Konoha Year 54, December 12.
"So boring. This lame Konoha TV has nothing worth watching."
"Yeah. None of these shows beat the messed-up stories you tell."
Moke and Kushina, dressed in her shihakusho, were sprawled belly-down on a flattened sofa. Kushina's feet tipped up, idly kicking at the air.
"Let's play cards," Kushina said, pushing herself up. A perfect curve lifted and quivered with gravity.
"Nope," Moke said, rolling his eyes.
By cards, she meant Dou Dizhu, a game Moke had taught her. Decent for killing time. Problem was, it needed three players. After losing a few rounds, Kushina loudly accused Moke and his clone of cheating whenever they played together.
Fine, no clone. Then what? Kushina happily summoned a shadow clone to fill the third seat.
A shadow clone could not share minds, but it could absolutely throw the game. If Moke drew farmer, the other "farmer" somehow always hunted him down like he was the landlord.
So Moke would rather watch bad TV than play another hand.
Nearly two months had passed since his meetings with Hyuga Hiashi and Uchiha Shisui. After that, Moke chose the stay-home life and left training to his two replicas.
Yesterday, Kushina finally completed full reconstitution into spirit matter and could manifest. Overjoyed, she cooked a "love feast," expecting Naruto to burst into happy tears. The present scene was the result: a small figure tiptoeing past the sofa, trying to sneak out.
"Reporting you, Kushina. Naruto is skipping breakfast."
"Traitor, Dad! Mom's cooking is awful and you still make me eat it!"
"Brat, I told you to never say Dad and Mom in the same breath. And what kind of kid trashes his mother's breakfast of love? March back and eat."
Wounded by the truth, Kushina had accepted that Moke's taste buds were fine and her cooking was not. But the Red Hot Habanero did not surrender. If she could not make it taste good, she could at least make them eat it. Solve the complainer, solve the complaint. She was halfway to a career in politics.
"You are my dad and she is my mom. Ugh. This is rigged."
Naruto pouted and slunk to the table like a condemned man.
Kushina shot Moke a glare for snickering. She wanted to put her foot through him.
A little later, Naruto pinched his nose and shoveled the last bites down, then bolted for the door, yelling with a mouthful of rice, "I'm fullll! I'm going to traaain!"
He had been livelier lately. Probably because no one in Konoha pointed and whispered anymore.
Kushina stared at the large amount of food Naruto left. A big cross-popping vein throbbed on her head, but she still gathered the bowls and chopsticks and tidied up. She untied her apron, tossed it toward the kitchen, hesitated, then said, "I want to go out for a bit."
"Go," Moke replied, half asleep in front of the TV. "No need to clear it with me."
Kushina blinked. "I thought you said the timing wasn't right for me to show up."
"Doesn't matter. Konoha is weaker than I expected, and that timing is only days away anyway. Wear a robe though. That hair is too conspicuous. The village has red-hair PTSD. One look at me and the shinobi scatter. Kills my mood to stroll."
Originally he did not want Kushina appearing yet. First, because an early reveal might soften the Third's stance and derail the arc he needed. He needed Konoha dark. Second, because the big-hearted Kushina might get baited and used as leverage against him.
But her tone made it clear that whatever nostalgia she had left for Konoha was about spent. With her own shadow-level strength and a copy of him inside her, she could pretty much walk sideways through the current ninja world. As for the Shinigami path, entirely self-trained, she still had no zanpakuto. All it gave her was a fully spiritualized body that could eat, sleep and bounce around.
The Cloud peace mission was barely ten days away. Konoha's streets were strung with lanterns and banners, the whole place gearing up to celebrate. She had been cooped up for too long. Of course she wanted to look around. Maybe see a few old friends.
Kushina opened her mouth to explain, then closed it. Why bother reporting where she went. She grabbed a black robe, slung it over her shoulders and stepped out.
At some point, she realized that when it came to certain plans, Moke had become the axis in their duo. She bullied him day to day, sure, but when his tone turned formal, she found herself asking his view before acting.
Power had shifted, and with it, position.
Once she could perfectly suppress the Nine Tails. Now she could not see through Moke at all. His secret arts ran on laws far from chakra. But she could feel that his care for Naruto was genuine. That alone meant she did not brace herself like she once did against the fox.
Lost in thought, she reached her destination quickly. They lived near the outskirts.
A ruined shrine stood there. Half the roof was gone. No one had tended it in years, yet even as a husk, it hinted at former grandeur and the strength of the clan that built it.
Kushina's eyes dimmed.
This was the Uzumaki Mask Hall, the storehouse of the clan's legacy. Twenty-seven masks, twenty-seven "gods."
She walked into the inner chamber, gaze moving one by one across the masks on the wall. "Gods," yet most were vicious, bizarre, grimacing. They hung in perfect ranks.
Her eyes stopped.
In the center hung a death god's face, crowned by two horns. It was cracked all over, as if one touch might shatter it.
She had guessed something when Moke crushed the reaper's shade with a single chanted spell. Seeing the ruin now, grief went marrow deep.
She touched her cheek and found she could not cry.
When a heart falls silent, there is nothing left to break.
She turned and strode out without another look.
Minato, I do not need your true thoughts anymore.
The Red Hot Habanero of Konoha died three years ago. From now on I am Uzumaki Kushina, orphan of the Whirlpool, mother of Uzumaki Naruto. Nothing more.
—
Moke, who had no idea his one finger to the sky had just erased a towering rival in love, suddenly sat up straight.
He was painfully sensitive to space. A surge of space power bloomed somewhere inside Konoha.
He looked toward it. If he was right, that was the village cemetery. The Memorial Stone stood there.
His mouth quirked.
He rose, took one step, and vanished from the air.
Uchiha Obito. Controlling the Nine Tails was fun, was it. Time to pay a little interest.
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