tya's whimsies

“I know this is a lot to ask.”

I will ask anyway, goes unsaid.

“I know you are a loyal citizen of Uzushio. I do not make this demand lightly.”

But you are an orphan and no one would miss you.

“Konoha has been our ally since the foundation of our village. Serving our sister village is serving Uzu. Besides, you will get to apprentice under the great Uzumaki Mito-sama.”

She bows and murmurs.

“It will be an honour. Sandaime-sama.”

Uzumaki Nanami, her third —fourth? — cousin and leader smiles at her. Her expression is warm, her pity carefully tucked away.

Kushina’s eyes stay glued to the floor.

“Do you have any requests?”

She hesitates.

“You do,” Nanami-sama notes, her voice neutral. “You’re doing us a great service, Kushina. Ask.”

“Sōma Arashi. He’s my—” She falters then. She doesn’t know what to say. Arashi is her everything. Her anchor. The only reason she is still alive today. “My best friend. Can he come with me?”

The Sandaime blinks, surprised by her answer.

“I believe I can arrange that.”

Her expression turns calculating. She is no doubt turning over the ways she can spin this to Konoha to get them to agree. It should not be difficult.

The Sōma clan are sworn to the Uzumaki and it is rare that an Uzu team contains one without the other. It dates back to the Warring Clans era. Uzumaki Kaito picked up three orphan boys from the wreckage of a village and invited them into his household. The three Sōma boys swore to protect that kindness and their descendants followed in their footsteps.

It was more surprising that Nanami-sama hadn’t requested her to have a Sōma bodyguard as a prerequisite of her departure for Konoha in the first place.

“I will ask for Arashi-kun’s mother’s and his clan head’s consent, of course. Anything else?”

Kushina shakes her head.

“Very well. You will leave in two weeks. Take your time to say your goodbyes. You will be missed, Kushina-chan.”

***

Kushina grunts as a body collides with her own.

“Thank you,” Arashi’s mother whispers into her hair.

A hand lands on the top of her head.

“It was kind of you, Kushina-hime.”

Kushina blinks rapidly to stop the tears from gathering in her eyes.

She looks up.

“Was it? I think it was selfish of me.”

Sōma Haruto shakes his head.

“There was nothing else you could have done.”

When Kushina was six, she gathered the courage to tell her best friend about her knowledge of the future. A burden shared is a burden halved he had told her after begging her to explain the nightmares that plagued her every night. He listened to her with all the seriousness a child was capable of and took her to his mother and uncle.

Said uncle, Sōma Haruto is the Head of his clan and of the Intelligence Division of Uzushiogakure.

Sōma fūinjutsu is uniquely suited to espionage. The clan was known for its air-walking technique and mastery of the naginata, its tattooed seals and wind release. What they weren’t known for was the fact that the absorption seals they used did not simply take wind and water in, but also sound. Noise after all came from the delicate vibration of the air reaching human ears. It made them the very best spymasters though their reputation outside of Uzushio was that of combat-oriented shinobi, assassins and bodyguards.

Kushina remembers her first meeting with the Sōma clan Head. She had been terrified. He listened to her and Arashi explain she remembered reincarnating. She couldn’t recall who she had been or when she lived, but all evidence pointed to some distant future during which she lived in Konohagakure. He’d asked her how she knew it was Konoha if she couldn’t remember her own name or the face of her parents and she explained that she knew more about the place than any other village despite having never set foot there.

Then she told him about the destruction of Uzushio. How Konoha arrived too late to help against their assailants and the shame of it had them sew the Uzumaki symbol on their flak jackets. How they never spoke of it if they could help it and she only recalled a handful of survivors.

He asked her many questions. She answered as truthfully as she could. The one thing she didn’t say is that she remembered this as a story told more than history and that she was afraid of what it meant for her. Because it had been written that Uzumaki Kushina would become a human sacrifice and she was nothing like the optimistic girl who would become the protagonist’s mother. She wasn’t sure she could bear the weight of the Kyuubi without crumbling.

There was no use speaking of a girl long gone. It was better to let them assume she had reincarnated back in time than into a whole other dimension where their lives were nothing more than a story drawn on paper, the destruction of their beloved village a mere footnote in the narrative.

After that, Haruto made plans to reinforce village security and extended his network to catch any sign of a joint attack by their enemies. The Second Shinobi War only just started and no matter how outlandish Kushina’s tale was, it was worth preparing for. He never told anyone what prompted his sudden interest in defensive safeguards.

“You cannot bring everyone with you. If the worst comes to pass… I am honoured that you will have at least saved my nephew.”

“But your daughter and—”

“Asuka is a jonin of Uzushigakure. She will defend the island or die trying, just like I will.”

“We are prepared,” said Kumori, Arashi’s mother. She is a jonin too, specialising in bodyguarding noble civilians. “Trust us.”

Kushina nods weakly.

“Now. Arashi is at the training ground. Go bring him back here, will you? Dinner is ready.”

“Hai.”

She walks out of the clan’s main house, her eyes greedily drinking in the sights in front of her. Kushina loves the Uzumaki compound and its accents in ruby red and gold. It is at the centre of the village, right in front of the Uzukage’s Lighthouse. It spans into a moon’s crescent and hugs the surrounding habitations. Her clan is the heart of Uzushio, her grandfather used to say.

The Sōma, however, live on the outskirts. Their compound is on an eastside cliff, overlooking the sea of Whirlpools and the entire village. They air-walk into civilisation every morning, ready to serve. Kushina had to learn to climb to reach Arashi’s house. She had even activated her chakra chains while falling from the cliff.

Those same chains gave her the dubious honour of being a candidate for sacrifice. As the only child below the age of twelve bearing the Uzumaki sealing chains, she is the perfect candidate. The village couldn’t give a shinobi who had already sworn allegiance to Uzu to their sister village, but an Academy student?

Her fate had been sealed then.

Kushina slows down as she reaches the Ground of the Thousand Needles. She watches as her best friend vaults from one stone pillar to another, the seals on his bare feet brightening as he goes airborne. They absorb the wind currents and release them in increments to steady him. Arashi steps on the breeze and lets it carry him forward, his arms angling for the next kata he performs, his grip tight on his naginata. She chuckles and releases her Adamantine chains, wrapping one around another pillar and running up the stone construction. She leaps and delivers a kick to her best friend’s side, who blocks it with an ease that speaks of familiarity. He does not smile but his eyes brighten as they exchange blows, kunai against naginata.

The spar lasts half an hour. Arashi is faster but she has more stamina and while his clan techniques allow him to evade her many times, he soon tires of dodging her chains and makes the mistake of getting too close. She grins toothily. His eyes widen. Kushina launches herself at him. They break their fall simultaneously, her sliding down another pillar of stone, cracking its surface by the grounding of her heel, and him finding resistance in the air with the seals aiding his air-walking.

They touch the ground. They stare at each other and start laughing.

“I’ll get you next time,” he promises, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

Her smile falters.

“What? I’m coming with you, aren’t I? We’ll have plenty of time to spar again.”

“You’re not angry?”

He frowns.

“Why would I be?”

“Your clan…”

He makes a sound of understanding. “I’ll miss them, of course. And you’ll miss yours too, hime. But we can write.” He pauses. “I know what you’re thinking. We might never see them again, right? The thing is that, if I stay it might be the same for me. I’m not scared of dying for the village but I don’t want you to be left alone. Besides, I trust Oji-sama to protect everyone.”

“You’re right, dattebane.” She grimaces at her language tic resurfacing. Arashi laughs at her, she swats at his head, which he evades with good cheer. “I need to stop worrying.” She blanches. “I was supposed to tell you dinner was ready!”

Arashi stiffens.

“Kaa-san will kill us.”

***

The next two weeks pass in a blur. Kushina and Arashi are given a crash course in diplomacy, history and clan relations. Nanami-sama hammers out an agreement guaranteeing the two friends will be on each other’s genin team. Her best friend is made to sign agreements that any child of his will be raised in Uzushio and visitation rights are drafted like his clan and Uzumaki Mito-sama —who will be their legal guardian—- are going through a messy divorce. Kushina is warned that she is not allowed to come back to Uzushio until she is at least a chunin and only when accompanied by a diplomatic delegation. If she tries to come without the Hokage’s permission, she will be considered a missing-nin by both villages.

Asuka and her team come back from her mission a week and a half in, so they are able to say goodbye. Kushina spends the next three days in the Uzumaki compound, leaving Arashi time alone with his family and enjoying her own clan’s company for the last time in a long while.

She dearly hopes she won’t be reunited with them in the Pure Lands.

Kushina has a strange relationship with the Uzumaki clan. Orphaned at a young age, she was raised by her civilian grandfather until he too passed away a year ago. She was only nine then. After that, she insisted she could live by herself. Part of her believed that she was cursed in some way and that any caretaker of hers would be in danger of death because the Shinigami knew she was a dead girl walking and sought to punish her for being alive.

Arashi said she was foolish when she confided in him so she hasn’t mentioned it again.

Her clan loves her as they love all Uzumaki children, but they often didn’t know what to do with the fiercely independent child that she was.

Still, she gets many visits in her last few days.

The elders who taught her combat fuuinjutsu and how to use her chakra chains come and give her last-minute advice. They make her promise to pass along their letters to Mito-sama, whom they haven’t seen in a long time. Sora, a retired chuunin who taught her taijutsu comes and takes her to eat ramen in the little shop behind the compound that is always packed with people. He leaves after ruffling her hair and telling her to not be afraid to punch gakis if they made things difficult for her in Konoha.

A gaggle of children come and give her necklaces and earrings made of pearls and seashells, their mothers placing sunset orange and ocean blue garments into her hands. Retired shinobi give her all manners of seals for her to look at, sealed with blood so no one outside of her clan can open them.

On the last day, she is the one who makes a visit. She first stops at the Sands of Mourning, where people come to grieve in front of the unforgiving sea. The ashes of her people are thrown into that beach, and her parents are two among the many who now dance with the eddies.

“I’ll visit,” she whispers.

She will keep that promise, even if Uzushio becomes a ruin.

After that, she goes to the Ayazora quarters.

The Ayazora are a civilian clan of her village, specialised in metalworking. Their sealed blades are renowned in the Elemental Nations. This will be the last order she picks up from their shops. She decided to make it count.

Tanto, shuriken, and kunai with seals engraved on the blade meant to return them to their owner. Seals to maintain the blade’s edge, others to burn the enemy’s hand if they try to disarm her.

It was Ayazora Kanon’s finest work.

Kushina takes her order with a smile and thanks the blacksmith before leaving the speciality shop. Outside, as the sun is setting and bathing the city of her childhood in golds and rubies, she looks at her reflection in the sharp tanto. Her long red hair falls at her shoulders. She grabs at it and slices it off at the base of her neck in a decisive motion. A civilian gasps. She offers them an apologetic smile.

Uzumaki hair was traditionally worn long. It is not arrogance like the Hyuuga clan’s demonstration of strength, daring anyone to grab at their locks and suffer the consequences. Instead, it is vanity. Her clan reveres beauty. Other shinobi sneer as they wear bright colours and decorate their houses with shells and pearls they never wear in battle. They find the too cheerful red-hairs childish with their baubles, their lack of stealth and loud chakra. They never sneer for long.

Uzumaki are soft like water and everyone who has been at sea knows the implications of that.

The most beautiful things in nature are the most dangerous, after all.

Kushina will grow her hair long again if her village is still intact at the end of the war. Until then, she will keep it at her nape as a reminder to never take anything for granted.

She takes a deep breath and yells to give herself courage.

“I’m Uzumaki Kushina, dattebane!”