<3 Years Passed>
If I close my eyes and try really hard, I can still remember the smell of tea and old wood, but the face of the woman who gave birth to me has completely faded. For a long time, I thought leaving that place was just a natural part of growing up. I thought everyone, when they reached a certain age, was taken away to live somewhere new.
It took me a while to understand the word captive.
I am a captive of Kumogakure, the Village Hidden in the Clouds. But if this is what captivity feels like, I have no desire to ever see that place again. To me, the Leaf village is just a distant, foreign place. Here, the air feels crisp, the mountains touch the sky... the scenery is good, and I live quite freely.
About half a year ago, Dodai-san gave me a dust-covered scroll. He told me it contained the secrets of a technique called the "Gentle Fist," a style practiced by people who looked just like me back in the Leaf.
"Do whatever you want with it," he had said with a careless shrug. "Improvise with it, learn it, or throw it in the dirt. It's yours."
I chose to keep it. I didn't rush to open it, and true to their word, nobody forced me to train. And also, I spent most of my days following a mute kid.
He is four years older than me, and he never shows any emotion, but his actions are filled with a quiet kindness with actions. He spends every waking hour pushing his body to its absolute limits, returning from the training grounds drenched in sweat and covered in dirt.
I noticed that everyone in the village respects him. Even the shinobi who are far stronger and twice his size look at him with a deep, unspoken deference in their eyes. Even Dodai-san looks at him with great respect.
Naturally, I wanted to see what made him so special. I started trying to spy on him during his workouts. I would hide behind boulders or thick pillars, to watch him do hundreds of push-ups, run until his lungs burned, and practice his Kenjutsu strikes.
He always caught me. Every single time, he would stop, look right at my hiding spot, and just stare. But he never got angry, and he never told me to leave... well, he couldn't talk anyway and that is a plus but not always.
For the past 6 months, I had started trying to mimic his routines and it was incredibly difficult. My limbs felt heavy, my muscles ached, and I failed to match a tenth of his pace every single day.
I would end up collapsed on the grass, completely exhausted, but I kept trying. In our strange little duo, I was always the one who did the talking while he simply listened. Sometimes, more than anything, I wished he would talk back to me.
Today, I saw Kaien heading toward the Raikage's office. I quietly fell into step behind him. We were going to see Aunt Aya. She was the one who took care me. She always insisted that I call her "mother," but I stubbornly refused. It just didn't make sense to call someone my mother when she hadn't given birth to me.
Luckily, I am quite cute, and prettiness has its advantages; whenever I called her Aunt Aya, she would just sigh and let it go. And I like her.
~~
The doors to the office creaked open. Aunt Aya stood up immediately, her face lighting up as she wrapped her arms around Kaien in a warm hug. Kaien didn't try to break free, hugging her back in his usual neutral way.
"Kaien, look who is here to see you!" Aunt Aya said, pulling back with a bright smile.
Before he could turn, the air in the room rippled. With a sharp flicker, a woman with a hand on her hip materialized in the center of the room.
Kushina flicked into the room to give the surprise to Kaien, "I could not thank you properly as I have become busy in rebuilding Uzushio." As she sighed. "Things have been absolutely chaotic. I've been buried alive in work. And then, the Mist village had been trying to launch an attack against Kumo, for the past 2 years, through our waters!"
Aunt Aya questioned. "How did Uzushio handle it?"
"We intercepted them before they could even get close," the woman explained, a proud grin breaking across her face. "We activated the massive sealing arrays hidden beneath the seabed. It formed a never-ending cyclone, tossing their ships like toys and dragging down the shinobi trying to run across the water. A few of them managed to break through the storm, but we had a surprise waiting for them. The past five members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen... reanimated by Orochimaru... slaughtered whoever made it to the shore."
Aunt Aya's expression darkened slightly at the mention of Orochimaru. "And how exactly is the Snake Sannin behaving? You can never be too careful around a man like him, Kushina."
Kushina waved her hand dismissively, though there was a dangerous glint in her eyes. "Oh, I took care of that. I have heavily remodified the formula, the Caged Bird Seal, Kumo received from Konoha, and slapped it right onto Orochimaru. The moment a single thought of betraying Uzushio crosses his mind, his chakra system momentarily paralyzes and locks down completely. He knows his place. Honestly, the man is incredibly resourceful. His ideas for fast-tracking the construction of the village are brilliant, even if he is a creep. He is a perfect right hand man."
~~
A/N: Mist attack has been mentioned in Chapter 118. The geographical position of Land of whirlpools between Kumo and Kiri makes it easier for Uzushio to intercept.
Orochimaru has finally settled in as the right hand man of Kushina. He reanimated the five of seven swordsmen of the mist along with Might Duy, but did not get a chance to use them, though they don't have their weapons they are quite effective.
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