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Before Uzushio fell, Kushina had little interest in the concept of a soulmate. It seemed too abstract, a far-off concern for some future version of herself to contend with.
Afterwards—well.
Kushina liked knowing there was someone out there, just for her.
The mark though, that always intrigued her: inhumanly bright, it unfurled like a portal to the heavens in her palm. The colour defied description, somewhere between the sea and sky, back-lit by a luminescent glow.
She thought of it as a blue eclipse over the sun, another omen to join the ranks of fell sailors’ warnings.
It meant that someone was out there now, wandering the world wearing a stray piece of Kushina’s soul on their skin.
Maybe they liked it too—the material evidence that they were reserved. As in, booked for future use.
Taken.
Kushina imagined someone as vibrant as a jewel and vaguely ethereal, a reflection of their lovely mark. Whimsical but complex, powerful but playful.
(Someone who wanted to be owned.)
A girl, she’d fancied. With sun-warmed skin to contrast Kushina’s pale hues, and a sweet, rose-petal mouth made to kiss.
And then Uzushio fell, and Kushina hardly cared at all what form this soulmate came in.
Only that they came.
She wished to have them before her. To eat them alive at once and reclaim that missing piece of herself.
Kushina wanted to be whole again.
Konoha seemed determined to unmake her, to reshape her into a vessel to puppet at their will. They knew nothing of what it meant to be a daughter of Uzushio.
Mito-sama still did, for all her time girdled amongst the roots.
No mortal may tame the sea, only learn its temperament. Even shinobi drown like any other in the wild storm.
Still, Kushina felt her patience slip away in increments, eroding the floodgates of her temper, leaking out of her to water Konoha’s endless leaves and towering trees.
In those days, she did not daydream of soulmates but of tsunamis. A cataclysm of red—the tide rushing in, flooding the Land of Fire’s vaunted forests in blood so hot it boiled at the touch.
Even then it isn’t enough, when Kushina splits herself open to be remade a receptacle or a sacrifice or a cage for a creature who makes her anger seem childish.
Puerile, in the face of the kind of animosity that has had lifetimes to mature and will have more still; will escalate to new dimensions with each new jinchūriki raised to make a weapon of its power.
Her vitriolic musings feel insignificant when confronted with wrath that has developed its own gravity, suffocating and all-consuming as the maw of a black hole.
The Nine-Tails’ hatred of its new vessel is incidental in the face of how much more it hates everything else. Hashirama. Mito. Konoha. Uzumaki. The scent of human beings. The fleshy jail he can taste withering around him, only to be passed onto the next and the next and the next and the next as his prisons breed like the short-lived little insects they are, barbarous and primitive in their frantic scramble to have power, contain it, capture it, command it, wield and waste and squander it only to do it all over again, repeating the cycle from generation to generation like a rabid dog chases the moon, maddened, reduced to nothing more evolved than the urge to kill and mate and kill even more and revel in the blood-lust for no other reason than because violence and savagery are the only languages they are all fluent in and yes that i͚͙͔͇͎̳̘̩̖͐̂̿ͩ͋͛̒ͤ͆̏ͦ̐̒̕͜ͅǹ͓̱͖̯̰̱̺͈͚̹̂͆̄̿ͨ̃̆̍̈́͛̕̚ͅc̜̫͇̬̟̝̦͉̘͙̫͚͇͓͈̖͓̩̘͛̇ͭ̏̌̈̄͆͒ͧ̀͐̏ͧ͌̍ͭͤ̕̕͟͜͢͡͞͠͞ͅl̵̺̬̬̦̫͓ͪ̽̾͂͆ͣ͜͞͠͝_̴̺̜͙̠̪͖͉̜̏̈́̋͊ͦ̓̐ͭ̒͛ͥ͊̈́ͫ̕͢͝u̷̙͈͕̼̖̤̰͕͔͓̻̇ͦ͒ͤ͢͡d͚͚̻͊̈͆ͯȇ̶̢̡̛͇͈͕̜̲͚̱̖͉͖̞̒̍̆̀̾̿̕̚s͇̟̮͔̔̀̍̀̌̌ͧ͢͢͠͡ y̵̴̨̝̱̖̮̥͉̹̲̫̙̘̖̽̒̈ͫ̏̿ͯ́̈́̒̉̀ͬ͂̎́ͮͨͨ́͒͘͘̚̚̚͜͜͜o̴̧̪̫͓͕̞̦͈͔̞̪ͮ̊̎͋͂ͥͦ̌̒͜͞͡ͅͅu̼ͤ_̶̝̠͐͟͡͡ t̶̸̨̻̭̫̞̻̟͚̯̖͕̫̱͍̼͑̆́͛ͭ̋ͦ͂ͣ͗ͣ́̉͡͠ͅơ̷̵̴̷̛͎̖̭͖̪̝̲̪̩̠̹͖͕̙̂͒͒ͩ̒͌͊̎̀̒̉ͣ̿̆̑͟͝o ģ̭̮̳̖̪͖̻̜̜͈̋͗̒ͧ̇̎̒͗ͭͫ̂ͮͭͫ_͈i̸̡̡̯̟̲͎̤͌͆̾ͣ̾ͣͩ̚͝ŗ̶̴̷̷̛̝͔͕̘̠̬͚̭̻ͦ͂̅̊̄̇ͪ͗̈̈́ͭ̈ͮ̎ͥ͌͡͡l̢̮͉͚̘̭͍͌ͫ͑͟⸻̢̛̫͎͚͉̫͚͓̗̻͎̩̍͒ͬͥ̉͛ͩ̌͝ͅ
The white-noise malevolence permeates Kushina’s skull, ringing like tinnitus in her ears, rattling the bars of the cage with the double-barrel thud-thud-thud of an endless heartbeat louder and louder until she feels she could scream along with it, high enough to pierce the heavens, to rend a hole in the sky.
Instead she reforms the bars into stakes, the locks into chains, the blooming nebula of creation into an endless prison, expansive as the galaxy, cold as the vacuum of space it emulates.
Kushina pins the Fox to the barren moon her mindscape conjures into being and yokes it down.
Skewers and binds it: throat to all nine tails.
Subjugation from an insect.
Yes, I too spit at god, she thinks, vicious and so full of fury she could eat the beast whole, and the world along with it.
This rage too, feels like an inheritance.
Mito-sama’s wrinkled hands folding over Kushina’s, seals unwinding like snakes over her palms, creeping down the veins of her arms, seeping into her arteries and threading through her bones, coalescing in her belly like settling lava.
This is the Uzumaki legacy in the end: blood will have blood and their jinchūriki will have more.
This is how Kushina meets her soulmate: brimming with too much rancour to tuck neatly under her skin.
Her teeth feel too sharp for comfort, threatening blood when she smiles properly. Venomous even when sincere. Eye contact is likewise a precarious thing these days, when her violet stare makes even Uchiha flinch.
It’s too blatantly predatory, pricks at that instinctive, human wariness of a bigger threat in the room. Poor etiquette, among ninja. Yet another thing marking her as an outsider amidst the green shades and dappled sunlight, even more than her hair—the red warning signal so obvious it may as well be a siren.
Namikaze Minato stares back at her like she’s hung the very stars in the heavens just for him to pluck.
Like he has just met his god, and is not disappointed.
Kushina nearly wants to hate him. All that blazing brilliance, gilding on a crown at first glance and blinding like a solar flare on the second.
Except he’s hers.
A part of her lives in his skin. The intricate red swirl of waves over Minato’s heart fits there like he was made around it.
The sight bleeds out her bitterness into craving—pierces her tongue with desire alone.
Minato isn’t a girl, despite his sweet, pink, mouth and perfect, rose-bud, cunt Kushina finds equally kissable. He’s undeniably masculine when he grows out of his doe-eyed childhood looks.
The sea-storm gaze doesn’t change though, and neither does the pleased, eager, little smile he keeps just for Kushina.
Other things do.
He winds up taller than she expected. Fills out his broad shoulders but stays lean to match his lightning-quick fighting style. The ratio of his narrow waist is obscene, tapering down the ridges of his obliques, hipbones carved like grooves for her fingers alone. Kushina comes to like his cock too, if at first only because it’s his, so therefore hers as well.
Minato’s hands are a divine creation: broad palms and long, clever fingers made for worship, for all that their best practice is violence. He’s built like something expensive—an extravagance she can’t pay for but is hers by right regardless.
Even knowing her own proclivities well, Kushina finds herself drawn in by his adoring gaze. Infatuated by even the most irritating of his idiosyncrasies. All of those terribly impractical things she thought she’d never feel over a boy.
Their thrilling chemistry makes her possessive, hungry to stake her claim in front of all the annoying sycophants Minato attracts with his prodigy label and relentless, air-headed charm.
It’s a delayed realisation, that Kushina’s soulmate is everything she wanted and nothing she expected.
She’s nearly suspicious of how easily Minato fits himself into her life. How attentive he is, ready to meet her needs or back off where she sets boundaries.
It is unfamiliar and therefore strange, the courtesy paid to her like it’s her due, his privilege to be at her command.
There’s a caveat to it, of course, because there always is. But it is, perhaps, something Kushina can live with—sharing a price she is willing to pay for having her cake and eating it too.
After all, nobody’s perfect.
(But on occasion, sprawled amongst her pillows like a ravished princess, dazed with pleasure and bright-eyed with devotion, Minato comes very, very close.)