Konoha, year 38.
Kushina cinched her flak jacket tighter around her shoulders, her hands working mechanically as she double-checked her gear. The metal plate on her forehead protector gleamed in the early light streaming through her bedroom window. Her scythe leaned against the wall beside her, polished and ready.
For months now, she had carried the rank of Chūnin. It was more than symbolic; on paper, she had the authority to lead a genin team, assign tasks, even sign off on low-level mission reports. But in practice, she hadn't left the village once.
Her value to Konoha couldn't be overstated. She was the Jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails. A living, breathing weapon, and the village wasn't willing to let that weapon out of its gates without a good reason.
Training with Kurama in the seal space or Sakumo Hatake, when he was available, had sharpened her chakra control and honed her senses. Sparring taught her how to read intent and move with precision. But none of that mattered unless it was tested in the field. And today, finally, it would be.
She darted through the rooftops of the village with ease, the wind tugging at her crimson hair as she moved toward the designated meeting point.
Waiting beneath the eaves of a small outpost were two figures. One she recognized instantly: Minato Namikaze, her former classmate. The other was a tall, white-haired man with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. What was curious was that he wore a forehead protector she wasn't familiar with. It had the character for 'Oil,' instead of the leaf with a swirl.
She wasn't surprised that Minato would be her teammate for this mission. He was pretty much the only one in the village, besides Tsunade, with whom she was on good terms.
Minato waved. "Hey, Kushina!"
"Hn." She landed with barely a sound.
He didn't seem bothered by her clipped greeting. "This is Jiraiya-sensei," he said, turning toward the man beside him. "Jiraiya-sensei, this is Kushina Uzumaki."
Her eyes narrowed. "You're Tsunade's teammate, right?"
"The one and only!" Jiraiya struck a pose. "Legendary sage, future author, shinobi, and humble servant of the people."
She blinked. "Didn't Hanzo give you that 'Legendary Sannin' title as a joke?"
Minato coughed into his sleeve, trying not to laugh. Jiraiya looked vaguely offended but recovered quickly. "Well, titles are just labels. What matters is performance! And today, we've got a mission."
"A real one?" she asked, a small flame of excitement flickering in her chest.
Jiraiya nodded. "Bandits. A gang is taking advantage of the war to raid villages. Low-risk, high payoff. Good experience for everyone- except them, I guess."
Kushina grinned. "I'll kill every last one of them, dattebane!"
Minato chuckled nervously. Jiraiya studied her face with a little more seriousness now, and nodded. "We'll see how you do."
----
The forest was quieter than she remembered.
They traveled for days, moving fast across the treetops. Kushina hadn't left the walls of Konoha in six years, not since she was a six-year-old brought from Uzushio to be the new Jinchuriki. Being outside again, without the constant shadow of ANBU watching her every step, was refreshing.
She breathed in deep. The scent of earth, pine, and the distant rivers. No villagers staring. No Hokage to worry about. Just wind and movement and freedom.
Jumping from branch to branch, she felt like a real kunoichi.
The bandit stronghold was nothing more than a hijacked village: crude fortifications, posted guards with mismatched armor, and fires burning in makeshift pits. It was sloppy and undisciplined. Complete child's play for shinobi.
They approached under the cover of dusk. The mission was to neutralize the threat and liberate the village, nothing more.
Their first target was a run-down shack. Inside, three men were laughing over a pile of stolen goods, passing around a bottle of cheap liquor.
"Minato, left. I'll take right. Kushina, the one in the middle," Jiraiya whispered.
She nodded, her grip tightened on her scythe.
With a burst of chakra, the three moved at once. Kushina swept forward, silent as a shadow. Her scythe arced through the dim light, slicing clean through flesh and bone. The man's head hit the floor before his body did.
Blood sprayed across her face.
She stood still, frozen. The warmth of it soaked into her collar, ran down her cheeks. She'd imagined this moment so many times in training, with Kurama whispering cold lessons in her ear: This is what it means to be strong. This is what it means to survive.
But imagination couldn't prepare her for the reality, the real weight of it. The silence afterward, and the way his body still twitched.
"Kushina," Kurama's voice echoed within her, calm but not unkind. "You didn't hesitate."
Jiraiya and Minato were already stepping back, giving her space. They'd been through this before and seen other people go through it. They knew this moment was hers to process alone.
Her breath hitched, but she didn't cry, nor did she drop the scythe. She stood there for a long moment, until the initial shock faded, and something harder settled into its place.
Her resolve.
She wiped the blood from her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket.
"Let's move," she said.
The rest of the mission blurred into blood and motion.
They moved from house to house, clearing out the bandits. Kushina's movements grew sharper with each strike. She began to sense the rhythm of it, the shift in breath before a man drew his blade, the flicker of fear in his eye as he realized what she was.
She stopped thinking and started acting. One sweep, two stabs, a burst of wind chakra along the curve of her scythe, three more bodies fell.
Kurama hummed with satisfaction inside her seal. "Yes. You're learning."
By the end of the night, the village was silent again. Only the rustle of leaves and the crackle of fire remained.
They stood in the clearing at the village's center. Kushina was drenched in blood. Minato had a few scratches, but Jiraiya looked almost bored.
"You did well," Jiraiya said, nodding toward her. "No hesitation after the first strike. That's good."
Kushina didn't answer right away. She looked down at her hands, sticky with blood. They didn't tremble.
"Thanks. It was still... hard."
Jiraiya and Minato both nodded.
"That means you're still human. It's when it's easy that there's a problem." Jiraiya said.
There was a long pause, then Jiraiya sighed. "Alright. We'll rest here tonight, clean up tomorrow, and report back. Mission accomplished."
----
Later that night, long after the firelight died and Jiraiya's soft snoring echoed through the half-destroyed inn they had commandeered, Kushina closed her eyes and sank inward.
The seal space came easily now, like a door slightly ajar. All she had to do was step through.
The seal's chamber was quiet. Not the eerie silence of a dead battlefield, but a deep, resonant quiet. The solid stone walls and dreary lighting were the same as always.
Kurama stirred.
He wasn't curled in the shadows tonight. Instead, he sat tall, massive forepaws crossed before him, tails shifting in slow, hypnotic waves behind the bars of the seal. His eyes, molten and watchful, locked onto hers the moment she arrived.
"You came quickly," he said.
"I had to," she said. "I couldn't sleep."
She walked closer, stopping just beyond the edge of the seal's boundary. The menacing fox had long stopped scaring her.
He was the only one who saw her for what she was.
Kurama's eyes narrowed slightly. "You did well today."
"Did I?" She folded her arms and looked down. Her reflection stared back at her from the surface of the water, blood still smeared on her cheeks, her expression unreadable. "Because I killed someone without blinking?"
"Yes," Kurama replied. "Some people aren't worth the guilt."
She exhaled slowly. The silence returned between them, thick and grounding.
"I thought it would make me feel stronger," she said after a while. "But it didn't. It just made me feel... hollow. Like something important was supposed to happen, and it didn't."
Kurama tilted his head. "You're expecting the wrong kind of feeling."
"What kind should I expect?"
He was quiet for a moment before answering. "None."
She flinched.
"Not guilt, not pride, not emptiness. You'll kill again, and each time it'll feel different. The first body is never the heaviest."
Her eyes rose to meet his. "What is?"
He watched her for a long moment, his pupils slitted and deep. "The ones you let live."
Kushina didn't reply. The words lodged themselves somewhere deep in her, curling around the scar forming inside her heart.
Eventually, she lowered herself to the floor, sitting cross-legged before him.
"I don't want to be like the others," she whispered. "A mindless killer."
Kurama leaned forward slowly, the bars casting long shadows across his snout. His voice, when it came, was low and firm.
"Then don't."
She blinked up at him.
"Let them become hollow. You, on the other hand, will burn." His tails rustled. "You are mine. My Jinchūriki. That means you get to choose which parts of yourself you keep."
A strange feeling spread through her chest. Something between defiance and comfort.
She looked away. "You always say things like that."
"Because they're true."
She rested her hands on her knees and sighed. "Kurama?"
"Yes."
"Thank you. For being here."
Kurama's ears flicked, and his gaze softened, just barely. It was the smallest crack in the fortress of his pride.
"You didn't come here to be alone," he said.
She nodded faintly. "You're the only one here for me."
She rested on Kurama's tail, just like the second time they met.
And then, for the first time in days, she closed her eyes and let herself rest, not in her body, surrounded by the stink of blood and ash, but here, in the stillness of the seal. In Kurama's presence.
Only here could she feel protected.