Chapter Text
In one world, the nine-tailed beast is unleashed while its container is at her most distracted.
In one world, a man long-thought dead drives the beast to madness and rage, venting its wrath upon the villagers who have trapped it for so long.
In one world, her husband is entirely successful in sealing this rampaging monster into the body of his newborn son, with nothing to show for it save a spiral on his belly and whisker marks on his cheeks.
In another, he…fudges it a bit.
In fairness, the Kyuubi is sealed. It’s even sealed inside the squalling infant who hasn’t even been named yet.
But Namikaze Minato is badly injured, his hands trembling with exertion and blood loss. So he can’t quite get parts of the spiral meant to seal the tailed beast’s Yang essence to be as curvy as he needs.
Uzumaki Kushina watches in horror as the human babe in her arms shrinks and deforms, glowing with bijuu chakra, until a little fox kit lies in his place.
Somehow blonde. Still squalling.
Her husband meets her gaze with matching disbelief, unable to stop an embarrassed, blood-soaked chuckle.
“Minato,” She groans with her dying breath. “You idiot.”
They both have passed by the time the search and rescue teams find them.
No matter how a young ANBU, an old seal-master, or an older Hokage search, there is no sign of the jinchuuriki.
Even baby fox kits have instinct enough to seek out shelter to hide from predators.
The scent of the greatest and most monstrous fox of them all permeates the village for weeks afterwards, lingering in repaired walls and roofs. It irritates the noses of the Inuzuka and the Hatake something fierce, and leads to a boom in the local fox population when the hunting hounds cannot smell where they’re hiding.
So the Village mourns the Yondaime and his wife, taken from them too soon.
And its Intel Corps works double time to lay false information trails asserting that the Leaf has Not lost or killed its Tailed Beast, Definitely Not, that would be Ridiculous, Stop Asking Questions.
Ten months later, a twenty-year-old is reincarnated into the life of a baby born to a venerable clan of samurai.
Specifically, to its second son.
Twelve months later, the second son and his lady wife flee the mountains and snows of Iron for the sanctuary of the Village Hidden In the Leaves.
The small family settles there, and begins the process of adjusting to their new life. Ketsugi Chie uses her impeccable graces to take a part-time position in a teahouse. Ketsugi Jirou applies his methodical mind to managing funds on the lowest rank of village finances.
Ketsugi Mayu grieves a life in a world no one else knows exists.
This naturally causes some concern to her parents, who try and fail and try to connect with their reticent young daughter.
The only thing that brings a spark into her eyes is food. She watches eagerly as her mother prepares it, eats everything her father prompts her to try, and never leaves so much as a grain of rice behind.
She does this out of adoration of a certain comic from her previous life, whose tenets she follows religiously. Her parents do not know this, and are unlikely to care so long as their child is happy.
Ketsugi Mayu is four years old when she sees the fox for the first time.
It stands out from the other foxes and scavenger animals she’s seen roaming the alleys and edges of town because it’s little and because it’s gold.
She almost thinks it’s a kitten before it moves, and she realizes that the shape of its head is too dog-like, its tail too bushy. Its fur may be dulled with filth and grime, but it is still a yellowy-gold vibrant enough to set it apart from its orange-furred kin.
Her mother is still serving customers at the tea house down the road and won’t worry if she’s gone for a few more minutes, so Mayu stops and stares at this odd little creature.
She watches as the golden fox attempts to clamber into the dumpster.
It’s so small that its highest jumps barely bring it halfway up the side of the receptacle. When it stands on its hind legs, snapping and whining, she can count its ribs through its fur.
This upsets Mayu viscerally.
Her favorite character teaches that no one should go hungry if she can feed them—not even wild animals.
She’s not going to stand idly by ever again.
She has a small money pouch with two hundred ryo coins and one fifty ryo coin in it.
There’s a store next to the alley which only charges one hundred ryo coin and one fifty ryo coin for meat buns.
She blows on it as she exits the mart, trying to get the steam and heat to dissipate as much as she can. It’s big, and she’s not sure if the golden fox will eat it if it’s too hot. After three minutes, she judges it to be as cool as it’s probably going to get.
She throws the meat bun near the fox.
The golden fox startles, skittering away from the dumpster and the pastry.
Then its nose twitches.
Mayu watches with bated breath as the little fox slowly and carefully inches towards the meat bun.
It nips cautiously at the air next to the bun. Then one of its paws swipes at it and tears the dough covering the meaty contents.
She can mark the moment it smells the bounty before it and realizes food , because it suddenly lunges forwards and starts devouring the bun in earnest.
She giggles a little, pleased with herself at living up to Sanji’s ideals.
Then she hears one of the junior girls at the teahouse calling for her, and hurries away so she won’t get scolded.
She doesn’t see the fox there again.
She tries looking whenever her mother brings her along to work, peering down the mouth of the alley so as to not scare it off.
But even though she sees other foxes, and crows, and mice, and even a snake once, she never sees the little golden fox hiding by the dumpster.
So Ketsugi Mayu keeps going with her new life, where there are plans for her to join the civilian school once she turns six. Her parents are teaching her the skills she’d need to survive in their old home, if they ever need to go back there. But in the interim, it’s important for her to learn her literature and her numbers, to socialize with her peers, to decide if there’s a trade she’d benefit from learning and connections she can make for the future.
(The civilian school does have paths for cooking and restaurant apprenticeships. She’s a little excited for them.)
She’s not looking for the little golden fox at all when she finds it again.
The screams are loud, is the thing.
They’re loud and high-pitched and not human in a way that sets her teeth on edge.
There’s a group of bigger boys under a tree in one of the many cleared, grassy areas this village has for its soldiers to fight each other.
Mayu has thus far attempted to ignore all such spaces and the people who use them. They give her an awful suspicion that she will not entertain.
(She is skilled in ignoring inconvenient things, like the shinobi hopping across rooftops, the symbol tied to the tweens that graduate from the other school in the village, the black figures wearing white masks that occasionally linger in the trees around her home. Watching.)
But today she looks, if only to see what’s making such an awful sound.
One of the boys has a diamond-shaped knife in hand, and four others are holding a bundle of golden fur and red blood upside down. They’re laughing when it thrashes and screams, trying to get away.
She doesn’t quite know when she started running.
Just that it gives her a good bit of momentum to kick knife-boy in the bollocks.
He squeals and goes down, dropping the knife as he does. She grabs it and hurls it as far away as she can, ignoring the flash of pain across her palm.
Knives are for the kitchen. Not for brats like this to play with.
One of the four lets go of the fox’s leg and lunges for her. She lets him get close enough that she can grab both his ears and twist. He howls as she swings around and lets go, kicking his downed friend in the mouth as he trips over him.
Something smacks into her temple and her vision jars for a moment. When it settles, she sees a third kid pulling back for another swing while the last two try to wrangle the furiously snapping fox they’ve been left with. She takes the hit to her shoulder and punches him in the throat.
He makes a choking noise, face turning red, when she kicks him in the bollocks too.
One of the last two boys sees her coming and has the sense to drop his hold on the fox and run. The other is shrieking as the fox starts getting closer to biting him, and can’t defend against her sharp little nails scratching across his cheek and arm.
That finally makes him drop the fox, which lands in a crumpled heap on the tree roots with a yelp.
She steps in front of it, glaring at the boys with blood beneath her nails and her face throbbing. They’re staring at her, frightened but unsure, trying to gather their wits for another go—
“FUCK OFF!!” She roars, running at them with a face she hopes is half as scary as Zoro’s.
They shriek and scramble away from her, tripping each other over in their haste to get away.
Ketsugi Mayu places her hands on her hips, satisfied in the way a child can only be before they remember they’ll be scolded for using profanity.
A pained whine has her turning and hurrying back to the base of the tree.
The golden fox lies there, paws scrabbling at the dirt but unable to get up, cuts along its back bleeding sluggishly and one leg bent too far to be normal.
She reaches out to try and feel how bad the damage is—!
The little fox’s teeth are lodged in her hand, small growls escaping it as it weakly tries to shake and make the bite worse.
She cries out, digging her nails in to her leg to try and distract herself from the pain.
The fox stares at her. She frowns at the fox.
Slowly, slowly, it opens its mouth and lets her go. It watches as she cradles her hand against her chest.
Its eyes are big and surprisingly blue.
Then it lays its head back down and whimpers, sad and pained.
She doesn’t know how to help it, Mayu realizes. She’s not a doctor like Chopper, these wounds aren’t something that just food can fix. She needs proper help.
Professional help.
She goes and buys it some food anyway, because it’s better than nothing.
The store attendant eyes the blood seeping from her hands, but sells her a package of pork cracklings that she tears open and leaves within easy reach of the fox’s mouth, so who’s counting.
Then she’s off, trotting towards the veterinarian clinic with determination.
It’s huge, which surprises her for reasons she refuses to think about, and the smells of animals and medicine hit her in the face when she enters.
She walks up to the reception desk, where a girl with two large red triangles on her cheeks slumps, bored. Three large dogs pant at her feet.
“Excuse me.” Mayu says. “I need fox medicine if you have any, please.”
The girl startles, before peering over the desk’s edge at her.
She huffs, eyebrows raised in exasperation. “Kid, we don’t treat humans here. If you want those seen to, go to the hospital.”
“I’m not here for me.” Mayu frowns. “I need medicine for a fox. It’s hurt badly.”
There’s a whuff and a boy’s voice startles her from under the desk. “Why’d you want medicine for a fox? They’re vermin.”
She’s barely gotten over one talking dog when a second pipes up. “They’re bad luck.”
“The only good fox is a dead fox.” Says the third dog, to round out things. “Killing for sport, making a mess of things…”
Defensiveness wins out over shock. “Dogs can do those things too. My fox is only little, and it’s hurt. I’ll buy the medicine if I have to. How much?”
The girl with a triangle face makes a “hsst!” noise when her dogs try to argue with Mayu. Her eyes are tired, for some reason. “Look kid, your heart’s in the right place, but we don’t have any medicine for foxes here. Haven’t you heard about the Council edict?”
“It can’t be that different from dog medicine, or even cat medicine!” Mayu argues. “Why can’t I have some?”
“Because that fox is probably already dead, kid.” The sternest of the trio barks. “There’s a cash reward for all fox hides handed in to the mission desk. And if your fox is little and hurt, how hard do you think it’d be to skin?”
She stumbles back a step. Two.
The girl behind the desk says something in a scolding tone to that dog, but she’s not listening. She can’t.
She’s turning and running as fast as she can.
Pushing through crowds, ignoring when people bump into her, because if she can only get back in time, she needs—!
The little golden fox is gone.
All that’s left are smears of red on the grass.
She begins to cry.
“Are you okay?”
She looks up from where she’s buried her head in her knees.
A pair of bushy eyebrows are drawn together in concern. When she blinks, the eyebrows are attached to a boy with a braid dangling over his shoulder. He looks like he’s a year older than her or so.
Her head aches the way it always does after a long cry, her nose stuffy with mucus. Her voice wavers when she replies, “No.”
The eyebrows draw down over his eyes in distress. “What happened?”
“I let my hands get hurt. I wasn’t good enough. Wasn’t strong enough.” Her eyes start watering again dangerously. “I thought it’d be fine if I left to get help. I wasn’t gonna be long. I was coming right back. But I couldn’t, couldn’t protect it. It was only little.”
The boy with the bushy eyebrows sits next to her.
After a moment he says, “I could help you get stronger? If you want?”
She squints at him. “…Can you do it without me using my hands? I need them for cooking.”
The bushy brows furrow before the boy nods determinedly. “Yosh! Even if I cannot, I will make myself stronger until we both become masters of kicking!”
Part of her registers that someone’s calling her name, loud and frantic. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Rock Lee!” The boy says. “I’m six!”
“My name is Ketsugi Mayu, and I’m five.” She gets up and bows to Lee politely. “I need to go now, but if you’re okay meeting here tomorrow, I’ll be in your care?”
Rock Lee’s lips purse and his eyes sparkle in excitement. “Yosh! Then I will see you tomorrow at six o’clock, Ketsugi-chan! Let us work hard together!”
“Let’s.” She nods decisively, before finally heeding her father’s increasingly worried calls.
She gets scolded for getting distracted while running her errand, and then she is scolded for not seeking medical attention right away when hurt, and then the mothers of the boys she beat up call round to complain and she’s scolded for attacking them and using profanity.
(Though her father breaks into a gleeful grin after her mother closes the door on the last harpy, and murmurs “Second year students at the Shinobi Academy! And our little Mayu made them look like—!”
Her mother shushes him. “Anata, please, don’t encourage her.” Then, with a quiet huff. “It isn’t as if those dabblers could hold a candle to Mayu-chan anyhow.”)