93Chapter 26: Fraction
Kazue stumbles several times trying to orient herself to the imagery around her. Sharp pieces of loose stone slice into her feet occasionally as she tries to move on the dry cracked soil beneath her. The sky above is starless and coloured with a hue of orange and red, fiery streaks of smoke marring it from view every few metres. The view ahead of her is empty, nothing but barren soil for miles on miles, no trees or hills lay atop them either. Carefully turning to look behind her, her eyes are met with the peculiar sight of a hilly landscape of green and brown, a stark contrast to the environment directly opposite it. Instinctively, she steps towards the colourful sight, keen to feel the respite of soft earth under her bare feet as opposed to the desert behind her. Finally, the soil beneath her becomes soft as she reaches the wet grass. The sound of water flowing sounds from nearby. There's no heat or cool around her, no wind. Responding to a ruffle in the greenery, Kazue flips around to see a beautiful sight.
Haruo's chirpy form appears in the clearing ahead, his hair bouncing at his ears as he jogs in her direction. Kazue kneels and opens her arms to the smiling boy, taking him into a strong embrace and cherishing the feeling of his heartbeat against hers. In how many dreams had she held him close like this and never let go? She'd almost lost count. Although she had enough consciousness to surmise this was a dream, she allows herself to appreciate Haruo standing in front of her. The past months had been so incredibly difficult, there was no chance to say anything to him in those last moments. All they shared in his final moments was a single look. That boy had saved not only her, he had saved Kanako and he had done it with no hesitation. What had run through his mind in those final moments? Why did he sacrifice himself? Her hand grips his a little tighter, burning his gorgeously charming smile into her memory.
The two of them walk together, hand in hand further into the foliage. Haruo appears to be chirping away as his usual animated self, although Kazue can't make out the words clearly she appreciates the buzz of activity and feel of his small hand in hers. Eventually the two of them reach a cliff edge overlooking a small body of water, across from them was a waterfall with pillars of unshaped stone on each adjacent side. It seemed peculiar that the two stony borders almost resembled human-like figures. Haruo seems to be looking off somewhere in the distance beyond the waterfall. The two of them stand there for a long moment until Haruo raises his arm to point in the direction of his gaze. Kazue looks at him, perplexed before she follows his finger. Somewhere off in the distance there was a hue of colour tinging the blue sky. Kazue frowns in confusion, was the sun setting? However, the tinge appears to remain fixed. She kneels down in front of Haruo and brings his hand down. Her worried eyes question his blank ones. Haruo gives no response until Kazue realises that her figure was casting a shadow on him. When did it become so dark?! The air around them seems silent and icy now. Again, Haruo raises his arm and points behind Kazue. Tilting her head in confusion, Kazue stands up in a huff and turns around.
A thick wave of white hot heat hurls Kazue to the earth.
Trying to process what was happening against the dizzy disorientation and muted sound ringing in her ears from the blow, Kazue fumbles around for Haruo. The air around her is so heavy with heat and chakra that each breath takes a significant amount of effort despite little oxygen entering her winded lungs. She blinks the dizziness away, flashes of black, orange and red marring her vision each time she opened her eyes. Finally she finds Haruo's hand in the confusion and pulls him closer to her. The blurriness of her vision seems to settle as she looks to Haruo. His small form was slumped on the earth beside her, in a flurry of shock and horror, Kazue pulls him into her arms and checks for injuries. Nothing. He was breathing but unconscious. Staying low in the bushes, Kazue peeks up to look in the direction she had before getting thrown back like a rag doll. Her eyes refocus with disorientation at first before terror takes its place.
Orange chakra flickers in the air with a rhythmic flow, the black night almost fully illuminated and chased away by a hue of dense heat. It was as if a burning star sat in the valley before them, but the heat wasn't the only thing making the air difficult to breathe in. There was a kind of intense anger, rather, a murderous rage in the heat of the air around them. That tinge that she had seen earlier had intensified into a crescendo of heat and dark, terrifying emotion before her. A wetness grows in Kazue's hand as she looks down at Haruo. She lifts her hand from behind him and stifles a scream as she recognises thick red liquid smeared across her palm and fingers. A painfully deafening roar rips through the air and Kazue's ears, sending excruciating pain through her head. When Kazue next looks up, a pair of large black eyes stare back at her from the centre of the orange chakra. In that moment, Kazue feels herself detach from her surroundings and lose all other sensation excluding one emotion in her heart.
Fear.
The eyes hold her paralysed, the black depths of the pupils drowning her in an inescapable trance. Chakra seems to vibrate within Kazue's tissues, initially like small static shocks to her skin. Gradually the vibrations become so strong, Kazue feels as if she's suspended in a vast ocean, getting pummelled by the relentless waves until she couldn't tell which way was up. With little warning, Kazue is flung back onto the earth with the wind knocked out of her lungs. She looks back at the pair of eyes from across the valley, now smaller though no less terrifying. Chakra begins to spill from her navel, orange energy bubbling and fizzing as it hits the ground and flows towards the mass of chakra ahead. Before her consciousness fades, her eyes catch a glimpse of a figure in the distance, red glints in the darkness.
Kazue stirs restlessly in her sleep, Madara tries to pull her into his arms to comfort her fervent movements to no avail. Whatever nightmare she was in, it was bad. Usually she'd settle and nuzzle into his chest within the hour, but she only seems to become more and more disturbed. Kazue's body becomes warmer against him and with little warning, hot orange chakra spills from her and assaults his skin like liquid fire. Ignoring the burns her chakra was inflicting on him, Madara notices a different tone to the energy flowing from her. There was something concerning about her chakra, something that felt very unfamiliar and very hostile. Kazue's eyes flutter open and she takes several moments to orient herself before an expression of horror appears on her pale face.
"Madara?!" Kazue immediately withdraws from Madara and settles her chakra until the room grows cold in its absence.
"Kazue, what happened?" Madara's words are more concerned than curious as he moves toward her cautiously,
"I'm so- I'm so sorry…" She buries her face into her palms and begins to weep.
"I'm fine, Kazue, I'm more worried about you." Madara pulls her into his lap and holds her tightly, she relaxes eventually and her sobs settle into silence. It doesn't surprise Madara when she begins to heal his burns, he doesn't stop her. "What happened, Kazue?" he asks, his lips in her burgundy red hair.
"So many horrible things…" she eventually answers, "Haruo and…" she begins before her eyes widen with shock,
"And?" he frowns
"I need to speak with Mito, now." She holds his face and kisses him almost protectively before rushing to her feet and pulling a robe on, leaving Madara quiet and confused in their bed.
Kazue bounds to Mito and Hashirama's room and all but knocks the doors down.
Hashirama and Mito stir from their sleep at the sound of banging on their doors. Mito immediately feels Kazue's presence before her younger sister yells out to summon her. Mito groans in annoyance at first before sensing the unease in Kazue's chakra. She kisses her half-awake but concerned husband on the cheek and ushers him to go back to sleep before wrapping a robe around her and heading to the door.
"I need to know what that means… I think you know what we're dealing with here." Kazue frowns at the ground as Mito sits down in her study chair with an exhausted thump.
"I had never imagined…" Mito massages her temples, trying to absorb the implications of her sister's dream. As much as she wanted it to just have been a 'bad dream', Kazue had always had the knack of hyper-awareness and it often manifested in her dreams. It was too dangerous a dream to ignore.
"Is there something you're not telling me?" Kazue says finally, Mito considers this for several seconds before she decides to sit her sister down across from her and summon Hashirama and Madara.
When they arrive, Madara sits beside Kazue who lets herself relax against him and pulls a blanket over their legs. Hashirama places a hand on Mito's shoulder, his cool chakra emanates from his fingertips to calm Mito who takes a deep breath before speaking.
"You have a link to the nine-tails, Kazue." Mito manages to say before bracing for Kazue's response.
"Did father...?" Kazue's voice is barely above a whisper, Madara searches to find emotion on her expressionless face
"Yes. He tried to make you a jinchuriki so that Uzushiogakure could maintain peace." Mito bows her head in shame and disappointment
"That's why he didn't let me train as hard, or fight as much as he let you…" Kazue slumps back into Madara's arms while he looks up at Mito, half angry and half concerned. Kazue looks up at her elder sister fighting tears, "why didn't anyone tell me about something this dangerous?"
"It failed and the transfer was never completed. You were so young, as you grew we never mentioned it again. We didn't think there was any residual effects." Mito sits down while Hashirama wraps a robe around her shoulders. Her explanation wasn't a lie, however it certainly wasn't the truth. Mito was hoping Kazue wouldn't delve further, though she knew better.
"How am I alive?" Kazue mumbles in disorientation
"I don't… Father said your chakra had the most potential in the village for the transfer. As a very young child I remember little from that night, I heard voices and I felt your chakra spill into the air like a thick fog in Uzushio before Mother-" Mito's voice breaks and tears roll down her cheeks in a continuous stream. She had said too much. Hashirama feels helpless as he watches his wife's shoulders shake with grief and the weight of the secret she had kept from Kazue for so long,
"Mother didn't die in the crossfire of the war, did she, ne-san?" Kazue's glassy gaze falls to the ground in front of her. How she hoped this was all still part of her nightmare…
"No." Mito takes several seconds to calm herself before continuing, "when mother found out what the medics were doing, she stopped the procedure immediately. Because the transfer had already begun, maybe you still hold a piece of the nine-tails' chakra within you."
"What happened to mother?" Kazue's eyes don't blink at Mito's words explaining her link to the nine-tails and the evil creature, in her heart of hearts there was only one truth she wished to know now.
"No one but a select few had knowledge that Uzushio had managed to seal the nine-tails. When she found out what was happening, mother didn't allow them to repeat the transfer on you again. But at that point, the beast needed a host or it would be released in the village itself… Mother offered herself instead… But her body it-" Mito purses her lips before speaking again, "In the end it wasn't strong enough to hold the beast." Mito shuts her eyes in exhaustion and sadness, having held those words in for so many years from her sister
"She was sacrificed because of me…Why didn't you tell me, ne-san? Why…" Kazue sinks to the floor from Madara's arms, all strength in her having been sapped away from her. Madara moves to catch her before she can hit the ground and scoops her into his arms.
"That's enough." Madara shoots a glare at Hashirama and Mito, although his expression is concerned more than stern. Hashirama sends him back an apologetic look while pulling Mito into his arms. Madara carries Kazue from the room, her small frame shaking in his arms with devastating grief.
"I'm so sorry…" Mito manages to say in their wake before her sobs interrupt her.
Hashirama joins Madara in the study at dawn, Madara sits organising scroll upon scroll with tired eyes and a cranky Yua over his shoulder as his friend sits at the window beside his desk. It had taken several hours of Kazue crying before she finally succumbed to sleep. Yua had almost followed suit and cried non-stop. Kazue had tried her best to feed and console the young one, however Madara assured her that she could rest and he'd take Yua with him to the study. Kazue's spirit seemed so broken that any push and he may have shattered her into a million pieces. She would never admit it, but he knew her emotional vulnerability now had made her feel like a negligent mother. After his sadness for his wife, he felt anger and shock toward Hashirama and Mito. How much sadness did Kazue need to suffer through? First her father, then Haruo and now her mother. And how could they have possibly kept such a colossal secret from not only Kazue herself, but the Uchiha? This piece of information would have completely changed their tactics and intel.
"I know what you're thinking, Madara." Hashirama looks up at the Uchiha with pensive brown eyes, "Why didn't we tell you and Kazue the truth."
"I'm struggling to understand what could justify withholding such an important piece of information." Madara folds his arms across his chest and offers Hashirama a span of silence to elaborate
"Mito never wanted Kazue to blame herself for her mother's death. She had no clue that there was a residual piece of the beast inside Kazue. She's always had very powerful chakra and it has never been as unstable as it has since the incidents began."
"Emotion aside. You didn't think this would be a crucial piece of knowledge in getting to understand the enemy? You didn't think that perhaps we could have protected Kazue better?!" Madara narrows his eyes in disbelief
"Madara, please understand that we didn't know she harboured any of the beast's chakra. We didn't think it was possible, medically the two chakra signatures should have opposed each other… But they're so seamlessly connected, I sense nothing strange." Hashirama defends
"They're not connected, Hashirama. I've felt a different chakra signature from Kazue before, something completely opposite to her natural aura."
"What are you talking about?" Hashirama's tone becomes concerned
"The sheer magnitude of Kazue's chakra is more than enough to mask what is laying dormant inside her. I think she can draw it out in her subconscious." Madara settles into his chair and reshuffles Yua onto his other shoulder.
"What use would that possibly pose for the enemy?" Hashirama frowns
"I can't make sense of that part. Kazue only harbours a miniscule fraction of the beast's chakra."
"That's it!" Hashirama all but jumps at Madara in shock, scaring the Uchiha and causing Yua to stir,
"What?!"
"Kazue has a fraction… A fraction that communicates with the whole. Which means…" Hashirama probes, Madara frowns incredulously before the answer makes his face fall blank in realisation.
"Find Kazue… And he can find the nine-tails."
Madara returns to his and Kazue's bedroom hours later to find her stirring in the covers. He settles Yua into her cot and tucks her small body into the blankets Taking off his shoes and shirt, he nestles in to the covers beside her. As much as he wanted to tell her of what he and Hashirama had discovered, he decides to let her keep some hours of rest for the night. Kazue turns over to face him, her brown eyes bearing intently into his.
"Did Yua manage to sleep a few hours too?" she asks
"A few? She's had more than the four of us adults in this house combined tonight." Madara grumbles
"I'm glad" Kazue chuckles, "I feel like I've been so absent from her life in the last couple of days. Thank you for taking such good care of her, Madara."
"It's my job to. You've been through a lot these past days, you need rest."
"I-" Kazue looks up with tears in her eyes before Madara kisses them away
"It wasn't your fault, Kazue. Your mother chose to protect you because she loved you more than anything else. Believe that." He pulls her tightly into his arms before she can form a rebuttal.
Eventually, she settles into his arms and lets herself feel cherished by her husband. His cool chakra emanates from him in calming, irresistible waves. She tilts her chin up to plant a small kiss on his lips. To which, the Uchiha responds with another, this time, longer and slightly more urgent. Kazue feels a throb between her legs at the thought of what the next kiss would feel like. Madara chuckles when Kazue's legs wrap around his waist, an innocent expression on her small face as her thigh brushes over his manhood.
"You know I don't have a lot of self-restraint when it comes to you." Madara kisses her nose to which she pouts like a child being denied their favourite food.
"You should sleep, my love, you're running on empty right now." he smooths her hair and lies onto his back, keeping an arm under her neck.
Kazue peeks over at her husband, stoic and relaxed as if already asleep. As tired and emotionally exhausted as she was, she struggles to quell the desire rippling through her. She huffs in irritation and straddles him in one swift movement. Madara looks slightly taken aback but eventually offers her a grin and a wink. They remain there in silence before Kazue speaks.
"Madara, please." Her soft request strikes a chord in the Uchiha who immediately sits up with her in his lap.
"Like hell you'll have to ask for anything I can give you." He growls before slipping his shirt off and kissing his wife.
Their lips crush into each other with intensity, as their hips begin to move against one and other with urgency. Madara grabs her thighs and anchors her wet sex onto his erection. They had tried sex a couple of times since Yua's birth, but penetration had been uncomfortable for Kazue each time. Perhaps there wasn't enough preparation… Madara flips Kazue onto her back and pulls her legs over the edge of the bed so her feet can touch the floor. While he kneels on the floor, his lips kiss patterns across her thighs and over the hem of her underwear. All but yanking the fabric obstructing his tongue from her pleasure, Madara lets his mouth roam her sex fervently. Kazue's hips twitch and shake in response to his tongue, soft moans and gasps escaping her lips. Madara holds her pelvis tightly above him, letting his tongue flick against her clit rhythmically just as he knew she liked. Kazue's hands run through his obsidian hair, she blushes when she looks down to see his dark eyes fixed on hers, hazy with desire. Before she could make sense of the sensations he was making her feel, she notices that two of his fingers were inside her, this was not as surprising as the sensation of no pain. Even fingering had been sore in their past attempts at sex after the birth, but tonight she didn't want him to stop. She find herself at the edge of climax before Madara stops and returns to kissing her.
"I have to tease you a little bit of course." Madara nibbles at her neck,
"My turn." Kazue surprises him by pushing him back against the head board and kissing her way down.
Madara feels his breath hitch as her lips graze over the tip of his erection. Her eyes hold a glint of mischief and need which arouses him even more. Her burgundy hair spills across his thighs in a tantalising series of caresses as her head bobs up and down, her soft lips taking in and releasing his manhood. She really could drive him crazy if she wanted to. He struggles to maintain his composure before pulling her face up to his for a deep kiss. Kazue straddles his lap and lets her wetness rub against him.
"We can stop here, Kazue. If you're not comfortable yet-" he starts before Kazue places a finger on his lips
"I want you." She kisses him gently and guides the tip of him inside her.
Madara grunts in pleasure at the sensation of her, Kazue grimaces slightly but the pleasure most certainly overcomes any hesitation she has. Madara readjusts them slightly before pressing into her slowly, taking note of Kazue's reactions. So far she was in no pain, her muscles remain relaxed without spasming around him. Perhaps they could try a small amount of penetration today and work up? Madara traces patterns against her thighs.
"Kazue, show me how deep is comfortable." Madara whispers in her ear, Kazue holds his shoulders to support herself before taking in his whole length.
"Kazue?!" Madara hisses in ecstasy and worry simultaneously to which Kazue looks down at him and smiles with pleasure in her eyes. Madara relaxes instantly and lets his lips crush into hers. Kami, he nearly came just then. Their hips start to move in coordination soon after, Madara's orgasm building with each thrust. His eyes remain fixated on Kazue, her breath was deep and intense and her body writhing in pleasure rather than pain. Madara pushes Kazue back onto the bed and cradles her head in his arms as he rolls his hips, his erection pressing deeper inside her with each movement. Kazue lets her legs wrap around his waist, her fingers grab at his firm buttocks in desperation and her moans signal her approaching climax. Madara lifts her leg up to hook over his shoulder before his thrusts become more and more urgent. The two of them hold each other tighter and tighter before their orgasms ripple through their bodies.
The two of them catch their breath and roll back into bed as the cool evening air brushes across the sheen of sweat on their bodies. Kazue nestles against Madara's chest in exhaustion and bliss.
"That was amazing." She sighs,
"That's an understatement." He pats her bottom
"You don't think Yua woke up, do you?" a frown of mortification mars her face
"I'm telling you, that kid can sleep through anything. Although…" he begins
"Although?"
"Although I hope you know I was holding back. Perhaps we'll soundproof the walls for next time? I don't know if you'll be able to control yourself when I'm done with you." He gives her a smug grin
"Oh really?" Kazue wraps a leg around him
"Round two?" he asks jokingly albeit with some seriousness which receives a scoff and laugh from his wife as the two of them snuggle in to each other's arms and fall asleep.
A/N: Sorry for the delay, I'm back to my flaky ways! Thank you for supporting the story though, hoping you're enjoying it and staying safe in these crazy times!
