I love my sword.
As far as I'm concerned, Sclamhaire is the best weapon that anybody could ever have, and certainly the best I'll ever have.
Every so often though, I'm confronted with some way, some minor edge-case circumstance in which she is somehow deficient. At this moment I'm regretting the fact that it is utterly impossible to make noise using Sclamhaire. She just eats the energy that would create the noise, even in her sheath she's abnormally quiet, and in no way would be able to cut through the screaming argument happening in front of me.
I sigh, leaning back in my throne in the Temple of Felidae, watching two tiny felines tear verbal strips off each other at high volume, backed up by several more of each of their clans generating yet more noise by screaming at each other. They'd be going at it physically too, but I'd already flatly told them that if they started fighting I'd throw them out and find a third solution that neither of the clans would be happy with.
The subject of the argument is laying in my lap, providing a very calming distraction. The absolutely miniscule kitten is stretched out on her back as long as she can where I've pressed my legs together. Even stretched out, her hind legs are just touching my stomach while her forepaws, stretched out over her head, are just shy of my knees. I'm keeping her distracted from the argument via a combination of a Script that blocks out meaningful speech, but no other noise, and gently running my fingernails up her stomach and her stretched-out arms and back down again. Resulting in a purr so loud that I can feel her chest vibrating.
The semi-comatose kitten is the subject of the argument because what I'm dealing with is, essentially, a custody dispute. The kitten's parents were members of two different cat clans, which is unusual enough by itself, but they had apparently been making it work. The parents, though, had died recently on a joint mission for both clans. And now the two clans were busy blaming each other for the deaths and trying to use that supposed guilt as a reason why they should have custody of the kitten.
This made reaching a compromise themselves rather difficult, which didn't even get into the differences between the two clans in question. The Sand Cat clan, and the Rusty Spotted Cat clan. The two had radically different traditional skills and ways of life, stemming largely from the fact that Sand Cats live in deserts, and Rusty Spotted cats live in jungles.
So they brought the problem to me.
I'm sure there's a fascinating story behind how the two parents met. Possibly a dramatic and romantic one as well, full of lots of adventure and drama, and at another time I might have been interested in hearing it.
But this argument has been going on for half an hour now, and I'm getting rather sick of it.
Thus, the reason I regret my inability to bang Sclamhaire on the floor to shut them up.
I suppose I could just shout at them, but that seems like sinking to their level, which I really don't want to do.
Fortunately I have other options. I have three attendants with me at the moment, two guards and Nel. Once I was established as the Princess of the Clans of Cats, each clan assigned ten warriors, stealth operatives, or sages to my service. These cats now lived in the Temple full time and were the ones on call to respond to my summons. They also served as honor guard during formal occasions, like court. The only rule on how the honor guard is chosen on any given day that I've managed to figure out, is that none of the guards can be of the clans asking for judgment.
So on my right lounges a very large, but not wildly oversized, puma. She's only twice the mass that a mountain lion could expect to reach in either of my previous worlds. She's on her side and looks very comfortable in her lounging, her hind quarters sprawled out, while her head and shoulders are upright. She looks remarkably relaxed, but the twitching of her tail and the cant of her ears tells me that she'd really like to be pouncing on the two loud clan representatives yowling at each other in front of my throne.
To my left is a serval, standing on his hind legs and dressed in bright red cloth and colorful beads. He is being equally stoic as his fellow guard, which is to say not very. His expression is neutral, his posture is relaxed, but his ears canted back, not quite pressed against his skull, and his twitching tail shows his irritation. Most importantly for me at the moment though, is that he is armed with a spear.
I lean to the left, removing one hand from the task of keeping the kitten in my lap in a blissed out coma, and lean on the left arm of my throne. My guard notices my movement, and my deliberate lean in his direction, and quickly turns and lowers his own head to be closer to mine, his ears perking forward.
"Princess?" His voice is deeper than one might expect from his slender and long limbed build.
"Tendaji, their shouting is getting us nowhere... and it's giving me a headache. Would you please get them to shut up so we can make some progress?"
"Of course, Princess." My guard straightens, turning back to the screaming clan representatives. His ears press back against his head, his tail lashes back and forth. Adsila, my puma guard, climbs quickly to her feet, her own ears pressed backwards and tail lashing, ready to back up her fellow guard should it be necessary or if I ask for it.
Tendaji raises his spear, pulsing chakra through it, and slams the butt of it into the stone of my dais several times. The sharp crack, disproportionately loud thanks to the chakra, echoes through the courtyard. Which is impressive given how open it is. The kitten I've been keeping distracted in my lap jolts at the noise, but quickly returns to the terribly important business of giving me as much territory for skritches as she can.
The spear wielding guard takes a moment to glare at the two much smaller clan representatives. "Be silent," the serval growls. "You have come to the Princess to settle this dispute and done nothing but embarrass yourselves and your clans since then."
The two groups of tiny felines glare at each other silently for a moment, before the speaker for the Sand Cat clan steps forward, "Princess, their incompetence in eliminating the guards directly led to the deaths..."
"Don't put this on us!" the Rusty Spotted speaker yowls, "If you'd done your job scouting and actually found all of the patrols, maybe we wouldn't have missed them! Princess, their clear responsibility for the loss..."
"
I don't care." My words echo unnaturally in the open courtyard, multiple tones edging into my voice, causing both groups to fall suddenly silent. I take a deep breath to calm myself, and normalize my voice, "The loss is tragic, but not the subject here. I have listened to you arguing for the last... however long it's been, and I've heard a lot of accusations about who's responsible for what, how that makes whoever is responsible incompetant, and a whole slew of other arguments. None of which address the reason we're here. What I haven't heard is any interest in what's best for the kitten." I narrow my eyes at them, sitting forward in my throne, "
That does not make me happy."
The cats before my throne wince in unison, which is kind of impressive really. "Princess..." one of them starts, but I cut them off with a glare.
"
No. You've had your chance to convince me, you decided that you'd rather use that time blaming each other." I shake my head, "Now I'm going to make my judgment, and you all are just going to have to live with it." I lean back with a sigh, "Frankly speaking, given what I've seen and heard here, I don't trust either of your clans to act in the best interest of the kitten. I find it far more likely that you'll use her as some sort of revenge tool on the other clan." I glare at them again, causing them to look away and flatten their ears. Tellingly nobody argues with my assessment, "So she'll stay here in the Temple. When she's old enough to start being trained, my guard will handle it. When her instructors think she's ready she can start visiting the clans of her birth so she can make an informed decision on who she will join. If she decides to join either of you at all."
The collected members of the Sand Cats and Rusty Spotted Cats are united in a moment in their cries of objection, only to be cut off by the low rumble from Adsila. She's risen to her feet, ears pinned back, and teeth bared.
Evidently, she's as done with them as I am.
The petitioners abruptly go silent. Something that only lasts until after they bow and start to leave, at which point they immediately resume blaming each other. Though now they're arguing about who's responsible for wasting my time, and thus my bringing down my ire on both of the clans.
It would be funny if it wasn't so annoying. They're gone quickly enough though, letting me relax enough to slump into my seat. The kitten thrashes on my lap for a moment before she manages to roll over onto her paws.
"I will make arrangements with the Temple staff to ensure she's taken care of, Princess," Nell tells me, before audibly hesitating, prompting me to glance up at her. "She will need a name."
I blink, and then look back down at the kitten moving around on my lap. With tottering unsteady steps she tries to climb up my stomach and chest, but nearly falls off me completely. I manage to catch her, gently, before she does, though. Holding her under her forelegs and letting her hind legs dangle freely, I bring her closer to my face, examining her closely.
She's got a sand cat's tawny yellow base color, broken up by the spots that give the rusty spotted cats their name. Her mouth opens with an almost inaudible squeaky meow, and pats at my nose with a soft paw.
That's just too cute to be allowed.
"Nike."
"Princess?" Nell asks, uncertain.
"Her name is Nike. She feels like a victory to me." From the positioning of her ears, I haven't actually cleared up anything for her, but that's fine. I put the newly named Nike back down on my lap where she rolls over and clumsily tries to maul my hand, which even at thirteen is bigger than she is. "Don't worry about it."
"As you say, Princess."
"Right, who's next? And please tell me that it's not going to be as annoying as the last petitioners."
Tendaji coughs into his paw, "Bob is here with another petition for his family to be split off into a new clan separate from the Lynx. Again."
I groan, that is not less annoying.
I feel tiny needle teeth poking at my fingertips and I look back down at my lap with a smile. At least I'll have Nike here to give me kitten therapy to help me get through it.
I straighten up, then nod, "Right. Bring it on."
###
"...and so Mikoto was
really grumbly about it. But swore up and down that this was a temporary setback and she would make jonin first. Which is a nice thought, but really not going to happen. Still, sticking with my team for a while longer doesn't seem too bad, and I get to order them around!" Kushina babbles happily to me.
Kushina had recently taken the chunin exams, and while I hadn't managed to get time off to see her compete, her new green vest stated quite clearly how well she'd done. As far as I'm aware she and Minato, who 'Shina still can't stand, were the only two from her year to manage to graduate.
From what she's told me, they didn't face each other in the tournament, but it was a near thing. They had both made it to the semi-finals, when Minato had to face an Aburame that had somehow gotten several orders of magnitude more bugs into the arena than anybody had managed before. Poor Minato hadn't managed to put the bug user down before all his chakra had been devoured by the bugs.
Unsurprisingly the same tactic hadn't worked on Kushina. Between her practically infinite chakra reserves and the traces of highly caustic Kyubi chakra in her system, bugs died by the bucket load and utterly failed to slow her down. According to what I've heard around the village, the last match was very anticlimactic.
Now, a chunin Kushina has a lot more freedom with regard to how she spends her time and what missions she takes. Kushina, though, had elected to stay with her team until at least one more of them makes chunin, instead of moving onto bigger and better things. Unsurprisingly to me, Kushina has become a lot happier and more stable with friends who're around more often than four times a year.
I've heard a lot about her teammates, but mostly she talks and writes about Mikoto Uchiha. Which is a name I feel like I should remember for some reason, though I can't. Kusina talks about Mikoto enough that I'd feel jealous if not for the kind of relationship she describes. The two of them are friends in the sense that each is the other's favorite person to compete against. And they compete in
everything, from the sort of reasonable, like who can win the most spars, who can learn a jutsu faster, who can eat the most ramen the fastest, Kushina's winning that one, to the utterly ridiculous, like who gets the most guys checking them out over a predetermined time, or who can grow out their hair faster.
How this works as a friendship, I have no idea. It sounds utterly exhausting to me, but Kushina is a font of infinite energy, and it works for them.
So Mikoto not getting promoted when Kushina did undoubtedly lost her a contest, but immediately moving on to the next goal is exactly the sort of thing that I would expect.
"I'm sure Mikoto is loving that idea," I tell her with a smirk, and rolled eyes.
I smile as Kushina giggles, "She may be extra grumpy for a while."
"I'm sure you're all broken up about that too."
'Shina pouts, "Tsunade-sensei has already told me that she's not letting me mess around too much. Apparently screwing with gennin is a jonin only privilege. Something earned only after proving that you
can be trusted with command. Until then no playing with the lower ranks."
I roll my eyes at her adorable pouting as we enter the training ground.
We've been coming to the same training ground since that first spar when we met. It's not totally out of nostalgia. There are only so many training grounds that I, as a foreigner, am allowed in. Recently though, by which I mean in the last two years, the training grounds have been... more in demand?
We rarely get it to ourselves anymore.
It's never overly crowded, but there's almost always at least a couple of people there when we arrive, just leaving as we get there, or arriving soon after us. I didn't think anything of it at first. Then it started happening at our favorite restaurants, the karaoke place we like, even a few public parks that we tend to end up just loitering in. All of them have suddenly become much more popular with girls around our age.
So far nothing has come of it. They've all been very nice, friendly, and accommodating. More importantly, none of them have lied about why they're showing up at our favorite spots, essentially that these places have been recommended to them. No other reason.
If I were dealing with samurai, I'd take them at their word and that would be the end of it.
But I'm not.
These are ninja.
Which means that it's likely that these places really were recommended to them. Probably by a superior in a very pointed fashion.
As to why they're really popping up all over the place?
Well, I have a theory. No proof, but a theory.
All and all, I don't mind too much. Like just about all female ninja, they're pretty cute. I'd never
date one, just in case my theory is right. But if Konoha wants to provide me with eye candy, I'm not going to complain.
Right now, though, we have the training ground to ourselves, which is good. Even though I don't mind an audience, Kushina is enough of a ninja to not like practicing in front of other people that she doesn't trust. Which at this point consists of me, and her team in most circumstances.
With nobody else here, Kushina can play with whatever she wants.
A quick check with me to make sure that we're really alone, and we rush to get started. We skim through the warmup stretches and exercise so that we can get some sparing in, before the eye candy shows up.
Since I'm not supposed to have actual weapons inside the village, I'm armed with a wooden practice sword. Kushina knows that I always have access to Sclamhaire, but also has sworn up and down not to tell anybody about it.
Kushina arms herself with two blunted Kunai, and then we're off.
The redhead evades like mad, darting in and out of my range trying to get at me. Occasionally she'll try to handle my sword, diverting it with a kunai or by contacting the flats. She's not quite good enough to pull that off, though she has gotten much better. I still win most of our spars, but I can't just dance around her any more and expect an easy victory.
At this point Kushina is actually putting up a very credible fight.
I pick up my front foot to evade a low kick, taking the opportunity to throw a kick of my own, which she ducks. My opponent lunges forward from her ducked position taking short, sharp swipes with her short knives. Swipes that if they landed, and the kunai were sharp, would have severed the tendons just below my kneecaps.
Two passing steps backwards gets me out of the way of Kushina's short knives. And while she's focused on my knees, my sword sweeps down behind me for just a moment, before cutting up into her lunge. A burst of wind rushes past me as Kushina abruptly reverses direction, her now backwards lunge sending her to the ground and then smoothly back to her feet. Just in time for my sword to fall back along its path upwards, into a powerful downward cut aimed at the crown of her head.
The first time I'd done this, Kushina had tried to stop-block me with her kunai crossed and held in a forward grip. That had gotten her both a bonk on the head, and a kick to the gut, so I'm a little disappointed to see her making this mistake again. Though she
is holding the knives back-handed and bracing them against her forearms, which might work for a block, but still leaves her open...
Something punches me in the stomach hard enough to knock the wind out of me. Kushina, with perfect timing, twists her knives to trap my practice sword and pull it to the side, and pull me, ever so slightly, off balance. With the same motion she kicks me in the side of the head hard enough that, with my continued struggles to breathe, and the damage she'd already done to my stance, topples me to the ground.
Which is a win condition for these spars.
Kushina throws her hands into the air and cheers as she does an impromptu victory dance.
She's earned it. This isn't the first time she's won a spar. And her victories, while coming more frequently, still aren't common.
I can't help but smile slightly, even as I slowly relearn how to breathe. After a few minutes of celebration and trying to breathe slowly, the dance has ended and I'm getting enough air in my lungs to talk.
So I ask the obvious and important question, "What did you hit me with? You didn't kick or knee me. I had your arms occupied...?" I really have no idea what other options she could have had.
"How do you know I didn't kick you, you were watching my hands," Kushina points out smugly.
"Your balance didn't shift, and it would have to if you were going to pick a leg up off the ground. So?"
'Shina pouts at me, then sighs, "We're still alone?" I still for a moment, reaching out to the world and breathing it in, studying our surroundings with my improved senses. After a moment of searching to be sure, I nod to Kushina. She nods back and holds up a hand, and out of her hand comes a pencil thick chain with links of red and gold, topped by a rounded weight, hovering over her hand like a snake being charmed.
Or at least that's what it looks like.
To my mana senses the chain is chakra compressed so tightly that the energy has become a solid object.
I blink as I'm forcefully reminded of something that I'd managed to forget. Chakra chains. Something that I only recall seeing once in the show, used by Kushina Uzumaki to restrain a rampaging Kyubi, while more than half dead and with a worsening condition.
It was an incredible jutsu that was never used again.
I stand up carefully and slowly reach out a hand to touch the chain. The surface is slick, feeling almost liquid and warm, like a living thing. It also feels like the smell of ramen, the sight of the Senju gardens on a spring evening, like the feel of a brush gliding across paper.
In short, it feels like Kushina.
Which really doesn't surprise me after giving it a moment's thought. It is made out of her mental and physical energies, after all.
"What is it?" I know half the answer already, but I want the rest of it and Kushina deserves the opportunity to brag. "An Uzumaki jutsu?"
I think that's what it was in the show. Or an Uzumaki bloodline? It's...
"Nope!" Kushina chirps, bouncing on her toes. "All mine!"
I blink.
Holy shit. Kushina made this herself? At fourteen?
I'm very impressed.
"So what is it?"
"It's an extension of... of a chakra compression technique." She fidgets a little, suddenly nervous.
I just hmm and reach out to run a finger over the smooth rounded end of the weight. "You could make this sharp right?"
Kushina nods, "Yeah, that's what it's going to be by default. Just not for spars." She grins at me.
"Could you make it something else?"
"...What?"
I gesture vaguely with my hands, not quite sure what I'm trying to say myself. "If you can change the end of the chain from a point to a round like this, could you alter it more? Instead of making a chain, make a sword or something?"
Kushina looked down at the chain and frowned. "Maybe? I mean it's..." She hesitates for a moment, then shakes her head, almost resetting herself, "Maybe. I'll look into it." She looks back up at me with a smile and flutters her eyelashes at me as the chain pulls itself back to be resorbed by her skin. "If I figure out how to turn it into a sword, you'll teach me how to use it, right?"
I narrow my eyes at her. "None of that," I admonish. She just giggles, but does drop her faux coquet act. "Yeah, I'll show you a few things if you want me to. Do you want to do another round?"
Kushina glances up at the sky to check the time, then shrugs, "Sure. I've got a team thing later, but that's this evening. I can beat you a few more times."
I grin back at her, "You may have surprised me with your ability to extrude chains from any part of your body, but you've shown your hand now." I give an over the top evil laugh, "You will not do so again!"
Getting into the mood, the ninja springs backwards, taking up her stance again, "Have at thee dark one! You shall not prevail."
"Dark one?" I ask incredulously.
Kushina shrugs, "Jiraiya has gotten into writing as a hobby. He's been making his teammates read his stuff and Tsunade-sensei is determined to share the pain."
Fair enough.
I shrug and we lunge at each other again.
Kushina doesn't win another spar before she leaves for her team thing, but she's really making me start to work for it.
###
I snap awake, and really can't figure out why.
I'm sprawled out across my bed in the guest room of the Senju compound I always use. It's dark and quiet, the compound being big enough to keep away the noise of the rest of the village, and having enough trees and other greenery to block out any light pollution that might cut the darkness.
Glancing out the window next to my bed, I can see down into the semi-wild gardens. Nothing but forest and the occasional stream. The only light provided is from swarms of fireflies that dance through the trees, and night singing birds fill the air with soft song. All this together paints a peaceful, nighttime picture.
Still no idea why I'm awake.
Somebody pounds on the door loudly, the sound somehow conveying impatience.
Ah, that would be why.
I pull myself out of bed, and after a moment of looking around for a robe or something, give up and wrap my wings around myself for some degree of modesty. Cracking the door open, I come face to face with Tsunade.
"What." I'm not exactly gracious before I've had my sleep.
"Kushina's in jail."
"
What?" Sleep flees my mind with a speed that's almost painful. Before Tsunade can answer I shake my head, "No. Don't answer that. I'll put on clothes and you can tell me what's going on, on the way." I don't wait for Kushina's sensei to respond before I shut the door and dress as quickly as I can.
Five minutes later I open the door again and Tsunade and I leave at a jog. We exit the compound without saying a word, and the moment the med-nin has cleared the front gates she leaps onto the rooftops and starts picking up speed.
I can probably make that jump, but a lot of a ninja's ability to move like they do comes from their ability to stick to whatever they want to. Makes a huge difference in acceleration, deceleration, and turning. Also something I can't do.
That doesn't mean I don't have my own ways of keeping up.
My wings spread from my back and with a leap and a down beat I'm in the air. A few hard wingbeats for acceleration and I catch up with Tsunade. My wingspan means that I can't fly directly next to the other woman. I can't fly just over her either since I actually have to flap to stay in the air. So my explanation of what the hell
Kushina did to get herself arrested ends up not happening.
The Uchiha clan, known for their hand-to-hand skills, their pyromaniac tendencies, a talent for genjutsu that most of them completely ignore, and the most bullshit doujutsu you're likely to find. A doujutsu that might very well be cursed. Given where it came from, I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if it is. What they're not really known for in the series, but are very well known for in actual Konoha, is comprising the entirety of the police force inside Konoha. I don't know for certain, but I highly suspect that it's something they got in return for not pitching too much of a fit when a Senju was picked to be first Hokage.
To facilitate this, they have little satellite police stations scattered all over the village. I am very relieved to see that we're heading for one of these instead of the main station. I'm not really versed in the minutia of Konoha police procedure, but I would guess that it means that either whatever Kushina did isn't a big deal, so could be handled entirely at the satellite station, or that the official powers are trying to keep what happened quiet, and to facilitate this are avoiding any sort of official record being made. Which a transfer between stations would require.
Either way it means that I'm probably not going to have to break Kushina out of prison tonight.
I land a moment after Tsunade does in front of the double doors that lead into the station, and follow her into the building. The lobby almost feels like an anachronism, in that it's like every waiting room I saw on earth. Well lit, the walls lined with mass produced chairs, a door in the back wall that nobody's allowed through without an escort, and a chest high counter behind which somebody too junior to be given something important to do waits out the night shift.
What probably isn't so normal is the more senior ninja cop standing behind the junior one at the counter, obviously waiting for something. What he's waiting for becomes clear as we enter the lobby and he quickly comes out of the employee-only door to meet us.
"Tsunade-sama," he says, sketching a quick bow, "your student is this way." There's a widely held belief among fans of the show, and some of the civilians in the village, that the rivalry from the warring clans era between the Uchiha and the Senju is still as strong and vicious as ever. Just more subtle now that they're nominally allies. From what I've seen living with the Senju, there's definitely still a rivalry there, but it's a pretty friendly one. They're both founding clans of the village and their rivalry is mostly over things like mission records and jockeying over social status. The former of which basically amounts to bragging rights, and the latter is something that only concerns the high ranking members of each clan. Really the Uchiha rivalry with the Hyuga over who's doujutsu is better is far more vicious.
The older Uchiha waves her in the direction of the door he'd just come through. "Umeko," the counter-monkey jerks straight, "keep our Samurai guest occupied."
"Yessir!" she replies, with the air of a subordinate trying to cover up that they hadn't been paying attention.
Tsunade and the senior Uchiha vanish through the door he'd initially come through, and I wander over to the counter so that my minder won't have to abandon her post or shout at me across the room.
The girl herself is maybe a year or so older than I am, and not quite a head shorter than me, which doesn't actually mean much. At fourteen, I'm already closing in on six foot, and while the Elemental Nations aren't Japan, they do share certain similarities. Average height of the populace being one of them.
Otherwise, she definitely got the Uchiha pretty genes. While the obsessive stalkers known as fan-girls, which are an actual phenomenon here according to Kushina, should probably be checked out for some sort of mental disorder, I can sort of understand the appeal looking at... Umeko, I think she was called.
Long, glossy black hair falling to just below her shoulders, fascinating black eyes, perfect lightly tanned skin, soft looking pink lips...
I'm staring, aren't I?
I should stop that and say something before she thinks
I'm one of those fan-girls.
"Um... I'm Ericka Rhostana..." I almost hold out a hand before I remember that shaking hands isn't really a thing here. I haven't made that mistake in... ever. What the hell is wrong with my head?
Umeko smiles at me and... I honestly don't remember what I was worrying about...
"I know." Her smile is somewhere between wry and shy. Which is a look that really works for her. "The entire police force got a briefing on you since you're a foreign dignitary and a friend of the Senju, and the village as a whole." She tilts her head and grimaces slightly, "We also got chewed out over that whole kidnapping thing a couple of years ago."
I wince, "Sorry?"
She waves my apology off, "Not your fault, and the lecture we got was nothing compared to the reaming ANBU, village security, and counter-intel got." She shrugs, that distracting smile quirking her lips, which I'm really having a hard time not looking at.
At least until she crosses her arms on the counter and leans forward, giving an excellent display of the advantages of a low cut top. Then it's other things I'm struggling not to look at.
Goddamn puberty. I knew it was going to suck, but I had some hope that things would be easier the third time through.
Clearly not.
With a mental wrench, I get my brain focused again. "I don't suppose you can tell me why my friend is in lockup?"
Umeko smirks attractively and leans further forward, pressing her chest into her crossed arms more firmly, but answers my question, "Kushina Uzumaki?" I nod, "Apparently she got picked up for beating the hell out of a group of six civilians."
What? Suddenly all thoughts of how pretty Umeko is vanish from my mind like smoke in a high wind.
Kushina did what?
"Apparently there was some sort of provocation, and other mitigating circumstances." She shrugs, "That's all I'm cleared to know, though. So no specifics."
I have a feeling I know what those 'mitigating circumstances' are.
I'm struggling for something else to say when the door opens again. Tsunade pushes Kushina through the door, one hand firmly on her shoulder guiding her along. The famous medic's face is carefully blank, 'Shina's though, is muleish. At least until she spots me, which makes her flinch slightly and look ever so slightly guilty.
Good. She should be.
Not only for dragging me out of bed at o-dark thirty, but because I am damn well disappointed in her right now.
"Ericka," Tsunade's voice is as emotionless as her face at the moment, "would you take Kushina home and make sure she doesn't do anything else stupid on the way?"
And 'Shina's stubbornly defiant face is back.
"Yeah, I can do that," I say with a sigh. I beckon her with a hand, "Come on, let's go."
"Maybe I'll see you around?" Umeko says quickly, before I can think of anything to say to her.
"Maybe," I agree, and give her my best smile, which I'm gratified to see tints her cheeks with a very attractive blush.
I herd Kushina out of the station, shooting one last smile over my shoulder, and we start walking back towards the Senju compound. Our pace is an odd one, with me trying to hurry us along so as to get back to bed quicker, and Kushina trying to slow us down, reluctant to go back to the compound.
After a few minutes Kushina can't take the silence anymore, "So... who was that? You seemed..."
I cut her off with a raised hand, "Not now, Kushina. I need to yell at you before there can be any girl talk, and that yelling is likely to involve things that shouldn't be spoken of in the open."
The rest of the trip is made in silence.
###
Once we get back to the compound I drag Kushina back to her room, with only a brief stop off in mine to grab six prepared Script tags. Pulling my friend into her room, I shut the door and put tags on each wall, the ceiling, and the floor, powering them and singing them to life as I do. Once I finish, the room is completely isolated from anybody attempting to listen in. It wouldn't do anything about a Hyuga reading our lips through the walls, but that's a problem for the Senju.
The sound tags are something I've been working on for a while... and, I admit, mostly because I'm kind of hoping to have somebody to do loud things in a bedroom with, that I don't want to have an audience for. They still work rather well for keeping secrets too, though.
That done, I round on Kushina with a frown on my face. "Explain," I order flatly. She shuffles her feet, fiddles with her fingers, and generally looks anywhere but at me. "'Shina..."
The redhead sighs and slumps into a desk chair, and I take a seat on her bed. Kushina's room looks a lot like mine. An armor and weapon stand, book shelves, a bed, and a desk covered in scrolls, ink stones, brushes, and other tools for sealing. Unlike mine though, her book shelves are filled with books that aren't just decorative. Books on sealing, history, chakra theory, the theory of the wind and water elements, and tucked into a corner where a casual look would be likely to overlook them, are a couple of romances. There's a new one there too, I'll have to tease her about that later.
Once the current issue is settled.
Kushina sighs after stalling for a few more minutes, and finally starts talking, "Team training ran for a while, and the team decided to run a few night drills after Tsunade-sensei had already left. We finished up late, and I was still energized from training. I wanted to go get something to eat, but Mikoto and Shion," Shion would be Shion Sarutobi, the third member of Kushina's team, "were tired and begged off. So I went and got ramen on my own. And while I was eating there were these guys at the next table over. And after a little while they started talking to me. They tried to pick me up for a bit, and when I shot them down they started talking shit. Calling me Tomato and mocking me. I tried to ignore them," the last Uzumaki's hands clench into fists, her teeth grit, and a faint red haze starts to drift off of her. Which is worrying. Kushina's chakra is blue, but there is a source of red chakra in her, too. A quick check with the Shinjitsugan and it doesn't look like her chakra is being overwhelmed... as far as I can tell... "but then they started talking about Uzu. About how
pathetic we must have been to only last for three days. That it was good that the dead weight of such a village had been
cut free of Konoha. That I should be grateful to be taken in by the Leaf, especially after
how much they've done for me." The red haze grows denser and easier to see as she talks, surging brighter at certain points in her retelling. "And... and then I just
lost it. How.. how dare these
civilians, who have never lost anything, talk about my village like that? And be grateful? For
what? Showing up late? Their spectacular security? The generous support I've gotten from anybody not related to me?" She scoffs, "I just couldn't take it any more."
"I thought that the... everything had gotten better?" I ask carefully.
Kushina's response is a dead laugh with no humor. "Sure. They've upped security. And my team treats me well enough. But everybody else? To the civilians I'm that foreigner from that village that couldn't make it, and the ones that don't talk about that, talk about
you and how close we are." I... didn't know that. "The senior ninja treat me like a resource, something to be managed, and the younger ones take their cue from their superiors. It's..." she puts her face in her hands, leaning forward in her chair to set her elbows on her knees.
I stand and put a hand on her shoulder, "'Shina... That's... I don't know what that is. Or what I can do about it. What I do know is that you can't react like
this to it. Beating the hell out of civilians... you just can't do that!"
Kushina jerks her head up to glare at me. "They had it coming!" she half shouts, half growls.
"That's not the point!" I shout back at her, "I don't care about them! What I care about is that the only reason you're not in prison or worse, is because you're the last Uzumaki and you're their Jinchuriki! And if you keep doing things like this, eventually you'll do something, or enough things, that it won't be worth keeping you around any more." Or worse she'll get picked up by Danzo. I can already hear him assuring the council and the Hokage that he knows exactly how to control an untameable jinchuriki.
My friend has lost any sign of anger and has gone pale, "You... you know?"
I stare at her blankly for a moment.
Know what?
...
Oh.
Have we really not talked about this before?
Guess not.
"About your tenant?" I ask with a wry twist to my lips, "I've known about Fuzzy since the first time I met Mito. I knew you had him since the first time I saw you after you got him."
"But
how?" Kushina looks like she doesn't know whether to be afraid of my reaction to her tenant's presence or the security leak my knowledge implies.
I roll my eyes at her, "I'm a sensor, remember? How do you think I found you during the kidnapping?"
"But the seal is supposed to block any chakra that could be sensed! Mito-baa-chan made it herself!" Kushina says, sounding desperate.
"My sensory abilities are a bit broader than just chakra. I actually can't sense any chakra from him." I look at her stomach and frown, "Everything else he's putting out? That's sort of hard to miss. Not to mention," I place a finger just under my right eye and activate my doujutsu for just a moment, "I've had the Shinjitsugan for most of my life at this point. It points out and reveals hidden things. I saw the seal on Mito the first time we all went to the hot springs."
"And then on me the first time we took off our shirts around each other after I got it." Kushian looks up at me again, her eyes damp and afraid and full of hope, "You've known the whole time?"
I roll my eyes again, "Yes. The whole time. I didn't care then. I don't care now." I pull her face into my stomach, hugging her as best I can while she's sitting and I'm standing.
For a long few moments we stay in that position in silence. Eventually I push her back by her shoulders so I can look her in the face, "Except I care that tonight it was one of the only things keeping you out of prison. Which lets face it, by the law as it's laid out, where you really should be."
"So what do I do?"
I sigh, and think about it for a moment. Then I remember something that the Krav Maga instructor I studied with for a little while in DxD said.
'If you're confronted by somebody in public looking for a fight, put your hands up,' a pose that bears a remarkable similarity to the standard Krav guard position, 'and state very loudly that you don't want a fight. The moment they start to move, punch them in the nose. Move second, land first. Then everybody will say that they attacked you, no matter what actually happened.'
"Ideally, you'd leave when somebody starts talking like that. Go to a training ground and blow off steam. Otherwise? Find out exactly what they have to do before you can claim self-defense, and make sure they do that before you beat the shit out of them."
'Shina giggles wetly, "Self-defense, huh?"
"Yup," I nod sagely.
"All right. Does that mean you're done yelling at me?"
I sigh, "Yes, I'm done yelling at you."
"Okay." She wraps her arms around my hips and hugs me again. "So who was that Uchiha girl you were smiling at, at the station?"
Never mind.
She's not hugging me, she's making sure I can't run away.
