Eternal Yujin
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TCoH—Chapter 3.29 [52]
🕑 Added 2024-12-30 20:56:45 +0000 UTC- - -
Chapter 3.29 [52]
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The sharp tang of smoke hung heavy in the air, stubbornly clinging to Karin’s senses. Death pressed against her skin. Chakra signatures flickered, some fading gradually and others disappearing in the blink of an eye.
She coughed into the crook of her elbow as she led the group of villagers through the battered streets. The village was unrecognisable—broken walls, shattered rooftops, and smouldering debris replaced the serene picture she’d briefly seen.
However, the constant, gnawing tension in her stomach had nothing to do with the civilians trailing behind her.
“Stick close,” she called over her shoulder, her voice sharper than intended. She caught the startled looks exchanged between a young woman clutching her baby and an older man limping with a crude cane and softened her tone. “We’re not far from the shelter now. Just… keep moving.”
The child’s shrill cry cut through the air the minute she turned around. Karin glanced back again, her hands twitching at her sides. She wasn’t exactly good with toddlers, but her senses told her the mother’s rising panic could ripple through the rest of the group.
That was the last thing they needed.
“He’s just scared,” she muttered, more to herself than anyone else, and turned her attention forward. The shelter wasn’t far. She could feel it—a thick cluster of chakras gathered underground, tucked away from the chaos above.
A burst of chakra flared nearby, unmistakable and overwhelming. Her heart jolted. She spun around just as a shadow vaulted over the wreckage ahead.
Naruto—or at least a clone of him. His blond hair stood out against the greys and blacks of the ruined village. A young boy was perched on his back, clinging tightly to his shoulders. Behind him trailed a man and woman holding hands, their steps hurried but steadied by Naruto’s presence.
“Karin?” The clone’s gaze snapped to her as soon as he landed, his eyes narrowing slightly before softening with recognition. Relief crossed his face. “Good, you’ve got a group. Get these three to the shelter, too. I’ll handle things here.”
Her lips twitched, part of her wanting to fire back something sarcastic. “What, you think I’d let them wander off on their own?”
He grinned at that, the boy on his back tightening his grip as Naruto straightened. “Nah, I trust you. Just… keep them safe, yeah?”
Karin only nodded, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. He didn’t wait for a response before sprinting off, his clone’s chakra rippling as he shepherded the family toward another section of the village.
The older man in her group broke the silence. “That was him, wasn’t it? Uzumaki—the boy.”
Karin’s eyebrow twitched. “What about him?”
The man hesitated, his grip tightening on his cane. “He’s… not what I expected.”
“He’s not what anyone expected,” another villager chimed in, a younger woman with soot smudged across her face. Her voice was tinged with faint wonder. “All those times people complained about him, and now look. He’s everywhere, saving everyone.”
Karin didn’t reply. She led the group forward, the villagers’ chatter rising and falling in waves behind her. They spoke of Naruto as if he had suddenly changed overnight. The words scraped at something raw inside her. She’d known him for barely a month, but the memory of their first meeting felt closer now than ever.
Back then, she hadn’t thought much of him beyond his irritating desire to befriend her. Karin noticed the looks she got when she finally agreed to tour the village with him, but it didn’t seem to bother him. When she asked, he plainly said that he didn’t want to talk about it, though he gave her enough to have a rough idea of his childhood.
Her foot caught on a loose stone, jolting her back to the present. A child’s voice drifted up from the group behind her. “Is that guy going to beat all the bad guys?”
“Hush,” a woman whispered.
But the boy persisted. “He will, won’t he?”
The woman shushed him more firmly this time, and the group fell quiet again. Karin’s lips pressed into a thin line as she adjusted her glasses. There was a strange humour in this situation despite it all. It took death for the villagers to acknowledge Naruto as more than a monster… and even then, not completely.
A hero from a story? That wasn’t the Naruto she’d seen. He was the boy who’d laughed at her irritation when she pointed out how stupid his job at a ramen stand was as a shinobi. And he was the one who, despite everything, made her feel like she mattered.
The shelter came into view at last, a sturdy bunker tucked into the remains of a hillside. Two shinobi stood guard at the entrance, their expressions grim as they ushered the group inside. Karin lingered near the doorway, her senses tingling with the press of so many lives gathered together.
The villagers rushed into the bunker, their chatter filling the confined space.
“Hey, did you—” one from Karin’s group began to ask.
Another interrupted, “The Uzumaki kid? Yeah, there were tons of him running about and saving people.”
“You too?” the little boy from earlier yelled out before his mouth shushed him.
Dozens more stories were passed around the bunker of clones pulling people from the rubble, guiding them to safety, or holding back attackers. A man with a bloodied arm recounted how Naruto had shielded him from a falling beam. Another woman claimed she’d seen him drag three injured shinobi to medics single-handedly.
Karin folded her arms, leaning against the cold wall.
A child’s excited yell pierced the air. “I knew Big Bro Naruto would do it!”
Karin’s gaze snapped to the source of the voice. A boy no older than seven was bouncing on his heels, his face flushed with excitement. Before he could say more, three older children dragged him down, their expressions a mix of exasperation and caution.
“Konohamaru,” one of the older children hissed, “quiet down! You’re going to get us in trouble.”
“But Haruto!” the child tried to say before a red-haired girl helped to pull him down.
An old woman near her followed her gaze and smiled faintly. “That’s the Third Hokage’s grandson, Konohamaru, and his so-called little band of followers. It does put me to shame, though… that he befriended him despite us.”
Karin blinked, the words settling heavily in her chest. The Third Hokage’s grandson? She glanced back at Konohamaru, now subdued but still radiating an almost infectious energy. Adoration wasn’t a word she’d associated with Naruto until now. The villagers’ conversations overlapped into a steady hum as she left the bunker.
Outside it, Karin undid the Transformation Jutsu, running a hand through her hair. Part of her was vindicated that the Leaf wasn’t the utopia that it had seemed to be. She hated the Hidden Grass for the way she was treated but was strangely grateful that the people of the Leaf were capable of similar behaviour.
That they could learn from it at all rekindled her dwindling faith in people as a whole—not that it meant that she’d be returning to the Grass; no, Karin was perfectly fine staying in the Leaf.
After all, it had been far better to her than the Grass ever had. Perhaps it made her a hypocrite, but she would always put her well-being first and foremost.
———————————
The rooftops were uneven, tiles shifting underfoot with every leap. I landed crouched, steadying myself against the edge of a crumbling parapet. The battle raged below, smoke rising in columns, shouts and clanging steel forming a grim orchestra. This was no time to play hero on every corner, which was why I'd created tons of shadow clones—not when the bigger threat lay ahead.
Kabuto's face clung to my thoughts like a burr. He was the biggest threat here, more so than Orochimaru. If left unchecked, there was no telling what he'd be capable of—at a minimum, he was partly responsible for the Fourth Shinobi War.
Still, right now, I knew what I was up against. Kabuto was leagues above me, smarter and more experienced, with those creepy medical tricks up his sleeve. Despite his seemingly thin, short stature, he was eight years my senior.
Eight years of puberty gave him the advantage of the fully developed body of an adult and at least triple the amount of experience I had. But he wasn’t untouchable. Not like Orochimaru or Zabuza were.
Kabuto was dangerous, sure, but he wasn’t invincible.
That’s what I told myself—repeatedly, really. If I kept moving forward, maybe I’d believe it.
I spotted movement below—a family cowering behind a shattered cart. Parents clutching their kids, their faces pale with the kind of fear and resentment that comes with certain death.
A sole Sound ninja stalked closer. The father stepped forward, a shaky kunai in hand, but anyone could see he wouldn’t last a second.
“Damn it,” I muttered, already dropping down.
My feet hit the ground hard enough to rattle my knees, but I didn’t stop. She barely turned before my fist smashed into her jaw. She managed a stumbled swing, but I leaned off-centre, making her fall. I snatched the kunai out of the father's hand, buried it into her jugular, and twisted for good measure.
The family hesitated when I looked up.
“The nearest shelter is about fifteen minutes that way. Look for one of my clones and stay out of sight,” I said, waving them toward the nearest alley. The mother nodded, half dragging her kids as the father stumbled after them.
As I started to climb back to the rooftops, a familiar voice froze me mid-step. “You’re making a habit of this.”
I turned, and there she was: Haku stood at the edge of the alley. Her chestnut-brown hair caught the light from a distant fire, framing her face in an eerie halo.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, more annoyed than surprised.
“Following you,” she said simply.
“Why?”
Her gaze didn’t waver. “I have nowhere else to go.”
That hit harder than I wanted to admit. I scratched the back of my head, searching for a reason to argue. “You know there’s a pretty big chance we’re both gonna die if you come with me, right?”
Her lips twitched into the faintest smile. “Then so be it.”
“Why?” My voice rose, frustration creeping in. “You don’t owe me anything. You don’t have to do this.”
She stepped closer, her gaze steady. “I’ve already told you. My purpose… my strength, it’s all meaningless now.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. A part of me wanted to send her away again, to run somewhere far away from this mess. But the other, weaker part prevailed… the part terrified of what lay ahead… was glad she stayed. She was strong, and I could use that, even if it made me selfish.
“Fine,” I said, turning away. “But don’t expect me to save you if things go south.”
“Understood,” she said, the calm in her voice making me feel guilty for a long moment.
The rooftops stretched out before us again, and we moved in silence, side by side. The sight of corpses—civilian and shinobi alike—was why I had to do this, why Kabuto couldn’t keep living. He wasn’t much now, but he would only grow in strength and unpredictability if left unchecked from here.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew I was rushing in, half-cocked and overconfident, but I had to try. Because if I didn’t, who else would?
We reached the edge of the village, where the rooftops gave way to the forest. The trees loomed, branches tangled and heavy with smoke. Beyond them, Kabuto was waiting. I clenched my fists, forcing myself to breathe.
Haku’s presence at my side was a quiet comfort, but it didn’t erase the knot of dread in my gut.
“You ready?” I asked, glancing at her.
She nodded, her expression as calm as ever.
“Alright, then.” I turned toward the trees, my jaw set. “He’s a pretty dangerous guy up close. Try to ambush him or at least harass him from a distance.”
The forest was eerily silent as we approached the clearing. Haku moved just ahead of me. I followed, my senses stretched to their limit, every rustle of leaves or snap of a twig setting my nerves on edge. He was close—my brain itched with familiarity.
Haku paused, glancing back at me with a questioning look. I nodded, gesturing for her to keep going. My heart pounded as we drew closer. I clenched my fists, trying to steady myself. This was it. Kabuto was just ahead, and we were out of time for second-guessing.
We stepped into the clearing. His posture was relaxed, almost lazy, but the glint in his eyes betrayed his readiness. He turned toward us, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
Kabuto’s voice carried easily in the quiet. “I was wondering when you’d show up, considering your clone burst into here a while back.”
Haku shifted beside me, her senbon glinting between her fingers. Her eyes stayed locked on Kabuto, but I could feel her waiting for me to act. I moved first, summoning a mix of shadow clones and regular clones. Their chakra burned, bright and tangible, filling the space with an almost oppressive energy.
Kabuto’s smirk didn’t falter. “Four of you? No, wait—two are just regular clones. How charmingly redundant.”
Before he finished speaking, Haku dashed forward, silver streaks slicing through the air. Kabuto ducked in low to avoid the projectiles and sidestepped her thrust with infuriating ease, his hand darting out to seize her wrist. She twisted fluidly, breaking free before his grip could tighten.
I took my chance and closed in with the clones. My fist crackled with raw chakra, and Kabuto’s smirk faded for a fraction of a second as he flipped backwards. The Rasengan I’d been building tore into the ground he’d stood on and while the shockwave sent debris flying, when the dust cleared, Kabuto was gone.
I barely managed to glance up in time. Kabuto dropped down, twisting mid-air. His foot struck one of my clones, dispersing it in a puff of smoke. The second lunged, swinging wildly, but Kabuto slipped past its attack and dispatched it with a single strike to the chest.
“You’re sloppy,” Kabuto remarked, landing with the grace of a cat. He tapped his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “And did I mention predictable?”
His hands lit with that sickly green glow, the chakra scalpels humming with latent energy. I swung a fist, chakra-enhanced, aiming for his head, but he ducked, his body moving like water. I threw myself back in time as the edge of cutting chakra around his hands barely sliced through my flak jacket.
He leapt back to avoid a flurry of senbon from Haku, but she was throwing volley after volley, each finding its mark. Kabuto deflected most of her attacks with precise flicks of his glowing hands, but even he couldn’t block them all.
A thin line of blood welled up on his cheek, and his smirk twisted into a grimace.
“I’ll give you points for enthusiasm,” he muttered, raising his hand to his wound. The skin knitted together before my eyes, the blood vanishing as if it had never been there. “Unfortunately, the toxins you’ve laced your senbon with won’t work on me, but don’t let that put you down.”
“The senbon themselves can still kill you,” she said as her hands formed a rapid sequence of seals.
A dozen ice mirrors sprang up around Kabuto, encasing him in a crystalline cage. She stepped into one of the mirrors, her reflection multiplying until it was impossible to tell which was real.
Senbon rained down, a shimmering storm. Kabuto twisted and turned, dodging some and deflecting others with the edge of his chakra scalpels, but the onslaught left him no room to counter.
“You’re good,” he called out, his voice strained but still taunting.
Before the words had fully registered, the ground beneath me rumbled. My stomach twisted. The earth behind me exploded. Kabuto surged up from the ground, his hand glowing with lethal energy.
I turned, but it was half a second too late as his palm struck my chest. Fire and ice tore through me all at once. My legs gave out, and I hit the ground, gasping, clutching at my chest as the pain rippled outwards.
“Naruto!” Haku’s voice cut through the ringing in my ears, sharp and panicked.
I tried to push myself up, my arms trembling under the effort, but my body refused to cooperate. A coppery tang filled by mouth. Kabuto loomed over me, wiping blood off his hand with a detached, almost clinical expression.
“You should’ve stayed in one of the shelters while letting your clones do all the work,” he said, his voice cool and measured. He tutted. “This was just ill-thought-out. I expected more from you, Naruto.”
Haku darted through her ice mirrors, her senbon raised, her movements precise and deliberate. She stopped between Kabuto and me with her shoulders squared.
“Touch him again,” she said, her voice like ice, “I dare you.”
Kabuto’s smirk returned, thin and sharp.
I wanted to yell at her to run, but the words caught in my throat. Instead, I spat out a glob of blood while Haku’s ice mirrors fell in shattered fragments, catching the light as they spiralled to the forest floor. Frost gathered at her fingertips, the air around her turning cold enough to sting.
Kabuto chuckled softly, brushing the frost from his shoulders. “You’re devoted, I’ll give you that. But devotion won’t change the outcome of our fight.”
Haku moved before he finished the sentence. One moment, she was standing still, the next, she was a blur of motion, her senbon slicing through the air. Kabuto ducked, his scalpels flashing to meet her projectiles; the clash of their attacks filled the clearing with its sharp metallic symphony.
I forced myself to my knees, clutching at my chest where Kabuto’s had struck. My body felt alien, like it wasn’t mine anymore, unresponsive and sluggish. I clenched my fists, mixing some chakra to centre myself and pulled my gaze up. Kabuto twisted as he evaded another flurry of strikes from Haku. She pressed him, but Kabuto matched her step for step; his movements were infuriatingly smooth, as if he was figuring her out with every dodge and counter.
A cold rush swept through the clearing as jagged ice needles erupted from the ground, glinting wickedly in the dappled sunlight. Kabuto leapt back, avoiding the first wave of spikes, but Haku wasn’t done. She slammed her palm against the ground, and more shards shot upward, forcing him to weave between them.
His chakra scalpels sliced through the closer ones, but he couldn’t keep up as one eventually pierced his thigh. He staggered, and I took the opening. Forcing myself to my feet, I summoned another clone. My chest throbbed with every movement, but I ignored it, focusing on the swirl of chakra gathering in my palm. Kabuto’s head snapped toward me as the Rasengan hummed to life.
His eyes widened, and for the first time, his smug face cracked.
I dashed forward, my clone flanking me. Kabuto moved to intercept, his hands lighting with that ominous green glow again, but Haku was faster. She was suddenly beside him, her senbon plunging toward his ribs.
He twisted, catching her wrist mid-strike, but his grip faltered as my clone tackled him from behind. Kabuto grunted, releasing her as he drove an elbow into the clone’s chest, dispersing it in a puff of smoke.
I was already there.
The Rasengan roared, its spinning mass of chakra vibrating in my hand as I drove it forward. Kabuto barely managed to react, his hands darting past mine to strike my chest. Thrown back by the Rasengan’s explosion, Kabuto crashed into a tree with a sickening thud. Bark splintered, and the tree groaned under the impact, but it held.
The attack was weaker than I’d meant, but it still did heaps of internal damage… or so I hoped. Kabuto slid to the ground, his glasses askew, his breaths coming in ragged gasps.
White-hot pain exploded through my body. My knees buckled, and I collapsed, gasping as my vision blurred. The pain in my chest was far worse than before. I watched him rise, the internal being healed as he walked towards me.
Haku forced herself between us, but I couldn’t see what came next. My vision dimmed as Kabuto’s strike had finally taken its toll.
The world spun and then went dark.
I woke to darkness. Not the gentle kind that cradles you to sleep, but the suffocating, inky void that presses down on your chest and makes you wonder if you’re still alive.
I wasn’t surprised. I’d been here before.
No sense of up or down, no sound but my own breathing, too loud and too fast. I stood—or maybe I floated—it was impossible to tell. The void stretched on forever, indifferent to my confusion.
“Guess this is it,” I said aloud, the words swallowed by the emptiness. “Dead at thirteen. That’s got to be some kind of record.”
I laughed. It sounded hollow, even to me.
Then something answered. A low rumble, almost imperceptible at first, like distant thunder. My stomach flipped, the laugh dying in my throat.
“Who’s there?” I called, spinning in place, fists raised.
Two red eyes snapped open.
I stumbled back, nearly tripping over nothing, my heart pounding in my ears. The eyes burned like two molten pools in the darkness, slit pupils narrowing as they locked onto me. I wasn’t sure whether my eyes adjusted to the darkness, but suddenly, I could see more than just a pair of giant red eyes.
Massive iron bars stretched high above me. Behind them, something massive stirred, and I realised all at once what it was and where I was.
The Nine-Tails grinned, teeth like white daggers gleaming in the growing light. “Finally figured out how to die this time, huh?”
The voice was deep and mocking, each word dripping with amusement.
I stared, my mouth dry. “You…”
It shifted, enormous head lowering until its muzzle was level with me, the bars of the seal separating us. Several tails twitched lazily behind it like the monster had all the time in the world.
“Don’t look so shocked,” the Nine-Tails said, the corners of its mouth pulling into a smirk. “It’s not like you haven’t been here before.”
I clenched my fists. “You think this is funny?”
“Funny? Oh, it’s hilarious.” The Nine-Tails sat back, a deep, rumble echoing from his throat. “You stumbling in here, whining about dying all because you thought you could face the world without me. After all these years of hatred, you’re finally here to beg for my power.”
“I’d never beg you for anything!” I snapped, the words ripping out of me. “You’ve ruined my life! You’re the reason—”
“Reason?” The smirk dropped. Its eyes narrowed into slits, and the air tightened. “Go on. Finish it.”
“You killed my parents!” My voice cracked as I hurled the accusation, anger swelling in my chest. “You’re a monster! You’d have killed them, controlled or not, and you think I’d ever—”
The growl that followed wasn’t loud, but it thrummed through the space, the sheer weight of it freezing me in place. A tail lashed out, slamming into the seal, and the whole world shook.
Dread pooled in my stomach. How… how was the Nine-Tails still trapped? How had my father ever defeated—let alone sealed such a beast? But he hadn’t defeated it, had he—only offered up his death to achieve that feat/
“And what would you do,” it said, its voice dropping into a dangerous, icy tone, “if you’d been locked in a cage, robbed of freedom and identity, passed from one hand to another like some… some object? What would you become if every piece of you was twisted into chains, generation after generation?”
I opened my mouth but found nothing I could say to refute his words.
It leaned forward, the oppressive heat of its breath brushing against my face. “You call me a monster, but you humans turned me into this. Your parents were no heroes. They were just another pair of fools with delusions of control.”
My fists trembled at my sides. “You’re just making excuses. All you’ve ever done is destroy. Monsters like the masked bastard and you—”
“Monsters?” It laughed. “Don’t preach to me about destruction. Your kind mastered it long before I could even learn its name. Look at your villages, your wars, your leaders.” Its tails swayed behind it, hypnotising. “Humans destroy because it’s all you know and all you are. You lot are just lucky to have an outward appearance that’s not as ugly as what’s inside of you.”
I glared, my jaw tight. “And what? You think all that’s done to you justifies what you’ve done to others?”
“No,” it said, quiet now, a strange weight to its voice. “It explains it. There’s a difference.” Then its smirk returned, colder than before. “But we can argue forever. It doesn’t change the fact that you’ll come crawling back. You’ll need me to kill that masked bastard, and when that day comes, you’ll see you’re not so different—not from your parents, nor myself.”
“Like hell we’re the same!” I said through gritted teeth. “I’ll figure out how to get strong enough to deal with that nutjob on my own.”
The Nine-Tails chuckled. “You’re so sure. Funny, you’ve had thirteen years on top of however long you had the first time around to do that, yet you still ended up kicking the bucket.”
Ice raced down my spine. “...What the hell are you talking about?”
Its eyes gleamed with a light I couldn’t place—satisfaction? Amusement? “Oh, you don’t know that I know, do you?” It leaned back, settling against the darkness. “I know you’ve lived before, brat. Different faces, same outcome—once again, you’ve reached the end of your rope.”
The weight of its words crushed me. I searched for something, anything, to say. “...What makes you so sure you’re right?”
“You know I’m right,” it said, the grin widening. “But I’ll spare you the anguish, I suppose. You’re here now, and that’s all that matters. Whatever you think about me, without my power, you’ll die.”
I was still way off kilter at the reveal that the Nine-Tails knew my deepest secret—not that it could do anything with that knowledge, and it didn’t seem to know any details about my past life—but it had forcibly yanked all the wind out of my sails.
Looking past the thick bars into the fox’s eyes, I shifted gears. “What do you get out of this, Nine-Tails? Don’t think I haven’t been noticing your donations. You healed my mangled arm in the forest and stopped me from killing myself with shadow clones earlier. Why?”
“If you die, I die,” it replied. “And while I don’t care for you, waiting an undefined amount of time to reform isn’t something I’m not keen on doing.”
I grinned, stepping closer to the cage. “No, I know what you’re planning. You give me your chakra, weaken the seal, influence me, and slowly stoke my worst impulses to set you free, right?”
The Nine-Tails merely hummed. “Perhaps. Or maybe I’d like to sit back here and watch you waste yet another life. Have you considered that?”
“That worth being resealed for several generations more?”
“Every time you’ve used my chakra, it's because you were too weak to survive without my help. Remember: you die, I die.” The Nine-Tails leaned forward. “As far as prisons go, yours is not the worst, but do not presume you can use that knowledge to push me around. What will knowing my plan do for you? You’ve shown you’re too weak to survive without me. And the more you rely on my chakra, the more powerful you get.”
“And the more influence I give you over me,” I replied, matching its snort with a scoff. Scowling, I stepped closer to the iron bars, the oppressive chakra radiating from the beast hot against my skin. “This’ll be a one-time thing, believe that.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” it snorted again. “Maybe you’ll believe it one day.” The malice and hatred once again slammed into me as I was faced with a maw-full of teeth. “Struggle, struggle, little worm! Struggle as hard as you can; the Sage knows it’s boring in here.”
I woke with a gasp, every nerve alight with rage. The hateful chakra burned through me, and for a moment, I wasn’t sure which part I hated more—the Nine-Tails’ power coursing through my veins like battery acid or the truth I couldn’t unhear.
I’d always known that human beings weren’t totally innocent when it came to the Tailed Beasts, but I hadn’t cared. The Nine-Tails… Kurama was well aware of what he was doing when he speared my parents… but my parents were very much the same.
Just as they saw the Nine-Tails as a monster, he also saw them as monsters. If there was one thing the Tailed Beasts and I agreed on, it was that the worst monster was Obito for creating that situation in the first place.
Having the other side shove their grievance in your face was jarring. That said, the Nine-Tails had admitted he was angling to take over my body, giving me a far more immediate and pressing reason to loathe its presence.
Though at this moment, more than Obito or the Nine-Tails, all of the agony—physical or otherwise—was pointed straight at the person who’d, by all metrics, killed me.
The world around me was a storm of fire and fury. My breath hitched, ragged and raw, as if I'd been clawing my way out of my own grave. Rage flooded every nerve, molten and blistering, but it wasn't just the anger burning through me—it was that damned chakra.
Each pulse of the hateful chakra ignited a new wave of fury that ripped through me. And I hated it. Hated him. Hated myself for agreeing to use it, even for a second. The chakra lashed out around me, wild and alive, carving jagged lines into the ground beneath my feet.
Three tails of raw, violent energy whipped in the air behind me, each movement tearing at my already shredded focus. I could feel my nails digging into my palms—no, claws. My claws.
I bit down on a snarl, forcing the sound back into my throat. This was no time to fall apart.
I turned sharply, my gaze locking onto Haku, and I growled the words before I even realised I was speaking. "Get away! Now!"
She froze and hesitated—just for a second, but that was enough. The rage pounced on her indecision like a predator. My body moved before my thoughts caught up, my feet tearing into the earth as I launched myself at her. It took all of my willpower to force my foot to slam down, stopping me dead in my tracks.
Haku’s half-raised her guard, naked fear in her eyes.
“As you can see,” I gritted out, having almost chewed my tongue thanks to my longer teeth. “I-I’m not in the best of states right now. Head back to the village… now, please.”
She gave a curt nod and vanished, which was when I stopped holding back the bloodlust intrinsic to the Nine-Tails’ chakra. I launched forward, the air shattering under the weight of my chakra-fueled charge. A blur of silver intercepted me—Kabuto.
His arm lashed out, meeting my claws in a clash of flesh against steel-like chakra. His glasses glinted, his smirk infuriatingly calm, but his stance shifted as he absorbed the impact, his feet grinding into the dirt.
“You’re even more reckless than I thought,” he sneered, shoving me back with a sharp twist of his wrist.
The chakra scalpels bit into my flak jacket and the flesh beneath, but I ignored it save for registering the pain—I’d heal, and probably already was healed.
Instead, I snarled and came at him again. My claws slashed in a wide arc aimed at his midsection. He sidestepped, but not before I twisted mid-strike and lunged towards his ribs. He caught my wrist, fingers vice-like as he pulled me in.
A knee shot up, aiming for his stomach, but he anticipated it, twisting his hips to deflect the blow. His palm struck out for my shoulder, but I took the strike with a grimace and let the momentum carry me into a low sweep.
He jumped, and I followed, pushing off the ground with a burst of chakra. We collided mid-air, his scalpel-like chakra blades sparking against the dense red aura surrounding me. My claws raked his forearm, and he grunted, his first sign of exertion.
I spun mid-air, driving a heel toward his chest. He barely managed to block, my strike forcing him back as he skidded across the ground. The moment his feet touched down, I was on him again.
My fist drove toward his face, and this time, I didn’t hold back. He raised his forearm to block, but the sheer force of my punch snapped his guard aside. My other hand followed claws aiming for his throat that he ducked, pivoting sharply to deliver a counterstrike to my ribs.
Pain flared as his chakra blade grazed my side, but I didn’t care. I slammed my head forward, a brutal, unrefined headbutt that smashed into his forehead. His glasses cracked, and his head snapped back with a muttered curse.
I grabbed his arm before he could retreat and twisted, throwing him over my shoulder. The earth cracked beneath his weight. A satisfying crunch accompanied his groan. I raised a clawed hand, intending to bring it down, but he rolled away.
The wounds I’d dealt were slow to heal for some reason.
The Nine-Tails’ chakra was corrosive at best and scalding at worst; Tailed Beast's chakra was the kind of substance Kabuto had no way to quickly deal with and I was no better off. Sure, I’d closed the gap, but I’d lose control if I didn’t end this soon and had no clue whether Kabuto would run out of chakra before then.
My body was healing despite Kabuto’s injuries and the chakra ravaging me from the inside out, but my healing wouldn’t keep up soon.
The chakra gathered in my palm spun wildly, sharper and more alive than ever before. It wasn’t just a sphere anymore—it was a storm compressed into my hand. Threads of wind spiralled outward, slicing through the air with a piercing whistle. The very space around it seemed to warp, the pressure making my skin prickle and my ears ring.
His eyes flicked to the roiling mass in my hand, then back to me. For the first time, there was a fear in his gaze. “You—”
I didn’t wait for him to finish. The ground cracked beneath my feet. He spun, desperate, swinging a kunai in a wide arc. The blade never even touched me. The wind crown around my hand lashed out, cutting through the blade before it could reach me.
“Stop—!”
The moment my hand met his stomach, the storm in my palm erupted. A deafening howl filled the air as the spinning wind tore into him, its edges grinding, cutting, and shredding. His scream was drowned out only by the shriek of the technique itself.
The force slammed through his body, folding him around the impact. His flesh tore apart against the relentless wind. Blood sprayed, the droplets catching in the spinning current and carrying him away with the maelstrom.
The wind tore at him even in death, leaving the earth around him scarred and blood-soaked. When the storm finally dissipated, the air was heavy with silence. My hand burned, tingling from the residual energy, but nowhere near as much as expected, and the cuts were already visibly healing.
My eyes stayed locked on him—or what was left of Kabuto, since the mound of flesh, bone, and dirty could hardly be called a corpse. The hatred receded as the Nine-Tails’s influence waned, leaving me feeling all tender and weak.
It was a miracle I was even standing; presently, I was too weak to fight a genin, so I tensed when I heard the sound of footsteps in the wind. With a body that felt like a gigantic bruise, anything could turn into a fight to the death.
Haku burst out of the thicket first, her eyes falling to the bloody crater next to me—her mouth opened without a word. I frowned before a red meteor smashed next to me faster than I could react.
A powerful gust of wind dispersed the cloud of dust, revealing long red hair, a face I’d recognise anywhere… but it was the eyes that stole my breath. Dark where they should have been white and swimming with unending regret. In the face of that, I could feel the hate recede, and the constant heat slowly thaw as a single response made its way to my lips.
“...Huh?” Kushina Uzumaki—my dead mother—stepped forward, completely ignoring the surrounding mess and wrapped her arms around me.
And I couldn’t do much except stand there—bewildered. My reply mostly consisted of spluttering and a solid minute where my mind spiralled into variations of who, what, and how.
She laughed softly. “The Reanimation Jutsu.”
“Was it Orochimaru?” I asked, suddenly more present than ever. I hadn’t taken his offer, but who knew what he’d pulled. “He offered to resurrect you and Dad.”
“In a way,” she replied, gesturing back to Haku. “Do you mind introducing me?”
I shrugged. “Uh.. Haku, this is my mother. Mum, this is Haku.”
“A pleasure to meet you.” Haku bowed, always the polite one. “I’ve learned a lot from your husband. You’re lucky to have him.”
“My… husband?” She turned back to me, bemused.
I scrambled past her. “...Haku, I’ve been meaning to tell you something, but there’s no real way to explain it, so…” Making a seal, I transformed into my usual shopping disguise. My mother noted the change with a slow look over my body while Haku’s eyes widened.
A raging flush surged up her neck and face. “You… deceived me?”
I undid the transformation, unwilling to feel sorry for her embarrassment. “In my defence, you were lying about literally everything, too. Pretending to be a village girl so that you could purchase high-grade weapons for your rogue master?”
Haku huffed.
“I didn’t expect this today, that’s for sure,” my mother said, laughing.
“And to be fair, the disguise was never meant for you,” I said, casting a furtive glance back to my mother. “You saw it, right? I’m a Jinchuriki. Life is easier for me when I’m not one.”
All the humour left my mother’s voice then. “Explain.”
I spent the next handful of minutes assuring her that no one had laid a hand on me and then explaining my entire childhood—every lonely day, every moment I spent trying to live up to a legacy I barely understood—while aware of Haku’s pitying gaze against my nape.
By the time I was done, she was marching back to the village, perfectly unaware of everything Haku and I were doing to placate her.
“Wait!” I called, jogging to catch up.
She didn’t turn around, but her voice cracked as she spoke. “I can’t believe it! Wasn’t it enough that you were alone, without anyone? That damned indecisive old—”
“I wasn’t alone. I had people—Teuchi and Ayame at Ichiraku Ramen, Asuma Sarutobi… and even Lord Third in the en—”
“Not us,” she interrupted, finally halting. She looked at me, and her face crumpled. “You didn’t have us. Me and your father, and that’s… that was why the village got away with treating you that way.”
I opened my mouth, but no words came. I didn’t know what to say to that because she was right. If there was anyone who had the power to make things stop—anyone who wasn’t counting my life as a bead on an abacus of other lives—it was my parents. And the only one in front of me right now was her—my mother.
She pulled me into another hug, tighter this time, her hands gripping my shoulders like she was scared I’d slip away. “I’m sorry,” she whispered into my hair. “For all of it. For not being there when you needed us. I’m sorry, Naruto.”
The words stung in a way I hadn’t expected, but I managed a shaky laugh. “...It’s not okay, but my childhood wasn’t your fault. Whatever the reason, you’re here now, right?”
“Yep.” She leaned back, her hands still on my shoulders, her eyes searching mine. “For as long as this jutsu lasts, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll make it right—I’ll line up every damn person in this village if I have to apologise to you if I have to!”
Her strides were long and determined. And somewhere in between my heart dropping to my stomach, she’d taken off with a long, purposeful stride, and I found myself smiling in disbelief.
“W-Wait,” I picked up my pace until I was on heels. “you don’t need to do that. I’m okay now, right?”
“Don’t worry, Naruto,” she said. “They’ll regret every damn word!”
I chased after her, throwing every reason I could at her back, but my mother continued, red hair swaying left and right with each step. In the end, I put my foot down, literally stopping until she noticed I wasn’t following.
“What?” she asked, the anger on her face thawing.
I took a breath. “...Listen, Mum,” the word felt strange in my mouth, “I don’t need them anymore. What’s the point in getting people who don’t matter to me to apologise? I already have people I care about. Asuma, Teuchi, Ayame, Lord Third, my friends… it’s just, I’m alright with the way things are?”
“But you don’t deserve their scorn,” she said, sighing.
“I don’t,” I replied. “But they don’t deserve my forgiveness either. I don’t hate them, I don’t love them. Isn’t that enough?”
My mother wrung her hands, her eyes flicking up and down as she stared at me. “...At least I know who you take after. That was the Minato response.
I snorted. “And if I took after you?”
“You just saw it, didn’t you?” She grinned, bright and lively. “If we’re not going to give the village a piece of your mind, there’s still a battle going on, isn’t there? Let’s go, kiddos!”
“...Your mother’s certainly a force of nature,” Haku murmured, her voice soft as she fell into step beside me.
I nodded, and I stared at my mother’s back, my grimace twisted into a wry smile. “That she is.”
- - -
Comments
Rhett Sellers
Red Hot Habanero incoming!
Tushar Khanna
I'm sorry, but why not let kushina rip the people a new one? Fear can certainly be very useful in this case. Since anyone not going to respect him anyway?
