Blood of the Broken, Scars of the Spiral (there are whirlpools in our veins)

Chapter Thirteen

'Memories and thoughts age, just as people do. But certain thoughts can never age, and certain memories can never fade.'

-Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

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Their first Jinchūriki they fought. Her every weakness was infested with their demonic chakra, tearing her down like a virus. They met her pleas with silence, and when forced- thrashed with intrusive malevolence until her aged and wrinkled body gave out. She was one hundred-ten name days old.

The seal was weakening the more she entered their space, demanding orders on deaf ears. The Uzumaki were a dangerous bunch in their sealing talents- and it comes as no surprise when they're soon wiped off the map because of it.

Kushina was next. Her seal was much better enforced than Mito's; they had once again patched all loopholes Kurama plotted to exploit. It fortunately worked both ways, and they had no qualms about the lack of communication they were able to share. Unlike Mito, Kushina visited them all but twice. Her lifetime passed by them with indifference until a single moment when everything changed.

They thought they had seen and experienced it all, but they were regretfully, very mistaken.

An uprooting sense of nauseating nostalgia as they felt the curl and coil of their chakra, intertwining, weaving into the condensed spiral of Kushina's seal. Piqued by their natural curiosity, they stretched a tentative arm out until they could almost touch it. Kushina was overly protective of it, whatever it was- and it was unlike anything they'd ever felt. Intimate on a level their transformed body had never been exposed to. It grew every day, and the bigger, stronger it got, the closer it got to his prison. They had no interest in Kushina's life anymore, but this thing, alien- unreservedly captivated them as it greedily suckled on their chakra like a parasite.

It was a couple of months later, when it was close enough to their confines; that he came to the wretched conclusion of what it was. It was a soul.

An infant, utterly reliant on Kushina's body- and chakra undoubtedly tethering itself to them. It was as much theirs as it was hers. Thoughts of sinking their teeth into its flesh fill their mind. They would brutally rip the only thing Kushina could ever wholesomely call her own from her mangled, desperate body. It would be sweet, sweet revenge.

But it was all their downfall when Kushina's body was finished with her spawn. The wire pulled taunt became a hopeless tug-of-war on their chakra, and the paled babe didn't stand a chance- he didn't cry when he entered the world. Kushina had to force gallons worth of chakra into his body to wake him up.

The Sharingan wielder intervened, daring to control Kurama, leading them around like a fighting dog on a chain after they'd been lacerated from their jailor. Their stockpiled rage hazed their view, and like a drug addict after a fix, they weren't going to give up their chance of freedom easily.

Namikaze Minato was the one to reseal them, fast enough for their chakra to be welcomed home in Naruto's body, breathing steading to the beat of a small, pathetic heartbeat, soul keening them for smother the babe's cooling body in warmth. They did so reluctantly, allowing a wheeze of millennia-old exhaustion to escape them, taking in the peculiar comfort of dark walls.

History has told gruesome tales of what humans did to power greater than themselves- the Fire Nation built atop of lands rightfully owned by the Kyūbi no Yōko were no exception.

There were times of tiny, shy tugs on Kurama's chakra that briefly roused them from their dozed state of slumber, and unlike their previous jailors, they bemusedly allowed the trickle of potency to slip through. They were uncaring for their host's fragility most of the time, determined to have this lifetime pass as quickly as the last, but the more chakra contributed pushed the two gradually close under their shared space.