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As the seal crumbles, Kushina turns to her mindscape in a desperate hope for aid. Whatever else, she knows that the Kyuubi will rage against the idea of being used as a weapon even more than it does being confined inside her. She appears and the Kyuubi is already there, waiting for her, anger burning inside its huge eyes.
"You are useless," the Kyuubi tells her. Its tails wave through the air as the mindscape begins to crumble.
Kushina glares up at it. "You are, too!" She crosses her arms and wants to wait it out, but there is no time. "Can you do anything? I don't want to die here. I don't want to see you at his mercy, either."
"How thoughtful of you." The Kyuubi looks as though it would be happy to eat her without losing a wink of sleep over it. Kushina approaches anyway, stepping through the iron bars. There is no barrier on her end. No one had thought her stupid enough to willingly go this far. The Kyuubi lowers its head closer to her level. "There is something I can do. Obey me, human, and you may survive this."
*
Kushina opens her eyes.
Konoha isn't burning when she rushes to the window. It is a cool, lovely night, and entirely the wrong season, as well as the apartment she had before she moved in with Minato. She hasn't lived here in years. Kushina climbs atop the roof and murmurs, "What did you do, fox?"
The Kyuubi rumbles inside her. "You humans made a mistake. I only fixed it—give or take a few years. Cheer up. You have all the time in the world to ensure Konoha is never attacked. You can even save your boyfriend's little brats."
"And what's in it for you?"
She can feel the fox smile. There is less malevolence in it than usual, but it is stronger, tickling at her skin. "One day at a time, we approach the moment I transferred us here. And when we do, the seal will break, and none will ever be able to replace it."
Kushina feels sick to her stomach.
*
She flees. She cannot flee from herself, from the demon inside her, but she can go to the person she needs desperately right now. Even if she is not the woman she was five years ago, still in love with a woman she could not have, she still needs her best friend. Of everyone in the village, it is Mikoto she goes to, slipping into the Uchiha compound with the ease of a high-level shinobi. Mikoto's husband is gone. Good—Kushina couldn't possibly stand the sight of him right now.
Next to Mikoto's bed is a little cot and inside it is Itachi, still just a baby. Kushina feels a sob in her throat. She turns to Mikoto. "Funny story..."
It spills out of her. Every detail, good and bad and embarrassing, and by the end of it she feels better than she has in a while. Maybe it's the fact that Mikoto looks at her like she used to when they were girls, and hugs her tightly, stroking Kushina's hair.
"We'll fix it," Mikoto tells her, steel in her gaze.
Kushina shakes her head. "We can't fix all of it. Not... not everything."
"Then we'll build something new in the openings."
Kushina tries to believe her and finds she does. She always has.
*
When the seal breaks, Kurama exits gracefully. Kushina is grateful for it. She's too pregnant to be able to handle Kurama bursting out of it like the mad demon he once was. She blames Mikoto. Both of them wanting a sibling for Itachi had started them down the path to another pregnancy, and Kushina smiles as she squeezes her wife's hand. The five years she received from Kurama's strange jutsu are up and the world looks so very different from what it used to.
Kurama is smaller than he could be, though she knows that with a thought, he could grow to his full size. "Goodbye, human. If you're lucky, I won't attack your village for imprisoning me."
Kushina laughs and kisses his nose. In the past five years, she's gotten to know him much better than she could have imagined. "Goodbye, Kurama. Visit us when you can, alright?"
He flounces off into the night, but not before saying, "...fine."