The Incendiary

She woke up still smelling like the hospital, cuddling her blanket for dear life. Whatever they gave her to knock her out silly did exactly that, and while sleeping the day off in a strange environment away the day and knowing that someone had to bring her there was a little unpleasant, the dreamless sleep was a very welcomed surprise. She finally felt rested.

She couldn’t help but notice a care package, basket to be exact, a little out of her reach.  A nice touch, really, she thought as she was creating a makeshift ladder to get to it. While too big and heavy for her to carry from it place on the kitchen sink, it was way too easy to knock it down. Rummaging through it still half delirious, she found, to her dismay, no more of that magical substance. Only a shit ton of instant food, some toiletries and a fucking mint chocolate bar. Mint chocolate. Who picked that for a preschool age kid?

Well, knocking herself out with chocolate could work too. After that, she could figure out how to cook that instant bullshit without being able to reach the stove comfortably. Standing on a chair and pillows only amounted to so much range of movement.

……….

Okay, problem solved. Or, problem discovered, depending on how one would look at it. Kinnosuke got woken up by her new forceful friend first thing in the morning, right as she managed to fall asleep again. Kushina brought meds, books, cooked the instant ramen and despite Kinno’s adamant protests came again the next day. And the day after. And then the other day.

“Why are ya always here?”

Kushina slurped down the rest of her cup with practiced ease. “It’s a D-rank, dattebane. I told you already.”

Kinnosuke rubbed her forehead. “What’s a damn D-rank, was my question. Sorry.”

The raised eyebrow was not warranted. She was a foreign refugee kid, how was she supposed to know if no one told her shit? “Well, missions are ranked, right? You have ranks from D to A, then S ones but those are kind of for the pros, you know?”

No, she didn’t know. Well, suppose now she did, even if it didn’t help with much. “How are they decided?” She took a bite from her sandwich. They were sitting on the floor, a bunch of food wrappings surrounding them. Quite comfy, if someone asked her. A little unsanitary, but comfortable. “like, who takes which?”

“The rank of the ninja taking them, obviously.”

Obviously. “What are the ranks?”

“Genin, Chuunin-“ Kushina put the empty paper cup down. “Wait, really, how do you not know this?”

Kinnosuke shrugged. “I am a child, no one bothered to explain.”

“But you are quite smart, freakishly if you ask me-“

“-I did not.” Kinnosuke interrupted.

Kushina waved her hand around. “Whatever. Why didn’t you ask?”

“Eh. Not many people to ask.” Why would she be asking about the ranking system of Konoha soldiers, anyways? Just to fuck around with someone? To add useless information when she barely knew how to write? She was beginning to feel a headache forming the entire day, and it made her mood sour.

“Your parents aren’t ninja? Uzumaki’s usually are…” it seemed like the exuberant girl just got an idea, “wait, tell me your dad’s name. Or mom’s. Like, maybe I know them, you know?”

She blinked. “Mom ain’t an Uzumaki. Only dad was. Don’t know his name tho, was never quite invested enough to learn. He’s just, father.” Plausible enough, wouldn’t bite her in the ass when she’d learn the truth eventually. And there was always a possibility she would, the blonde doctor knew. And so would everyone else. They could spin the narrative of a marriage out of clan being shameful, but she’d have to learn about Uzumaki requirements first. She’d learned, after spying through conversations with Kushina and some of the books she was bringing that it was, in fact, frowned upon in certain clans. Purity and such bullshit. She’d love to know if there was seriously some benefit to chakra and abilities given through keeping the same bloodline, or if was just special abilities that they guarded so much. Yep, she also learned that some clans in Konoha were really overzealous about their bloodline abilities after Kushina came back complaining about ‘that damn Hyuuga with those damn eyes he loves more than his own poor mother’.

“That’s… he’s dead, right?”

Damn, Kushina, queen of subtlety. “Yep. The attack.”

She must’ve looked sorrowful enough with her face twisted in pain from the incoming headache that Kushina decided to change the subject. “Okay,” she looked so fucking uncomfortable Kinno felt a little bad, “what are the plans for today? A park, reading, what does the little miss propose?”

“The little miss proposes meds.”

That’s where the guardian dog roared it’s ugly three-head. “No, you already had enough for today.”

And who thought of that useless dosage huh? The blonde doctor, of course. And while in Kinnosuke’s head she was still the most amazing helpful angel for even prescribing them, she’d like to consult the clearly underperforming dosage. “I finished the book already. It was cool tho. Still want you to show me the jutsu I asked for today tho.”

Kushina’s ears got a bit read. “I will, dattebane! Just not… now.”

“You don’t know how to do it, can you?” Kinno couldn’t help but rile her up, a small smirk gracing her chubby cheeks.

“I so can!”

“You so cannot.”

“I am so not arguing with a toddler.”

Kinnosuke inspected her nails. “So, what are we gonna do today? I really don’t want to go to the park, people stare at us weirdly.” When Kushina took a deep breath, she quickly raised her hand. “I know I know, you said t’s not always mean, still bums me tho.”

After a second, Kushina’s face lit up. “How about we go visit a friend of mine? I haven’t been able to go for a few days, and I’ve been blowing it off without saying anything.”

Shit, she didn’t have to do that. Having a set of taller hands that could reach the stove was nice, but it seemed like this arrangement wasn’t doing Kushina much favour. “Okay, I’m pro. Also, you do know that you don’t need to babysit me so much. Like, I know my way around okay?”

The redhead scrunched her nose. “You have a problem with me around?”

“It’s not- let’s just go.”

…………..

The walk through the village was unpleasant as usual. The area her flat was in felt like there was not a single dime from the village’s budget that would get thrown their way, and even the shops in the nicer part were all gloomy, less customers by day. A true financial crisis if she ever saw one. One more reason to trust they were in a war, even if no one ever said it out loud in front of her. She couldn’t overhear the drunken ninja complaining though. There was something very wrong, and she just knew that destruction of Uzushio was all part of the war effort or at least preparations.

They grabbed some meat on a stick, and Kushina put her on her back as she ran on the rooftops after they finished the food. That was the best part right there- running. Kinno had no idea how those tiny legs generated so much speed, but she wanted to be able to do something like that too. How cool would that be?

“Are ya dizzy?”

Kinnosuke flattened her hair. “Nah, got used to it.” Instinctively, she took a step back when she realized she was in a very unfamiliar environment. On the outskirts of Konoha, staring at a huge wooden fence and a shit ton of trees. Really, it looked like a small forest out there. “Wait, where the fuck are we?”

“Language, dattebane! Don’t say shit like that in front of Mito-sama.”

“Hypocrite.” Kinno jabbed her side with her fingers, something she was sure Kushina just allowed her to do out of the kindness of her heart. Indulging a little girl. “Are we going in?”

“Yes, lemme just-“ the wooden gate opened by itself.

Kinno just stood there with her mouth open. “How does it do that?”

Kushina started walking in, unbothered by the strangeness of it all. As if it wasn’t creepy. “It’s Hashirama wood. I think he had such a connection with his wife, the wood serves her still after his death. It’s a chakra thing, I think.”

“Hashirama? As in first kage Hashirama? We are going to see his wife?” What the fuck? She wasn’t even dressed properly, didn’t wash herself in some days now, just overall rotting away. How was she supposed to meet a celebrity when she was basically looking like a psych case? She could’ve at least combed her hair. “Chakra thing?” She almost screeched now.

“Don’t worry, Mito-sama is great.” That didn’t work at all. “Stop freaking out, really.” Kinnosuke looked five minutes from sprinting away. “Calm down, dattebane!” And there they were again, with Kushina just dragging the smaller girl by her shirt like a rag doll. And of course, Kinnosuke couldn’t protest because well, she didn’t have the ninja moves and definitely couldn’t muster the strength necessary for such ordeal. So she just let herself hang there, accepting of her fate. Mito Uzumaki. The one person she really didn’t want to meet unprepared.

She was curious about the woman for quite some time. The books barely mentioned her, sure, but what was there was fascinating. She was strong, resilient, often hailed as a fuujinjutsu master, whatever the hell that meant, and the first Konoha Uzumaki. The most prominent one, too. So, a celebrity. A celebrity with a lot of potentially valuable information to be extracted and used for later.

“Kushina dear, be nice to my new guest.” Damn, that voice felt like a fucking clean spring on a summer day, no kidding. Upon being released from the forceful cat-hold, Kinno immediately found the source of that feeling, and what she saw was not what she expected. The old woman, who she was expecting to barely hold together, was standing proudly on the porch of her wooden house, smiling slightly. “My eyesight is quite bad, dear, could you come closer please? I fear I don’t know you.”

She took a few shaky steps, and cleared her throat. Better not make a fool of herself. “I’m Kinnosuke Fuuma, Uzumaki-sama.” She tried to bow to the best of her abilities without slamming face first into the mud underneath her.

“Fuuma? Haven’t heard of that clan in ages.”

That straightened her spine immediately. “You know my clan?” That was unfortunate. She was hoping to go under the radar with that one, as most people didn’t know shit about a small nomadic clan.

“You are an Uzumaki, dattebane!” Kushina exclaimed, effectively drowning her voice out.

Mito smiled, and god she felt a surge of affection. And sharp throb of pain in the back of her head. An unusual combination, but who was she to dictate her body’s precedense. Meds. She wanted meds. “She doesn’t have to be, if she doesn’t want to. A shame, though.” She turned her back to them, but not without making a small motion with her hand. “Come inside, we can have tea. Kushina, I haven’t seen you in ages.”

She wasn’t going to lie, she loved the way Kushina visibly deflated at that.

Much like she expected, the inside of the house reflected the outside. Wood, plants, more wood. What surprised her was the shit ton of writings, ink on paper everywhere her eye could reach. “What is all that?” she whispered to Kushina, eying the way Mito retreated to handle the tea and possibly, hopefully, snacks.

“Fuujinjutsu.” Kushina whispered back, tilting her head down a little to accommodate the height difference. “Mito is an Uzumaki, and most of us are hella good at that stuff. She’s a master, ya know?”

She blinked. “That’s how fuujinjutsu mastery looks?” Honestly, she was expecting something a little cooler.

“She’s testing out seals, I think.”

“Oh, shit.” Testing seals was, to her understanding, a feat where if something went wrong, like a line being drawn badly or using a wrong amount of chakra, the result would be getting a part of you or the whole of you splattered across the wall. The woman could barely see, as she said so herself, how was she still practicing?

She slowly turned around and whispered lowly, an idea forming in her head. “Kushina, do you know how to do seals?”

“I… know some.” There was a mix of bashful and wary in her tone.

Kinnosuke lit up like a Christmas tree. “Teach me.”

“I’m not gonna teach a kid sealing, dattebane.”

Kinnosuke shuffled her feet. “Not now, jeez.” She’d blow her fingers off with her first seal, jesus. Not even she was that irresponsible. “Later. So I can cut costs on shit that I need. When we were shopping for your supplies, the scrolls and tags looked the priciest.” And if she had some sort of innate genetical affinity for it, it could prove quite useful. And fun. So damn fun.

Kushina hummed. “Well, that’s because that’s not many who are good at making them, you know? It’s like, even the basics can be dangerous to those who just don’t see the vision.”

“And the advanced can kill even those who see everything and more-“ Mito finished, coming to the picture with some tea and, heavens above, something that looked like sweets, “are you interested in fuujinjustu, little one?”

She moved so smoothly, with grace of an ancient warrior princess, navigating that mess of hers like a surgeon would navigate a brain. It was hard to imagine she had difficulty seeing. They were being led through the corridors of the house, each wall the same, mess and scattered thoughts, remainders and flowers. Like a princess gone mad. Until they’ve reached the back garden.

A tree loomed over the grassy patch, casting a shadow larger than life. She felt a little breathless and ger head was spinning again. It might’ve factored into why she sat down a little less gracefully, her back hitting the wall behind her.

“Little one, are you feeling well?” Mito asked, setting the tea down.

Kinno coughed. “Sure, I’m all good.” Nothing like embarrassing herself in front of one of the baddest masters. “Just need a little water and my meds.” She gulped down the tea, forgetting the flavour in the process.

Mito balked. “Are you sick, child?”

Unsure how to answer, she looked at Kushina for help. “Well, the journey here was difficult from what I know. She has some lasting injuries still.” Was what Kushina said, because that’s the version Kinno told her. Not too much, not too little. She assumed the medic didn’t tell her more either, medical privacy and all that. At least the hoped so.

Kushina was already giving her the meds, shaking her head. She pushed them down, feeling Mito’s gaze as she rested the cup beside her. “Those are charka regulators. Did you have a chakra related injury?”

Well, what? Kushina seemed to be just as confused as Kino was, which put her a little at ease, but Mito-sama’s words hung in the air like a water balloon, very uncomfortable and ready to soak her to the bones. “What?” That was Kushina, not her. Kino opted to stay silent, even though her curiosity was propelling her forward.

“Chakra regulators. Or rather, pathway regulators. It’s mainly used to subdue kekkei genkai users or people with extraordinary chakra, but sometimes it treats sensitivity or damaged pathway symptoms…. Kushina, do they not cover this with you? You specifically should know that.” There was an undertone of urgency in her voice as she said it.

The young girl looked away, her ears a pinkish hue. “Yeah, not really. Maybe someone mentioned it.”

Mito’s disappointment was so palpable, Kinno herself felt like she did something wrong and should go stand in the corner. “Read the books I give you, child. There’s not that much time left.” The matriarch, or a former matriarch if one wanted to be correct, turned to Kinnosuke. “Are you familiar with the reasoning behind you taking this medicine?”

Kinno shrugged. “Nah. They don’t tell you much at my age. But sure there’s a reason for it. I mean, they do help with the headaches…” She felt a little uncomfortable with the line of questioning, the idea of her chakra being supressed didn’t sit right with her either. It was as if every time someone opens their mouth, something new and potentially dangerous for her comes up. And not dangerous in the fun way that made her stomach do somersaults, but that throat wrenching way. They were messing with her primary bodily functions and her mother, the only one who could’ve been on her team was somewhere in surgery, or in recovery, or in whatever.

The matriarch hummed. “Child, how do you feel now?”

She shuffled in her place, feeling  Kushina’s intent eyes at her. “So better after the pills.”

“And before you took them?”

“Pain?”

Mito reached out and took her hand.  “And now?”

Kinnosuke was expecting a wave of nausea to hit her, but surprisingly, it was just a little uncomfortable. “Still okay. I mean…” well, it wasn’t something they could imprison her for, nothing that could reveal her heritage or the reason of their sudden relocation here. Just a little medical juju from a very cool old lady, “touching other people ain’t the reason. Only green stuff, but not always.”

Mito closed her eyes, and her palm got that familiar glow. Except something was off. Something felt off. Like an emotion she should knew, but there was just so much of it, so many of them, so different… something felt odd. And the lights went fucking off.

…………………..

She really didn’t like these damsel in distress faint spells. Kushina rubbing a cold wet cloth on her forehead was a little nice touch, relieving some of that tension, even though it was a little unpleasant to wake to that feeling. She was staring at Mito’s ceiling, somewhere she suspected was the rarely used guestroom.

“I’ll go tell Mito you woke up…” Kushina seemed quite uncomfortable all of a sudden, even her touches felt a little too restricted, as if she was checking herself. Made Kinno wonder.

“Okay.”

Mito came in a few minutes later, with no Kushina in tow. She sat down on the edge of her bed, her weight creasing the bedsheets. “Who are you?”

Kinnosuke blanched. Stay calm. She has no way of knowing. She’s not a mindreader. Is it possible to be a mindreader? She had no idea, everything and more could be true. It would be mentioned somewhere, Kushina would’ve said something… would she? “My name is Kinnosuke. Fuuma.”

Mito shook her head. “You have a lot of chakra.”

“I..” she gulped, “don’t know ‘bout all that. I don’t know much at all, really.”

The old woman hummed again, and her soothing voice suddenly felt a little too invasive. Threatening, like a promise of the very thin ice she was skating on, breaking. “Would you like to know?”

“Whattabout?”

She smiled, her composure never changing. “About your constant pain, your meds,” she paused, scanning her, “chakra.”

Kinno breathed out, mind mile a minute. At first glance, this was incredible. But also, “I’m just a kid.”

“A very smart kid.”

She shook her head. “I mean, I can read some, speak some. But I’m a kid.”

“An Uzumaki kid.”

What a resilient old hag. The respect she felt for her at the beginning was slowly turning into annoyance. “No. I’m Fuuma.”

Mito’s face grew cold. “I understand this is difficult for you. But even if you try and deny it, a chakra sensor, at least a good one, will always know. Uzumaki chakra is different. And you have a lot of it, and it swims in you and reacts violently. Like a little whirlpool, sucking in every bit of information from the chakra makeup of the other and of everything around you”

“What’s a chakra sensor?” She fumbled around with the word just a little bit, slightly on purpose this time.

The cold aura didn’t go away, but it seemed like a flicker of light made it a little less freezing in the room. “Who taught you how to read kid?”

“My grandmother. She was… tough. A little too angry. Said I’m a bastard, said I’m smart. I don’t know which one.” Kinnosuke didn’t resent her. Not really. She didn’t hate anyone she’s met ever since her questionable existence here, not that specific deep emotion she remembers feeling sometime, that returns when she has headaches. Or… “do you hate a lot?”

The old woman’s shoulders faltered. “What do you mean by that, child.”

“I felt something really ugly before I went to sleep.” She said in the most nonchalant way she could muster while being interrogated by someone who was essentially a war hero. Oh, she had no qualms about this being an interrogation. “Like a stranger in the room who’s about to hurt you. Okay, no,” she was going to have to explain this properly. Focus on the moment. Not the jumbled pieces of information from her little visions that made no sense, not the barely working mental map of clues, experiences and memories that weren’t hers. Just what she really experienced, right there. It was two separate worlds, and she had to operate in them through a very different time and space, “everyone feels kinda like a dangerous stranger when they do the green thing, but this felt like someone else, or something else, was here. Or you just really don’t like me, I dunno.”

Mito took a deep breath, and that pause felt like a lifetime. “That just put me a little bit at ease, even if you don’t know why.”

Kinnosuke blinked, and before she could stop herself and think about how success is nice especially when one doesn’t open their fat mouth and fucks it up, “why?”

The old woman chuckled. “Because that which I could fear would never admit I could fear it.”

Cryptic. Very cryptic. “So, we are okay?” Why was Mito afraid of her? Kinnosuke thought back to her theory of how unregulated the check-in check-out system at a literal military base which was her current home seemed to be, but she couldn’t imagine someone would think a literal preschooler was a spy.

The old lady was back, and it was as if the shadow of something akin to a warmonger was gone, the armour tossed away and forgotten. She was not to be fooled by that, that wrinkly eyes were a little too sharp even with the self-proclaimed eyesight difficulties. “Forgive an old lady for prodding, dear.”

Kinnosuke felt like being a smart child, a true smart child, was the best thing to emulate here. She wasn’t sure if that approach was not going to fuck her up mentally, as she wasn’t even sure who was emulating what at this point, but that was a problem for another shitty day. “Still wanna help me know shit?”

Mito smiled. “I’ll let you rest for now.” She stood up, and dusted herself off. There was literally no dirt here whatsoever, but she did it anyways, that weird hag. “At least I’ll have some time to bully Kushina into actually doing her homework before you steal her from me- with all my blessings, of course.” She touched Kinno’s forehead briefly, and the touch burned. In a very confusing, ambivalent way. “Get a little more sleep.”

Uff. “Good night, Mito-sama.”

“Good night, Uzumaki-chan.”

An even bigger uff.

…………………………………………