Chapter Eighteen: Magnanimity
She still goes to sit on the stump by Might Duy's house and watches him train from time to time. Even like she is now, sometimes you just have to go on a long walk and stare up at the moon.
He's always up.
"Gai's still gone?"
He wipes the sweat from his brow with the hand not doing pushups.
"Yes! I have been assured that it is perfectly normal for spirit journeys of this nature to take several months!"
"Time's a bit different over there," Seiko agrees.
Time always feels a bit different when she's here, too.
"I thought it would be really easy to forgive him," Seiko says, breaking a half an hour of silence. "My brother, that is. Not Gai, he's sweet as always."
Might Duy has moved on to leg lifts after pausing to bring her a cup of warm tea from inside.
He stops, sitting up to look at her. There's a bit of white in his hair these days.
"I always knew Kakashi's not a bad kid, so obviously he'd eventually...decide he wants to be less distant," Seiko says. "Some time in the future. When he grew up a bit."
She'd been so nice to him.
Seiko stares at the tea cup dully.
"Maybe if I'd been meaner to him before now I'd be in the mood to forgive him. But taking out your bad mood on your own brother. What a terrible thing to do."
She stares at Might Duy, almost defensive.
"I wouldn't do something like that just because it's convenient."
There's a somberness to Duy as well. He drapes a towel across his neck and sits down next to her.
"Of course you wouldn't," he says.
She waits for him to continue, and watches clouds pass over the moon in the time it takes him to open up his mouth.
"Have you ever forgiven a single person in your entire life?"
Seiko is startled into a sharp hiccup of a laugh.
"No," she says. "You don't need to forgive people to work with them and try to help them, so there's no need."
Even her forgiveness of Sakumo comes and goes, and stays gone for long periods of time. What does he need that for? He's off in the Pure Lands.
There's both sadness and amusement in Duy's eyes.
"What can be done indeed, valorous maiden. It's possible to help others without forgiveness, but being helped by people you haven't forgiven..."
Forget her brother, she still doesn't like accepting help from Ensui. Ignore Ensui, and she doesn't like being offered a single thing by Hoheto.
The only difference is they aren't her little brother, so she's not obligated to... no, is obligation even the right word? It's just her own standards that are the problem. She'd look down on someone who couldn't manage to not be cruel to their younger siblings.
"Have you ever had a problem with that type of thing, Duy?"
The older man gives a hearty laugh.
"It's been quite fun being a chunin!" He says. "When I was doing my physical re-training after my promotion, I received many delightful gift baskets and words of wisdom from my new and former fellows!"
That's right. All of the career genin that had made fun of him for his entire career are now officially below him in the hierarchy.
"And did you accept any offers of help," Seiko says. She knows his game. No being distracted by the shiny smile.
"How could I accept their kind offers when my son was already there to help me!" Duy says. "What words of wisdom could they have greater than the wisdom of the valorous maiden herself! What greater gift could they offer than the gallant Hoheto, who personally came to escort me out of the hospital and check on my wounds!"
"He really did that," Seiko says, caught by surprise once again.
"He is a wintery young man, but his own Springtime is approaching!" Duy says, staunchly supportive. "I can feel it."
She lets the conversation drift.
"He was named after a poem, you know."
"I didn't know that!"
"A lot of branch Hyuuga have names derived from it. The first line starts 'Iroha nihoheto'..."
Does he even care about this? But Seiko supposes someone must. She went to all that effort so long ago for Hoheto to explain it to her properly. Even if just the first lines of the poem.
Even the blossoming flowers
Will eventually scatter
Asking Hoheto about it had actually been very awkward, because his name wasn't a direct word as much as syllables from the part of the poem based around regret. Akin to the 'even' in the descriptor of the blossoming flowers.
Named after an unresigned feeling of mourning, rather than after the flowers themselves.
Doesn't that make her name so perfectly optimistic by comparison?
She can tell it doesn't really mean anything to Duy, but at least he's not bored by it. Even Hoheto doesn't care much for poetry, and it's his name.
"Kakashi prefers external forms of responsibility," Seiko says, unmoored from the subject, careless with her words as the tea cools in her hands. "So I suppose blaming him plays into that as well. If the world looks down on him, he can take comfort in knowing that he can simply earn back that rejection, or rise above it, or something. But if nobody blames him, what is he supposed to do?"
The cup is cold in her hands.
"No matter how I look at it, the right thing to do is just forgive him, accept his apology, apologize to him for not reaching out more when I was younger as well, and then both our lives will be better for it. I only have one brother in this entire world, and it's him!"
The first tear splashes into the tea.
"Why can't I do that?" She asks Might Duy, still staring down at her own scarred hands.
"I'm right, so why can't I do it?"
Hoheto is waiting incredibly awkwardly around the desk when Seiko gets back from her lunch break, mostly due to the fact that Yakumi keeps sending him bigger and bigger disdainful looks. She's still not over the fact that he didn't bring an accessory when he was attending the wedding, huh?
"Hi," Seiko says.
He looks relieved for a second before switching back to being angry, probably about being relieved.
"You're finally here," he says. "Lady Kushina wants to talk to you."
Seiko blinks.
"She couldn't come herself?"
Hoheto gives her a truly annoyed glare this time.
"She's been non-stop working on seals that will help the Hokage and also taking care of a baby," he says sharply. "You're the one with free time."
"She doesn't have 'free time'," Yakumi cuts in, arms crossed. "She's working. Here. When Kushina came before, she always waited until Seiko was done for the day."
Kushina had only come here the once, but Seiko supposes that still counts as 'always'.
Seiko had been willing to go, but she's not willing to undercut Yakumi when she's doing something nice for her.
"I'll be off in just a few hours," Seiko says. It's arbitrary-- the tower doesn't really have an official start or end to the day-- but it's around when she usually starts preparing to leave.
Hoheto scowls, but doesn't argue further, slipping back out to haunt around the main streets or do other chores.
Yakumi clicks her tongue once he's left.
"He has no manners at all when it comes to you. You shouldn't be so soft on him."
Yeah, Yakumi still wants to assassinate him for real.
"He's dealing with a lot," Seiko says.
"So? Is he dealing with anything the rest of his clan is not? And yet they manage to be perfectly polite."
The politeness of most branch Hyuuga seems a lot more like a natural consequence of being at risk of being hit by a sudden spike of agonizing pain if they at any point disrespect or dishonor the main house rather than some virtue of the clan.
"How are you doing lately, Yakumi?" Seiko asks, changing the subject.
An unhappy twist to the mouth.
"My parent's house got destroyed during the Kyuubi's rampage," she says, finally. "I think it must have had a grudge against the Uchiha in particular, because it hit a part of the central town where a lot of us live. I didn't think it would be so hard to get it rebuilt in the same spot..."
Seiko slowly looks up at the tower above her head, and the people in it.
"It doesn't make sense for that to be difficult," she says.
Yakumi nods.
"I really don't understand it," she says. "Tonbo from Tracking also had an issue with his house being badly damaged, but he got it straightened out right away. It's not at the point where I feel the need to bring it up with the clan and ask for help, but..."
Seiko has a lot more focus on this conversation than she had a minute ago.
"Who's even in charge of where houses get to be built?" she says. "I never thought about it before."
"Neither did I," Yakumi mutters. "If you find out, let me know so I can give them a piece of my mind. Actually, didn't that orphanage you help out with get built relatively recently? Maybe Nono knows who can help get things settled."
Seiko suspects that Nono very much knows the guy in question.
"I'll do that," she says.
Biter spends the entire time that it takes to walk with Hoheto over to Kushina's place weaving in and out of Hoheto's legs in a playful attempt to make him fall on his face.
"Tell him to knock it off," Hoheto says, teeth clenched.
"He's just playing," Seiko says.
Mostly.
"If you just trip and fall over once, he'll get bored and do something else," Seiko suggests.
However, almost immediately she feels Biter stiffen and stop messing around, ears pressed down to his skull.
Her hand falls to the sword sheathed on Biter's back as Hoheto also whirls, hands rising up in front of him and Byakugan activating.
"What's out there?" Hoheto asks, eyes still surveilling. "Nothing within the first hundred yards, including ground and sky."
Biter snarls.
"Someone was watching us," Seiko says, voice quiet. "He says they're gone now."
Hoheto nods, but doesn't deactivate his bloodline.
"Scent familiarity?"
Another low growl.
"Scent was overly heavy with specific medicinal plants," Seiko says. "Probably deliberately disguised to avoid familiarity."
"Let's hurry to Lady Kushina's house," Hoheto says.
Seiko sighs.
"I could--"
"You will not be carrying me," Seiko says, voice flattening out.
So they hurry according to her walking pace.
The loudness of a wailing baby certainly cuts through the large, echoing spaces of Kushina's house in its own way.
"Hoheto! Seiko!" Kushina says, giving them both an extremely harried and tired smile. She's been using red chains to rock the cradle while she kneels on the floor to write out seals, and her hands are covered in ink. "It's good you could make it. I put it off too much already, it's just--"
"We need to activate the house security seals," Hoheto says flatly. "Do I have permission?"
"Huh? Yes, of course, but why--"
Hoheto claps his hands together, and a green seal expands out from his feet, flaring red when it reaches the edges of the rooms until every single seal hanging from a window or door has changed from its normal black to crimson red.
"No intruders," he says.
Kushina jumps to her feet, bolting over to snatch Naruto back up from the cradle and keep him in her arms.
"Is something wrong," she says, tired eyes becoming ever more vigilant.
"Biter sensed something he didn't like on our way here," Seiko says. "It's probably nothing, but--"
"That's what he sounded like just before Chiyo Poisontogue's team ambushed us," Hoheto says flatly. "It's not 'probably nothing'."
Alright. So the last time Hoheto had seen Biter do that was pretty bad.
Kakashi, spiked hair tucked behind a white ANBU Dog mask bolts into the room alongside four others that she doesn't recognize.
"We saw the activation," Kakashi says, voice cold and professional. "What caused the seal activation, Lady Uzumaki?"
Kushina looks between the guards and Hoheto and Seiko, herself still confused.
"Just some precautions," she says, stepping forwards. "I'd like if you did another sweep of the--"
Hoheto, who had still not deactivated his Byakugan, bolts forward to push Kushina and her baby to the side as one of the ANBU blows a fireball towards her.
An Uchiha style fireball.
Kushina's eyes narrow as her own chains manifest and surge out, the ability that could take down Kurama far greater than what any one of these would be assassins could ever fight.
Compared to who they are trying to kill, these assassins are far too weak. Their plan is too flawed.
"Don't kill them!" Kushina snaps out even as she pins them, Kakashi catching his bearings from betrayal and lunging at the mask next to him. "Who are you!? And why are you doing this!"
Under what circumstances would you use a self sacrifice technique?
Seiko takes in a deep breath, mind working faster than her useless body ever can. Her hands clench around her sword.
"Everybody shield yours--"
The activation of the wards means that not a single piece of the explosion escapes from inside Kushina's house. As for those inside..
"Adamantine Chain Barrier!"
"Eight Trigrams Seal of Heaven,"
"Lightning Wall!"
Seiko's sword cuts down.
Ah, she can't hear anything.
Seiko is quietly amused for a second, even as she reaches up to feel the blood trickling down from her ears.
Every single piece of furniture in the room, including the cradle, is ash. Every wall blackened, and one of them completely gone, leaving its seal to hang suspended from nothing. Except for a smooth circle around Hoheto, a jagged almost square around Kakashi, and a triangular pattern behind her where she had cut flame as if it were shadow.
Kushina's barrier, rather than prioritizing any of them, had shielded her child, herself, and the seal work she'd been working on.
All of the paper scrolls scattered across the floor she'd been hastily writing on are completely, perfectly intact, white against an utterly black floor.
Kushina sighs in relief.
"Thank goodness you're all alright," she says. The words buzz against Seiko's ears as she tries to adjust.
Kushina stares down at the bodies of their assailants, her free hand on her hip.
"Infiltrators?" She suggests almost tentatively. "But, infiltrators who used Uchiha..."
"They were the same people behind the masks who had always been behind the masks," Hoheto says, eyes still active and looking as far as he can see. Even though long distance has never been his strong point.
"I don't see any others within the house."
"They were not replaced," Kakashi says a second later, his own mask still on even as he does his own summoning, calling Pakkun to go do his own checks of the house. "Their scent is the same as it was the first time I met them. More than a year ago. I have seen some of them without masks."
Kushina falls silent.
"Traitors," she says.
"Uchiha traitors?" Hoheto suggests, voice going very, very quiet.
Kushina's mouth twists into a frown.
Seiko bangs her hand against her ear as if that's going to get rid of the ringing and then opens her mouth before things could get worse.
"Many things are not lining up," she says, voice flat. "There's no reason for Uchiha to attack Kushina at all-- she's a sincere ally."
"So are you," Kakashi says.
Hoheto turns to stare at Seiko.
"I wouldn't go that far," Seiko says. "Either way. Let's follow things to their natural conclusion. If this was an Uchiha attack, what do they have to gain?"
Hoheto crosses his arms.
"Eradication of knowledge about the Nine Tails," he says. "Obviously. Though I don't know why that would be important to them..." He trails off and looks between Kushina and Seiko. "Unless the rumours have some basis?"
Kushina shifts her eyes to the side and doesn't answer.
Kakashi crosses his own arms but he looks smug about it.
"I won't be saying more on this until Minato wakes up," Seiko says. And perhaps not even then.
She clears her throat.
"The alternative to it being Uchiha traitors is that this is someone else framing the Uchiha as traitors. Of course."
"So do you think the Nine Tails was also a frame job," Kushina says, voice careful.
As in, someone deliberately created an eye that looked like a fake sharingan to make people think that it was an Uchiha controlling Kurama?
How convenient would that be.
That's the problem. This isn't one throughline of a plot, it's several different people taking advantage of the same flaw in Konoha: distrust of the Uchiha.
"That seems awfully rushed no matter what," Hoheto chimes in. "Surely there's more time before anything happens with the people in this room, right?"
He glances between Seiko and Kushina.
"Since everyone's waiting for the Hokage to wake up before they say anything, and there's no guarantee he'll wake up any time soon."
"I am saying," Seiko says, "That with everyone in this room dead, there are no more people who both witnessed the controller of the nine tails and is willing to stand up for the Uchiha. Should Minato awaken to his wife dead--"
"If he wakes up at all," Kakashi says quietly.
"He's going to wake up," Seiko says, looking at her brother unhappily. Does he not have any tact. "I'm just saying, should he wake up to those circumstances--"
"No," Kakashi says. "I mean, he's also a witness."
Seiko's head jerks in his direction.
That's--
"That's what I was calling you here to talk about!" Kushina says. "Do you see all this seal work!?"
She bounces Naruto in one hand even as she gestures at the floor. Unlike the rest of them, Kushina has not dropped the shielding over her baby or over her work, so Seiko can only squint through the web of chains.
"Partially," Seiko says.
"That's exactly it! I think I've found a way to wake him up!"
Seiko swallows.
"So," she says quietly. "Irrespective of whether it was the Uchiha or not, perhaps the real target... was your work."
"That is... what makes me confused about it being Uchiha," Kushina says, finally. "I mean, me and Mikoto are best friends, right!? She'd know that I'd preserve my work above all else except Naruto! I'm a ninja of Konoha too! Why would they assume that even a suicidal strike would achieve any results?"
As long as the results are 'doubting the Uchiha', then even a suboptimal outcome is still an outcome.
"So you're saying the person who orchestrated this was looking down on you," Seiko says.
"On all of us!" Kushina says.
Seiko suspects Danzo was specifically looking down on Kushina. And perhaps her as well.
So it was probably... what? Highest hope, everyone dies, suspicion cast on the Uchiha. Secondary hope, destroy the seal work. Tertiary hope, take advantage of the fact that Seiko is well known to be unable to cast jutsu to have her die as collateral damage, unable to shield herself from the sacrifice technique.
Fourth hope..
If only her ears weren't ringing and she wasn't in such pain, she could think so much faster.
She can't even ask leading questions like 'who would be happiest if Minato never woke up?' because one of the answers is Fugaku. His ambition once again serving Danzo better than it serves himself.
Forget it.
"Perhaps you should pay the Hokage a visit as soon as possible," Seiko says.
Kushina nods decisively.
"I think we should all go," she says.
Seiko blinks.
It's not really necessary that she also go, is it?
"I won't be in danger if I go home," she says. "I'll--"
Kushina gives her a very unyielding smile.
"I know that Hoheto and our helpful Dog over here have to accompany me, but I think It'll be good to get you checked out in the hospital as well. Definitely."
Seiko blinks slowly.
"That's... but are we going to explain what--"
"Sealing accident," Hoheto says.
"Jutsu malfunction," Kakashi says.
Seiko's eyes flick over to Kakashi.
Even without being able to see his face, he seems very unhappy. Of course he is, everyone in his life has just had an assassination attempt get far too close.
"..I must have made a mistake when practicing my one handed seals," Seiko says finally. "Alright. I'll accompany you to the hospital. Even though you all will be way faster without me."
She'd thought that they would just leave her with a healer while they went on ahead, but instead Kushina stays right there, anxiously staring at her while a healer gives her a once over.
They look very young, probably too young to know about all of Seiko's problems, so there's a very funny double take she gets from them after the first medical diagnostic goes through her.
"Just fix my ears," Seiko says. "Don't worry about the other stuff."
An incredulous look.
"The other stuff is being taken care of by a specialist," Seiko says patiently.
That's finally enough to get them off her back and her ears patched up.
"You could have gone on ahead," Seiko repeats as she limps her way through the rest of the way. Kakashi, back on 'official duty' has vanished into the shadows, so she mostly just has Hoheto to complain to.
"It's not my choice, it's Lady Kushina's choice," Hoheto says.
Kushina gives Hoheto an incredulous look, and covers her mouth to conceal a laugh.
Though, the laughter cuts out quickly when Seiko is once again asked to leave the crutches behind before she can go inside Minato's room.
"I can walk without them," Seiko says, spurred into saying something by the awkward way they both look at her. "I was walking without them for years."
But nevertheless, the mood is sufficiently solemn by the time they reach Minato's side, Seiko pulling one of the chairs to the side so that she can sit down while Kushina and Hoheto get to work.
Biter slips under her chair, causing the legs to creak a little bit.
He's honestly getting too big to be able to still be sitting under there, but she doesn't have the heart to tell him that.
The seal gets wider and wider across the floor as Kushina gets to work, before she eventually pauses.
"Seiko-chan, can you hold Naruto for me? I think I'm going to need both hands for this."
"I can't do that," Seiko says.
"No?" Kushina immediately looks apologetic. "Your hands have been shaking way less lately, so I thought..."
Is 'way less' enough to guarantee she won't drop a baby?
"I'll hold him," Hoheto says, standing up.
There's a smear of ink on both of his knees, incredibly visible due to the fact that he wears off white clothing.
Kushina nods and gives Naruto a pat on the head before handing him over.
Hoheto holds Naruto so, so carefully.
Seiko looks away towards the ritual.
Kushina bends down over Minato, red hair falling over him and she gently cups his face for a second.
"Almost there," she murmurs to him.
Either side, invisible and visible, Hoheto and Kakashi are turned outwards, sensing for any further threats.
Kushina takes in a deep breath and then places a gentle hand on the usually invisible seal over Minato's stomach. The air immediately darkens, burning a little with just the lingering breath of Kurama's rage.
A single exhale of Kushina's breath stalls out that darkness, silencing it as her seal begins to glow crimson, the entire thing written to form a room spanning spiral of words.
"Five Elements, Eight Trigrams, Sixty-Four Hexagrams, One Deliverance."
Kushina's aura flares out everywhere, her face still concealed as it dips towards Minato.
"There is only one exit and one vengeance, Nine Tails. You already know your only way out. Let go of what you cannot have!"
Minato gives a low groan, mouth beginning to move even before his eyes have their first flutter.
"I--"
Seiko stills. That's not Minato's voice.
"I. Will--"
"Minato!" Kushina yells. "Show that stupid fox who's boss! Wake up already!"
An odd, choking gasp, and then Minato's eyes finally open.
"I'm... alive?" Minato whispers, bright blue eyes staring up at Kushina.
But Seiko still flinches.
His voice...
Even though it's him who's speaking now, the voice that rumbles in him has been permanently changed by Kurama's ill will. Or, in other words, even though it's him, it still sounds like Kurama.
Combined with the fact that his teeth are still sharper than they should be...
She does worry for his reputation.
Kushina hugs him fiercely anyway.
"Minato!" She says. "Minato, look! Hoheto, bring Naruto over, let Minato look at his son! Look, isn't he cute! Doesn't he have your eyes!? See? See?? You must not have had a good enough look last time, what with you doing something so stupid so quickly!"
She's shaking Minato rather hard for a previously comatose patient, isn't she?
Seiko looks up to the corner where Kakashi has faded away and smiles.
She should stick around to try and talk to Minato and figure out the new official story on Obito, but...
She's so tired.
And there's one other thing she'll have to deal with when she goes home.
Kabuto is sitting on her porch even before she gets there, looking especially small against how big her house is.
It's a deliberate tactic on his part, but it's not like it's not true.
He stares at her from behind the large glasses.
"You're out late today," Seiko says. "Nono will be worried."
Kabuto doesn't respond, just staring at her.
...Such a difficult young man.
"It's cold outside," Seiko says. "And I need to sit somewhere with a cushion. Come in and make some tea or something."
She sits at her chair at the table and watches him make his own tea in her house. Imagine, she went to the extra effort to buy tea because she'd gotten used to actually having guests, and now she's so casual she forces them to make it themselves because it seems like too much work for her.
"Biter also wants a treat," Seiko adds.
Biter thumps his tail against the floor.
Kabuto stiffens slightly, but obediently also goes to pick out a dog treat for Biter before returning to the table.
Then she waits some more, comfortable now that her hands are at least warm.
"What if you also disappear?" Kabuto asks, finally. "Then will I disappear?"
He's a pretty cute kid underneath everything.
"Thank you for giving me some help," Seiko says. "I appreciate it."
Kabuto starts, eyes going wide for a second.
"No," he says. "I..."
"Ah, referring to your help with getting my hand to the state that it is," Seiko says easily. She hadn't been, of course. Familiar scent but disguised with medicinal herbs can be very specific if you, like her, have far too much knowledge.
Kabuto stabilizes, but still gives her a very wary look.
"It's still far from perfect," he says. "And I've barely gotten any work done on the other hand..."
"Lots of people's hands don't work together very well," Seiko says.
Kabuto scowls at her.
"Yours should."
He's hilarious.
"Alright. Well, Kabuto. How's school been?"
Such suspicion in his normally hollow eyes. He's quite lively today.
"I have made an effort to aid my classmate Yamato in his studies. He appears to be deliberately holding back during the jutsu training for some reason."
"For some reason?" Seiko repeats.
Kabuto is still so mad.
"You already know the reason," he mutters.
"Pop quiz! Your dear classmate, Yamato, is holding back! What could be his thought process?" Seiko says.
Kabuto straightens up.
"He probably doesn't want to be compared to the Uchiha heir directly," Kabuto says. "Since that kid is so far ahead, it doesn't make sense to try and show off when you're next to him anyway. Pointless. And he could just memorize all your hard work and immediately use it against you."
That sounds like far more of Kabuto's own bitterness than anything to do with Yamato.
"So you are saying that Yamato is a resentful kid?" Seiko says.
This is fun.
Kabuto immediately hesitates, suppressing his own scowl again.
"No," he says. "I didn't say that."
"Then, if not resentful...?"
"I'm not a kid, you don't have to carefully guide me towards the right answer," Kabuto repeats again, sullenness returning in full force. "I was wrong. He's not resentful. He's scared."
There we go.
"How odd for him to be so scared," Seiko says. "What's he scared of?"
Kabuto stares down at Biter like Biter will help him cheat.
"He's not afraid of being shown up by the Uchiha heir," Kabuto says, finally. "He's afraid that somehow, he'd be better than the Uchiha. That doesn't make any sense!"
"No?" Seiko says. "How strange."
He knows she's poking fun at him.
"I don't get it," Kabuto says finally, but his tone has altered again. He's talking about something else. "With your abilities, you'd be invaluable to... to many people. So why don't you do that kind of work?"
Is he asking her why she doesn't work for Danzo?
"People who think like me..." Seiko says. "I'm rather disdainful of them."
That gives him a start.
"Surprised? If you can spend the time to think about why people are the way they are, then isn't it doubly unkind when you deliberately stomp on their weaknesses? After all, you knew better. You could have found a different way, but you didn't. So when I think about working for someone else, I can only disdain them as well. I just don't get along well with any sort of leader who'd ask me to do that kind of work."
She smiles at him.
"Even Minato. And I like Minato."
...
"Of course," Seiko says. "I get to say that because I have a choice in the matter. Not everyone does."
"Everyone has choices," Kabuto says.
He's young.
"Worried, Kabuto? I'll still offer thanks even to people who's choices I don't like. Otherwise, none of my actions would make any sense at all."
"I'm not worried about your thanks," Kabuto says. "I want--"
Hm?
He bites down on the words and never tells her what he was going to say, changing the subject as he spends the evening trying to earn the favor of an amused and arrogant dog. He only admits it quietly, to himself, back at the orphanage.
'I want to be someone whose presence is strong enough that it would stop you from disappearing'
The day that Danzo had talked to him was the first day in his life that he'd known fear. How could he have possibly ended up with so much to lose?
A/N: the Iroha is a real poem, naturally. And Kishimoto probably did take Hoheto's name off of its first line. There's a bunch of different translations of this poem into english, but I like this version.
Even the blossoming flowers/
will eventually scatter/
who in our world/
shall always be?/
the deep mountains of karma/
we cross them today/
and we shall not have superficial dreams/
nor be deluded.
He's always up.
"Gai's still gone?"
He wipes the sweat from his brow with the hand not doing pushups.
"Yes! I have been assured that it is perfectly normal for spirit journeys of this nature to take several months!"
"Time's a bit different over there," Seiko agrees.
Time always feels a bit different when she's here, too.
"I thought it would be really easy to forgive him," Seiko says, breaking a half an hour of silence. "My brother, that is. Not Gai, he's sweet as always."
Might Duy has moved on to leg lifts after pausing to bring her a cup of warm tea from inside.
He stops, sitting up to look at her. There's a bit of white in his hair these days.
"I always knew Kakashi's not a bad kid, so obviously he'd eventually...decide he wants to be less distant," Seiko says. "Some time in the future. When he grew up a bit."
She'd been so nice to him.
Seiko stares at the tea cup dully.
"Maybe if I'd been meaner to him before now I'd be in the mood to forgive him. But taking out your bad mood on your own brother. What a terrible thing to do."
She stares at Might Duy, almost defensive.
"I wouldn't do something like that just because it's convenient."
There's a somberness to Duy as well. He drapes a towel across his neck and sits down next to her.
"Of course you wouldn't," he says.
She waits for him to continue, and watches clouds pass over the moon in the time it takes him to open up his mouth.
"Have you ever forgiven a single person in your entire life?"
Seiko is startled into a sharp hiccup of a laugh.
"No," she says. "You don't need to forgive people to work with them and try to help them, so there's no need."
Even her forgiveness of Sakumo comes and goes, and stays gone for long periods of time. What does he need that for? He's off in the Pure Lands.
There's both sadness and amusement in Duy's eyes.
"What can be done indeed, valorous maiden. It's possible to help others without forgiveness, but being helped by people you haven't forgiven..."
Forget her brother, she still doesn't like accepting help from Ensui. Ignore Ensui, and she doesn't like being offered a single thing by Hoheto.
The only difference is they aren't her little brother, so she's not obligated to... no, is obligation even the right word? It's just her own standards that are the problem. She'd look down on someone who couldn't manage to not be cruel to their younger siblings.
"Have you ever had a problem with that type of thing, Duy?"
The older man gives a hearty laugh.
"It's been quite fun being a chunin!" He says. "When I was doing my physical re-training after my promotion, I received many delightful gift baskets and words of wisdom from my new and former fellows!"
That's right. All of the career genin that had made fun of him for his entire career are now officially below him in the hierarchy.
"And did you accept any offers of help," Seiko says. She knows his game. No being distracted by the shiny smile.
"How could I accept their kind offers when my son was already there to help me!" Duy says. "What words of wisdom could they have greater than the wisdom of the valorous maiden herself! What greater gift could they offer than the gallant Hoheto, who personally came to escort me out of the hospital and check on my wounds!"
"He really did that," Seiko says, caught by surprise once again.
"He is a wintery young man, but his own Springtime is approaching!" Duy says, staunchly supportive. "I can feel it."
She lets the conversation drift.
"He was named after a poem, you know."
"I didn't know that!"
"A lot of branch Hyuuga have names derived from it. The first line starts 'Iroha nihoheto'..."
Does he even care about this? But Seiko supposes someone must. She went to all that effort so long ago for Hoheto to explain it to her properly. Even if just the first lines of the poem.
Even the blossoming flowers
Will eventually scatter
Asking Hoheto about it had actually been very awkward, because his name wasn't a direct word as much as syllables from the part of the poem based around regret. Akin to the 'even' in the descriptor of the blossoming flowers.
Named after an unresigned feeling of mourning, rather than after the flowers themselves.
Doesn't that make her name so perfectly optimistic by comparison?
She can tell it doesn't really mean anything to Duy, but at least he's not bored by it. Even Hoheto doesn't care much for poetry, and it's his name.
"Kakashi prefers external forms of responsibility," Seiko says, unmoored from the subject, careless with her words as the tea cools in her hands. "So I suppose blaming him plays into that as well. If the world looks down on him, he can take comfort in knowing that he can simply earn back that rejection, or rise above it, or something. But if nobody blames him, what is he supposed to do?"
The cup is cold in her hands.
"No matter how I look at it, the right thing to do is just forgive him, accept his apology, apologize to him for not reaching out more when I was younger as well, and then both our lives will be better for it. I only have one brother in this entire world, and it's him!"
The first tear splashes into the tea.
"Why can't I do that?" She asks Might Duy, still staring down at her own scarred hands.
"I'm right, so why can't I do it?"
Hoheto is waiting incredibly awkwardly around the desk when Seiko gets back from her lunch break, mostly due to the fact that Yakumi keeps sending him bigger and bigger disdainful looks. She's still not over the fact that he didn't bring an accessory when he was attending the wedding, huh?
"Hi," Seiko says.
He looks relieved for a second before switching back to being angry, probably about being relieved.
"You're finally here," he says. "Lady Kushina wants to talk to you."
Seiko blinks.
"She couldn't come herself?"
Hoheto gives her a truly annoyed glare this time.
"She's been non-stop working on seals that will help the Hokage and also taking care of a baby," he says sharply. "You're the one with free time."
"She doesn't have 'free time'," Yakumi cuts in, arms crossed. "She's working. Here. When Kushina came before, she always waited until Seiko was done for the day."
Kushina had only come here the once, but Seiko supposes that still counts as 'always'.
Seiko had been willing to go, but she's not willing to undercut Yakumi when she's doing something nice for her.
"I'll be off in just a few hours," Seiko says. It's arbitrary-- the tower doesn't really have an official start or end to the day-- but it's around when she usually starts preparing to leave.
Hoheto scowls, but doesn't argue further, slipping back out to haunt around the main streets or do other chores.
Yakumi clicks her tongue once he's left.
"He has no manners at all when it comes to you. You shouldn't be so soft on him."
Yeah, Yakumi still wants to assassinate him for real.
"He's dealing with a lot," Seiko says.
"So? Is he dealing with anything the rest of his clan is not? And yet they manage to be perfectly polite."
The politeness of most branch Hyuuga seems a lot more like a natural consequence of being at risk of being hit by a sudden spike of agonizing pain if they at any point disrespect or dishonor the main house rather than some virtue of the clan.
"How are you doing lately, Yakumi?" Seiko asks, changing the subject.
An unhappy twist to the mouth.
"My parent's house got destroyed during the Kyuubi's rampage," she says, finally. "I think it must have had a grudge against the Uchiha in particular, because it hit a part of the central town where a lot of us live. I didn't think it would be so hard to get it rebuilt in the same spot..."
Seiko slowly looks up at the tower above her head, and the people in it.
"It doesn't make sense for that to be difficult," she says.
Yakumi nods.
"I really don't understand it," she says. "Tonbo from Tracking also had an issue with his house being badly damaged, but he got it straightened out right away. It's not at the point where I feel the need to bring it up with the clan and ask for help, but..."
Seiko has a lot more focus on this conversation than she had a minute ago.
"Who's even in charge of where houses get to be built?" she says. "I never thought about it before."
"Neither did I," Yakumi mutters. "If you find out, let me know so I can give them a piece of my mind. Actually, didn't that orphanage you help out with get built relatively recently? Maybe Nono knows who can help get things settled."
Seiko suspects that Nono very much knows the guy in question.
"I'll do that," she says.
Biter spends the entire time that it takes to walk with Hoheto over to Kushina's place weaving in and out of Hoheto's legs in a playful attempt to make him fall on his face.
"Tell him to knock it off," Hoheto says, teeth clenched.
"He's just playing," Seiko says.
Mostly.
"If you just trip and fall over once, he'll get bored and do something else," Seiko suggests.
However, almost immediately she feels Biter stiffen and stop messing around, ears pressed down to his skull.
Her hand falls to the sword sheathed on Biter's back as Hoheto also whirls, hands rising up in front of him and Byakugan activating.
"What's out there?" Hoheto asks, eyes still surveilling. "Nothing within the first hundred yards, including ground and sky."
Biter snarls.
"Someone was watching us," Seiko says, voice quiet. "He says they're gone now."
Hoheto nods, but doesn't deactivate his bloodline.
"Scent familiarity?"
Another low growl.
"Scent was overly heavy with specific medicinal plants," Seiko says. "Probably deliberately disguised to avoid familiarity."
"Let's hurry to Lady Kushina's house," Hoheto says.
Seiko sighs.
"I could--"
"You will not be carrying me," Seiko says, voice flattening out.
So they hurry according to her walking pace.
The loudness of a wailing baby certainly cuts through the large, echoing spaces of Kushina's house in its own way.
"Hoheto! Seiko!" Kushina says, giving them both an extremely harried and tired smile. She's been using red chains to rock the cradle while she kneels on the floor to write out seals, and her hands are covered in ink. "It's good you could make it. I put it off too much already, it's just--"
"We need to activate the house security seals," Hoheto says flatly. "Do I have permission?"
"Huh? Yes, of course, but why--"
Hoheto claps his hands together, and a green seal expands out from his feet, flaring red when it reaches the edges of the rooms until every single seal hanging from a window or door has changed from its normal black to crimson red.
"No intruders," he says.
Kushina jumps to her feet, bolting over to snatch Naruto back up from the cradle and keep him in her arms.
"Is something wrong," she says, tired eyes becoming ever more vigilant.
"Biter sensed something he didn't like on our way here," Seiko says. "It's probably nothing, but--"
"That's what he sounded like just before Chiyo Poisontogue's team ambushed us," Hoheto says flatly. "It's not 'probably nothing'."
Alright. So the last time Hoheto had seen Biter do that was pretty bad.
Kakashi, spiked hair tucked behind a white ANBU Dog mask bolts into the room alongside four others that she doesn't recognize.
"We saw the activation," Kakashi says, voice cold and professional. "What caused the seal activation, Lady Uzumaki?"
Kushina looks between the guards and Hoheto and Seiko, herself still confused.
"Just some precautions," she says, stepping forwards. "I'd like if you did another sweep of the--"
Hoheto, who had still not deactivated his Byakugan, bolts forward to push Kushina and her baby to the side as one of the ANBU blows a fireball towards her.
An Uchiha style fireball.
Kushina's eyes narrow as her own chains manifest and surge out, the ability that could take down Kurama far greater than what any one of these would be assassins could ever fight.
Compared to who they are trying to kill, these assassins are far too weak. Their plan is too flawed.
"Don't kill them!" Kushina snaps out even as she pins them, Kakashi catching his bearings from betrayal and lunging at the mask next to him. "Who are you!? And why are you doing this!"
Under what circumstances would you use a self sacrifice technique?
Seiko takes in a deep breath, mind working faster than her useless body ever can. Her hands clench around her sword.
"Everybody shield yours--"
The activation of the wards means that not a single piece of the explosion escapes from inside Kushina's house. As for those inside..
"Adamantine Chain Barrier!"
"Eight Trigrams Seal of Heaven,"
"Lightning Wall!"
Seiko's sword cuts down.
Ah, she can't hear anything.
Seiko is quietly amused for a second, even as she reaches up to feel the blood trickling down from her ears.
Every single piece of furniture in the room, including the cradle, is ash. Every wall blackened, and one of them completely gone, leaving its seal to hang suspended from nothing. Except for a smooth circle around Hoheto, a jagged almost square around Kakashi, and a triangular pattern behind her where she had cut flame as if it were shadow.
Kushina's barrier, rather than prioritizing any of them, had shielded her child, herself, and the seal work she'd been working on.
All of the paper scrolls scattered across the floor she'd been hastily writing on are completely, perfectly intact, white against an utterly black floor.
Kushina sighs in relief.
"Thank goodness you're all alright," she says. The words buzz against Seiko's ears as she tries to adjust.
Kushina stares down at the bodies of their assailants, her free hand on her hip.
"Infiltrators?" She suggests almost tentatively. "But, infiltrators who used Uchiha..."
"They were the same people behind the masks who had always been behind the masks," Hoheto says, eyes still active and looking as far as he can see. Even though long distance has never been his strong point.
"I don't see any others within the house."
"They were not replaced," Kakashi says a second later, his own mask still on even as he does his own summoning, calling Pakkun to go do his own checks of the house. "Their scent is the same as it was the first time I met them. More than a year ago. I have seen some of them without masks."
Kushina falls silent.
"Traitors," she says.
"Uchiha traitors?" Hoheto suggests, voice going very, very quiet.
Kushina's mouth twists into a frown.
Seiko bangs her hand against her ear as if that's going to get rid of the ringing and then opens her mouth before things could get worse.
"Many things are not lining up," she says, voice flat. "There's no reason for Uchiha to attack Kushina at all-- she's a sincere ally."
"So are you," Kakashi says.
Hoheto turns to stare at Seiko.
"I wouldn't go that far," Seiko says. "Either way. Let's follow things to their natural conclusion. If this was an Uchiha attack, what do they have to gain?"
Hoheto crosses his arms.
"Eradication of knowledge about the Nine Tails," he says. "Obviously. Though I don't know why that would be important to them..." He trails off and looks between Kushina and Seiko. "Unless the rumours have some basis?"
Kushina shifts her eyes to the side and doesn't answer.
Kakashi crosses his own arms but he looks smug about it.
"I won't be saying more on this until Minato wakes up," Seiko says. And perhaps not even then.
She clears her throat.
"The alternative to it being Uchiha traitors is that this is someone else framing the Uchiha as traitors. Of course."
"So do you think the Nine Tails was also a frame job," Kushina says, voice careful.
As in, someone deliberately created an eye that looked like a fake sharingan to make people think that it was an Uchiha controlling Kurama?
How convenient would that be.
That's the problem. This isn't one throughline of a plot, it's several different people taking advantage of the same flaw in Konoha: distrust of the Uchiha.
"That seems awfully rushed no matter what," Hoheto chimes in. "Surely there's more time before anything happens with the people in this room, right?"
He glances between Seiko and Kushina.
"Since everyone's waiting for the Hokage to wake up before they say anything, and there's no guarantee he'll wake up any time soon."
"I am saying," Seiko says, "That with everyone in this room dead, there are no more people who both witnessed the controller of the nine tails and is willing to stand up for the Uchiha. Should Minato awaken to his wife dead--"
"If he wakes up at all," Kakashi says quietly.
"He's going to wake up," Seiko says, looking at her brother unhappily. Does he not have any tact. "I'm just saying, should he wake up to those circumstances--"
"No," Kakashi says. "I mean, he's also a witness."
Seiko's head jerks in his direction.
That's--
"That's what I was calling you here to talk about!" Kushina says. "Do you see all this seal work!?"
She bounces Naruto in one hand even as she gestures at the floor. Unlike the rest of them, Kushina has not dropped the shielding over her baby or over her work, so Seiko can only squint through the web of chains.
"Partially," Seiko says.
"That's exactly it! I think I've found a way to wake him up!"
Seiko swallows.
"So," she says quietly. "Irrespective of whether it was the Uchiha or not, perhaps the real target... was your work."
"That is... what makes me confused about it being Uchiha," Kushina says, finally. "I mean, me and Mikoto are best friends, right!? She'd know that I'd preserve my work above all else except Naruto! I'm a ninja of Konoha too! Why would they assume that even a suicidal strike would achieve any results?"
As long as the results are 'doubting the Uchiha', then even a suboptimal outcome is still an outcome.
"So you're saying the person who orchestrated this was looking down on you," Seiko says.
"On all of us!" Kushina says.
Seiko suspects Danzo was specifically looking down on Kushina. And perhaps her as well.
So it was probably... what? Highest hope, everyone dies, suspicion cast on the Uchiha. Secondary hope, destroy the seal work. Tertiary hope, take advantage of the fact that Seiko is well known to be unable to cast jutsu to have her die as collateral damage, unable to shield herself from the sacrifice technique.
Fourth hope..
If only her ears weren't ringing and she wasn't in such pain, she could think so much faster.
She can't even ask leading questions like 'who would be happiest if Minato never woke up?' because one of the answers is Fugaku. His ambition once again serving Danzo better than it serves himself.
Forget it.
"Perhaps you should pay the Hokage a visit as soon as possible," Seiko says.
Kushina nods decisively.
"I think we should all go," she says.
Seiko blinks.
It's not really necessary that she also go, is it?
"I won't be in danger if I go home," she says. "I'll--"
Kushina gives her a very unyielding smile.
"I know that Hoheto and our helpful Dog over here have to accompany me, but I think It'll be good to get you checked out in the hospital as well. Definitely."
Seiko blinks slowly.
"That's... but are we going to explain what--"
"Sealing accident," Hoheto says.
"Jutsu malfunction," Kakashi says.
Seiko's eyes flick over to Kakashi.
Even without being able to see his face, he seems very unhappy. Of course he is, everyone in his life has just had an assassination attempt get far too close.
"..I must have made a mistake when practicing my one handed seals," Seiko says finally. "Alright. I'll accompany you to the hospital. Even though you all will be way faster without me."
She'd thought that they would just leave her with a healer while they went on ahead, but instead Kushina stays right there, anxiously staring at her while a healer gives her a once over.
They look very young, probably too young to know about all of Seiko's problems, so there's a very funny double take she gets from them after the first medical diagnostic goes through her.
"Just fix my ears," Seiko says. "Don't worry about the other stuff."
An incredulous look.
"The other stuff is being taken care of by a specialist," Seiko says patiently.
That's finally enough to get them off her back and her ears patched up.
"You could have gone on ahead," Seiko repeats as she limps her way through the rest of the way. Kakashi, back on 'official duty' has vanished into the shadows, so she mostly just has Hoheto to complain to.
"It's not my choice, it's Lady Kushina's choice," Hoheto says.
Kushina gives Hoheto an incredulous look, and covers her mouth to conceal a laugh.
Though, the laughter cuts out quickly when Seiko is once again asked to leave the crutches behind before she can go inside Minato's room.
"I can walk without them," Seiko says, spurred into saying something by the awkward way they both look at her. "I was walking without them for years."
But nevertheless, the mood is sufficiently solemn by the time they reach Minato's side, Seiko pulling one of the chairs to the side so that she can sit down while Kushina and Hoheto get to work.
Biter slips under her chair, causing the legs to creak a little bit.
He's honestly getting too big to be able to still be sitting under there, but she doesn't have the heart to tell him that.
The seal gets wider and wider across the floor as Kushina gets to work, before she eventually pauses.
"Seiko-chan, can you hold Naruto for me? I think I'm going to need both hands for this."
"I can't do that," Seiko says.
"No?" Kushina immediately looks apologetic. "Your hands have been shaking way less lately, so I thought..."
Is 'way less' enough to guarantee she won't drop a baby?
"I'll hold him," Hoheto says, standing up.
There's a smear of ink on both of his knees, incredibly visible due to the fact that he wears off white clothing.
Kushina nods and gives Naruto a pat on the head before handing him over.
Hoheto holds Naruto so, so carefully.
Seiko looks away towards the ritual.
Kushina bends down over Minato, red hair falling over him and she gently cups his face for a second.
"Almost there," she murmurs to him.
Either side, invisible and visible, Hoheto and Kakashi are turned outwards, sensing for any further threats.
Kushina takes in a deep breath and then places a gentle hand on the usually invisible seal over Minato's stomach. The air immediately darkens, burning a little with just the lingering breath of Kurama's rage.
A single exhale of Kushina's breath stalls out that darkness, silencing it as her seal begins to glow crimson, the entire thing written to form a room spanning spiral of words.
"Five Elements, Eight Trigrams, Sixty-Four Hexagrams, One Deliverance."
Kushina's aura flares out everywhere, her face still concealed as it dips towards Minato.
"There is only one exit and one vengeance, Nine Tails. You already know your only way out. Let go of what you cannot have!"
Minato gives a low groan, mouth beginning to move even before his eyes have their first flutter.
"I--"
Seiko stills. That's not Minato's voice.
"I. Will--"
"Minato!" Kushina yells. "Show that stupid fox who's boss! Wake up already!"
An odd, choking gasp, and then Minato's eyes finally open.
"I'm... alive?" Minato whispers, bright blue eyes staring up at Kushina.
But Seiko still flinches.
His voice...
Even though it's him who's speaking now, the voice that rumbles in him has been permanently changed by Kurama's ill will. Or, in other words, even though it's him, it still sounds like Kurama.
Combined with the fact that his teeth are still sharper than they should be...
She does worry for his reputation.
Kushina hugs him fiercely anyway.
"Minato!" She says. "Minato, look! Hoheto, bring Naruto over, let Minato look at his son! Look, isn't he cute! Doesn't he have your eyes!? See? See?? You must not have had a good enough look last time, what with you doing something so stupid so quickly!"
She's shaking Minato rather hard for a previously comatose patient, isn't she?
Seiko looks up to the corner where Kakashi has faded away and smiles.
She should stick around to try and talk to Minato and figure out the new official story on Obito, but...
She's so tired.
And there's one other thing she'll have to deal with when she goes home.
Kabuto is sitting on her porch even before she gets there, looking especially small against how big her house is.
It's a deliberate tactic on his part, but it's not like it's not true.
He stares at her from behind the large glasses.
"You're out late today," Seiko says. "Nono will be worried."
Kabuto doesn't respond, just staring at her.
...Such a difficult young man.
"It's cold outside," Seiko says. "And I need to sit somewhere with a cushion. Come in and make some tea or something."
She sits at her chair at the table and watches him make his own tea in her house. Imagine, she went to the extra effort to buy tea because she'd gotten used to actually having guests, and now she's so casual she forces them to make it themselves because it seems like too much work for her.
"Biter also wants a treat," Seiko adds.
Biter thumps his tail against the floor.
Kabuto stiffens slightly, but obediently also goes to pick out a dog treat for Biter before returning to the table.
Then she waits some more, comfortable now that her hands are at least warm.
"What if you also disappear?" Kabuto asks, finally. "Then will I disappear?"
He's a pretty cute kid underneath everything.
"Thank you for giving me some help," Seiko says. "I appreciate it."
Kabuto starts, eyes going wide for a second.
"No," he says. "I..."
"Ah, referring to your help with getting my hand to the state that it is," Seiko says easily. She hadn't been, of course. Familiar scent but disguised with medicinal herbs can be very specific if you, like her, have far too much knowledge.
Kabuto stabilizes, but still gives her a very wary look.
"It's still far from perfect," he says. "And I've barely gotten any work done on the other hand..."
"Lots of people's hands don't work together very well," Seiko says.
Kabuto scowls at her.
"Yours should."
He's hilarious.
"Alright. Well, Kabuto. How's school been?"
Such suspicion in his normally hollow eyes. He's quite lively today.
"I have made an effort to aid my classmate Yamato in his studies. He appears to be deliberately holding back during the jutsu training for some reason."
"For some reason?" Seiko repeats.
Kabuto is still so mad.
"You already know the reason," he mutters.
"Pop quiz! Your dear classmate, Yamato, is holding back! What could be his thought process?" Seiko says.
Kabuto straightens up.
"He probably doesn't want to be compared to the Uchiha heir directly," Kabuto says. "Since that kid is so far ahead, it doesn't make sense to try and show off when you're next to him anyway. Pointless. And he could just memorize all your hard work and immediately use it against you."
That sounds like far more of Kabuto's own bitterness than anything to do with Yamato.
"So you are saying that Yamato is a resentful kid?" Seiko says.
This is fun.
Kabuto immediately hesitates, suppressing his own scowl again.
"No," he says. "I didn't say that."
"Then, if not resentful...?"
"I'm not a kid, you don't have to carefully guide me towards the right answer," Kabuto repeats again, sullenness returning in full force. "I was wrong. He's not resentful. He's scared."
There we go.
"How odd for him to be so scared," Seiko says. "What's he scared of?"
Kabuto stares down at Biter like Biter will help him cheat.
"He's not afraid of being shown up by the Uchiha heir," Kabuto says, finally. "He's afraid that somehow, he'd be better than the Uchiha. That doesn't make any sense!"
"No?" Seiko says. "How strange."
He knows she's poking fun at him.
"I don't get it," Kabuto says finally, but his tone has altered again. He's talking about something else. "With your abilities, you'd be invaluable to... to many people. So why don't you do that kind of work?"
Is he asking her why she doesn't work for Danzo?
"People who think like me..." Seiko says. "I'm rather disdainful of them."
That gives him a start.
"Surprised? If you can spend the time to think about why people are the way they are, then isn't it doubly unkind when you deliberately stomp on their weaknesses? After all, you knew better. You could have found a different way, but you didn't. So when I think about working for someone else, I can only disdain them as well. I just don't get along well with any sort of leader who'd ask me to do that kind of work."
She smiles at him.
"Even Minato. And I like Minato."
...
"Of course," Seiko says. "I get to say that because I have a choice in the matter. Not everyone does."
"Everyone has choices," Kabuto says.
He's young.
"Worried, Kabuto? I'll still offer thanks even to people who's choices I don't like. Otherwise, none of my actions would make any sense at all."
"I'm not worried about your thanks," Kabuto says. "I want--"
Hm?
He bites down on the words and never tells her what he was going to say, changing the subject as he spends the evening trying to earn the favor of an amused and arrogant dog. He only admits it quietly, to himself, back at the orphanage.
'I want to be someone whose presence is strong enough that it would stop you from disappearing'
The day that Danzo had talked to him was the first day in his life that he'd known fear. How could he have possibly ended up with so much to lose?
A/N: the Iroha is a real poem, naturally. And Kishimoto probably did take Hoheto's name off of its first line. There's a bunch of different translations of this poem into english, but I like this version.
Even the blossoming flowers/
will eventually scatter/
who in our world/
shall always be?/
the deep mountains of karma/
we cross them today/
and we shall not have superficial dreams/
nor be deluded.
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