Inside the Akakage's personal quarters, high within the tower that stood as Akagakure's heart, Kushina Uzumaki sat cross-legged on a tatami mat, her crimson hair tied back in a ponytail.
Her face was a mask of concentration, her blue eyes half-closed as she meditated, her breathing slow and deliberate. Her features took on a subtle, fox-like sharpness, complete with fox ears, as an ethereal red energy emanated from her- not the Nine-Tails' usual dark aura, but something softer, tinged with the elusive essence of natural energy. She was chasing Sage Mode, a technique that would boost her power by leaps and bounds.
Suddenly, her brow twitched, and her concentration shattered.
"Damn it!" she cursed, her voice echoing in the quiet room.
Anger flared, hot and immediate. She lashed out without thinking, kicking the low desk in front of her.
Crash!
The wood splintered under her foot, exploding into debris that shot across the room like shrapnel. Several shards hit against the wall with a deafening crack. But the seals flickered, absorbing the damage.
Dust clouded the air, and Kushina cringed, her frustration giving way to exasperation. "Third desk this month," she muttered, rubbing her temples. The seals were a precaution she'd insisted on after the second desk's demise.
For a long time, Kushina had been grappling with Sage Mode, a technique that eluded her to this day. Unlike fuinjutsu or taijutsu, where her Uzumaki heritage and Jinchuriki power gave her an edge, natural energy was her weakness. She had no talent for it. She couldn't even sense it, let alone make or control it.
That is, without Kurama. The Nine-Tails could naturally create Sage Chakra, though he was unable to enter Sage Mode himself due to his unique physiology. He had begun supplying her with it instead, which carried her through most of the difficult steps. All that remained was the final hurdle: learning to balance and control it.
Yet sadly, Kurama could not help her with that part. The delicate act of harmony had to be hers alone. And Kushina… simply lacked the knack.
'Your concentration wavers every time your emotions flare,' Kurama's deep voice rumbled in her mind, calm but edged with reproach. 'Nature won't yield to you out of spite or anger. You either control it calmly or not at all.'
Kushina clenched her fists. "You think I don't know that?!"
Her frustration bubbled into the air. She hated admitting weakness, even to him. Especially to him. But Kurama only rumbled, unimpressed, his tails shifting lazily inside the seal.
Still, she wasn't one to give up. She never had been. She'd clawed her clan back from extinction, defied the Five Great Nations, and crushed the Land of the Sky. Sage Mode would not defeat her.
"I'll master this damn Sage Mode if it's the last thing I do, dattebane!" she shouted aloud, voice echoing in the empty chamber.
But not today. Her emotions ran too hot, and concentration was already beyond her. For now, she had to turn her mind elsewhere, to her Akakage duties. An important ritual tomorrow needed preparation, and there were always matters around the village that demanded her attention.
For one, the infrastructure.
Her clansmen and the civilians had worked tirelessly for nearly a year and a half on their new village. For outsiders, it would sound impossible to accomplish so much in that span. But the Uzumaki were different. Their vitality let them work almost tirelessly, performing the labor of ten ordinary men.
Already, the government buildings were complete- the Akakage's building, the guard station, the academy, etc. Housing had been finished as well, with extra quarters to accommodate their steadily growing numbers. Shops had sprung up, and the port was functional.
What the Uzumaki lacked was not manpower but knowledge. When she had first gathered them, none possessed expertise in urban planning or construction. She had been forced to gather outsiders from Iwagakure. But now that the village stood whole and the Uzumaki were trained, the question remained:
What to do with those outsiders?
---
"You want to kill them all?" Akinari asked, his voice low, almost disbelieving.
Kushina had convened her advisors in the command center, a stark chamber of polished wood and stone, its walls lined with maps marked in red ink to track threats around the world. A single window overlooked the harbor, where the Land of Tea's envoy had recently departed.
The air was heavy with tension.
Kushina sat at the head of the long table. Akinari, Nagato, Aina, and Akaji faced her; their expressions carried unease. Rina stood beside her, as always.
This was the solution Kushina came up with- or, more precisely, the idea Kurama had offered.
His exact words had been: "Who cares? Just kill them all."
And she agreed.
"Yes," Kushina said firmly. "There's no need to overcomplicate things with memory seals, which can be broken, or vows of secrecy. If we do things my way, they'll be silent… forever, dattebane."
The chamber fell into a heavy silence. None of their hands were clean- each of them had killed before, in war or otherwise. But civilians who had lived among them for over a year and a half? That was different.
"My Lady," Akaji began, cautiously, "this decision would not sit well with the clan. Many have grown close to the workers over time. They may be outsiders, but they've toiled alongside us, shared our meals, and helped build our homes."
Akinari picked up the thread, his tone earnest. "The Uzumaki have always honored those who help us. These workers were forced here, yes, but they've worked hard, far away from their families. Killing them now- it's not our way."
Nagato spoke next, tone soft but steady. "I agree with them. Isn't that what it means to be Uzumaki? To honor our allies, to value life? We shouldn't kill indiscriminately. Human life is precious." Aina nodded silently, her agreement clear in her tense posture.
Kushina frowned, her eyes narrowing. The pushback from the others stung. Was she so out of touch with her clan? To her, the decision was logical- outsiders were a risk and their intimate knowledge of Akagakure was dangerous. To her, this seemed like common sense.
Rina's voice cut through, passionate but predictable. "I agree with Lady Kushina!"
Kushina ignored her. Rina would take her side, even if she said the grass was purple and the trees blue. In other words, she was a yes-man.
"Enough," she said softly, but the word silenced the room. "I won't allow any loose ends. The only way to ensure our secrets stay ours… is to end them."
Akaji opened his mouth again. "But my Lady-"
"Silence." She cut him off sharply, and Akaji flinched. "Trusting outsiders is what destroyed us before. I won't make the same mistake again, dattebane. My decision is final."
The room went still. They all lowered their eyes, unwilling to challenge her any further. They knew once the Akakage had spoken her final judgment, there was no changing it.
The advisors fell silent, their gazes dropping to the table, hands clasped tightly. They knew once the Akakage had spoken her final judgment, there was no changing it.
---
The next day, the sentence was carried out.
Under the night's moon, the civilian workers were rounded up in a secluded clearing beyond the village. The Uzumaki guards, their faces grim, executed them swiftly, their blades leaving no room for suffering.
The air was thick with the scent of blood and sea salt, the cries of gulls drowned out by the silence of the clan.
The decision rippled through Akagakure like a stone in a still pond. The Uzumaki were no strangers to death; their hands were stained from battles and rescues.
But these were civilians, not enemies- people who had eaten with them and laughed with them. Many clansmen had formed bonds and worked side by side with them since Akagakure's founding.
To the Uzumaki, loyalty to allies was sacred, and this act felt like a betrayal of their own values. Yet none opposed Kushina. Not only was it futile, but she had saved them and rebuilt their clan from ashes; to defy her felt ungrateful.
They mourned in silence, their grief a quiet weight in the village's bustling streets.
Nagato took it the hardest. He had never grown comfortable with killing to begin with, but this… this weighed on him differently.
As he walked the Akakage building's corridors, his dark red hair falling over his troubled Mangekyo Sharingan eyes, a memory returned to him unbidden. A half-collapsed building in Amegakure, rain dripping through holes in the roof. Three children huddled together against the cold: himself, Yahiko, and Konan.
They were his first family, before the Uzumaki, and remained his closest friends even now. His devotion to Kushina was undeniable- she'd given him a home, a family, and a purpose- but her order shook him.
Her distrust of outsiders gnawed at him. Even in their first meeting, Kushina was reluctant to save Yahiko and Konan. Since then, she's only grown colder- he has no doubt that's Lord Kurama's work.
What if one day, Kushina decided they, too, were merely outsiders? That they present a risk?
What if her suspicion turned on Yahiko and Konan?
The thought chilled him to his bones.
He remembered the little cruelties already. How she had 'forgotten' to build them housing, forcing him to shelter them. How she 'forgot' to ration their food. Always small things, petty things, but deliberate. It was proof of her disdain.
In a way, he thought bitterly, she was doing to them what Konoha had once done to her- casting unfair judgments based on what people couldn't control. It was like she pushed all her hatred of the Hidden Villages onto whatever outsider was around.
And for the first time, Nagato found himself wondering if loyalty to blood was worth more than loyalty to family chosen by the heart.
----
Kushina, lying next to Kurama in her quarters, felt the clan's silent discontent prickling at the edges of her Malice Sensing.
She pushed it aside.
Her thoughts wandered, as they normally did, to him.
Freedom demanded sacrifice- and she was prepared to shoulder the hatred of the entire world if that was the price. Even if that hatred came from her own clan.
To her, the greatest virtue was loyalty. She had believed that ever since Konoha- since her so-called friends abandoned her, since the village schemed against her, since even Mito betrayed her. The Uzumaki themselves were not innocent, for they were the ones who cast her away to Konoha in the first place.
Only Kurama had never betrayed her. Only he had remained constant. Only he had ever cared for her above all else.
That was why her loyalty would always belong to him.
And in the end, amid the silence of her clan's discontent, in the arms of Kurama, his voice was the only one that truly mattered.