Hidden Uzumaki?? AU
I have a hard time believing that all uzumaki just up and disappeared into the world after uzushio was destroyed, most probably went underground and went into hiding in various places under various fake aliases, to that degree there probably were some uzumaki who went to konoha after they announced that they’d take in any refugee uzumaki, maybe the uzumaki went to konoha and just kept under their fake aliases and disguised appearances (non-chakra kind cause shinobi would see through it) so that konoha didn’t become a second uzushio when uzumaki started coming back together
for this reason i propose the au that Umino Iruka is the child of an uzumaki person or couple who escaped to konoha, because other than his hair and eye color he’s got the tan of any tropic island native, his loud personality can easily blend with the uzumaki loudness, iruka is a frequent of ichiraku alongside naruto, he was known as a major prankster as a kid which seems in line with uzumaki playful personalities, and his name literally translates to “dolphin of the sea,” iruka meaning “dolphin” and umino meaning “of the sea” the same way gaara is called sabaku no gaara translated to gaara of the desert
i can totally see dolphins being a kind of clan symbol or even a straight up animal summon common in uzushio since they’re an island nation
also it’s a pretty much agreed upon fandom hc that uzumaki have large quantities of chakra and struggle to control it as a result, which can kinda explain iruka struggling with ninjutsu as a student in the academy
he’s shown to have some understanding of sealing for the string light barrier ninjutsu he used (though it’s seen much more frequently in boruto than in naruto) personally i hc that he created or specialized the technique and eventually taught it to his students as part of the curriculum which would explain why it’s rarely seen in naruto but more frequent in boruto especially by students of the academy (idk how reliable this is since i never read the manga but the fandom wiki says the students using the technique is special to the anime, so you could also just throw boruto out the window and say it’s iruka’s special sealing thing he taught himself and no one else)
uzushio was called the “village of longevity” and are known for their vitality which i think can explain iruka being able to keep up with higher ranked shinobi despite being only chunnin, of which is not common from what i could tell i also just think it’s funny he’s an honorary jounin in a group of famous ppl like kakashi and gai so we’re gonna take that as him being jounin level
idk what the connection between chakra sensors and uzumaki is if there even is one beside karin but i do think iruka being some kind of sensor type explains him always effortlessly finding naruto when it’s shown how naruto evades others of much higher rank and skill when he wants to
it’s stated that his parents died during the kyuubi attack that naruto was born in and he was pretty young then (prob early teens or preteen) so i can imagine if he had uzumaki features he’d have already grown up on the norm of hiding them but not been old enough to be told the truth of why
if he ever finds out then i imagine it’s by going through old stuff with his parent’s things with the info tucked into a corner alongside any valuables, or maybe he even meets karin or another sensor who feels his chakra and is like hmm this feels familiar
maybe he’s not even uzumaki necessarily, it’s possible to think he’s just a descendant of someone from uzushio who was part of a vassal clan of the uzumaki, which would explain away his non-uzumaki features
if we go down this route than we can view the “Umino” clan as being similar to the inuzuka clan with animal companions, specifically dolphins
previous reasons for him being uzumaki can still be recycled for why he’s ethnically from uzushio
this solution would explain kushina’s lacking connections in konoha, with the exception of mikoto, compared to minato who everyone seems to know personally especially since as his wife and high ranking shinobi she would have interacted with them frequently, as well as her seeming disinterest in uzushio as a cultural heritage and her people
kushina could have been discreetly in contact with several uzumaki or uzushio people in konoha, shinobi or civilian, under various disguises and just not been as invested or have time for minato’s friends or her own shinobi social circles when her lost family were right there for her to be with instead
it makes sense for their interactions to be discreet too since the uzumaki/uzushio people would have to keep their identities hidden from others and interacting regularly with a publicly known uzumaki would turn heads, plus kushina as the jinchuriki prob wasn’t well received by the civilians so from this angle too it makes sense to not be seen together so that the civilian ire wouldn’t be tracked on to already struggling and disguised uzushio families
this is now me being entirely self indulgent but i think it would also be really sweet and cute if kushina visited the disguised uzumaki/uzushio families in a matching disguise as a subtle connection to say they’re still family even if they’re in hiding
imagine kushina occasionally visiting iruka’s family and was a sort of auntie or sister figure to him growing up, and he assumed she died during the kyuubi attack like his parents when he couldn’t find any records of her whereabouts (which he wouldn’t have been wrong)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ everything from here is me just going off the rails so feel free to ignore lol ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
also who’s to say there wasn’t a reason obito reminded kushina so much of herself and has such a different personality compared to other uchiha, maybe one of his parents was an uzushio refugee that kushina didn’t know about cause they married into the uchiha clan and died before obito could ever get to know them since he grew up an orphan
i don’t want to say this is because he’s part uzushio since uchiha also have high vitality but i do think his struggles with ninjutsu as a kid could be explained by uzumaki chakra quantities and it is kinda insane how many times he sorta not-dies in canon if he was just a regular shinobi in the academy before meeting madara, maybe madara somehow knew he was part uzushio and that’s why he chose obito to bring about his plan
because how else would a regular uchiha be on the same power levels as an uchiha who’s the literal reincarnation of Indra, a sorta demigod
kinda going in circles trying to make everyone i don’t know the parents of from uzushio lol but we don’t know gai’s mom, and she could have been from uzushio too, plus gai’s summons are tortoises and we don’t know where he got them from either, so it is possible that gai’s mom was another uzushio shinobi and possessed the turtle/tortoise summon scroll before coming to konoha and marrying gai’s dad and dying somehow, or maybe gai’s dad is the one with uzushio roots though if that’s the case i imagine his parents or grandparents had moved to konoha as civilians before uzushio was destroyed and gai’s dad grew up fully thinking he was just another konoha shinobi with a civilian family, or both













