Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Somehow, I end up eating lunch with Uzumaki Kushina more often than not. 

It’s not to say I avoided the girl before, but she usually avoids Yamanaka Ayako’s court of girls like she’s gonna catch something from them. And I always sit by Ayako. 

It’s probably some leftover awkwardness from having transferred into the academy last year. She doesn’t have the advantage of knowing all the kids since they were four or five. Even worse, some of the boys made an attempt at bullying her for her hair, and she put the beat down on them so solidly that it created a sort of…air of separation between her and the rest of the class. 

Nobody wants to piss off the Red Hot Habanero (Kushina, as dubbed by one of her conquered enemies), and the Red Hot Habanero doesn’t want to deal with people calling her mean names. 

Apparently she’s not so worried about it now. 

“So. What’s with you and Kushina-chan?” Ayako asks when she follows me to the bathroom during lunch, slipping away from her cohort without any of them following. 

She’s going to be very scary when she gets older. I’m glad she finds me funny. 

“We’re rivals now.” I tug open the door to the girls bathroom and hold it open for the Yamanaka. Ayako’s outfit is very cute today. Lots of white carnations and daffodils are patterning her kunoichi yukata top. She brushes past me with all the grace of a princess. 

Ayako wrinkles her nose at the word rivals, going to the mirror and messing with her blonde hair. It’s tied up in a braid, and a few flyaways came loose during taijutsu today. 

“Isn’t being rivals for boys?” Ayako comments disparagingly, as if all things boys are icky. Which is funny, considering how much she talks about marriage. Boys are just useful for having babies with, I see how it is.

“Rivalry is more complicated than being for just one type of person, Ayako-chan,” I say idly, going into a stall to handle business. Ayako turns on one of the water faucets, like the good friend she is. 

Business gets handled and my bladder is safe from rupturing. I flush, and come back out to start washing my hands. 

“You aren’t going to be better friends with her than me, right?” Ayako asks, turning from where she was looking in the mirror to look at me with a deeply serious look on her doll-like face. I’m reminded once again that I am surrounded by children, even if they are children who are very good at punching. 

“I will be friends with her in a different way from how I’m friends with you, Ayako,” I say honestly, finishing washing my hands. “Besides, you have other friends too. You had a sleepover with Hyuuga Naoko last week.” 

Ayako sighs, deeply. “Kaa-chan made me have a sleepover with her, she’s going to marry the Hyuuga clan head,” Ayako explains as if it’s obvious. “You’re different. The other girls are boring.”

How adorable. I think that’s the nicest thing she’s ever said to me. 

I laugh despite myself, silly giggles falling from my lips. 

“Don’t laugh at me! It’s true!” Ayako orders, reaching over and hitting my arm. “You act like a Nara if Naras were more fun.”

“I’m telling Shikaku-senpai you said that next time I see him,” I say with a final little snort, covering my mouth. “You like Nara Mayu, in the year below us. And you like Shikaku-senpai!”

“They sleep and don’t pretend like you do. It’s funny when you say things people are thinking,” Ayako huffs, and I try not to think too hard about how a nine year old has sussed me out. “Anyways, we shouldn’t leave your rival waiting.”

I start towards the door, and hold it open for her again. 

“Maybe you should find a rival too, and that’ll make you feel better.”

Ayako makes a disgusted noise that I’m sure her mother would disapprove of. It’s too childlike and honest. 

“I don’t need a rival to be better than other people.”

No, no she doesn’t. She’s just fine the way she is. I can’t wait to see how she proves that to everyone else when she grows up. 

If she grows up. I just have to hope I’m on her team, so I can make sure she makes it through fine. 

We amble back to the girls sitting around under a tree outside the academy, bentos abound and chatter loud. Kushina sits close to the edge of it beside Uchiha Mikoto, and perks up when she sees me. 

I should be flattered that Kushina likes me so much. I hope I don’t die early either, it might be traumatizing. 

“Did we miss anything?” Ayako asks, voice sugary sweet as she eyes her court of girls. Plays them all like a fiddle.

Forget marrying Chouza, Ayako should marry the daimyo. Her talents are wasted here. 

Ah. Well, she’ll be even better when she starts doing espionage missions. Though maybe the village won’t subject her to that, I have a feeling they get squeamish at letting clan girls do anything close to seduction. Our kunoichi classes started this year and they’ve mostly focused on flower language and infiltration, no mention of seduction. 

That may be because I’m in the same class as a bunch of clan girls, now that I think about it. I may need to watch out for being assigned any seduction missions. I’m not sure if I’m well suited for it, but I am fairly pretty, for a child. Good bone structure, soft brown hair, even if it’s short. Green eyes.

As far as I know, nobody knows who my father is. My mother may have been involved in that work. I don’t know. I only know her name. 

Sachiko. No last name. No clan. Dead in one of the first skirmishes of the war. 

I don’t spend much time thinking about her. I’m sure she was someone who loved me, at least she probably was. But I don’t know her, and I really only owe her for giving birth to me. I feel more of a connection with my parents in my last life than with her. 

I wonder how much I look like her.

Ugh. This is a train of thought that leads to brooding. Best not. 

I settle down beside Kushina, pulling open my bento and downing some of my rice. All the sparring I’ve been doing has made me very, very hungry, and it’s really biting into my stipend. I only get 10,000 ryo per month, which sounds like a lot but absolutely is not a lot. Especially with wartime inflation. More than half of it goes into my food budget alone. 

“You that hungry?” Kushina asks, bewildered. 

I swallow the bite I put in my mouth, peering over at her. “I’ve been growing a lot of muscle and practicing my chakra control lately. It makes me very hungry.”

That’s ignoring the normal cusp of puberty hunger. I forgot how it felt to have an endless pit for a stomach. 

“You practice your chakra control?” Mikoto asks, taking a delicate bite of her salman onigiri. So graceful. I would be more envious if I didn’t have some teriyaki chicken to eat. 

“Often,” I hum, before taking a few bites of my aforementioned chicken. I may need to get more groceries when I get out of the academy today. Last I remember I only have milk and eggs left in the fridge. 

Maybe I can last on scrambled eggs until the end of the month. Eggs are good. 

I hate the idea of going off to war, but at least they pay you. I would very much like extra income to spend on food. Or better training gear. 

This is the life I’ve chosen. I’ll just have to cope.

“Hey, do you like ramen, Seiko?” Kushina asks. We dropped the honorifics after I proclaimed she would be the strongest kunoichi in the land. I’m glad for it. I don’t care overly much about them, which probably says something about me and the culture I came from before this. I very much was not Japanese. 

“I haven’t had much ramen,” I say. Ichiraku’s hasn’t even opened yet as far as I can tell, so I haven’t seen much reason to bother with spending the money to eat out. I could always make it at home, but that would require me to buy a cookbook. I don’t have the money for buying cookbooks. 

“You need to come with us to the ramen stand down the street after the academy,” Kushina says, narrow eyed and offended that I’m not a ramen lover. I’ve had ramen in my past life, usually of the instant variety. But that doesn’t really count, does it? These taste buds have only had it a few times. 

Is it worth it to spend the money to eat out? I guess it would be a nice treat. 

“I guess I can. But we can’t spar right after, one of us may throw up.” 

I am not a vomiter. I don’t plan on becoming one in this lifetime. 

Kushina groans, like a chance not to have the shit kicked out of her is some great chore. I wonder about this girl. Her priorities are pretty solid considering all the training will only serve to make her more formidable, but really. Don’t most of our classmates spend all of their time playing ninja?

Class goes fairly well for the rest of the day. Academically I dominate, though I’m still having to make up for my more average scores at the beginning of the year. It’s unlikely I’ll make number one for this year, but next year? Nobody stands a chance. 

Well. Minato will probably make me fight for it, and Mikoto, but I have the advantage of a sort of adult brain, and they don’t. So I can probably win. 

Probably. 

At the end of class I end up dragged by hand out of the academy building by a chattering Kushina, Mikoto in her other hand. 

“—and Tsunande-oba keeps telling me that she doesn’t want to train, even though she swore she would do it this week. She spends all of her time with her boyfriend. ”

Isn’t that boyfriend supposed to die?

…not my circus, not my monkeys. 

“Do you like her boyfriend?” I ask before Kushina can continue her tangent. 

Kushina huffs. “He’s fine. Boring, all smiley and polite. At least it’s not one of her creepy teammates.”

At least it’s not one of the other Sannin indeed. 

“The Sannin are very honorable, Kushina,” Mikoto chides, peering around at our surroundings with a critical eye, but smiling. It’s a small smile. It reminds me of her son. 

The son that kills her. Eugh. That may be my circus and my monkeys now. We’ll see. 

“You haven’t seen how Jiraiya looks at Tsu-oba’s boobs,” Kushina replies, unimpressed. 

Ew. And they’re letting that man be in charge of a team?

Sage, I hope I’m not on Minato’s team. If there is any god out there, I’ll be spared. I don’t care if I’ll get political clout by having one of the Hokage’s students as a teacher. Those twenty somethings are all fucking messes, regardless of the work Senju Tsunande is doing for the village’s hospital and healthcare system. 

“I hope I don’t get any of them as a jonin teacher,” I decide to comment aloud as we turn the corner, coming up fast on the ramen stand thanks to Kushina’s default fast walking speed. 

The village is bustling with afternoon traffic, bodies packed and moving all to their own destinations. I peer up at the sky, and watch the dark clouds slowly roll in from the horizon. It’s going to rain. A lot of these people are probably just rushing to get their errands done before then.

My new sandals scuff against the dirt road as I walk.

“Tsunade-oba wouldn’t be so bad,” Kushina disagrees. “But the other two? I’d rather have—”

We come to a stop in front of the stand. To my horror, there’s three very familiar people sitting at it. 

Fuck. Wasn’t Jiraiya supposed to be in Ame right now? And don’t these three hate each other?

Oh this is shaping up to be an eventful day. 

“Is that my ungrateful cousin I hear?” Senju Tsunade huffs, turning from her ramen to peer down at the three of us. She’s got heavy bags under her brown eyes, and an exhaustion in her strong shoulders. Her brother’s death was last year, from what I can remember. She’s been busy putting out healthcare reforms left and right since then when she’s not on the frontlines, or so says the gossip mill. 

“You get what you deserve. You won’t train with me, dattebane!” Kushina bites back, releasing Mikoto and I’s hands to point at the Sannin. 

“It’s called having a job, you brat. You wouldn’t get it,” Tsunade says, glaring at Kushina with no heat. She looks young, but about the same as her anime depiction. It makes sense. A highly skilled healer could look like she’s twenty for as long as she wants. 

Tsunade’s gaze shifts to Mikoto, then me, considering. 

“Who are your little friends?”

“Uchiha Mikoto,” Mikoto introduces, bowing the exact appropriate amount to the Senju heir. Or is she the clan head, already? I don’t think her parents are alive anymore. 

“Seiko,” I greet, raising a hand and smiling. 

An arm wraps around my neck and I get pulled into a sudden headlock. I blink, the world shifting sideways. I’m bent over awkwardly since Kushina is shorter than me.

“Seiko’s my rival! I need you to train me so I can destroy her!” Kushina noogies me as she says this, as if to accentuate her point. 

“I told you,” I grumble, but accept my fate, going limp against Kushina. “You’re gonna be much more powerful than me in five years. You just have to be patient.”

“I want to kick your ass now, dattebane!” Kushina insists, noogie intensifying. The friction digs into my skin, and my hair rubs this way and that. My poor scalp. 

“Your cousin is very loud, hime,” Orochimaru sighs, turning from his food just so to look over at us. Silky black hair swaying and falling down his back in waves. 

From closer up, I stand by my observation that he’s beautiful. Even when he’s looking at me with those unnerving slitted snake eyes. Such nice cheekbones. If only he wasn’t afflicted with a severe antisocial disorder and the desire to cut people open for science. 

“It’s good to see kids excited for training, Orochimaru,” Jiraiya says after what sounds like swallowing an unhealthy amount of noodles. 

How he can say that after seeing the horrors at Ame for two years, I don’t know. We’re just training to do more war crimes.

“Kushina, I’m going to flip you if you don’t stop hurting my head,” I comment, tone deceptively idle as I look up at the girl. If I shift my weight and grab her arm around my neck, I could absolutely flip her over my shoulder. My hand slowly starts creeping up to grasp her forearm.

Violence flashes in Kushina’s little eyes, all too eager for an excuse to start fighting. A pale hand reaches over and removes Kushina’s arm around my neck before either of us can get in a little pre-meal training. 

“Thank you, Mikoto-chan,” I quickly exhale, running my fingers through my abused tresses and half expecting some of it to fall out. I’m lucky I have thick hair.

“You’re welcome, Seiko-chan. Can we order our food now?” Mikoto offers, keeping us on track. 

“Oh, right,” Kushina says innocently, as if she wasn’t attempting to make me bald a minute ago. She hops onto the stool beside her cousin, and I follow with a sigh, Mikoto slotting between Kushina and I. Very smart of her. Kushina is over eager for fighting if I’m within arms reach. 

“When did you get a rival, Shina-chan?” Tsunande asks, peering between her and I like I did something to deserve this. I’m completely innocent! It’s not my fault Kushina perceived my previous lying and mischief as a personal attack.

“Two weeks ago,” Kushina explains eagerly, hand tapping against the worn wood of the stall. “Hokage-sama made Seiko stop losing fights on purpose, and now I have to put a proper beat down on her, dattebane! All this time I thought she was just distracted.”

Three pairs of eyes immediately zero in on me. Oh dear. If jonin are nosy, Sannin are probably chronically in other people’s business. Especially when it pertains to their sensei taking an interest in an academy student.

“Is that so? Why would the old man have to do that, kid?” Jiraiya asks, leaning forward around Tsunade so he can make eye contact with me. He looks so young. No wrinkles, handsome, and with those strange red lines trailing beneath his eyes. Perverts shouldn’t get to be hot. There’s something karmically unfair about it. 

It feels like life is intentionally trying to throw scenarios at me that make me stress out. I am not about to stress out. I signed up for a relatively calm, if murderous second life. This is practically my vacation!

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so honest with people when they asked about it. Then I wouldn’t be dealing with Kushina’s blabbermouth. She’s so much like Naruto it hurts. Or, I suppose, Naruto is going to be so much like her.

Two of Kushina…that’s going to be so loud.

“ Apparently it’s not okay to pretend to be less skilled to avoid graduating early,” I say obliviously, before turning to look at the menu. Maybe I should just get whatever Kushina orders. I have no idea what kind of ramen I want. “It’s okay though, Hokage-sama said I was allowed to graduate next year instead of now as long as I stop throwing fights.”

I’m going to stop explaining this to people. It’s becoming tedious. This entire situation is tedious, actually, and I am so fucking hungry.

I squint at items on the menu, then turn to Kushina. “What are you getting, Kushina? I don’t know what any of these are.”

Kushina, to her credit, has no idea what tension she’s started at the ramen stand. “Oh! You should get the pork ramen, dattebane!”

I nod solemnly. “Pork ramen it is. What are you getting Mikoto?”

Mikoto peers up at the menu and lets out a breath. “I wish they had udon.”

“It’s a ramen stand,” Kushina hisses, like Mikoto is saying sacrilege in a holy place. 

“We’re going to get udon tomorrow,” Mikoto mumbles with a small pout. Then, decides. “...I suppose I’ll have the beef ramen.”

The chef, who had been listening in on us gives a thumbs up, starting on the food.

I give Mikoto a reassuring pat on the shoulder. It’s tough being best friends with someone who only ever wants to eat one kind of food. She’s a saint for going along with it. 

“Why would you wish to remain at the academy if you could graduate?” Orochimaru asks suddenly, voice pointedly uncaring. Like whatever I answer won’t matter. That’s how you know you’ve gained a ninja’s interest. They pretend they don’t give a shit. 

I look up, meeting his strange eyes. I shift my gaze to Kushina and Mikoto, who are now having a whispered debate about the merits and flaws of eating udon tomorrow. Then back to Orochimaru. I don’t want to say anything too harsh in front of them. They deserve what little innocence they have. 

“I have better chances of surviving at ten than five,” I say simply. Practical. The same thing I told his sensei. “Kids like me don’t get jonin senseis.”

Seiko. No last name. No clan. Nobody to give a shit if I die in the final skirmishes of the second shinobi war. 

It’s funny, saying it like that. Cyclical. Like mother like daughter. 

“I think you’ll definitely get a jonin sensei,” Jiraiya says with a chuffed laugh, gaze considering. He would know, I suppose. He’s a no name orphan who got put on the future hokage’s team. So is Orochimaru, though Orochimaru clearly has some kind of bloodline going for him. 

I smile, shrug with an easy going grace. Smell the incoming rain in the air mixing with the savory food at the stall. “I will now. I suppose the rest doesn’t matter anymore.”

It doesn’t. Stressing about other possible timelines where I die earlier is silly. 

I turn to the arguing girls beside me, and reach over to ruffle Kushina’s red hair. 

“You have ramen everyday, don’t you? Let Mikoto have some udon for once.” I swiftly move my hand out of the way when Kushina goes to smack it. 

“What? Are you going to go with us to eat?” Kushina asks. 

“We’re training later tomorrow anyways. Might as well.”

My poor wallet. 

—

There’s something calming about fighting. Something I can’t quite describe.

It’s funny. For being a person who has little to no interest in fighting in wars, I do think I love fighting itself. Love the focus and the way it keeps me awake and alert to my surroundings. Blood humming and my skin burning with every hit.

“Again, this time with kunai,” Kushina says as we do the seal of reconciliation with a quick clasp of our fingers. It’s rote by now, no need to spend much time on it. We’ll be fighting again in minutes. 

The Senju’s training grounds are nice. Much nicer than the academy’s scuffed patch of earth, and not even comparable to my usual spot at my local park. They’ve got a bunch of training dummies for target practice, sturdy ones that won’t break easily. The circle Kushina and I fight in is actually painted on, and somehow doesn’t scuff when we send each other tumbling over it. It’s probably fuinjutsu, but I haven’t had the time to ask yet. 

I’ve been a bit busy kicking Kushina’s ass. 

“As long as you promise not to get me in the face,” I say all too agreeably, pushing my bangs off of where they’re sticking to my forehead and walking over to grab the dulled knives they keep in a bin for these purposes. 

Kushina has tells. That’s normal, considering she’s nine (almost ten in two months, as she loves to insist), and a nine year old isn’t going to have ironed out their weaknesses yet. 

For one, Kushina will always, without fail, try and hit someone in the face. 

Fists? Kunai? Shins? Doesn’t matter. She’s aiming for your face and you had better get out of the way before you get a broken nose or a fancy new scar to show off. 

The sun beats down on the both of us, and I am going to need a very long shower to get all the dirt and sweat off of me. And blood. I scraped my elbow in the last scuffle. 

“Just dodge faster and you won’t have to worry about it.” Kushina grabs a kunai as I grab my own, twirling it around her finger. 

That’s a good point. It’s been very good dodging practice. Really adds stakes when you can get a tooth popped out if you don’t get the hell out of the way of a suckerpunch. 

“I always dodge faster than you, Shina-tan,” I hum, and swiftly move out of the way of a kunai being thrown at my face. Really, this can’t be safe to do without adult supervision. A real nine year old would have taken that straight to the forehead. 

“Seal!” Kushina shouts, grabbing another kunai as she holds out her other hand. 

“You’re eager to continue the losing streak. I admire your endurance!” I clasp my fingers in her own in a barely there touch, and then I’m dashing out of reach, back to the training circle. 

“I beat you yesterday!” Kushina grabs the back of my shirt, tugging me back and no doubt about to knife me in the liver. 

She did beat me yesterday. It was well earned, I shouldn’t have let her kick me in the chest. I was left on the ground wheezing for ten minutes. 

“Broken clocks are right twice a day.” I drop into a crouch and go to sweep her off her feet, pleased when she jumps out of the way and releases my t-shirt. Kushina goes to kick me in the head, which really I was asking for by being at the perfect kicking level. 

I roll out of the way, feeling the baking earth through the fabric of my clothes and quickly getting back to a standing position. 

One thing that makes me well suited for fighting Kushina is her offensive aggression. She is alway trying to make the first move, always putting everything into each hit. 

In contrast, I’m defensive, and more precise with when and where I hit. 

Speed versus strength. That’s basically what it ends up being everytime.

Kushina is already rushing back into my space, going for a slash with her kunai aimed at my abdomen. I twist out of the way, and get a punch in the side for my trouble. 

Pain lances over my skin, and I let out a hissed breath through my teeth. My hand shoots out, clamping onto her forearm. My kunai blocks another slash from her own, sparks flying between our clashing weapons. They may be dulled, but they’re still steel. 

With a jerk I pull Kushina closer and loop a leg around her own, twisting and sending us falling into a tumble of limbs and complaints on Kushina’s part.

“You always turn things into grappling! I never see—” she pauses to try and stab me in the face, I get grazed on the side of my neck for my trouble trying to avoid it. I barely feel the pinch of the knife. “—real ninja grappling in spars!”

“Real ninja have more killing moves.” I lay my kunai on her neck, straining to pin her other arm with my knee before I get stabbed in the thigh.

“I’m gonna show you a killing move!”

Kushina and I are well matched, definitely. She makes my reaction times much faster, and points out habits I haven’t realized. 

I really do need to get better about not resorting to pinning people on the ground. Most shinobi have very punishing jutsu to use on you when you do that.

Our training will probably get more interesting when we can both do the academy three. She’d easily be able to get out of the way of my pins with a body replacement jutsu. 

Sage, I can’t wait. I’m practically desperate to finally learn some jutsu. I would’ve conned some older years into teaching me the techniques, since it’s not forbidden for academy students to know some jutsu, but it’s very frowned upon to try and learn it early. 

Unless you’re in a clan. Then it’s perfectly fine. 

Stupid ninja classism bullshit. 

Kushina groans, loudly, after one final wiggling attempt to get loose. I’m very good at keeping people pinned to the ground now, at least. That will surely help me in my future career. 

“Fine! You win.”

Finally.

I roll off of Kushina and lie on the ground beside her, panting. My neck and my side hurt. 

“Did you cut me deep? I don’t want to bleed out,” I ask, peering over at Kushina. We’ve been at this for four matches already. It’s about time to stop. 

“No, it’s not bleeding that bad,” Kushina replies with a careless wave of her hand, looking up at the sky and catching her breath. 

How does she classify something as “bad” bleeding? Don’t Uzumaki have advanced healing rates?

I may need an adult. 

“Do you have bandages at home?”

“‘Course I have bandages at home, what kind of kunoichi do you think I am, dattebane?” Kushina asks with a scoff, before sitting up and stretching her arms. “We can get Tsu-oba to look at it, or her dumb boyfriend.”

So harsh. Poor Dan. 

“I think Tsunade-hime may have better things to do than heal an academy student, Kushina,” I say with a little laugh, looking up at the clouds. There’s not many of them today. The sky is awash in endless, bright blue, and the sun sits high above. 

I also don’t have any interest in being near Tsunade. She inspires weird trains of thought in me. I wondered after we spoke to her a few days ago if I could’ve saved her brother if I graduated early. It was disconcerting. 

The answer is no, by the way. I couldn’t have. He was a genin out on a normal, low hostility mission. I never would’ve known which mission it would be. And Kami help me if I were on his team, I’d probably have just died too. 

Not my circus. Not my damn monkeys. 

Kushina’s head pops into my vision of the sky, shading my face from the burning sun. Her nose is scrunched up in concentration as she looks at my neck. 

“...we should probably go see Tsu-oba.”

Oh, great. I get to die in a training accident instead of by Iwa nin, or something similarly more reasonable. 

“That’s not a very reassuring thing to say, Kushina. You shouldn’t go into medicine, your bedside manner is terrible,” I comment, reaching up and pressing my fingers to the painful cut I can feel pulsing with a sharp ache. 

It pangs as I tap it, and I lift a hand away to find bright red blood. Oh dear. 

Well, head wounds and neck wounds tend to bleed a lot anyways. I’m sure it’s fine since I can still breathe and don’t feel lightheaded. 

“Shut up! I’m just trying to help.” Kushina pouts, and she jerks me up into standing by my arm. 

All of the blood rushes to my head now that I’m standing, and I note distantly that I am a bit lightheaded. 

Shit. Did she nick an artery? I don’t feel any spurting blood.

Now probably isn’t the time to worry about that. Best get to a medical professional and have them figure it out. 

…even if that medical professional is Tsunade the Sannin. Or her doomed boyfriend. 

My arm goes over Kushina’s shoulder, and we begin our walk away from the training ground. I press a hand to my neck to keep pressure. Hopefully it’s not that serious, and Tsunade will just tell us off about wasting her time while she’s on her short off time away from the frontlines. 

—

“How the hell did this happen?”

What a good question, Senju Tsunade the Sannin. I wonder that often, about everything.

“I dodged too slow,” I supply helpfully, leaning heavily against Kushina’s bony shoulder. 

I peer at the wide porch of Tsunade’s house. The building is probably the nicest one I’ve ever stood near, comparable to the Yamanaka head’s house. Better, actually, than the Yamanaka head’s house. Ornate furniture lines the porch, along with very well manicured potted plants. The windows are made of proper glass, too, a more expensive luxury in homes made longer than a decade ago. 

The wood of the walls looks seamless, as if it was grown from the ground. It probably was. Is this where the first Hokage lived?

“I can see that, and I’m not asking you—” Tsunade says, reaching out and jerking my hand away from where I was applying pressure to my neck. “You missed her artery by an inch, Kushina-chan. What were you doing training with kunai without supervision?”

Death by training accident was so close, yet so far. I’ll need to focus on getting the kunai out of her hands, next time. 

“Everyone was busy,” Kushina argues, waving a hand and pressing her shoulder more firmly into me. “You keep saying you’ll help me train, and then you spend more time with—”

“What’s going on out here?”

A young man peers around Tsunade’s shoulder, eyebrows raised at the sight of Kushina and I. 

Kushina groans, loudly. I would wince if I wasn’t busy thinking about how I can’t feel my lips. That’s probably from the blood loss. I’m going to have to eat so many iron rich foods after this. I may need to find a part time job to fund my food expenses.

“My cousin tried to kill her rival,” Tsunade huffs to the man who must be Kato Dan, and two of her fingers begin to glow with green chakra. It hovers over my neck, and I can feel her chakra tangling up under my skin, stitching tissue together. It’s weird. Very very weird.

“If I were trying to kill her, she would be dead, dattebane!” Kushina says, but she’s looking over at whatever Tsunade is doing with a concerned twist to her mouth. 

“You would have been dead before me, considering how I won the spar,” I comment. Not really to prove a point or anything, just to remind her. “I suppose if I died of blood loss after defeating you that would make it a tie.”

“Stop talking, you’re moving your neck muscles,” Tsunade orders, and I oblige. 

“Is she going to die, Tsu-oba?” Kushina asks, a slow growing horror starting on her face. “Seiko usually dodges faster, dattebane, I swear I didn’t think it would actually cut her!”

See? This is why we don’t give children knives. 

“She’s not even going to have a scar, you brat. What do you think I am? Some third rate Kumo medic? I’m telling Obaa-sama you aren’t allowed to play with kunai outside of the academy for a month.”

Obaa-sama— is that what Tsunade calls Uzumaki Mito? I never really thought about what kind of relationship Tsunade would have with her grandma. She is, after all, the honorable granddaughter of the first hokage. 

Tsunade’s hand pulls away from my neck, and that strange humming chakra saturating her fingers cuts away swiftly. Medical ninjutsu feels so sterile. Like she pulled all of the bits of her chakra that makes it hers out of it. I suppose that tracks with what canon said. You have to remove all the elemental chakra to make sure you don’t kill people.

I bow deeply, even if it makes my head spin and Kushina squawks when my arm leaves her shoulders. 

“Thank you for healing me, Tsunade-sama.” 

“Sage, you’re going to fall on your face, don’t do that!” Tsunade firmly pushes me back into a straight position by my head, hand ruffling my hair a little bit like how one pets a dog before it retreats back to her side. 

“Thank me by not getting gutted by my cousin, do you understand? I don’t want to be healing you for a long time, preferably never. Save the reckless training for when you’re a genin.”

I nod with an appropriate level of seriousness. “I promise. I won’t let Kushina’s kunai draw blood again. I was being sloppy.”

Really, I may be sort of nine, but I should be capable of dodging another nine year old with a knife. Kushina doesn’t even have a furry little problem yet! 

Kushina punches my shoulder, and I grunt. 

“What do you mean by that, dattebane? I could stab you anytime! In fac—” Kushina cuts herself off when she sees Tsunade’s glare, face blanching. “Er, I won’t though. I won’t stab you at all. You aren’t really going to tell Mito-obaa-chan about this, right, Tsu-oba? Right?”

“Why shouldn’t I tell her?” Tsunade asks, crossing her strong arms. She’s wearing a short sleeved shirt so I can see her impressive biceps flex. 

“You could have very badly hurt your friend, Kushina-chan,” Dan adds from where he’s been observing the proceedings over Tsunade’s shoulder. He’s very pretty, with delicate features, lavender hair and kind green eyes. I wonder where Konoha is getting all of these pretty shinobi from. Do murderous generational careers just create more attractive people? Natural selection? 

Knowing the way the Hyuuga and the Uchiha can be, I wouldn’t be surprised. 

“We won’t use kunai in our spars until next school year,” I decide to offer. Kushina looks over at me with sudden shock and betrayal. I shrug. “We were being irresponsible and need to prove we can use our tools in a safe manner.”

Tsunade peers down at me with narrowed eyes. I wonder if this is how people feel when they’re being judged in the afterlife, some higher power looking down at you with a gaze that implies they’re picking you apart with their mind. 

I wouldn’t know. I don’t remember any afterlife except for this one. 

“You should be more like your friend, Shina-chan,” Tsunade says finally, looking away from me to glare at Kushina. “Don’t maim her before she rubs off on you, brat.”

Kushina squawks like an offended bird. 

“Kushina is fine the way she is, Tsunade-sama,” I hum, reaching up to touch the tingling new skin of my neck. “She probably wouldn’t like being more like me.”

There’s enough room in the world for brash, excitable optimists. Nine year olds are supposed to make mistakes anyways. 

…and I’ll make sure we have someone watching us spar from now on when we’re using sharp objects. Just in case.