was it possible that she would be poisoned by its chakra as well, even if it was sealed away inside of her? If that was the case, she could die. The Uzumaki were renowned for their vitality, but even that vitality had limits, and Kushina wasn’t a full-blooded Uzumaki. And if she did die, what would happen with the seal?
‘Many attempts were made to capture the Kyuubi before the success of the Shodai Hokage. At one point, fifty shinobi of Kaminari no Kuni, many from differing factions, forgot their enmity long enough to attempt a sealing. Not only did this attempt fail, but it so enraged the Kyuubi that in its ensuing rampage it destroyed everything in its path, decimating a mountain and poisoning the waters of a nearby lake, once teeming with fish and other wildlife. It is believed that the success of the Shodai Hokage’s attempt lies in his Mokuton being too fast for the Kyuubi to escape. Without the Mokuton’s speed of activation, the attempt might well have ended in the desolation of much of Hi no Kuni.’
Neither had anyone ever told Kushina just what the Kyuubi was capable of when it went on a rampage. If I ever lost control, it could kill everyone in Konoha. Kushina started to find it a bit difficult to breathe, as though there was a stone lodged in her throat. Sure, she didn’t have too many friends in Konoha. Sure, her classmates had called her names and made her an outcast long before she’d started getting into fights with them. Sure, if he had a choice, Kushina would have gone back to Uzushio once her training was done, left Konoha without a backwards glance, and without caring what they planned to do about finding a new jinchuuriki. But that didn’t mean she wanted anyone here to die. Her friends and loved ones, the teachers at the Academy, even the worst of her classmates, Kushina never wanted to live a day on this earth when she had their blood on her hands.
But that’s what’ll happen if I lose control. And it’s so strong. How could I ever—
It was getting really hard to breathe.
‘In 2119 AGB, the Kyuubi scoured an area west of the Shinobi nations now known as the Great Basin. The area is greatly sunken in comparison to the plains surrounding it; the crater is reported to be two miles in diameter and nearly a mile deep. Though plant life has recovered there, only grass grows in the Great Basin, and all animals avoid it. The Great Basin is believed to have once been the site of a city whose ruler attempted to capture the beast.’
There were a thousand little points of pain in her chest, as though she had swallowed mochi full of needles.
‘The beast is malevolence made flesh, the greatest calamity of our age.’
‘With the death of Senju Hashirama, there is no known way of stopping the Kyuubi if ever again it rampages.’
‘The beast must corrupt and destroy all that lies in its path.’
‘It is a nightmare come to walk in waking day.’
“Kushina?”
There came Mito’s voice, eventually, though Kushina did not hear it. The voice traveled from the front door of the house, to just outside the library. “Kushina, what is this door doing open?” the old woman demanded sharply. “Why are you in my library? I had that lock on the door for a reason.”
No answer.
The voice drew nearer, accompanied by the thud of footsteps on the floor, muffled by blankets of dust. “Kushina, answer me. You can’t just barge into locked rooms without—Oh!” On that last syllable, all the sternness bled out of Mito’s voice. Kushina was vaguely aware of Mito pushing several books aside to kneel down in front of her. It wasn’t until Mito put her dry, withered hands on Kushina’s sodden cheeks that the girl really registered her presence. “Kushina, child—“ in place of sternness now was worry, rendering Mito’s voice taut “—what’s wrong?”
Kushina couldn’t find it in herself to speak. She flung herself at Mito, sobbing into her chest, her hands scrabbling for purchase at the stiff fabric of her kimono.
“Hush, child, hush,” Mito soothed her, patting her back gently. “Now, what is the matter?”
Kushina still couldn’t answer her. She sobbed desperately, not giving even the slightest thought to calming down and explaining any of this to her teacher.
But for Mito, that just wouldn’t do. There came a soft rasp of paper brushing against wood as Mito lifted one of the books up off the floor. “Oh,” she said quietly, when presumably she had read for herself the passage that Kushina had read. She wrapped her arms tightly around Kushina’s trembling back.
They sat there like that for a long time, but eventually, Kushina’s sobs petered out to sniffling, and she was able to scrub at her puffy eyes and her scarlet, stinging cheeks. Her throat was raw, her head spinning, but still, she straightened, and Mito let her go from her embrace, though she kept one of her arms wrapped around Kushina’s shoulders.
“So,” Mito murmured, a gleam of sad humor in her eyes. “I take it you have been conducting research?”
Kushina nodded silently.
“And you didn’t like what you found?”
Again, Kushina nodded. She clenched her hands into fists. “Why…” Her voice quavered, but Kushina drew a breath, and suddenly, anger sparked in her like the ignition of a brush fire. “Why was it me? Why did they choose me?! Is it because I’m not from the main family or because I don’t have any parents?! Why?!” she all but shouted, staring challengingly up into Mito’s face.
The furrows in Mito’s forehead deepened, distorting the diamond-shaped seal found there. She was silent, and her silence only added weight to Kushina’s fears. Had she been thrown away by her clan’s leaders, given up to Konoha because she was no one important on the Uzumaki hierarchy, and had few close relatives to fight for her?
“Kushina…” Mito stared earnestly down into her face “…that is not why you were chosen. Do you know the old stories about your branch of the Uzumaki clan?”
“No,” Kushina admitted. Her aunt and uncle had never been wont to repeat old stories to her. Neither had her parents, when they were alive.
“Your branch of the clan produces shinobi often capable of making their chakra manifest as chains with which they can easily subdue their enemies. Those shinobi were in the past often chosen as hosts for minor demons and other evil spirits, because they could make their chakra chains manifest in their mindscape as well.” Mito bestowed on Kushina a small, faintly melancholy smile. “Not long after you were born, you were determined to have inherited this ability, so while your family does have something to do with why you were chosen to be my successor, it did not affect the decision in the way you think it did.”
This was of little consolation to Kushina. She shook her head wildly, her eyes widening in panic. “I’m not strong enough, Mito-sama. I-I’ve never manifested chakra chains,” she babbled, “and I don’t know how to use them and I don’t think I’d be strong enough to trap the Kyuubi even if I did and—“
“Kushina,” Mito cut her off firmly, “you are strong enough. I do not have the ability to manifest chakra chains, and I have kept the Kyuubi sealed inside me all these years, despite its attempts to escape. You will be strong enough; you must believe that. If you have any doubt of your own strength, the Kyuubi will use that doubt to further weaken your resolve.”
Kushina gaped up at her. “So it talks to you?”
Mito hesitated, her mouth slightly open, before she nodded her assent. “At times, yes. Not always.” She looked away, her jaw tightening. “When I was hurt,” she said, in a barely audible voice, “when I was grieving, when I was vulnerable, it spoke to me.”
So not only would Kushina have to become the jinchuuriki for a beast so terrible as to be called ‘malevolence made flesh,’ she was gonna have to put up with it actively trying to goad her into freeing it too. Well, that sounded wonderful. Her lip wobbling slightly, Kushina grabbed Mito’s hand in her own. “How did you bear it?” she asked desperately. “How do you still bear it?”
Mito stared at her, her shoulders sagging slightly. But then, she disentangled her hand from Kushina’s, and brushed the girl’s hair away from her face. “Kushina… Do you know how I came to live in this land?”
“No, Mito-sama.”
The old sealing master smiled almost wistfully. “I did not come to this land to be a sacrifice. I did not come here even to be a bride. It was decades ago. Hashirama and Madara had agreed that there must be peace between their clans, but they could not reach a settlement that both the Senju and the Uchiha would accept, for neither man would give an inch to the other. The samurai of Tetsu no Kuni had not yet come into prominence as mediators and negotiators, but our clan was prominent for such skills, and I was myself a trained mediator.
“I went to Hi no Kuni, Kushina, to help broker peace between the Senju and the Uchiha. It was not easy—I was dealing with two very headstrong young men, both much younger than I.” A look of chagrin passed over Mito’s face. “There were times when I was sorely tempted to knock their heads together. I only refrained from doing so because I was half-convinced their skulls would make a hollow sound, like tapping on an empty bottle.”
Kushina couldn’t help but giggle at the description.
“It took nearly three months,” Mito went on, “but eventually, a settlement was reached. And do you know what I did once the settlement was reached?”
“What did you do, Mito-sama?” Kushina prompted obediently.
"I went home."
Kushina’s eyebrows shot up. “You did?” she asked, forgetting her distress for the first time, so great was her confusion. “But I thought you and Shodai…”
“I told you, Kushina, I did not come here to be a bride.”
“But still, I thought you would have stayed.”
Mito laughed quietly. “Hashirama and I kept in touch, just as I stayed in contact with all of the friends I made here. But their encampment—it was not even a village back then, just a cluster of tents and ramshackle wooden buildings ready to be torn down at a moment’s notice—was not my home. My life was in Uzushiogakure.
“Two years later, Hashirama came to Uzu no Kuni, seeking a formal alliance with the Uzumaki clan. He and I spent a great deal of time together while he was there, and he told me of the troubles he and Madara were having establishing a lasting village. I wanted to help them—I did feel some responsibility for their camp-turned-permanent-settlement. I wasn’t alone in wanting to help. When Hashirama went home, I led a little over a hundred of my countrymen—though no other members of my clan—to join him.
“While Hashirama and Madara were off convincing the other clans of Hi to join with them, I set about on rather less…” Mito paused ponderingly, before settling on “…glorious work. I set up the administrative infrastructure any permanent settlement would need to survive. The reason the administrative structures of Konohagakure are so familiar to our own Uzushio is because I modeled them off of Uzushio’s.
“When the new clans of the settlement had problems with one another, I worked with them to find solutions; it was I who worked out where clans that had once been enemies would be situated in our settlement in relation to one another, and who would have what land. I was responsible for bringing in the trade guilds, and civilians to farm the land—something that went a long way in finally persuading the Daimyo to grant our village its charter.
“The more time I spent there, the more work I put into that place, the more it became home to me.” Mito’s face hardened noticeably. “I followed my husband when he went to confront Madara at the Valley of the End. I stayed out of the crossfire of their fight as best as I could; I am not and have never been a trained kunoichi, and even if I was, I doubt I would be the same caliber warrior as the two of them. What I am, Kushina, is a better sealing master than either Senju Hashirama or Uchiha Madara could ever hope to be. I sealed the Kyuubi into myself because I realized that Madara could not control its movements forever, and if Hashirama captured it the same way he had before, Madara might well summon it back to his side, and unleash it upon Hi no Kuni. Left unchecked, the Kyuubi would eventually have come to Konohagakure in all its fury, and that I would not allow it to do so. Never would I let it destroy my home, and neither would I allow it to harm even one person who lived there.
“You asked me how I have borne it. I have borne it because this is my home, and I will protect my home with every last drop of blood in my body.” Mito’s voice was hard as steel, the gleam of her eye and set of her mouth and jaw revealing something proud and terrible. Kushina stared at her in something like awe, seeing for a moment the woman she had been when she made her choice, so many years ago. But a moment later, Mito smiled gently down at her, and stroked her hair. “You did not choose this as I did, so I will not ask you to accept it with a smile. Kushina… It will be very difficult. You will protect your home singlehandedly, but history will not record you as a hero, not for that. If anyone ever discovers what it is you do for them, do not expect them to thank you, for it is entirely likely that they won’t. What I will tell you is to remember the people you hold dear when you ostracism, for you protect them as well. You are protecting your home, protecting everything and everyone you love, even if there are few who appreciate that fact. Pay no heed to the jeering of those who do not care for you, and hearken instead to the encouragement of those who do.”
“I… I don’t want you to die. I don’t want to lose you.”
“If it helps at all,” Mito murmured, smiling ruefully, “I don’t particularly want to die, either. Nor do I want to leave you here to bear my burden. But my time…” She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her lips together. In the half-gloom of the library, her face looked carven and weather-beaten, like a statue left neglected out in the elements. “…My time here is done. If I die with the Kyuubi still sealed within me, it will eventually be reborn, free to wreak havoc again. It must be sealed into a new host before that can happen.”
“But… when you’re gone, I’ll be alone,” Kushina said in a small voice.
“No, you won’t,” Mito assured her, taking Kushina’s hand in her own and squeezing it. “I have made arrangements for your future. One of my old students will continue your training, and care for you.”
Kushina perked up at that. “You mean Tsukiyo-san?” she asked hopefully. Staying with Tsukiyo wouldn’t be all that bad. At least it would be someone Kushina already knew, someone she knew liked her.”
It was not to be, though. Mito shook her head, looking slightly troubled as she explained, “No, not Tsukiyo. She was my first choice, but there were…” Mito hesitated “…complications. Your caretaker will be another of my old students. I will take you to meet him soon.” She curled her arm more closely around Kushina’s shoulders. “You won’t be alone. I promise.”
Kushina nodded. She couldn’t bring herself to be happy about all of this, but for Mito’s sake, she would try to endure it.