Chapter 7

When Kushina moved to Konoha as a child, she'd expected her life to be much different than this. Sure, she was going to become the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, and she would have to train long and hard in order to be able to control even a little of the demon fox's chakra. But those things were a given. She was chosen practically the moment she was born.

She didn't foresee falling in love with the man who would one day become the Fourth Hokage, or giving birth to their child, or the seal continuing to weaken post-birth until the Kyuubi eventually escaped. After that, things had been completely dark for days, and when she woke, it was only to be told that her little girl was most likely kidnapped or killed in the confusion.

Some days she's able to walk the house freely, but she weakens easily and is forced to rest for such long periods of time. Other days, her body is so tired that she can hardly move from her bed to the bathroom and back. And Minato, poor Minato, her kind, loving, adoring husband, gave up everything he had to become her caretaker.

And she wants so badly to blame someone, but who? Who can she blame? She was the one who knew the dangers of bearing a child as a female jinchuuriki. She was the one who foolishly believed the worst was over when the fox didn't escape the night Narumi was born.

and what about Kakashi? Kakashi, who loved Narumi just as much as she and Minato did, still searches despite all the signs pointing to her daughter's passing. Four years. It's been four years, and still, the thought is like a fresh wound in her heart.

She turns away from the window when the whisper of a footstep permeates her thoughts, but it isn't Minato standing in the bedroom. Instead, there stands a very small ANBU wearing the Kitsune mask, head cocked to the side.

Why is she so small?

"Good morning, Kushina-san," the ANBU says, and her voice is disguised by the built-in systems the mask provides. Not all masks have them, because not all shinobi in ANBU need them, but the person in front of her is clearly a child.

"Good morning, Kitsune. What can I do for you?"

The girl forms a seal with her hands and they light up with purple chakra. "Permission to approach?" She's at her side the moment she nods, hands hovering over the empty seal on her stomach. She doesn't understand why she's bothering, but she allows it anyway. What can it hurt that a random ANBU is attempting to heal her? She asked first, and it isn't as if Minato is far away.

Suddenly, she's encased in warmth. It fills her up inside and then surrounds her, growing warmer and warmer before becoming almost white-hot, and then it's gone, and so is Kitsune. She falls asleep, somehow exhausted despite the fact that it can't have been more than five minutes.

Right?

Later, when Kushina wakes, she's still warm. She stretches her limbs, sitting up on the bed, and glances at the clock. There's a note beside it, folded neatly, but she decides to at least brush her teeth before she does anything else. It isn't until she's tying her hair up in a bun on top of her head and clipping her bangs back that it hits her: she's not tired.

This is more than just a normal good day. This is her joints and extremities not being stiff, her hands and feet lacking the same old chill that hasn't gone away since the Kyuubi's escape.

A memory claws up from the recesses of her mind, from Before, from the time Narumi sat vigil at Kakashi's bedside for a good eighteen hours. When she'd returned to the hospital at six o'clock in the morning, Kakashi had revealed that Narumi, her little three years old, had basically healed his serious injuries in two hours' time.

But that means-

If she could do that, then-

Minato pov

When Minato pushes the front door open, he isn't expecting Kushina to be waiting for him. When she hadn't gotten out of bed by eleven, he had known it would be a Bad Day, so finding her sorting through the papers on the desk near the front door is a surprise in and of itself, but it's the fact that she has some color to her skin that really shocks him. She's been ailing since the Nine-Tails' escape-at first, they hadn't even known if she would stabilize enough to survive.

He doesn't know whether to be alarmed or ecstatic and ends up settling on confusion. "Kushina?"

"Welcome home, Darling," she answers, sending him a smile over her shoulder. What?

"Kushina…?"

His wife straightens up from where she'd been bent over the desk, turning to face him. The smile is still there. In fact, she doesn't look like she'd ever been unwell at all. "It's a miracle, Minato."

I have to agree with you there.

"H-how? Wh-How?"

She reaches for him and closes the door when he's across the threshold. "An ANBU paid me a visit this morning. You were still home at the time, I think, but he wasn't here very long. After he left, I fell asleep, and when I woke, I was like… this."

An ANBU healer had sneaked into their home to heal his wife…? "What?"

Kushina brushes him off. "Minato, there are options, now."

Options?

"You could let Hokage-Sama finally retire, for one thing."

At the mention of him, Minato's mind wanders back to his meeting with the Hokage this morning. He just can't shake the feeling that the old man hadn't quite told him everything. But what would he be hiding? And what was in the message he'd received from their ANBU level allies?

"Are you going to be okay if I do that, Kushina?"

She smiles at him. "Minato, if you want to go back, all you have to do is say so. I, personally, want to train until I'm back to Jonin level. After all, we can't let Kakashi search for Narumi all alone, can we?"

His heart pounds. Narumi. She agrees ."You really…?"

"I'm not ready to give up," she says. And really, that's all there is to it. Minato doesn't know for sure what changed her mind. Whether it was the miracle ANBU visitor or simply a realization she'd been reaching for a while, he doesn't know, but that doesn't matter anymore.

They're going to see their daughter again, one way or another.

Narumi Pov

Narumi feels good. Kurama's practically purring in the back of her mind, and right now, Narumi's just pleased that Obi-ni collected her for a mission the second she returned and that she managed to heal her Kaa-chan from her illness.

"So, what were you saying about masks?" Obi-nii asks as they flit through the trees, heading God-knows-where. Narumi smiles.

"Catch," she says and tosses an ANBU mask to her companion. Obi-nii snatches the mask out of the air and pauses on the next branch, looking at Narumi when she stops too. "Where did you get this?"

"Jiji brought it to me!" She pulls the other out of her cloak. "I got one too. I guess my message made sense, but I'm still not sure how they knew where to find us. We'll have to be more careful about who trains in the forest from now on."

Obito shakes his head. "What?"

Jeez, isn't Obi-nii supposed to be smart? How old is he, anyway?

WELL, YOU DIDN'T EXACTLY EXPLAIN ANYTHING TO HIM. Says Kurama.

Narumi makes a face, slipping the mask on. Obito's jaw falls open.

"You're gonna catch flies, you know." She crosses her arms. "Anyway, Hokage-Sama gave us these masks and a scroll containing his blessing for our missions. That way, if anybody else from Konoha and its allies attempts to stop us, we only have to show them the Hokage's official crest."

MUCH BETTER, KID. IT SEEMS THE TIME TRAVELER MANAGED TO PENETRATE THAT BIG SKULL OF YOURS AFTER ALL.

Hey!

"You sent a message to the Hokage?"

Narumi wrinkles an eyebrow, though Obito can't see it, and then nods. "Yes, Kakashi Two taught me ANBU shorthand. I learned that before I learned regular hiragana and katakana and kanji. So, are we going on this mission, or what?"

Later, when they're closer to their destination, Obito explains that he'd discovered Rin had been kidnapped and that Kakashi was rescuing her, but that he was certain there was more to it than that. The trouble is, they're going into this without a plan because they don't have all the information needed to actually make one. It's a good thing Narumi does her best work under pressure.

Kakashi Pov

Kakashi's ears ring. The Chidori sets off little bursts of lighting along his skin, but he hardly notices-he simply sprints at his enemy, unable to stop, unable to turn, unable to change, and when Rin, his friend, his only teammate left steps in front of his attack at the last minute, it's all he can do to rip his hand back out of the hole in her chest and gently lower her to the ground. He knows, he knows that she's dying, but he's out of energy now, can't even try to heal her, and this is why his jutsu is best used in assassination, he thinks as his body slumps to the side. Unable to close his eyes just yet, he watches two cloaked figures burst into the small clearing. One of them drops to its knees at Rin's side while the other attacks the Kiri ninja surrounding him and Rin.

The Kitsune mask is the last thing his Sharingan records before he falls unconscious.

(First, it was Narumi, and then it was Obito, and now Rin. Am I truly cursed? And I used to think She would be my greatest loss…)

He wakes again several hours later, lay next to a small fire, and pushes himself up. Sensei is silent nearby, but he doesn't remember Sensei coming to his aid. Hadn't it been-oh. Beyond Minato, an ANBU sits with its back against a tree, another to its left. Kakashi shifts his gaze to the other side of the fire to see Kushina?

"Welcome back, Kakashi."

And then he remembers Rin, and all of the air leaves him. Rin's dead, I killed Rin. I killed Rin, even though I promised-

"Kakashi!" Minato-sensei's grip on his arm is hard and unyielding, grounding him to the present despite every thought in his head begging him to go back to sleep where nothing hurts and he can pretend his biggest problem was Obito's sacrifice.

"Rin," he chokes, but Kushina moves, and she looks healthy, what?

"Rin will be okay, Kakashi."

Okay? "No, I killed her. I promised-I promised Obito that I'd-and I-"

Minato's grip tightens on his arm, just this side of pain. "Kakashi, you need to breathe. Rin's still alive, we wouldn't lie to you."

"But-" He holds up his right hand, covered in dried, crusted blood, the blood of his comrade, his teammate, his friend.

Minato points to the space between Kakashi and Kushina, the space he'd avoided looking at when his periphery included brown hair and purple clan markings. Slowly, heart pounding, he turns his head and breathing, she's breathing, h-how?

"What?"

Sensei's grip loosens and falls away. He gestures to the two ANBU. "Kitsune and Dolphin arrived as you collapsed, and Kitsune was able to heal Rin despite the damage she'd taken when intercepting your Chidori. She was still healing her when Kushina and I arrived.

"This tiny ANBU healed Rin from that? How on Earth…?"

Not only that, but Kitsune also paid a visit to Kushina the other day," Minato-sensei continues, as if Kakashi isn't having an internal crisis. "As of Sunday, I will be returning to the Hokage's chair as the Fourth Hokage.

"It only makes sense. With Kushina back in good health, and no doubt training hard to return to the shinobi forces, Minato would certainly want to return to his station. And the Third Hokage isn't getting any younger. Kakashi had been shocked when lord third agreed to return to the chair when Minato stepped down.

But what are they doing here?

"Kitsune alerted the Hokage to your situation and Hokage-Sama was kind enough to send word to me that you needed help. Of course, you didn't need nearly as much help as we expected when he sent us."

Then who had sent Kitsune and Dolphin in the first place? He'd never seen them around the village, despite the fact that Kakashi has been working hard that one day he might be inducted into ANBU.

Not to mention the fact that he'd nearly killed Rin.

The Sanbi. Do they know? "They turned her into a Jinchuuriki," he says. "She told me, she wanted me to kill her and I wouldn't. That's why she intercepted the Chidori. She said that something was wrong, that it was a trap."

"Kitsune dealt with it," Dolphin answers before anybody else can. "The Sanbi was rigged to go berserk the second Rin entered Konoha, but Kitsune managed to alter her seal and remove the trigger. Rin can go home without fear of losing control, now, and I'm sure that Kushina-Sama won't mind helping her learn about the Bijuu. Or, if Rin would like, Kitsune can help her, too. She's very good with the Tailed Beasts."

Kakashi has always known he's a genius. His mind is sharper than a Nara's and he's very well trained as far as abilities go. So why is he so confused?

"You should get some more rest, Kakashi," Kushina-Sama says, and her smile is warm. It's almost like he hasn't spent the last four years avoiding her and Minato-sensei, even though he most certainly has.

The Kitsune ANBU sits up slowly, stretching her arms above her head. She must be exhausted after healing a wound like that.

"Kitsune?" he says softly, and she immediately faces him, the eye holes as dark as night and unnerving, to say the least.

"Hmm?"

"Thank you." He puts every ounce of gratitude he can in the words, mind wandering back to the alley outside of a supply run on one of his longer missions a year or so ago. Apparently, the cogs in his mind are still turning. "It was you in that alley with the thug, wasn't it?"

she nods. "There's no need to thank me, Kakashi," she says lightly.

No need? She was the one who saved his life, saved Rin's despite the impossibility of it, saved Kushina's. "I have every reason to thank you," he finally responds, and then he lowers himself back down, curling up on his side. His eye has been drooping since Minato had calmed his fears, and sleep finds him easily.

He dreams of a girl with blond hair and vibrant blue eyes.