Reunions

It hadn't taken as much convincing as she'd thought it would've to get Kenshin on board with her plan. In fact he'd agreed heartily once she told him that most of the pirates had been threatened and forced into Funato's employ. They'd been doing what it took to survive, as any one else would under similar circumstances.

Let it be known that Uzumoto Kenshin was an empathetic man, because he took it upon himself to explain the situation to his villagers and fought vehemently to earn a shred of their begrudging support. Despite all their justified reservations and distrust.

So at the moment, Fū stood right behind Kenshin at the negotiating table, a faint smile pulling on her lips while she listened to them go back and forth. The former-pirates-now-enterprising-businessmen didn't have much to negotiate with, other than their ships; and once the half that wanted to return to their families did so they'd be operating with a skeleton crew. Those remaining knew this was an opportunity that not many would grant them.

Especially not so soon after attempting to raid their village.

"Sounds as if we would be taking most of the risk, though, because we buy the products from you and then we have to find vendors to sell it to make our profit–" one of the sailors, a busty middle aged woman with a smoker's voice rasped.

Fū interrupted – just because she could see Kenshin floundering for something to respond with.

This wasn't how shipping was done, after all. In this world the sailors would move product to locations that already held deals with the seller/producer. That's not what was being proposed here, because Kenshin couldn't leave the village to make trade deals.

Another reason why Uzuchiisai was a small, poor village.

Good news for Kenshin, Fū knew of several other ways to get business done.

"That means that when the products grow in demand you get to set the price and Uzuchiisai gets twenty percent of profits made each time you return for more." For now, Fū thought. "The sugar cane alone can bring in a fortune, and if you're able to move it quickly enough the mangoes and bananas will as well. As those are perishables, I would suggest making deals with vendors at the ports of Lightning, as they're not a subtropical climate and likely don't have access to those products on their lands. Waters too, if there's a demand."

"For most of your products sure – but sugar cane doesn't bring in much profit–" another sailor argued. They were accepting of the terms for the produce that the Uzumoto grew on the mainland. It was the island products, the products that Fū entered into the negotiations herself much to Kenshin's surprise, that they were weary about moving.

Fū almost laughed.

Sugar in her old world was a several billion dollar industry at the time of her death. And bananas were a major contributor to the world economy. Fū recalled learning about that in high school because of how essential it was. Not to mention that mangos had to have been worth billions annually as well – she wasn't sure about those numbers.

The Uzumoto had just been sleeping on these products. Per Kyo, most of it went to waste every season.

There was no reason not to capitalize.

"If it doesn't yet, it will," Fū told them. "I'll sell you some recipes you can use to hook vendors. Once they get a taste – they're never going to look back."

Once people get addicted to vast amounts of sugar heavy products they would never be the same. It was probably evil of her to introduce such an addictive substance into the market – but if it brings revenue to the Uzu then she'd do it without regrets.

They were going to need that money going forward.

The Uzumoto didn't know it yet, Fū had only just decided for herself and she still needed to work out the logistics of it, but the Uzumaki were going to return to Uzushio.

Even if it took a few years to make it happen.

#

"You've lost your mind if you think I'm going to leave you with Bakashi and his band of loyal Leaf fools to go to Kiri and have teams sent here to pick up the Funato prisoners right now," Obito's voice was nearly a hiss when Fū met him in their room.

She was in between helping the Uzumoto negotiate a trade deal and going to see Kakashi alone, much to Obito's chagrin. He watched as she stuffed her pack with a couple things she'd left thrown about the room. Risa-san's generous basket of food for the Leaf team sat waiting by the door.

"First of all, don't drag Itachi like that," Obito scoffed at that and rolled his eye, mask currently discarded on his bedroll. Sasori wasn't among them at the moment, currently keeping watch over the prisoners in the brig of one of the ships and utterly terrifying them by working on his puppets.

Rather, diligently converting former humans into puppets.

"Seriously," Fū insisted, pausing in packing her bag and turning the full force of her glare on him. He stopped, noting the tension in her body language and the anger in her face, realizing she meant it. "Don't. Itachi is now, and will always be, a hard limit for me. Like Naruto."

Her insistence reminded him that he'd needed to talk to her about the characters in the story, which ones were good, bad, and neutral.

"Favorite character?" He asked quietly, apology in his tone instead of actually apologizing.

Fū stared at him for a minute, the hard look fading from her eyes. "Not necessarily my favorite… but I empathized with him. He was misunderstood and forced into a lifestyle he didn't want, but couldn't verbalize that for fear of disappointing the people who had expectations of him. He had a difficult life because of this, and it leads somewhere very tragic. Add in that he's been a good friend to me in this life and I just want to help him before he's led astray by people he's been taught to place his unquestioning trust in."

Obito thought idly that Fū might try to kill him if she knew he'd gone after Itachi a few months ago.

Wisely he kept that to himself.

"The rest of them?" Obito asked as Fū threw her now packed bag over her shoulder.

He wanted to know if he should be concerned about any of them. Genma he recalled from his own genin days and had liked him well enough, but he'd never really worked with him. The Uchiha were so young he'd never have had the chance to run across them. Not that he'd have wanted to - the clan hadn't appreciated him and thought he was a failure. He'd wanted to distance himself even when he did live among them.

"Kakashi and Genma are good men, I love them both. Kakashi as a brother, Genma as an old family friend. Kakashi has a lot of flaws, but he's probably one of the most trustworthy and loyal people in this world, despite how you might feel about him," she told him, glancing over his profile briefly before busying her hands fiddling with the straps of her bag and letting her hair shield her face. "You ought to reconcile at some point, but I won't try to force you. He misses you, and it tortures him that you died–"

"Don't–" Obito stopped her, looking away and taking a few stabilizing breaths when a curious panic swelled within him and he struggled to stamp it down. "Itachi and Naruto can be your hard limits. Kakashi is mine."

He was lucky enough that Fū had forgiven him for his involvement in the nine-tails attack. His actions had cost her her parents, her comfortable life in Konoha, her peace of mind– a lot. He'd cost her and Naruto a lot. By all reason she should hate him for what he'd done. But she didn't.

Kakashi –

Kakashi would never forgive him.

How could he reveal himself to his old rival, his friend? How could he face Kakashi after everything he'd done?

He couldn't.

It was cowardly, but he couldn't.

Fū softened and stepped up to wrap her arms around his middle. Obito raised his hand to the top of her head, accepting the comfort for his own sake as he forced himself to calm down and remain in the present. It didn't do to dwell on what was past. He couldn't' change it.

"Shisui is a genuinely good person as well," she continued to answer his question without bringing up Kakashi again. "I would trust all four of them with Naruto's life, let alone my own. There's nothing to worry about. They're not going to hurt me, and they're not going to take me away against my will – Shisui said they weren't going to and I don't think he'd lie about that. I'll talk to them and find out what they want, I'll even give them some answers. Trust me to know what I can and can't say."

There was a tense moment of silence and then Obito deflated, realizing he'd been defeated.

"Fine, I'll go to Kiri. But I'm leaving a shadow clone. I can be back in seconds if something happens."

"Nothing's going to happen," Fū assured him as she stepped back.

Obito huffed a laugh as he replaced his mask, created a clone, and activated his kamui.

"Famous last words, Fū."

#

Kakashi was already settled on a large rock when Fū jumped up, waving a basket with that giant smile in place.

He'd managed to pull rank after getting his team set up in the, surprisingly well maintained, gate house on Uzushio so he could get away. Genma in particular had his reservations about whether Fū was acting genuine or not, but Kakashi would like to think he knew her enough to know when she was being disingenuous.

Itachi had been on Kakashi's side in this, he'd risen in her defense, telling Genma that 'Tai is still Tai – she's not manipulating the Captain' with righteous indignation in his dark eyes that had Genma backing down with his hands raised to placate the young Uchiha.

Not that Kakashi could blame Genma. Fū had been in captivity for two years, developed a relationship with her captors, and seemed to have grown into a capable person with hidden abilities. Kakashi had no doubts that she'd be a genin already had she remained in Konoha.

Well, he would've had no doubts, had he not watched her lose her footing twice on her way into the cove and plunge into the water.

Her chakra control was still abysmal at best.

"Are they not teaching you anything?" Kakashi deadpanned as he held out his hand for the onigiri she was passing him, eying her dripping hair and drenched clothing.

"Don't make fun of me, jerk! The only time I manage to do anything right is when there's no choice but to," Fū gave a frustrated sigh and frowned at her own onigiri. "I didn't fall once on my way to get to the pirate ship but just walking into this cove I dropped twice. I don't understand it."

As usual, Fū didn't even try to look at his face when he started eating his meal. He kept it hidden under a small genjutsu when he was eating usually, but he didn't at this moment and she didn't even glance at him, eyes fixed on the horizon. She was the only person outside of Gai in his small sphere of relationships that hadn't once tried to uncover his face.

"Sasori told me I'd never be a good kunoichi and I don't think I want to be a ninja anyway," she confided quietly, taking a small bite off her rice ball, "but I'll keep learning, because this world is violent and I need to be able to protect myself and those I care about. Fūinjutsu can get me far, but the fundamentals are important, too."

Kakashi didn't like the sadness he heard in her voice, nor did he like hearing that Sasori was unkind, but he didn't have a frame of reference for how Fū had been doing in training so he couldn't speak to that.

However.

"You took down a bijuu, stopped a pirate onslaught, negotiated a trade deal, and freed some fifty people from their oppressors without spilling a single drop of blood even though you probably wanted to during those negotiations." Kakashi told her, eyeing her when she went ridged, then laughed at his joke. He softened his voice and continued; "If that's not a 'good' kunoichi then I don't know what Suna's expectations are – that's pretty good by Leaf standards. You're only seven."

He'd been a chunin before seven, but he was a special case. He tried not to hold everyone up to his standard.

"Thanks Kashi-nii," his heart nearly stuttered hearing his old nickname. Usually he hated when someone shortened his name, but Fū did it because she couldn't fully pronounce his name when she was small, so he'd let it slide for years. He didn't realize how happy he'd be to hear that awful shortened name come from that grating high-pitched child voice.

He was about to ask why she didn't want to be a kunoichi but stopped himself when Fū perked up. She shoved the rest of her onigiri into her mouth, made a little squeaking noise, setting the basket aside and reaching into her pack. She rifled around in there for a few seconds and produced a scroll while she was trying to choke herself by rapidly chewing such a big bite.

She didn't try to talk around the mouthful of food, thankfully, but she did form a couple of hand signs and pull something from her scroll. A large, but thin, square book with an orange cover and a red Uzumaki swirl in the center. She was working on swallowing her food, now one finger raised as if asking him to wait a minute. As if he was going anywhere, he was exactly where he wanted to be. When she swallowed, she turned the book so he could see it better.

'Taifu and Naruto, years 1&2' … a photo album.

Fū shoved it into his free hand.

"It's mostly Naruto, but there are some of both of us in here. I managed to use the big kicked puppy eyes you taught me how to use and got Tobi to bring me a camera." She was nervous about how it would be received, he knew this because she kept chattering. "I've been putting this together for you; it's yours. I have duplicates just in case but – just, like, I know you're probably going to have to submit it as evidence or whatever but please make sure you get it back. It's not meant for Konoha, it's meant for you…"

Kakashi fought to control the way his stomach dropped and his throat went sore as he gently opened the cover without a word — he didn't think he could manage words.

Especially when he laid eyes on Naruto and saw that shock of yellow hair.

He didn't realize he was crying until Fū wrapped an arm around his waist and laid her head against his shoulder. Automatically, like it was a practiced movement, he raised the arm she'd rested her head on and wrapped it around her to drag her close. He wasn't usually so demonstrative (the earlier hug had been pure necessity, for confirmation) but they were alone and he was having a difficult time processing his emotions.

The guilt sat heavy in his chest. Heavier still when Fū nestled into his hold and rested her head against his torso, right under his arm.

"He looks just like…" Kakashi managed to choke out, but he couldn't finish it. Couldn't say Minato's name. Not to Fū. Not after his failure to save her parents, or his failure to save her the night of their deaths and her abduction.

For two years he'd failed her. How could she stand to be near him?

How could she forgive him? So easily.

'There's nothing to forgive, it wasn't your fault.'

How could he believe that?

He wasn't there when it mattered most.

"Yeah he's all tousan aesthetically, but his wild personality is pure kaasan," Fū boasted softly, obvious pride in her voice.

"So he's the opposite of you," Kakashi managed a shaky chuckle as she turned the page since his formerly free hand was now curled around her bicep, a sweet photo of Fū feeding Naruto a bottle in some kind of nursery. It looked well stocked and maintained and that eased a little bit of Kakashi's worry that the kids were mistreated. Not just because they're abductees but because Amegakure is quite destitute. "You look like your mother but you have your father's personality."

"I don't think I'm quite as goofy as he was," Fū laughed, turning the page for him again. This one was Naruto playing with a little stuffed frog, a giant toothless smile on his face that looked almost identical to Fū's at that age.

"You can be, you were with that pink haired boy earlier." Kakashi teased, the soreness in his throat starting to ease the more he talked. The more he spoke the more his dark, guilt ridden thoughts receded and he felt like he could breathe again. "But mostly you remind me of him when he abandoned all pretenses and got serious. You didn't experience that side of him much."

"Hm, the jonin-sensei/Kage version of tousan?" She asked, glancing up at him. His mask was back in place now, but he smiled down at her and nodded. "He wasn't like that with me."

Kakashi thought Minato definitely would've been at times, had he lived long enough to raise Fū and Naruto into adulthood. Like he was supposed to.

Like a father should.

But that wasn't how the world worked and too often it was the best of people who died too young.

He stamped down the way his stomach dropped, fighting the flash of memory. Fallen rocks and a dark haired boy, only half his body visible.

The page was turned again, and this time Kakashi almost went rigid on instinct alone. This one was of Naruto, presumably one of the first times he'd managed a few steps on his own based on the blur around his legs in the picture, and Fū must've been behind the camera because the boy was walking towards a person with his arms outstretched and waiting.

A person he recognized, and his mind started stitching two and two together like it should've the second he appeared on that tree branch earlier that day.

'That mask–' it was different then the one he now wore, and his hair had been shorn recently, but there was no denying that the man in this photo was Tobi, and judging by the mask and the overall look of him in the picture, Tobi was the masked man that had absconded with the kids two years ago.

He knew he'd been missing something.

Tobi was much different now than he had been then. He was hiding behind the façade of an idiot, and it had worked.

Kakashi had his scent now.

"So has Tobi been the one taking care of you two?" Kakashi asked, knowing it would disrupt the gentle peace that had settled over them but finding that he needed to know – and it was his mission to find out, regardless of how he wanted to simply bask in this reunion.

He still had a job to do. Orders to follow.

That didn't stop him from feeling guilty when Fū frowned and drew away from him. He felt her absence when the late afternoon breeze cooled the spot on his body that had been benefiting from her warmth.

He'd either touched a sore subject or she realized he was switching to business. When she spoke, he knew it was the latter.

"Alright," she smacked her hands on the tops of her thighs, "if we're going to do this it might as well be done with the whole group of you. Plus I need to get this basket of food to everyone, so let's go to the gate house. I'll answer some questions, but I don't want to repeat myself to four different people, y'know?"

#

There was something about Uzushio that felt familiar to Itachi the moment he'd stepped foot on the beach. The surge of feeling had overwhelmed him and he'd crouched to the ground to palm the golden sand, an attempt to ground himself lest he feel consumed by whatever this was. This, this inexplicable rightness.

Like walking into his home after a long mission and being hugged furiously by a babbling Sasuke.

This was that same feeling.

Shisui had been worried about him, Itachi could tell by the squint of his eyes. But he hadn't asked and they'd been escorted to the gate house by Uzumoto Kyo, who'd brought them on his small rowboat. They could have ran over the water and gotten there sooner, but he'd had to make a return trip for 'bananas he'd left behind because he was so mad at that scrawny red haired brat.'

Itachi had ignored the insult to Tai, only because it seemed she might deserve a shred of the pink haired boy's ire for taking his choice away. If the insults continued into the next day, however, Itachi would rise to Tai's defense and put an end to Kyo's derisive commentary.

They'd dropped their things off inside of the gate house. Kakashi had informed them he was going to speak with Tai. When he left, after a brief team argument in which Genma insinuated Tai may try to manipulate Kakashi (which gave rise to Itachi's irritation) Shisui had left to help Kyo bring the bushel of bananas down to his boat. Itachi went along with them, retrieving a second bushel for the village and snagging a few for his team at Kyo's insistence.

Uzumoto Kyo was a kind person, underneath the scorn he displayed. Most of which had nothing to do with them and everything to do with deep rooted feelings of inadequacy. Without understanding more of Kyo's story, Itachi wasn't sure why. He thought it may have to do with being unable to drive the pirates out and protect his village on his own.

After Kyo left on his boat, he, Shisui, and Genma were relaxing in the house and waiting for the captain to return with information or direction on how he wished to proceed.

It seemed there was no need, because when he returned he'd brought Tai with him, and she was yelling all the way from the beach to the house.

Itachi's lips twitched into a smile before he could stop himself.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU LET ME FALL THREE TIMES."

"Mah, Fū-chan, how will you learn if someone bails you out every time?" Kakashi teased, and Itachi could hear the humor in his voice as they approached. "It's just a little salt water."

"JUST A LITTLE SAL– YOU ! UGH. KASHI-NII YOU LET ME DROP AND YOU SAVED THE FOOD, OF ALL THINGS–"

"I had to prioritize, the food was a gift… it would've been rude to let it get soggy."

Shisui started laughing quietly in the corner of the living room where he'd been meditating on the floor. Genma smacked his head on the kitchen cupboards, where he'd been scouring them for a glass so he could 'drink water like a civilized person,' with a long sigh.

"I'M A GIFT, TOO, YOU ASS!"

Genma snorted at that.

"Now you're overestimating yourself. Be humble Fū. Nobody likes an arrogant braggart." Kakashi said, sliding the door to the house open and letting a red-faced Fū storm inside, clothes damp, and Kakashi was unfazed by the way her wet hair swam wildly through the air as she went. As if trying to provoke her, Kakashi continued with a swift; "and watch your language."

Itachi watched as Tai took a deep breath in the doorway of the room they were staying in. It almost looked as if she were gearing up to do violence.

Itachi decided he'd save Kakashi. He raised his hand and gestured for her to come to him, planting a serene smile on his face.

"I'll just be over here with someone who appreciates me," she said, coming to him immediately smiling at him in greeting, just as she always had when he asked for her. He summoned his travel cloak from a scroll he had attached to his hip and laid it on the couch, patting it to show he wanted her to sit there. Her hair deflated as she sat down beside him, dropping her soaked backpack to the floor and folding her arms over her chest indignantly, smile warping into a scowl when she looked away from him.

"Mah, Itachi's just trying to prevent bloodshed," Kakashi told her as he sat the basket he carried down on the table in the room, then dropping himself into the comfortable looking chair in the opposite corner from where Shisui was sitting.

Neither one of them were wrong.

But Tai being Tai had to respond to Kakashi's goading.

"I would never raise a hand to any of you in violence," she threw one finger up, still frowning but no longer scowling and continued, then it broke and she smiled in good humor, "but I would definitely yell at you. At length."

That she proclaimed she would never raise a hand to any of them was actually a heavy assertion in a world such as theirs. Itachi wasn't sure she understood the implication of such a thing, but it did not escape the others in the room, just as it hadn't escaped him.

What would she do, should one of them turn on her, if she would not raise a hand in violence to them? They could easily use that to their advantage.

Not that Itachi thought any of them would. It was just concerning to him that she presented the idea as a non-option.

"We'll keep that in mind, Taifū-san," Shisui smiled at her from the floor, relaxing out of his meditative stance. He met Itachi's gaze for only a moment, but it was enough for Itachi to know that Shisui was thinking the same thing.

Tai returned the smile, waving a hand flippantly. He wasn't sure that she realized what she'd just told them.

"Just Taifū or Fū is fine, Shisui. No need to be formal." Tai leaned back and folded both of her legs under her, crossed, and leaned her elbows against her thighs, fingers threading together in the middle. "So Tobi tells me you're here because you need to talk to me? And here I thought everyone just missed me."

Though she often hid seriousness underneath humor to set others at ease, Tai had always been direct.

Thus far it truly seemed as though nothing had changed, despite the two year gap.

"Oh it's nothing major. The Hokage just wants an elaboration as to what, exactly, you're attempting to save the world from and how," Kakashi said, and Itachi just managed to control his face at the utter shock he felt that Kakashi, the legendary copy ninja, decorated and seasoned veteran of the third shinobi war, had blurted out their entire mission in one sentence.

Shisui's surprise was on his face, as well, when Itachi met his gaze once again. Genma merely groaned, stepping into the living room to shift through the basket of food that Kakashi had brought.

"Well if we're jumping straight into it, you might want to do privacy seals," Tai told them with a raised brow.

"I did," Genma assured her and Itachi watched as Tai looked at him with her brow raised.

"Well then, don't be offended." Tai paused, chewing the inside of her cheeks for a second before continuing a little sheepishly. "I'm going to fortify those."

"I bought them from the best seal vendor in Konoha–" Genma grumbled, looking up from the basket to level his narrow eyed glare at her.

"Yeah… again, no offense, but these seals. How do I put this?" Tai raised her right hand, little beads of chakra forming on her fingers and in the center of her palm, she was still looking at Genma as she leaned forward and slammed her hand to the ground. "It's comparable to using a dull, rusty, twenty year old kunai in a fight against an S-rank missing nin when you've got a Kage-level one-hit-and-done jutsu in your pocket you're ignoring."

Itachi and Shisui both activated their sharingan as five intricate lines spread from her hand, across the floor, up the walls, and met in the center of the ceiling about them and it was beautiful the way the chakra flowed. The way it merged and swirled together – Itachi was going to try to replicate this when he had time. He'd never seen fūinjutsu quite like this before.

"These are…" Kakashi began, but he drifted off instead of completing the thought.

They all knew Tai's privacy seals were exactly as she'd described; vastly superior to Genma's vendor bought ones.

"Yeah. So, to answer the question now that that's done." Tai, for her part, was unfazed as she leaned up and got comfortable in her seat again. She raised her hands until they were near her face, about a foot apart, and said; "Aliens."

Kakashi and Genma laughed, but Tai's face remained unchanged. They stopped laughing when they realized she wasn't joining in.

"You're serious?" Kakashi prompted, tone disbelieving.

Itachi sympathized.

Did something happen to Tai? Was she now mentally unstable? He fought the idea – hoping it wasn't true. He didn't know how to help her if that were the case.

"Dead serious, they're an existential threat." Tai said and Itachi's spine straightened at her wording as she placed her hands back in her lap as she looked at them all, explaining.

"There's a clan of world-ending parasites that have god-like abilities. One of them has been sealed on our planet for a thousand years. Without getting into the dirty details because I don't have time for that; there are people who have been manipulated into thinking that unsealing her would be a grand idea. Not that they know that's what they'd be doing - they're under the impression their actions will bring lasting peace. Good intentions, certainly, but they don't know that they'd be unsealing a monster hellbent on consuming the world's chakra and thus ending us all. I am working tirelessly to help these people realize they've been manipulated and get them to… not change their goal but redirect their methods."

Whatever Itachi thought Tai's 'existential threat' would be, this was not it.

He couldn't have imagined this if he'd thought about it for a hundred years. It simply wasn't logical.

But that the Akatsuki had, allegedly, been manipulated into thinking they'd bring peace through unsealing such a monster… Itachi could see the reason for Tai's insistence that it's dangerous to come after her, to interrupt her work. Not only was it dangerous, but she could lose what ground she gained every time Konoha stepped in. The Akatsuki could become suspicious of her.

He hoped them being here, now, did not have lasting repercussions for her.

"What kind of drugs do the Akatsuki have you on?" Genma asked around a mouthful of onigiri, passing food out to him and Shisui.

Tai just raised a brow at him, Itachi watched her face as he accepted his food. But Itachi suddenly felt too sick in his stomach to eat it.

Tai was completely serious.

Itachi felt his throat go dry.

"She's called Ōtsutsuki Kaguya," Tai glanced at Kakashi, also accepting an onigiri from Genma, "she's the mother of the Sage of Six Paths and his brother Hamura – this world only has chakra and ninjutsu because of them. You know the watered down version of the story. Jiraiya told it to us when I was young. It was the toad sages who told him."

Kakashi was shaking his head in disbelief. "You can't remember that, he told us that story when you were–"

"Fourteen months and twelve days old," Tai said, taking a bite of her rice ball, eyes distant. "Rin was busy at the hospital training in medical ninjutsu but you and Obito had come by. After cajoling kaasan into giving me up, as he always did, I was in Obito's lap while he talked to me about 'cool things that can be done with shuriken,' his words not mine, and you were making derisive comments about his skill level. Jiraiya came in to settle the two of you before it came to blows and I definitely didn't tug your scarf like that to choke you – I just wanted you to shut up and be nice to Obito."

They all stared at her, but Kakashi's stare was wide eyed and shocked. Itachi thought his face might just match Kakashi's. Without a mirror he couldn't tell.

Tai just shrugged, appearing unfettered but Itachi could see the stress lines that were wrinkling at the edge of her eyes as she swallowed her bite.

She was worried, scared, even. She was hiding it well, but she couldn't hide from him. Itachi watched her, but she watched Kakashi.

"I was born with an adult brain. Sorry I didn't tell you, but I'm pretty sure you and my parents suspected anyway – I just didn't want to be forced through the ranks and made into a child soldier. I don't like violence, and I was already at a disadvantage being the Hokage's firstborn and the Uzumaki heir… for me conflict was unavoidable, but I wanted to hang on to childhood for a little while."

Itachi had a sudden, sinking realization that he never truly knew his best friend at all.

'Tai, have you been alone with this burden all this time?' The thought made Itachi's heart squeeze. He'd been a bad friend not to notice. 'I'm so sorry.'

#

Fū knew she'd shocked the shit out of all of them as she glanced out the west-facing living room window to watch the rapidly setting sun. It had been a long day, and she had a feeling her night would be even longer.

But she wasn't a liar, and she needed these people to trust her in the long run. If that meant making them all think she was insane right now to earn their trust in the future then so be it.

Obito would be furious with her for telling them these things, but she wasn't here to please him. She was here to protect Naruto.

And by saving Itachi, or leading Itachi to save himself, she hoped to protect Sasuke too.

In order to do this, Fū had to play 3-D chess with tactical geniuses who noticed the finite details of the most benign encounters. The only advantage she had was foreknowledge and that was quickly becoming irrelevant due to her interference.

Thus, she needed allies. Strong ones. In a world like this, true allies were hard to come by. Being Minato's child gave her a leg up in Konoha, only because the Hokage was more inclined to send a team to talk to her rather than an assassin to take her out. That was without mentioning her relationships with Kakashi and Itachi.

She hoped this information wouldn't destroy her relationship with Itachi. Or make Genma and Shisui weary of her. She was taking a huge risk, here. But she couldn't do this all alone. In order to earn trust she'd have to be transparent.

"So yeah, getting abducted actually put me in a good position to work towards preventing the coming calamity, and it's working so far—"

"How do you know all of this?" Genma interrupted, settling himself on the kitchen counter, appearing relaxed. "When did you discover the information about Kaguya, the Akatsuki being manipulated, all of that? Because even if we buy the adult-brain insinuation you're talking as if you already knew about this stuff before you were abducted."

Oh, Genma. Sliding in with the difficult questions right off the bat.

Too bad she wasn't ever going to tell him, or anyone who didn't expressly need to know, about the reincarnation thing.

"I can't tell you that. It has to do with the adult brain-thing," she gestured vaguely to her head, watching him as he eyed her skeptically. Now she pointed to her head to drive her point home. "Look, I'm not going to give you all the answers. Some things need to stay up here."

"You don't trust us," Genma accused but his tone wasn't hostile, and she gave him a blank look.

Wasn't he supposed to be a jonin? No shit she couldn't trust them. Not fully.

"Honestly? It's not really you guys. You're beholden to Konoha, and I can't trust Konoha." Fū admitted and everyone frowned at that. She huffed, just managing not to roll her eyes at their indoctrinated reaction to someone questioning their iron fist overloads. "Konoha will act in its own self-interests, as it should because there are people and a way of life that it needs to protect. I'm acting for the interest of all - I can't be beholden to a single village."

She was going to ignore the blatant hypocrisy in her words. Because she fully intended on rebuilding Uzushio – but as she had yet to do so, it wasn't precisely a lie. She wasn't beholden to a village. Yet.

(Even when she was, she thought she'd do the best she could to consider what she could do for all. Not just her own. That's how she'd been in the other world, she saw no reason not to do the same in this one.)

"You're never coming back, are you?" Itachi asked quietly. She only just noticed he hadn't taken a single bite from his onigiri. He just held it between his hands with a blank look.

Her heart dropped at the disappointment in his voice.

"I can't come back," she told him, the apology in her voice, "I'm sorry."

"So let's say we believe all this conjecture about an alien-chakra-eating-world-ending monster sealed on our planet," Kakashi finally spoke up, arms crossed over his chest where he stood still inside of the doorway. Fū tried not to frown at his use of 'conjecture.' "Who has manipulated the Akatsuki into believing unsealing her is a good idea?"

Fū frowned deeply and let her legs drop to the floor because they'd started going numb. She hadn't mentioned that the Akatsuki was the organization in question but it had been heavily implied and she hadn't corrected Genma.

"That's complicated. I'm not getting into that – it involves some people thought to be dead but weren't and a shadowy human-esque manifestation of Kaguya's will that's really creepy. They manipulated Nagato. You know about Nagato now?" When Kakashi nodded, she continued. "He has issues justifying the inequality of suffering and wishes to narrow that gap, or relieve it. Especially in the small border nations. I've been influencing him to understand that his proposed method will only create further suffering. Thus far he seems to be hearing me. He has yet to learn of the Ōtsutsuki and how he's been manipulated but he's going to learn of it soon enough."

"With a vocabulary and thought process like that, how did anyone think you weren't a genius?" Shisui asked from his corner before anyone else could speak.

Fū glanced at him with a sheepish smile and rubbed at her forehead. "I may have down played myself a lot because, as I said before, I had no desire to be pushed through the ranks. Nor did I want to draw to much attention to myself. But don't get it twisted, I'm no genius. Just advanced." She gestured to the boy next to her. "Itachi's a real genius."

Having been praised so abruptly, Itachi's face went red and he looked down. Fū reached over to pat his back, smiling at him.

He was so adorable at this age. Deadly and adorable.

"I see," Kakashi nodded, and Fū could tell his smile was fake before the next words came from his mouth with bite, "you've lost your damn mind."

Fū's brows rose, deciding that she wasn't going to give in to the bait this time. Despite play fighting with him earlier and the fun she'd had she did need him to realize that she meant it when she said she was born with an adult brain. Any childish behavior she displayed was either tactical or playful – she was mentally almost forty. While he still was leaps and bounds over her when it came to battlefield prowess and tactics, there were things he could shut up and learn from her, too.

Fū thought Kakashi should learn to take her more seriously.

At the same time, she was certain his attitude was less about him being angry with her and more about being scared for her.

He continued when she didn't speak. "Are you really so arrogant to think that, if you're not jerking us around here, you can manage to change the Akatsuki, go unnoticed by those who manipulated them in the first place, and avert a 'calamity,' all on your own?"

Fū was silent for a few moments after Kakashi's tirade. Watching his one eyed glare as it bore into her. She took a deep breath, deciding she couldn't allow him to keep trying to tare her down. She had important work to do even if he didn't understand it.

"Are you finished?" Her voice was low, and dark when she asked this. He didn't respond so she continued in the same tone. "For a lauded genius yourself you're missing the point here."

"Then what's the point?" He snapped, eye narrowed dangerously. "Because from where I'm standing it seems like you think you have everything figured out–"

"I'm not finished speaking," Fū interrupted him, so gravely serious that everyone seemed to recoil and Kakashi shut up instantly. She thought, idly, that she might actually be channeling Minato right now. The version that Kakashi said she reminded him of. "You may underestimate me all you wish. Only time can change that. But I never claimed I thought I could do this alone. Nor do I have an inflated sense of self importance. I know that this isn't my story, I'm not the hero here – I'm a single cog in a greater wheel. My goal is to do everything I can to protect the heroes of this story."

At all costs.

"Oh my my my~" A dark, throaty, maniacal laugh reverberated over the walls of the room and Fū sat up straighter as a dark mass materialized in the center, right on top of the swirl of her seals. All of the shinobi were at once alert and attack ready as the mass began to take form and shape. "This is why I just love when your soul reincarnates. Tasty. Unique. And you make things oh so interesting."

Kakashi tried to punch through the mass as it took form, but his fist just went right though it as if going through Obito, but this wasn't Obito.

It warped and began to show the silhouette of a human, but it definitely wasn't human. All she could see from the dark mass was razor sharp teeth and two sinister looking red eyes. Itachi was on his feet, standing right in front of her with a kunai drawn before she could even blink – Shisui suddenly right beside him.

Curiously, she wasn't actually scared right now. There was nothing about this presence that frightened her.

In all honesty he actually felt… familiar. In the way the island felt familiar. Not a homecoming but… a rightness that was difficult to explain.

"Aw. Look at the baby bodyguards. How adorable~" The mass chuckled, his voice becoming light and teasing, the darkness seeping away. "Unfortunately you can't keep me from the little miss. Her soul is mine. Purchased centuries ago. Bound in chakra, blood, anima and all. I've been waiting for her to return to me for almost seven decades – we have business to discuss and I'm tired of waiting."

Fū stood slowly from the couch, placing a light hand on both Itachi and Shisui's shoulders, stepping through their blockade and meeting little resistance.

Surprisingly.

"Tai, no." Itachi told her as she stepped past him. She just squeezed his shoulder lightly and gave him a soft smile, meeting his focused, hard stare head on.

He was probably going to be mad at her for this.

"It's okay," she told him before turning her curious eyes onto the figure before her as his full face manifested at the same time his limbs took form.

He wasn't human, but he took the form of a tall, slender man with long black hair and sharp cheekbones. His eyes nearly glowed red, and his lips curled back to reveal teeth that looked sharp enough to bite through stone.

He was a pretty menacing looking guy, honestly.

"Not a fan of the way you're claiming purchase, here." Fū decided to say, coming to a standstill just in front of the two Uchiha. Like she could shield them from anything. She was too exhausted from using the chains just hours ago and all the water walking. She wasn't going to be able to manifest them again. Not today, anyway. "But seven decades?"

And to be honest, she wasn't sure if they'd do anything to this guy.

"I'm not claiming anything. I'm just letting everyone know." He said, a sharp and way too big for his face grin split his lower face. "You floated in purgatory for about three and a half, and then spent three in that other world, now you're back in this one, thank fuck," the guy said with a sarcastic eye roll, "I can't emphasize this enough but it's really, like, really, boring when you reincarnate in one of the other worlds. I don't get to play with you and I get so bored all alone. Now come on~," he clapped his hands together animatedly, a sadistic grin still in place, "into the city for a nice long chat with your ol' pal Akuma. I'll tell ya the story of how yours came to be my favorite little soul."

Before anyone could react, he extended an arm and scooped her into the air.

Kakashi lunged, tried to get her back, but was thrown aside by nothing.

Wait, that wasn't right. He wasn't thrown aside, he was repelled.

"I can't see through his attacks, but his chakra—" Shisui said through grit teeth, she glanced down at him after flailing helplessly, noticing his mangekyo sharingan active and Fū threw an arm out. A feeble attempt to stop them all from doing something stupid.

"Taifū—" Kakashi's voice was hoarse, raw, and he spoke like his words would make reality bend to his will, "he's not taking you. I just found you."

"Let me go—" She told him, ignoring the incredulous way they all stared at her. "I don't think he means any harm, and I want to know what he has to say."

"See? She gets it. You've had your time. Not my problem you wasted it asking all the wrong questions and being an asshole. It's my turn to have a chat now," the newcomer said with an evil grin, "but I'll issue a challenge. If any of you can get past the gate into the city and manage to track us down I'll give her back to you without a fight."

And then, for the second time in Fū's life, she got abducted.

Willingly, this time.

"Oh and I'm taking this one too." Akuma reached out and yanked a shocked Itachi right along with them, speaking one last line as they faded into darkness. "Later fuckheads ~ good luck getting into my city without my permission!"

In a language that was incredibly familiar, and yet not native to this world.

Her mental state was probably concerning, because the only thing she thought as the black mass swallowed her and Itachi was 'did this Japanese Ozzy Ozborne looking fuck just speak English!?'