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By month four, Kushina had accepted a grim truth: brute force wouldn't save her. Neither would sealing tricks. Or patience. She wasn't getting out by outmuscling her captor. She understood that they will not kill her. She could use this opportunity to get strong acting as if throwing tantrums.
So she'd adapted. She trained when Benihime forced her to. She slept when she was allowed. She ate what she was given. For the first time in her life, she lived without purpose, without direction, without the comforting hum of Konoha in her bones. She missed minato.
Her thoughts keep drifting back lately. A voice brought her back as she stared across the clearing at the older woman in front of her.
"Who was that little kid…" Kushina finally asked, voice careful, "the one who came here when I was unsealed?"
Benihime didn't answer. She just shifted her pacifier to the other side of her mouth. "You still think asking the same question in different ways will get you a different answer? What are you collecting information for konoha?"
Benihime's smile was almost indulgent. "You want information. And you've grown very soft while trying to get it. Almost comfortable. As if you enjoy living here."
"I absolutely do not."
Benihime's expression didn't change. "Thought so."
She dragged the naginata's blade along the ground, carving a line. "I could've killed you and saved myself the trouble. No jinchūriki, no risk of your village sniffing around. I would not have to babysit you. I could go to the frontline, The war would end if I went though. But the little one said not to hurt you too badly. It seems it would be better for kumo if you don't get hurt. And also something about the seal you gave the Raikage being useful.'"
Kushina's breath hitched. The Little One.
Her mind flashed back to that strange, almost surreal meeting ten months ago. A boy maybe 2-3 years old... was carried by the old lady into the chamber as he munched on his pacifier. He'd asked her to teach him sealing techniques.
She'd refused. Of course she had. A captured kunoichi didn't hand out village secrets. And a boy of that age would not even know how to control chakra what is going to learn. But the boy hadn't reacted like a child denied something.
He'd sighed. Actually sighed. Like someone disappointed in a colleague for making such an obvious wrong choice.
"Pity," he had said. "By the way when you go back home, you'll regret. Things will have not stayed the same." He did not want to learn the sealing techniques... though he not yet, his intention was different he wanted to give her a purpose to later keep her in kumo of her own will, like trying to gather information about me or wanting to escape.
Kushina had expected interrogation, torture, psychological pressure... something. Instead, nothing happened. Just the routine: trying to esca... training, surveillance, periodic blood extractions, occasional tissue samples, and the suffocating awareness that the old lady on this island understood sealing principles rivaling Uzumaki-level mastery and this Genbu which seems to be alive.
She'd spent months debating the boy's words.
Did he mean she'd regret refusing him? Or regret returning to Konoha? He is just a boy what does he know about the world?
Did he expect she wouldn't go back? Or shouldn't? What happened in Konoha? With Hiruzen there should be any problem?
Kushina forced her voice steady as her thoughts came back. "What exactly is he?"
Benihime let out a soft snort. "You're bold today."
"He's not a normal child."
"Obviously."
Kushina clenched her fists. "Then tell me who...no, what... he is."
Benihime flicked the naginata with her finger, sending a vibration through the metal.
"You think I'm going to tell you…" Her pacifier clicked twice against her teeth. "…because you asked politely?"
Kushina closed her mouth. She knew that tone. Benihime didn't enjoy talking. She actively avoided it unless information served her purpose.
And this... this wasn't one of those times. Benihime shifted her weight and pointed her chin across the clearing.
"You've stopped acting like a wild fox cub. That's good. But don't mistake patience for mercy."
Kushina swallowed hard.
Benihime continued, voice low but clear. "Your chakra won't destabilize anymore. The beast is fierce lately. The island will tell me, if you try to unseal your tailed beast again."
"That's not possible," Kushina shot back, then hesitated. She knew her own chakra better than anyone. And the sealing matrix fused into her body. And the behavior of the fox when stressed.
The Nine-Tails had been thrashing against the seal in her sleep. It has been clawing at her emotions. As if triggering the old lady to kill her so he can emerge out and escape. The realization made her skin crawl. Even the beast using every opportunity it can to get me killed.
Benihime's voice broke the silence. "We'll need more blood and more bone marrow. Don't fight it. It's for research, not torture."
Kushina glared. "For Kumo's weapons?"
"For the little one's… curiosity. He says it will be useful for him. You heal fast anyway."
Benihime finally turned away. "That's enough talk for today. You've had too many questions and not enough bruises."
She spun the naginata once and walked toward the inland path. Kushina stood as her restraints loosened, giving her enough freedom to follow under guard.
Yet the conversation lingered in her mind like smoke. The child. The seal on the Raikage. Her own apparent "usefulness."
And the growing, horrible suspicion that Konoha had no idea where she was... or what was happening here.
Kushina whispered under her breath, was it that time when he placed the seal on my.... I don't want to think about it. Haa.
"Minato… don't come here."
Not because she didn't trust him. Because she feared the land and this old lady wouldn't let him leave. I sense a strange connection between this land and the old lady. What even is this land anyway and why is it moving as that old lady willed.