Chapter Text
Long before the days of the Meiji Republic, the Oyashima mainland was divided into a bunch of tiny kingdoms. No one went around saying they were from Oyashima, they were more like to provide the name of their home city: Kyoto, Edo, Tokai, Kyushu and so on. The mainland was split into a hundred tiny regions, each with its own king.
The surrounding sea was also sprinkled with a thousand tiny islands, each a kingdom in its own right.
But we won’t be going there. Not yet at least.
Of the dozens of kingdoms that littered the Oyashima mainland, there was one at the very tip called Uzushiogakure. Not the biggest or the strongest but still of a healthy size. Surrounded by the coast on three sides, it had a prominent harbour, which provided a steady source of income and the occasional chance to conduct imperial-backed piracy.
The King, Shigekuni, like his city, was pretty mediocre. Not too wise, but not exactly a tyrant either. Like the rest of his contemporaries, he ruled the land as best he could. Unfortunately, superstition and paranoia had in turn, ruled him. While the common people seldom suffered the whims of a mercurial monarch, his retainers could see it made him a miserable man, too fearful of the future to enjoy the present.
Following the precedent set by the First Emperor Jimmu during the War of Three Kingdoms, only a male descendant of the ruling house was fit to inherit the throne. As such, every kingdom on the Oyashima mainland needed male offspring to inherit.
When King Shigekuni and his queen had their first child, a beautiful daughter named Kushina, they were not too concerned. After all, more children were likely to follow. Unfortunately, as the years flew by and their hair began to grey, Kushina remained their only living child. No matter what they tried, whether powders from a witch or pills prescribed by their physician, the queen's womb failed to quicken. The royal frustration over their lack of offspring cast a constant veil of unease over the castle.
When the queen died of a sudden illness, Shigekuni, further reminded of his own mortality, had his unease morph into a state of near constant panic. If he died without any male offspring, the throne would automatically pass to his younger brother Ashina. While Ashina had been naught but a loyal retainer, Shigekuni feared that his younger brother upon knowing that he was next in line to the throne, would want to hasten the process.
In desperation, Shigekuni took a trip to the foresee of Shion to have his fortune read.
Now, most visits to the foreseer were scams and often caused unwanted anxiety. You see, any prospective visitor had to take a long trip to Shion, the heart of the Earth, located in the center of the mainland, and climb a jagged mountain to reach the entrance of a dark cave. They then had to risk getting lost in that winding labyrinth of a cave to visit a golden haired priestess seated on a rock platform.
If they left an expensive offering at the door, a native guide would ensure they reached the cave and back safely. When faced before the Priestess of Shion you could ask one question. The maiden or crone (It was hard to tell with all the smoke) would then take a huff of the vapors and answer your question in a string of random words, which after further interpretation, would hold the salve to your woes.
Most kings of a progressive mind believed that whenever the Shion priestess took a huff of the gasses, she was depriving herself of the air of life and thus more prone to madness as she suffocated. The words she then spoke were never specific and could be moulded to suit any need, whether to feed into delusions of grandeur or into one’s darkest fears. Hence most of the visitors would leave the cave confused, terrified, and a lot poorer.
But Shigekuni was superstitious enough to buy into the claims of the Shion priestess and did I mention, very desperate?
When it was his time to speak before her, he knelt and asked “O Great Priestess, I was married for a score and fifteen years and for my efforts, have only one living daughter. I fear for the future of my royal house without a male heir. Here lies a humble servant of the gods seeking your eminence’s advice.”
This time the Shion priestess spoke clearly.
In a raspy voice she howled, “ Fear not, King Shigekuni! While you are doomed to perish without sons, your daughter will aid you by producing one of her own. When the boy comes of age, will he be your successor.”
For the first time in his life, Shigekuni began to feel that his superstitious efforts had paid off. As long as his grandson was born before his death, he could just declare him the rightful heir. The precedent set by imperial law was clear. Ashina would only inherit the throne after all his descendants were dead. Worse comes to worse, if he died before the boy came of age, at least Kushina would get to fulfill her dream of being queen for a time by ruling as Regent. Win win all around.
Too bad for him, the next words the Shion Priestess spoke would shatter his whole world. “Over your corpse will the boy step to reach the throne.”
Oh…shit.
Fearful and enraged, Shigekuni returned home. When he arrived at the city gates, his ever dutiful daughter was the first to greet him.
“I greet the Sun of Uzushiogakure. I pray that your trip to Shion has proven fruitful.”
He stared at his daughter— his beautiful, smart, and strong daughter. He had loved her as the child of his beloved. He could still remember her long red hair trailing behind her like a comet trail as she ran. Her eyes shone like the summer sun sparkling on an ocean. He could still smell the first flower she presented to him once she was old enough to walk. Her beauty was constant and had captivated many a man who sought her hand in marriage.
Now all that rang in his ears were the priestess's words.
Over your corpse will the boy step to reach the throne.
It was at that moment Shigekuni was struck by a vision. No longer carrying a playful smile, Kushina instead bore a vengeful snarl as she implored her son, a strapping lad with a shadow for a face to kill him. He found himself unable to remember the tinkling bells that accompanied her laugh. All he heard were words of venom as she cursed him again and again.
Kushina could never be permitted to marry and bear children. No longer was she his daughter. She was now a harbinger of death.
“Shion has opened my eyes to the vile creature you are. You are the one to slay your kin!. You will watch me die!”
Kushina, shocked and scared, fell to her knees begging “Father, please, I implore you to see reason. I am your loyal subject.”
“Even a viper's fangs can drip honey from time to time.” He growled. “Guards! Take her away!”
Kushina froze, despair filling her eyes and sorrow spilling down her face. As she was gagged and dragged deeper and deeper into the castle, Kushina couldn’t understand. The Confucian teachings of honoring one's parents were always in the back of her mind. While Kushina had been a rowdy child, she had never disobeyed any of his teachings.
In turn, he loved her as if she were a son. Up until then, anything she wanted, he gave. Against the wishes of her mother, he had taught her matters of state so as to better counsel her husband when she married. Though Kushina knew now it was an excuse to let him satisfy her own curiosity. After her mother had passed, they were each other's only support.
Sure, her father could be superstitious and paranoid. Kushina knew such tendencies could induce melancholy but certainly not this. What had changed him so?
The guards offered her neither comfort nor closure as they threw her into her new home. It was a round empty cellar: 100 feet from end to end and 100 feet deep. A hole over the city’s sewage was her toilet, and a stone slab her bed. The prison had originally been an enormous block of obsidian, reaching 100 meters into the ground. Shigekuni's grandfather had carved out the center, lining it with 20 sheets of bronze for it to house enemies of the crown. Iron bars on the obsidian block formed a grate. It offered no relief from the heat of the scorching sun or any cover from falling rain.
The only way in or out was a door made of solid bronze. Even if Kushina had the key, which Shigekuni always kept on his person, it would still take the strength of 10 men to push it open. A small slab had been carved out the bottom. It was the width of a human head and two inches high. This was so the guards could slide the meager ration of three pieces of flatbread and a dish of water in and out of the cell. That was the extent to which Shigekuni trusted his guards, for he forbade them from approaching the cell on any other occasion. Lest they form attachments or inclinations of charity.
Now, some of you might be thinking: how was Kushina supposed to survive? The point is, she wasn't.
While Shigekuni desperately wanted to kill her to get rid of his problems once and for all, he couldn't. The religion practised by most monarchs on the Oyashima mainland preached that those who kill without remorse will be sent to Tokatsu Jigoku, the reviving hell, for eternity. The singing nuns who spread the gospel described this land as one where the ground was ever hot and burning. Denizens of this realm would be condemned to fight each other with iron claws till torn to pieces. Their jailers would be oni who roamed the land with iron clubs, looking for the next unwilling player in a game of whack a mole. As soon as a soul perishes, it is instantly revived only to die again and again.
The prospect of endless death was unbearable, especially for such a superstitious man as Shigekuni. If he bade his guards to take her head, that was most definitely murder. If, however, she expired in a “meditation chamber” during a long “self imposed” “sabbatical”, that wasn’t so much murder as it was a freak accident.
If Kushina succumbed to madness and killed herself in solitary, it just meant that the tough life of a monastery really, really was not suited to her.
What Shigekuni did not account for was Kushina having a lover of her own. Amaterasu had many servants to assist her in carrying out her duties, and one of her retainers just so happened to reign over the light that shone over Uzushiogakure.
His name was Hikari no Minato. Gods, like us humans, naturally seek out attention from others. Especially minor deities who, having no worshippers, are condemned to a lonely, thankless existence. Naturally, Minato took a liking to the cheerful, talkative girl that brought card games to play with him every other day. Even more naturally perhaps, he began to look forward to their next topic of discussion or the next game she wanted to play.
Minato noticed her absence within a week. Rationally, they had not fallen out. Kushina had even promised to bring him a scroll of his choice the next time they met up. That meant either she had gotten entrenched in royal commitments or she had traveled elsewhere. The logical choice was to go search for her and confirm either one of his hypotheses. If the first, he could visit her in the palace. If the second, he could ask around in the heavenly court if anyone had seen her.
Either way, he would be one step closer to finding her.
As a lord of light, Minato could travel anywhere the light touched in Uzushiogakure. A few careless gossips about the poor princess narrowed down his search to the palace courtyard. A few glances and kicked bushes later, Minato soon came across the obsidian pit which housed the now condemned princess.
Dissolving into a shower of golden light, he poured through the grate and into her cell before reforming as a man. There Kushina was, decked in prison rags, sitting cross-legged on her stone slab in meditation.
“Kushina? Kushina?” Minato called, waving a hand in front of her.
She did not answer. Instead, she squeezed her eyes shut, mumbling “I am about to go bonkers like father. I’m hearing things. This isn’t real. It’s not real.”
Minato poked her face with a playful finger. “I assure you Kushina, I am very much real.”
Poke. “Your face has grown rather thin? Are you ill?”
Poke. “Kushina-hime sama. Kushina-sama. Hime-sama.”
Kushina’s eyes snapped open, her hand closed around his finger, threatening to snap it in half.
“Don’t call me that, you ingra—Minato!!!” Kushina’s weary frown melted away to a smile of relief and joy. Her trademark toothy smile reappeared for the first time in weeks as she patted the stone beside her.
“Come, come. Sit.” Minato obliged, hissing as the stone left a small red mark on his palm. This sent Kushina jumping onto his lap, her fingers prying his hand open in concern.
“Does it hurt? Let me see.”
Minato smiled sadly as Kushina flipped his hands over again and again, like a cat looking for treats. Gods have never known pain, so his pales in comparison to hers. And he was not the inmate here. So he gently pried her hands off his, and placed them back in her lap.
Smoothing her matted hair, he asked, “Kushina, what happened to you?”
Her eyes did not meet his as Kushina buried her face in his chest, sobbing, “Father’s lost it. He put me here to die. I’m sorry, Minato but I–hic…won’t be able to—hic…play with you anymore.”
“It’s okay, Kushina. It’s okay. I’ll come to you.” Minato soothed, his smooth palms patting the back of her roughspun robe.
“Really?”
“Yes, and I’ll even steal your father’s key for you…once he fishes it out of his ass. ”
“Is it actually there?” Kushina chuckled as she sniffled into his kimono..
“You got me. It’s actually under his tunic. But I’ll bring it to you when I can. For the time being, just pray and I will come.”
“Will you actually be listening?”
“You are the only one who prays to me. How can I not?‘
“Hmph. Okay.” Finally, to his relief, Kushina had stopped sniffling and pulled away from his kimono. She flashed him that toothy, impish smile he so loved as her hand reached up to cup his cheek.
“Minato, I'm really glad to be with you now, you know?”
He beamed and Kushina swore she saw his eyes glow in the light before his arms wrapped around her back.
“As am I, Kushina. As am I.”
For the guards that brought Kushina’s rations, life went on as usual. She was silent at dawn, when they pushed the tray in and silent when they took it out in the evening. Some prayed that it meant the princess had succumbed to madness and no longer knew pain. Others prayed for her to die as quickly and painlessly as possible so as to ease the guilt on their conscience.
Day in, day out. Tray in, tray out. A week passed. Then a month. Then a season. Then a year. Then another.
Finally, at the end of the second year since Kushina's captivity, a bleary guard stumbled to the door of Kushina’s cell to deliver her rations. Business as usual.
However, when he knelt down with his ear to the slot, the shrill cry of an infant ringing in his head broke the monotonous routine and his drowsy spell.
Now fully awake, the guard dashed to wake the King. Shigekuni did not take it well as he jumped out of bed and ran to the dungeon with the vigor of a man half his age.
When he arrived, he unlocked the door and bade his personal guard to push it open. The door creaked open with an anguished groan, as if lamenting the old man's fate. Before him stood Kushina, cradling a newborn baby in a blanket.
“What? How?” Shigekuni scanned the cell. No one was in there. He had the only key. The only way in was through the sewers. No mortal could hold their breath for so long. “Who…”
“Father…” Kushina began, her blue eyes dead set on him. The vengeful glare of the Kushina from his vision overlaps with the one staring at him. He steps back as Kushina continued,
“I have been visited by an emissary of Amaterasu. He has blessed me with this child I shall name Naruto.”
Shigekuni remained stiff as a board, the only other option being shaking like a leaf in front of his retainers. Names had meaning. Kushina knew that by naming her son after the whirlpools that surrounded their harbour, it announced her intentions to have her son take the throne. And judging by the way she was looking at him, it seems she wanted to be Queen Regent right now.
Alas, what those bound by superstition fail to learn, is that the path away from your fate and the path to it will eventually meet. Locking his daughter away did not stop her from conceiving her son. It only ensured that both mother and son would want to see him die screaming.
As much as he wanted to deny it, he knew Kushina was telling the truth. She really had been visited by an emissary of Amaterasu. The child had not inherited the red hair of the Uzumaki clan which had been passed down for hundreds of years. Instead it shone gold, like the morning sun.
The safest way to go about this conundrum would have been to murder both his daughter and grandson. However, kinslaying aside, killing the child of a deity, however minor, would be equivalent to having killed a Buddha. Shigekuni really did not need to give Emma-o another excuse to send him down earlier.
Failing to heed what had happened the last time he tried a similar method, Shigekuni ordered his guards to find the largest wooden box in his palace. The lid was sealed shut with resin and a few holes drilled at the top so they did not suffocate.
Again, he was not killing them directly. Who could be blamed if a party of two perished while playing pirates with a wooden box, insufficient food, and water? Besides, it's not like they couldn't have asked for food or water. Whatever happened, it was on them for lack of preparedness!
With a gleeful kick, Shigekuni pushed the box out to sea. As the box floated out of sight, he heaved a huge sigh of relief and skipped back to his castle, ready for his first good sleep in decades.