Chapter Text
It was a wonderful evening in Konoha. The weather was pleasant, the sparrows were singing, and a twelve year-old Kushina Uzumaki was absentmindedly cooking her dinner. This particular evening, she was cooking Nikujaga (braised meat and potato salad) and Miso soup with a side of whisked eggs. She started by dicing onions and carrots, and dumped the diced vegetables in a pan and started stir frying them. Then she added the chopped pork, followed by some soy sauce and sake to properly cook the meat. In a separate saucepan, she started preparing the eggs.
Looking around her kitchen she stole a glance at the mounted display of sea glass she had carried from Uzu to remind her of her home. Looking at the framed display made her smile a little, making her nostalgic for simpler times.
It had been six months since she had been made the jinchuriki of the Kyuubi No Youko.
It was the middle of the night, in a well-decorated room covered with Hannya masks on the walls. Candles illuminated the golden fūinjutsu markings all over the floor, and two tables were set in the middle of a massive array. She lay down on one, and her predecessor, Mito, lay on the other table. The script had been devised by Mito herself; even at her advanced age she didn't trust anyone else's hands more than her own. Kushina still recalled the words said by Granny Mito that day: "Kushina… always remember. Love is powerful. It will give you the will to carry on even through the darkest of days. It's our love which keeps the hatred of the Nine Tails at bay. The Nine Tails will try to turn your sadness and hatred against you. At that time, your love will ground you in reality and protect you from his evil." A few hours after that, the Nine Tails had been transferred into Kushina. The trauma of the extraction had killed Mito.
Mito died with a smile on her face.
Kushina, even though she knew that Mito’s death had not been her fault, in her heart of hearts still blamed herself, thinking of herself as less than worthy of living up to Mito’s legacy. She doubted her ability to keep the Nine Tails at bay most days. Most jōnin in the village knew the burden she carried, avoiding and somewhat fearing her for it. Also, the kids who studied in the Academy with her disliked her because she was an outsider, someone who did not fit in. She was the 'Ugly Tomato' or the ‘hot blooded girl' whom everyone bullied because of her “unsightly” red hair which was not very common in Konoha or anywhere outside Uzu.
The Kyuubi’s constant whispering in the back of her mind made it difficult for her to make connections. Like an insidious earworm, it always knew what to say to make her doubt herself, to make her feel insignificant, powerless, undeserving of anyone's love or affection, while making vague promises of companionship if only she gave in and accepted his influence: “I can provide you enough power to make them all pay for how they’ve treated you. Just let me in…” it would say. It made her feel isolated from the villagers whom she had sworn to protect with her mind and body.
Kushina realized she had let her mind wander to dark places again. Her gaze turned to the corner of her room, where there was an ornate red urn with intricate golden carvings on the table with the kanji for dedication (奉) in the middle. It was the urn which held Mito’s ashes. Looking at the words written on the urn made her calm down a little.
Outside Konoha, three Kumo shinobi met by a campfire deep in the forest of Hi no Kuni. The shinobi were some of Kumo’s finest, chosen because of their expertise in capture and infiltration. The leader of this team was captain Suirō, a middle-aged, auburn- haired, dark skinned man with the kanji for silence (黙) tattooed on his right shoulder.
“Talks between the villages have already started,” Suirō said. They all knew that Konoha planned to ally with Suna, Ame, and Taki along with the rest of the minor villages to mount a major offensive on all fronts against the Kumo and their Kiri allies. “Once we have the jinchuriki of the Nine Tails we can end this disastrous war somewhat favorably.”
“How are we going to get past the Sensor barrier, sir?” asked Ibara, the drug and poison specialist of the group. The Konoha barrier squads were known for their ability to pick up even the smallest amounts of foreign chakra crossing the Konoha walls, and the customs officers on the main gates hawkishly looked for suspicious characters.
The captain replied, “That situation has already been handled, don’t worry. Our spies have paid off one of the guards on the walls to gain us safe entry. The guard will be on duty on one of the less secure sections for about one hour before he has to rotate his next station. We are going to utilize that one-hour window to infiltrate the village, grab the girl, and get out before the ANBU find us. Now let’s move!”
The party made their way to Konoha with grim dispositions, knowing the fact that if they failed this mission or were caught, the very existence of Kumogakure would be threatened. Attempting to acquire a third jinchuriki would not be looked upon favorably by the other villages who were already looking for any reason to invade the Land of Lightning.
The three shinobi soon found themselves climbing the wall of Konoha using a rope tied to its side by their paid guard; they knew that they would not be able to stick to the vertical surface. The team had been informed that the walls that protected the hidden village were inscribed with fuinjutsu-shiki that would absorb the chakra channeled into the walls and disperse it into the surroundings so that one would not be able to stick to the walls. This defensive measure made it so no shinobi would be able to climb the walls from the outside to infiltrate the village.
Suirō’s team gave a nod of acknowledgement to the guard and started making their way to their target’s house. “Remember the target is a teenager, female, approximately 5 foot 1, and has distinctive hip length crimson hair—keep your eyes open in case our quarry is not at home,” barked Suirō. The three-man team started hopping from rooftop to rooftop making their way over to the home of the unsuspecting Kushina.
Inashiki, the group’s sensor, helped the team dodge the chūnin and jōnin patrolling the village, using minor genjutsu on the chūnin to slightly divert their patrol patterns, and avoiding the jōnin of the village by moving around them. As they moved closer to their target location, the sense of unease in Inashiki’s mind increased several-fold as he was able to sense a massive chakra signature from the home of their quarry: chakra so dense and powerful it dwarfed the chakra signature of the next largest sources by several magnitudes. For a second, while focusing on the flow of that mass of pure energy, he sensed it—the poisonous and malicious chakra of the Kyuubi no Youko—and his breathing stopped, his heart rate increasing so much he feared that his heart would explode. Just as soon as that feeling came over him it was gone. His teammates looked at him with concerned eyes. He told them that his senses had picked up the presence of the Bijū sealed within the jinchuriki.
Now having a sensory confirmation of the location of their quarry, the shinobi soon reached the Uzumaki residence. The house was a one storey tall, fairly large compound, with tall external walls to provide a sense of privacy. The house had a Koi Pond in front with a garden stone path leading to the main entrance. The back of the house had several well-used training posts. The team split up with Suirō entering the house from the bedroom window while Inishiki and Ibara took the front and back entrances respectively. They entered the Uzumaki household at the same time on their captain's signal.
Kushina got an uneasy feeling on the back of her neck moments before she heard the sound of breaking glass from her bedroom. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her senses. With a look of disbelief she started running away from the bedroom as three masked ninjas made their way into her house. The only thing on Kushina’s mind at that moment was a desperation to get away. She had sensed the malice oozing from those people when she activated her sensing jutsu and knew she needed to get help. In her distress to escape she knocked over the sea glass framed display—one of her last memories of Uzushio. She only spared one moment to look back at the now shattered display and felt her heart break just a little before she was caught by a pair of strong hands. She felt something pierce her neck and then knew no more as the world around her fell into darkness.
The End