The habaneros were being stubborn.
Kushina sat at her small kitchen table, a jar of vinegar open before her, the sharp, acidic scent battling the permeating smell of dust that seemed to haunt the restricted housing district. She jammed a bright red pepper into the jar with a pair of chopsticks, using more force than was strictly necessary for pickling.
Crunch.
The pepper split. Seeds spilled out, floating in the brine like tiny white teeth.
Kushina sighed, brushing a strand of crimson hair out of her eyes. She glanced at the clock on the wall. The second hand ticked with an agonizingly loud mechanical thunk.
1:48 AM.
Late. Again.
"Stupid," she muttered to the empty room. "He's not coming. He's probably off saving a cat or inventing a jutsu with a name longer than a scroll."
She went back to the jar.
It was quiet. Too quiet. In the silence, she could feel It.
The Nine-Tails wasn't asleep; it never slept. It was a glacier living in her gut, a massive, freezing void of hatred that constantly pressed against the seal. It made the air in her apartment feel ten degrees colder than the rest of Konoha. It made her skin prickle with a phantom frost that blankets couldn't fix.
She reached for another pepper.
Then—the temperature changed.
It wasn't a sound. It wasn't a footstep. It was a displacement.
The heavy, freezing pressure behind her navel didn't vanish, but suddenly, it was overlaid by something else. A spark. A sudden, impossible bloom of sunlight in the middle of a dark room. It felt like standing next to a heater after walking through a blizzard.
He was behind her.
Kushina didn't smile. She didn't turn around with a hug. She was an Uzumaki, and she was a kunoichi.
She stood up so fast the table rattled.
She spun, gripping the back of her wooden chair. With a grunt of effort, she slammed the legs of the chair backward, driving the backrest into the stomach of the intruder.
WHAM.
"OPH!"
Minato Namikaze doubled over, the wind knocked out of him. He had materialized exactly where she knew he would—right on the seal marker she had secretly painted under the rug—and walked right into a piece of furniture.
"Too slow!" Kushina hissed.
She didn't give him time to recover. She grabbed him by the shoulder of his flak jacket and yanked him forward. She swept his leg, spinning him around so he collapsed into the chair she had just assaulted him with.
Minato landed with a thud, blinking, looking like a startled owl.
Kushina stepped forward. She planted one foot on the seat of the chair, right between his legs, leaning in until her nose was inches from his. She loomed over him, her red hair falling around them like a curtain, blocking out the rest of the room.
Minato let out a high-pitched, frightened squeak.
For a split second, Kushina saw his blue eyes flash. His muscles twitched—the instinct of the Yellow Flash to teleport away from danger. He could have been on the other side of the village before she blinked.
But he didn't move.
He relaxed into the chair, looking up at her with a mixture of terror and absolute adoration.
Kushina smirked. The cold in her stomach felt very far away.
"You're late," she whispered.
She grabbed his chin, her fingers digging into his jaw, and kissed him.
It tasted like salt and vinegar and the exhausted sweat of a boy who had been training for eighteen hours straight. Minato melted against the wood, his hands coming up to tentatively hold her waist, anchoring himself in the storm.
The moon was a sharp, silver crescent, hanging over Konoha like a sickle.
Kushina sat on the slanted tiles of her roof, her legs dangling over the edge. Minato sat next to her, their shoulders pressed together. The night air was cool, but Minato was a furnace. She leeched the warmth off him shamelessly.
Kushina looked up. To anyone else, the sky was clear. But to her—with her sensory abilities honed by the Uzumaki bloodline—she could see the net.
A faint, shimmering dome of chakra encased the building. The Barrier.
It was invisible, intricate, and unbreakable. It was designed to keep intruders out, yes. But mostly, it was designed to keep the vessel in. To keep the monster contained.
"Sometimes," Kushina said softly, tracing the line of a roof tile with her finger, "I forget the barrier isn't the only thing keeping it in."
Minato blinked. He looked at her, his spiky blond hair shifting in the breeze. He looked at the seal on her stomach, hidden beneath her shirt, and then at her eyes.
"It?" he asked gently.
" The cold," she murmured. She leaned her head on his shoulder. "The hate. It pushes, Minato. All the time. But then..." She squeezed his hand. "...you show up. And it gets quiet."
Minato smiled. He scooted closer, closing the zero-distance gap between them.
"I'll always show up," he promised. "Even if I have to fight a chair to do it."
Kushina laughed, a bright sound that echoed a little too loudly in the quiet night.
Suddenly, Minato stiffened.
"Don't look," he whispered, "but your security detail is active."
Kushina glanced casually out of the corner of her eye.
Perched on the telephone pole across the street was the night shift of the Barrier Team.
Kakoi, the team leader, was facing away from them, scanning the perimeter with the seriousness of a man guarding the Daimyo himself. He wore his mask and his uniform with stiff precision.
But behind him, clinging to the crossbeams of the pole, were two very young, very clumsy genin.
Kotetsu and Izumo.
They weren't scanning the perimeter. They were staring directly at Minato and Kushina with eyes the size of dinner plates.
Minato offered a small, awkward wave.
Kotetsu's face lit up. He nudged Izumo so hard the boy almost fell off the pole. They both grinned—missing a few teeth between them—and waved back frantically. Izumo stuck his tongue out, crossing his eyes in a silent mockery of the "romance" happening on the roof.
Suddenly, Kakoi shifted his stance, starting to turn around.
"Did you hear a laugh?" Kakoi muttered, his hand going to his kunai.
Kushina froze. If Kakoi saw Minato here, he'd report it. Unauthorized entry into the Jinchūriki containment zone. It would be weeks of paperwork.
On the pole, panic erupted.
Kotetsu's eyes went wide.
"LOOK OUT!" Kotetsu yelled, his voice cracking.
He threw himself to the other side of the pole, grabbing Kakoi's arm and physically spinning the man away from the roof.
"What is it?!" Kakoi demanded, dropping into a combat crouch, facing the wrong way.
"A... a bat!" Izumo shouted, pointing at nothing. "A huge one! It looked suspicious!"
"A suspicious bat?" Kakoi asked, skepticism dripping from his voice.
"Very suspicious!" Kotetsu insisted, jumping up and down to block Kakoi's line of sight. "It was looking at state secrets! Over there! Look over there!"
Kushina buried her face in Minato's shoulder to stifle her laughter. Her shoulders shook.
"They're idiots," she whispered, her heart feeling lighter than it had in days. "But they're good kids."
Minato chuckled, the vibration warm against her cheek. "I should go. Before they run out of imaginary bats."
He pulled back, looking at her one last time. The moonlight caught the softness in his eyes—the look that said he saw Kushina, not the vessel.
"Goodnight," he whispered.
He kissed her cheek—soft, quick, and lingering.
Then, there was that displacement again. The air folded.
Zip.
He was gone.
Kushina sat alone on the roof. The cold night air rushed back in to fill the space where he had been. The barrier shimmered above her, a cage made of chakra.
But as she touched her cheek, she realized the cold inside her gut hadn't returned yet. The warmth was still there, a small, stubborn ember burning in the dark.