The main hall of the Senju ancestral home was like an ancient well sunk into an abyss. The air was so still it felt as though it might crush the moonlight.
Mito's hoarse murmurs of comfort and Kushina's muffled sobs were the only living struggle within that dead silence.
The old woman's wrinkled hand stroked that blazing red hair again and again, endless tenderness smoothing the girl's grief in this moment before farewell.
"Kushina, do not be afraid." The elder's voice was aged yet vast as the sea, unable to banish the chill of night. "Grandma will watch over you from the sky, eyes open, watching you grow up, watching you live your life."
"Do not go. Grandma, do not go. I cannot let you go." Kushina buried her whole face in the warmth of Mito's robe. Her sobs broke apart against the fabric, her small body shaking so hard it hurt to see. Her swollen eyes were like breached springs, tears rolling and staining the cloth a darker despair.
Every ragged breath hitched with a tearing, helpless sound, the sound of a child thrown against the flood of fate.
Mito's clouded eyes drifted to the moon, veiled and revealed by torn clouds. At last, with immeasurable reluctance, she gently pushed the burning bundle of tears from her arms.
Her thin fingers brushed the girl's wet, tear-streaked cheeks, soft but steady. "Do not fear becoming a jinchūriki. Your heart will often feel empty, but there is always something that can fill it."
Her gaze slipped, almost casually yet knowingly, toward the shadowed courtyard, where a red-haired figure stood like a stake driven into the earth. "Is that hollow in your heart not already filled?"
Kushina's sobbing cut off, as if a hand had closed around her throat.
Something hot slammed into her chest.
That moonlit declaration, "And now," the silent, steadfast back she could sense even through the door, both exploded in her mind.
That overbearing warmth that allowed no refusal was the only light she could cling to in this vast, falling dark, the last thread holding up her crumbling heart.
Outside the hall, Tsunade paced like a caged beast, boots crusted with the front line's blood and dust grinding dead leaves under heel with sharp, bone-like snaps. Rage quivered at every pore, near detonation.
"Damn that old monkey." Her growl was followed by a dull thunk as her kunai sank deep into a pine trunk, wood chips flying.
Ripped from the front to attend a ritual she could not change and that split her heart, her fury was a living thing.
In a corner of the courtyard, Hiruzen and his advisors Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu stood like three cold statues. The air was drawn tight as a bowstring, every breath dragged through thorns.
Then the thick shōji slid open. Mito stepped out, leading Kushina by the hand.
The elder kept her back as straight as she could, but the mountain-heavy dusk of age and exhaustion could not be hidden.
Kushina's hand was locked within her grandmother's, old but unyielding, as they walked, step by step, toward the sealing dais.
Moonlight flowed like water across the deep-carved, ancient fūinjutsu lines in the stone. Those lines seemed alive as they coiled and writhed, exuding a chill that froze even the air.
A thick stone post rose at each corner of the platform.
Mito sat. Hiruzen, Homura, and Koharu took their places as well, each face iron-hard and grave.
"Come up, child." Mito's voice was calm, as still as a bottomless pond.
Kushina drew a deep breath. The cold air, mud and rot of fallen leaves, filled her lungs in a fine sting.
She shoved down the last bit of dependence in her eyes and replaced it with something like tragic resolve.
She released Mito's hand and stepped alone into the center of that cold stone, an altar that meant power and prison.
Her gaze swept the shadows of the courtyard and locked onto Ryo, standing by the wall with his arms crossed.
Through the density of night, his silver-gray eyes met hers with perfect clarity, calm and steady, like the surest mooring point driven into the churning sea of her heart.
She clenched her fists tight.
Mito's ten withered fingers suddenly began to weave signs, so fast they blurred into a gray haze.
"Begin." Her bark cracked like thunder.
The three advisors dared not slacken for an instant. Chakra flared blindingly in their hands.
But when their refined chakra poured into the etched edges of the platform, it only formed a glowing framework.
The true core, the tidal surge, vast and ancient, carrying the blood-deep power of the Uzumaki, rose from Mito herself. Her last reserves, the bedrock of the ritual.
Whoom.
Every seal-line on the platform lit at once, crimson as blood.
A colossal scarlet barrier whirled up like a vortex, enveloping the platform and the slim red figure at its center.
Across the barrier wall, dense tadpole-like seal script raced and writhed, weaving a net meant to bind gods and demons.
ROAR.
A howl of primeval fury and unending humiliation hammered straight through the scarlet dome, slamming into the soul of every witness.
The beams and pillars of the Senju home shivered. Civilians across the sleeping village jolted awake, hearts pounding in terror at that sound from the depths.
A heartbeat later, hell itself descended on Kushina.
The Nine-Tails' chakra, ominous, icy, and hot enough to burn the world, flooded into her like molten rock, rending meridians and pouring through a too-young body.
It was not the pain of broken bone. It was the skin, the flesh, every nerve screaming at once, an agony that defied language.
Her pale skin flushed crimson, like iron thrown into a forge. Fine blisters rose in a rush across her exposed neck and arms, swelling tight.
"Ah." She threw back her head and screamed, the sound cracking and tearing. Her body arched, every muscle locked, as if an invisible fire scorched her again and again.
Her throat seized under the pain. Only ragged, bellows-like gasps scraped out.
Sweat, mixed with a thin seep of fluids from beneath the skin, soaked her clothes. No blood, yet crueler than bleeding.
Above, the scarlet barrier keened at a pitch that stabbed the ear. It warped, bloated, baring the cataclysm within.
"Hold the sealing formation." Starlike brilliance erupted in Mito's eyes. Her hands blurred past their limits, a storm of signs. Power poured from her until even her frail body trembled out of control.
Hiruzen, Homura, and Koharu clenched their teeth so hard it sounded like steel grinding. Veins roped their temples. Their faces blanched paper-pale as they fought to keep the outer frame steady, only the edges.
Against the Nine-Tails' true fury, the brunt fell entirely upon Uzumaki Mito's shoulders.
"Kushina. Unleash your Uzumaki blood, now. Lock it down." Mito's shout was a war drum across time, rattling souls, edged with a do-or-die resolve.
A different power surged forth, tough, pure, ancient, like a sleeping dragon waking within Kushina's breaking body.
The purest Uzumaki lineage boiled.
Across her flushed skin, dark-gold seal formulae, old as ages, lit along the paths of burning pain, racing and entwining until they shone with dazzling light.
At her lower abdomen, centered at the navel, a precise, impossibly intricate Eight Trigrams Seal flared into view, radiating unshakable stability.
That newborn strength resonated with Mito's final sealing force, becoming countless cold, iron-strong spiritual chains of dark gold. With the momentum to suppress all things, they snapped taut.
And, along the path of the scarlet torrent, they bit back against its source, driving straight toward the fox within Mito, the beast that sought to break free and devour its host.
Thud. Crack.
The great scarlet barrier imploded to a pinprick, then burst outward in a ring of invisible, annihilating ripples.
In that instant, Mito's last glance held, unyielding, gentle, bright as ever.
The light in her eyes faded like quiet stardust, full of blessing, trust, and a charge for the village's future, as she slipped away without a sound.
All her life, all her strength, and her everlasting longing for Senju Hashirama flowed into those Uzumaki chains, their warmth wrapping Kushina's raging seal.
"Hashirama, I am coming to meet you now."
(To be continued.)
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◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 200 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)