An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Summary: For a second, a moment, Kakashi allows himself to ask what the hell he thinks he’s doing, why did he think it was a good idea to mentor three pups, what spirit possessed him to lay claim to these three children as his own for the foreseeable future? (He doesn’t ask out loud, with the wind now throwing smells at him, his ears picking almost forgotten sounds from the forest around, he’s almost afraid of the answer).
And then Sakura throws a shovel at Naruto’s head and the moment passes, and he remembers that momentary lapse of judgment or not, he still has to ensure they reach the end of the day alive.
Balance feels him long before the time of his birth, even before Kushina reaches to the Whirlpools. It feels him before he truly develops, possibility and light, intertwined with the very fabric of the universe's existence, red energy coiling tight into Kushina’s gut, into her very self, a responsibility she grew into with years of crafted instructions passing down inadvertently.
Kushina feels the second the foreign chakra in her veins shifts and knows .
(The third chapter of More Than Leaves in the Tree is up!)
Tags: Warring States Period (Naruto), Uzushiogakure | Hidden Eddy Village, The Fall Of Uzushiogakure | Hidden Eddy Village, This is kind of, Character Study, i guess, Fuuinjutsu, Uzumaki Clan-centric, the Uzumaki were fuuinjutsu masters, Uzushiogakure Is Alive, and kind of sentient, No beta we die like mne
Summary:
There were many clans in the Land of Whirlpool, all of them with their strength, all of them just a step to the left from farmer, from fisherman, from civilian, but none more than the Uzumaki.
The Uzumaki with their blood-red hair, their too old elders, their too fast steps. The Uzumaki with their smiles and ink smudged fingers and too knowing eyes, carrying fish barrels just a little too fast, a little too effortlessly, making conversation and opening trade routes between families.
The clans of the Whirlpool were many things, but they were not stupid. They could recognize a predator.
Read on AO3
Back when clans still held wars on each other, when the not then ancestral home was no more than an island in the middle of the Land of Whirlpools, when Shinobi villages were nothing but a distant childish dream, Uzushiogakure was already standing.
It hadn’t been called Uzushiogakure, not then, not when the idea of a hidden village was something unthought, but it was a village nonetheless.
But people are resilient, and while miles into land the idea of peace was nothing more than a fantasy, the clans of the Whirlpool had already thought of cooperation. They weren’t shinobi, not then, not like the Senju or the Uchiha were shinobi, battle worn and blood hungry; or how the Hatake and Inuzuka were shinobi, animal side proud and instinct-driven; not like the Nara and Yamanaka, strategizing and information hungry, always two steps ahead; they weren’t even shinobi like the Funato or that hebi clan from the north, nomads of the sea and land. No, the clans of the Whirlpool weren’t shinobi like that, but they were resourceful and able to mold chakra, and to them that was enough.
There were many clans in the Land of Whirlpool, all of them with their strength, all of them just a step to the left from farmer, from fisherman, from civilian, but none more than the Uzumaki.
The Uzumaki with their blood-red hair, their too old elders, their too fast steps. The Uzumaki with their smiles and ink smudged fingers and too knowing eyes, carrying fish barrels just a little too fast, a little too effortlessly, making conversation and opening trade routes between families.
The clans of the Whirlpool were many things, but they were not stupid. They could recognize a predator.
The Uzumaki taught children how to read while others taught how to fight.
The clans of land taught infants to hold weapons, to polish and to sharpen, they scolded when shuriken flew off path and scoffed over the idea of games. This was war, and this was survival.
The Uzumaki taught every child to paint, red hair or not, and smiled when complex matrices lit up under chubby fingers, laughed with kids on their arms, paper exploding under the contention of shining chains, and explained their art, their life. They shared, and the clans of the Whirlpool grew.
The clans around the Whirlpool looked and ignored, for in paper and ink they saw weakness, and the Uzumaki kept on doing it, for they saw no difference at all.
The clans of the Whirlpool carved seals in stone, fed chakra into the earth, under careful guidance they connected to their chakra pathways, and from them to the roots of the trees, to the soil and deep, deep into the very core of their island, they saw and sensed every creature, for chakra is energy and in the end all is one.
They learned how to meditate, how to detect sound from further away than their senses allowed, to detect life.
And the island fed on vestiges, on the small traces left when all energy is recalled, but something is always left back, and the soil and the water feasted. The Whirlpools protected their own.
The clans of the Whirlpool weren’t shinobi. But the Whirlpools were treacherous, so they learned the ways of the water and the wind and sailed. They learned how to walk over the sea foam, how to call the currents to lead the fish to their nets, how to write small, tiny symbols on their ropes to make them sturdier. They were not shinobi, not yet.
News of peace traveled to the Whirlpools, news of shinobi villages rising, one after the other, and they smiled, painted all the houses the same color and built a plaza in the middle and called it a day. Spoke of union like t was a new thing, because the clans of the Whirlpool weren’t shinobi like the other clans of land, but they knew secrecy.
They dressed in dark clothes and unnecessary armor, they strapped pouches of kunai and shuriken to their thighs and concealed scrolls in between. It’s never good to be unarmed, but an Uzumaki needs no steel.
They looked at the Uzumaki and called themselves Uzushiogakure, snickering. The clans of the Whirlpool were now Shinobi, but they weren’t hiding. Not between the whirlpools anyways.
With peace came union, and with union left Mito-Hime, red buns bouncing in her head with every step, ink-smudged fingers still at her side while her father presented her to the Shodai Hokage and the Whirlpool smiled, for he looked not like a shadow and not like a flame and thought she’s going to eat him alive. At least he looked like the type to enjoy it.
Stories of Mito traveled fast to the Whirlpool, always mindful of its people. Mito who was a princess without need of royal blood, who excelled where even countless others failed, Mito, who looked up into the red eye of the powers that balance the world and said you bow to me.
She doesn't understand, they realize, not really, what she’s chained to herself. She doesn’t understand the magnitude of her feat, and the Whirlpools rejoice for her.
She chains the others, they see, and gifts tem like objects with her husband to make peace. Balance, they wonder, and stand back to see. Everything falls back into place eventually, they just have to wait.
She returns twice, and the currents calm with her arrival. Pristine Senju-white kimono by the hand of her husband, hands clean. No Senju clan symbol in sight. No Uzumaki spiral either.
The children show her their seals, the young admire her from afar, and the elders observe. She moves with the grace of a princess, jumps with the dexterity of a panther and stands on the water flawlessly. Her balance is as good as ever but she doesn’t know how to walk through the whirlpools anymore.
Her heart belongs now with the forest, even if she hasn’t realized.
The second time she visits she does so alone. Her hair is darkened with age but her movement is just as graceful. Children call from their places in the playgrounds and young adults comment on her strength.
She talks with her father, with the elders, with the Uzukage. Talks of age and weakening seals, talks of successions and burdens. Talks of peace.
She carries a pouch of kunai on her thigh.
The Island listens and watches, senses, looks over its people, no matter how far, how faint the connection might grow to be.
The Whirlpools ward them as they grow, as they connect with it and their surroundings, as they seal more and more of themselves in it and rumble.
The children of the Whirlpool, Uzumaki even without blood-red hair, because it’s been too long since the clan was just their blood, since the clans of the Whirlpool were such instead of just their people, play and learn and grow, creating seals and jutsu and new ways of connecting with nature. All is one, and impossible is just for those who can’t understand that.
It takes all they have to let small Kushina go. Their little Whirlpool of red hair and vibrant energy, chakra bursting out of her in waves.
Her position is an honor, to go to the forest and accept the weight of balance inside her, even if she’ll never learn not to scoff at it, not to see it as a burden. She’s always been more free than others, temper like the tides, going from calm to tempestuous in an instant. She’s a child of the Whirlpool.
But Mito-Hime requested it, and no matter how long it might be, how much she might have renounced them, they won’t deny their princess this.
They watch her go, waving her little arms over her head, red reflecting in the sun like freshly spilled blood, standing over the currents with the ease of every Uzushio citizen. She promises to visit and they smile. They know they won’t have the time.
The attack takes them by surprise (they were expecting it), they fight with all they have (they know what’s coming), they tell their children to run, send them towards Hi no Kuni and pray to the tides to let them cross, small feet dancing over the foam that swallows Kiri shinobi like they’re nothing, and when they fall, they pray to the Whirlpools (reaching, instinctually, to the core of their island, that ball of chakra and seals and energy where the underground currents meet, a knot of foam and power that’s been there since the beginning, the first seal drawn in the sand, the first drop of Uzushio blood spilled on its shores, long before Uzushio existed; feeding the tendrils of blood-ink that move with the water, alive.)
Uzushio mourns after, when there’s nothing but ruins and blood and chakra. It mourns with their children, tiny lights in the distance too far away. It mourns for them and for what is to come, and It bows one day, one day it will rise again, and not Kami and not the balance will take Its children from It again.
It feeds on what’s left, residue from jutsu and lifeforce, Its currents swallow the enemy, the outsiders, and takes their bodies to the bottom of the ocean, and waits. Everything falls back into place eventually.
Tags: Uzushiogakure | Hidden Eddy Village, The Fall Of Uzushiogakure | Hidden Eddy Village, Pre-Canon, BAMF Uzumaki Kushina, Uzumaki Clan-centric, Uzumaki Kushina-Centric, Uzushiogakure Is Alive, and kind of sentient, Not Beta Read, Fuuinjutsu
Summary:
Uzumaki Kushina is born with hair red like blood and purple eyes the color of nightshade.
She will be dangerous, whisper the waves and they smile, she will leave her mark.
Uzumaki Kushina grieves and rages, and her ANBU guard looks at her from afar and tremble.
She is dangerous, and it has nothing to do with the beast inside her.
New installment in the Everything Falls Into Place Eventually series!
The Land Of Waves
The bridge builder was the most infuriating client Kakashi had the pleasure to deal with in a while, rude and condescending, filled with self-importance and utterly useless; he walked so slow Kakashi had feared Naruto would try to stab him during the first day, or worse, carry him to Wave.
Team 7 has their first out-of-village mission; and it was supposed to be fun, it was supposed to be easy... now they're half a day trip from their destination and one of his kids has blood on his hands. Screw the mission, Kakashi is going to kill Tazuna
💖 (What do you like the most about your own writing?) I'm going to be honest this one is hard for me because I have the bad habit of only focusing on the things I don't like, but I've been writing fanfiction for around a decade, and today I can say that I really like how I write. Probably not the answer to this question, but the only one I can give right now
🖊 (Post a snippet from a current WIP)Ohhh, have a bit of the next work in my Naruto AU
Sakura always knew that being a kunoichi implied being close to death, she knew it meant danger, that one day someone would try to hurt her, that someday she and her team would have to kill. But she didn’t expect it to be so soon.
She’s not sure what she should be feeling, either. Her mom would probably feel revulsion, or disgust, she was always open to the fact that she decided to never take the chunin exams on her own, that she didn’t like fighting, but Sakura only feels relief; someone tried to hurt her teammate, her friend, and now that person’s gone.
📝(What's one growth area you have for your writing?) Action scenes, I write for Naruto, I've written for BNHA, I have no idea how to write a fight, but I will get there.
📊 (Current number of WIPs) Hmmm... 3 unfinished works on Ao3, the next work of EFIPE (Land of Waves) that it's about 1/4th done and then... about half a million ideas and AUs I keep in bullet points on a google docs I might or might not ever write
"Naruto is the one who throws himself at it first, all instinct and emotion and barely contained whirlwind, unvarying of it exploding in his face. He always goes first because he’s more durable than them, heals faster, they’ve learned, and he’s surprisingly aware of it, just as carrying of their wellbeing as seemingly uncaring of his own (“Maybe you got it from your parents” suggested Sakura once, hesitantly and “I wouldn’t know, I never met them” said cheerfully, too cheerfully, with something crawling underneath. They never brought it up again, some things might be best untouched)"
Don't think of the implications of Naruto realizing he heals faster than other people, about him finding people he cares about and would do anything to keep safe, don't think of Naruto throwing himself into danger indiscriminately because at least he heals, right? How far would he go?
(I'm just hitting myself in the face with my own angst at this point)
