Uzumaki.

The name roughly translated to 'maelstrom', an all-powerful whirlpool that tore down and swallowed everything that came within its reach. The shinobi of antiquity believed maelstroms to herald the rise of the great dragon god of the seas— Ryujin —from the depths of the ocean. Old legends spoke of how the dragon god would rise from the ocean floors and one day consume the world.

It was almost poetic how the Uzumaki clan accomplished something very similar to that effect after the Warring States Era came to a close.

Naruto knew that much from a worn-out textbook in Mr. Yakushi's library.

The book had mentioned rumors about how the Uzumaki were sealmasters, creating fuinjutsu able to mimic unique abilities and then absorbing them into their blood. It had also talked about the existence of giant beasts whose very existence altered reality as one knew it— creatures that held enough power to destroy the Elemental Nations on a whim, yet were somehow trapped by clansmen of the Uzumaki.

Creatures known as Tailed Beasts, or Bijuu in the Old Word.

How the process was achieved was unknown, and the majority of what was mentioned was hearsay and hypotheses. For young Naruto, whose belief in rationality and hard facts overshadowed all else, the book might as well have been one of Anko's gossip sessions.

But now, in hindsight, the decision to stop reading had been a grave mistake.

"You're telling me that my mother was an Uzumaki." A nod. "And that you—" Naruto pointed a finger at the redhead with strange, gleaming eyes, "—are a monstrous fox? That's just so—"

"Overwhelming?" the woman offered. "Staggering? As if your whole world view is shattered?"

"—Lame," Naruto finished. "I may be a kid, but I'm not an idiot that you can sway with such a ridiculous tale to free you from that prison."

The self-proclaimed monstrous fox— who very much still looked like a pretty redheaded woman —twitched.

"Plus, I don't really buy into the whole 'come forward or you die' thing you have going on. I'm me," he gestured to himself, "and I'm standing here. You, on the other hand, are sitting behind all those bars. It just seems like a cheap trick to get me to open that gate for you."

Assuming he even could, of course.

Not that he could blame her for trying. Whatever this place was, it had imprisoned her and she wanted out. Naruto could sympathize— he knew what prisons were like, though his was a lot less… red. It was only natural she'd try every trick in the book to escape.

When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Mr. Yakushi once taught him that analogy.

"I'm not a monstrous fox, brat," the woman retorted in bemusement. "I'm the Kyuubi-no-kitsune, the fabled nine-tailed fox."

"But you sure don't look like it," Naruto wisely pointed out. "So why should I believe you?"

"Ah, seeing is believing then, is it?" She arched an eyebrow. "Would you prefer it if I looked like this instead?"

Suddenly, she snapped her fingers.

And the vast ocean of blood around Naruto detonated.

Naruto covered his head with his arms, but such meager protection was useless. What had once been a sedentary pool of blood was now transformed into an absolute nightmare— a true maelstrom, swirling and churning with giant tornadoes rising out of it, merging into each other only to violently explode and reform. The ceiling above turned cloudy, with forks of lightning raining down upon the ocean that kept rising up, as if trying to reach the heavens. Liquid fire burst out of the terrain underneath his feet, expanding and twisting and turning, paving the way to something even more cataclysmic.

It was then that he saw it.

Jaws.

Humongous, vicious things taller than the pillars in the castle. Teeth almost twice the size of his entire body came into view as a maddening voice erupted like a volcano, tearing through his eardrums.

"I AM THE VAST JAWS THAT WILL DEVOUR THIS WORLD."

The tails came next. Nine flaming appendages slashed through sky and ocean alike, the sheer power behind their swing shaking the very floor itself. Paralyzed with fear, Naruto gaped as a most terrible and monstrous face took form in front of him, with dark crimson slits for pupils.

"I AM THE HARBINGER AND THE HOPESLAYER. THE GREAT BEAST OF CALAMITY WHOSE ROAR SHATTERS THE VERY FABRIC OF REALITY."

No matter what Naruto did, his body would just not move. His wrists and ankles acted like they were solidified, like Guren's crystals. His throat was constricted to the point that even a single whimper could not escape, leaving his fear to be shown solely by a pair of dilated eyes, silently screaming in mind-numbing horror.

"LOATHE ME. FEAR ME. LET ME DEVOUR YOU AND I WILL MAKE YOUR DREAMS REAL!"

It was becoming impossible to breathe, as if there was a sudden dearth of oxygen that forced him to claw and gasp for air. He'd thought he'd seen darkness and death back at Orochimaru's castle. He'd thought he'd felt shock and distress at the hands of his master when the man had forcibly made him murder the woman and all those other shinobi. And yet, it was all insubstantial— irrelevant, in the face of this ever-consuming maelstrom of bloodpaindeathbloodfleshbloodpaindeath—

SNAP!

And just like that, he was back to standing in front of the cage, with the red-haired amiable woman standing in front of him, an amused smirk floating on her lips.

"So..." the MONSTER pretending to be a beautiful woman asked, a single hand on her hips. "Which of my forms do you prefer?"

Naruto couldn't help it. He doubled over and emptied his stomach outright, morbidly watching as his vomit mixed in with the river of blood and flowed away, much to the woman's consternation.

"This," he croaked, surprised at the sound of his own voice. "This form suits you much better. Less fiery that way."

Fire was Anko's thing, not his. That and snakes. If she'd been here instead of him, chances were she'd have cooed at the fiery monster, calling it 'cute' or something equally horrifying.

Then again, had Anko been here, she probably would've gone for the woman's throat, kunai in hand.

With everything he'd seen, Naruto doubted it would have ended favorably.

"Do you believe my words now?" the woman asked again.

"I— I'm not so sure anymore," Naruto mumbled, taking another step back. Fear and awe were mere inches away from overwhelming his mind, but Mr. Yakushi had taught him to always choose fact and experimentation over everything else. Rationality, much to the man's consternation, was an underestimated and underutilized resource in the shinobi world.

"You aren't?" This time, the woman looked genuinely surprised. "Truly?"

Seeing as he hadn't been turned to paste quite yet, Naruto mustered up whatever courage he could and pushed on. "I mean, if you're that powerful, you shouldn't need my help, right?" he began. "The Kyuubi-no-kitsune could destroy entire nations on a whim, and you're… No offense, but you're locked in by a couple of iron bars. It doesn't exactly paint the right picture."

He desperately hoped the murderous glint in the woman's eyes was a trick of the light.

"Besides," Naruto went on, feeling a little more courageous now, "I wasn't burned or scarred by your flames, so that means they weren't real. Ergo, an illusion!" He enthusiastically met her eyes. "It was genjutsu, right?"

Tayuya had once explained the concept of illusions— or genjutsu, as everyone called it —to him. He hadn't really understood it all that much, but it involved creating hallucinations so life-like that it felt real to the victim.

The mental tangent reminded him about the Master's last words— about how he'd be dead and so would Tayuya. But after dying meant— Well, he had no idea what happened to someone after they died. None of the books he'd read wrote anything about it.

He'd simply assumed it was like falling asleep, only for a long, long time.

It seemed like the most simple explanation. He liked simple.

Unless… he mused to himself, the entire experiment scenario with the Master was a genjutsu in and of itself? Why else am I in this strange place talking to some strange, delusional woman?

"Tell me, boy." The woman in question seemed to have trouble keeping her emotions in check. "Why do you think I want you to come closer?"

"To open this case for you, of course. Nobody likes to be in prison," Naruto answered, his tone losing its enthusiasm near the end. "Trust me, I'd know."

"Not everything is about you," the woman snorted, standing up in place. The distorted energies emanating around her had stopped, and now her form regained its earlier solidity, except for the farthest edges. "I know for a fact that you cannot open these cages," she gestured to the iron bars around her, "not unless you happen to have the key?"

"Sorry," Naruto apologized. He might not have been able to trust her, but that was no reason to be impolite. "No key."

"I presumed as much," she forlornly sighed.

"And by the way, your information isn't exactly authentic."

The woman blinked.

"You told me earlier that my mother is an Uzumaki. That's wrong."

"And why do you say that?"

"I have yellow hair."

"From your father. You even look like that yellow-haired son of a bitch."

"For someone who claims to be a fox, you have a strong human vocabulary."

"For a kid that knows big words, you are quite dumb," the woman saccharinely smiled. "Understand this, boy. Time flows differently within the confines of this seal, so you may still have some time left before that human consumes your consciousness and kills you." It was unnerving to see her speak of his death so conversationally. "But make no mistake. It will happen, and you will die, and the new seal will take over. Unless, of course, you listen to my instructions."

"And how do I know you're telling me the truth?"

"You won't come forward because you don't trust me, and I can't make you believe anything I say because, again, you don't trust me," the woman retorted evenly. "And so, you're going to die. You won't act on the information that I'll provide to save your life because, and this is getting repetitive, you don't trust me."

"Trust takes time to build," Naruto replied sagely. "Mr. Yakushi told me that."

"...I ought to eat you."

"You saying things like that doesn't exactly help with the whole trust issue, you know."

The woman's eyes twitched dangerously.

Finely honed instincts, sharpened through decades of battles and bloodshed, told him that this fight was a terrible idea. A battle for a shinobi meant one of three things— victory, death, or a learning experience. This was simply a fatal error.

Fighting the Fourth Hokage— no, fighting Minato Namikaze —at close quarters was a bad deal, no matter how you sliced it.

The Eight-Trigrams Seal had him locked. There was only one way out, and that was to go forward. Minato was the first step. Breaking the seal array open with the key, without the Kyuubi killing him in an act of repressed rage, was second. Finding Naruto's consciousness and consuming it was arguably the third, and easiest, step of the lot.

But first—

CLANG!

Two pairs of kunai clashed against one other.

"How is death suiting you, Namikaze?" Orochimaru hissed. "We don't have to go through with this, you know. With my Edo-Tensei technique, I can bring you back. All you have to do… is come to my side."

The Fourth Hokage's reply was two kunai shooting towards him, forcing him to leap back, narrowly avoiding a lethal strike to the face. The snake-summoner moved his hands apart, preparing to hurl a blade of wind at him when—

One of the kunai suddenly vanished, and in its place was Minato, the other kunai snugly fit into his palm as he came in for the kill and drove the weapon straight into the side of Orochimaru's head.

Orochimaru staggered in place, stepping back as blood spurted out of his temples, before his entire body turned deathly pale and then—

It transformed into a snake and fell down.

And two more snakes appeared out of nowhere, trying to bite into Minato's neck.

Two kunai met them head-on.

But the twin snakes proceeded to explode into several more copies, binding Namikaze inside a sphere before entirely bursting into flames.

A second Minato walked into the scene from the right, clapping good-naturedly.

"Twin Snakes Mutual Strike, while maintaining a double-layered genjutsu of this detail. Your reputation does you credit, Orochimaru."

The man had a cocky grin on his face. It made him want to punch it.

"The real me didn't get the chance to face you in battle," Namikaze continued wistfully. "He'd have truly enjoyed the experience."

Right, because that was really the relevant point in the entire matter. Orochimaru was having enough problems without him being forcefully reminded that he was having trouble taking on what was little more than a clone at best. A fully capable, murder-happy clone that had more power than it had any business having, but a clone nonetheless.

"Tell me Minato," Orochimaru shifted gears, "how is it that your clone is capable of performing the Shadow Clone technique of all things?"

Shinobi were a curious bunch, always on the lookout for new techniques to assimilate into their repertoire. And if that wasn't possible, they at least looked for possible holes in the technique, so they could develop a counter to use in the future. So if someone were to stop in the middle of a fight and explain their plan of action or techniques, most shinobi would, in fact, pause and listen.

Orochimaru was no different. In fact, he was even worse than others when it came to that particular trait. He distinctly remembered sparing the life of an interesting Kiri shinobi after sitting down with him to learn the secrets of the Hidden Mist technique.

"Show me yours and I'll show you mine?" Minato offered.

The snake summoner paused, before grimacing. "Never, never, say that to me again."

Namikaze's expression morphed to match his own. "Agreed."

Orochimaru snorted, breaking the awkward silence that ensued. "Your wish to stall me here is obvious, Namikaze. Why not just be honest about your agenda?"

The yellow-haired man pointed at his own chest, grinning. "Shinobi."

He pursed his lips. "Point taken."

Just then, a third Namikaze smashed a glowing rasengan into him from behind, pulverizing him down to his backbone. All in all, it was too much for the snake summoner's body, and Orochimaru immediately popped into a cloud of smoke.

"And how did Orochimaru of the Sannin learn the Shadow Clone technique?" Minato yelled to the empty tunnel. "Let me guess, you stole the Scroll of Seals while you were stealing my son?"

The floor cracked open as a third Orochimaru rose up, his arms crossed over his chest. "I borrowed it, Namikaze. All that jutsu, sitting there and gathering dust. Besides, it's not like the old monkey would miss it."

"Borrowing implies that you'll return it to Konoha."

"I will," Orochimaru affirmed. "When I own Konoha."

Minato just shook his head. "Still, I have to admit, I'm impressed. The nine-tails jinchuuriki, the Scroll of Seals, your new fuinjutsu creation." The man chuckled. "It almost makes me wish I aimed a little higher."

"You can always retry," Orochimaru offered. "With you standing by my side, we could easily bring down the other nations, even the other tailed beasts. I'd even be willing to craft a second seal for you. You remember Killer B, don't you?"

"The eight-tails jinchuuriki," Namikaze whistled. "That's a powerful bijuu. You drive a hard bargain, but I'm afraid I'll have to reject it."

Unsurprising. Much like the toads he summoned, Namikaze was rigid and unmoving in his naive ways. A particularly annoying character flaw, one that Jiraiya could never grow out of, despite Orochimaru's best efforts. He wasn't about to keep a candle lit that his pupil suddenly would.

Orochimaru shrugged. "So be it."

And the floor behind Minato's feet exploded.

Something was wrong, and Karin knew it.

She could sense it.

There had been no meals in the morning, which was strange. For all the pain the white-coats put her through, they were meticulous about providing her with proper meals five times a day. And not just meals, but also health supplements of the highest caliber— fluids that would keep her healthy enough to continue being their lab rat. Even though she was never allowed outside her large chamber, she had a perfectly fine toilet for her needs and a warm bed to sleep on.

The white-coats were bastards, but they were formal bastards.

But not today.

Today was different.

None of her meals had arrived today.

The two sessions she had each day with the white-coats hadn't happened either.

"Wh— why?"

The sound of her own voice felt foreign. During her time in isolation, Karin had slowly withdrawn into herself, limiting her conversations to the safe recesses of her own mind. After all, there had been no need to speak.

There had been no one to speak to.

Voice was a vestigial thing, when one knew nothing but solitude.

Karin slowly withdrew into herself. Within seconds, all smells and sounds had ceased to exist. As she slowly closed her eyes, the darkness encroaching her vision began to consume her.

Silent. Colorless. Empty.

And then there was Light.

It was an ability she'd discovered during her imprisonment. The Mind's Eye.

All her life, Karin had thought of herself as a good sensor. A great one, really. The ones in Kusa were capable of sensing chakra presences within a limited range, up to several hundred feet or so. Her very first attempt let her sense things from half a mile away.

But that was then. Now?

Her mind's vision spanned miles. Plural.

And even that didn't even scratch the surface of the Eye's potential.

Karin felt her mental surroundings alter and take shape. People, animals, weapons, curses, and even wraiths became visible, all of them distinctive by their unique chakra patterns. The monochromatic mindscape was splashed with color as the Mind's Eye painted the chakra patterns into hundreds of different shades.

She could sense eight white-coats— their steel-gray chakra indicative of their apathetic nature. They cared for nothing in the world save their intellectual pursuits. That, and the dark tinge of purple she had come to associate with fear.

Every single one of the white-coats had it.

And today, the hue burned brighter than usual.

What are they afraid of?

She turned her gaze downwards.

And wheezed.

What the—

The second floor felt like a furnace. There wasn't a single soul present, but something had been there— something tainted with a fire so cursed and evil that its mere presence scalded her deft mental touch.

What could possibly have happened inside this castle of horrors that was even worse than usual?

She mentally moved lower, her Mind's Eye allowing her to pass through the castle walls and floors like they weren't even there. Her physical form may have been confined to the chamber, but mentally?

Mentally, she could see everything that transpired on the island.

Mentally, she was free.

Where's Blue?

Blue— her favorite person in this prison —was nowhere to be seen. That was strange. She didn't know his name, but his chakra had a particular shade of baby blue, one that felt of innocence and innate goodness. As far as she was concerned, he was Blue.

But where was he?

Karin delved deeper into the dungeons.

And froze in horror.

Karin could sense at least a hundred souls, their chakra burning deep purple along with smidges of various other colors. Red, rage— green, frustration— ash, pain—

All of them were monsters.

All of them were shinobi.

All of them were twisted.

And all of them were being hunted.

She shifted her awareness to the right and—

A sword of pure lightning cleaved straight through her.

Karin's eyes shot open, and she found herself back in the chamber.

Wet, shivering, and absolutely terrified.

Just what was happening in this place? Where was Blue? Had something happened to him? Was he in that fight? Was he injured— was he— was he de—?

Karin shook her head violently, trying her best to throw the morbid thought out of her mind. Nothing had happened to Blue. She wouldn't let anything happen to Blue. Without him, her existence had no meaning.

She pulled at the manacles restraining her hands and legs.

They clinked but remained resolute, leaving her with a familiar feeling of helplessness.

She threw herself at the door, but the shackles pulled her back with just as much force— the chains too strong and heavy to break with her insignificant efforts. Blinking back tears she didn't know she still had, Karin sat down and looked towards the bars on her window.

A prisoner. That's what she was. She'd been locked in this madhouse of horrors since she was a little girl, hear earliest memories filled with nothing but blood and white-coats and blood and pain and blood and—

This time, tears really did fall from her eyes.

Five meals a day, wasting away within these four walls, screaming herself hoarse as her blood was taken and she was injected with all sorts of fluids, utterly violated to satisfy the perverse curiosities of some sick bastard.

This would be the rest of her life.

Only something would be missing.

In the depths of her despair, when she reached out as far as she could with her Mind's Eye, there would be nothing where there was warmth before.

No Blue.

And that was unacceptable.

Determinedly, Karin closed her eyes. Hundreds of different locations flitted through her mind, her senses painting them in different shades of color once more. Moving faster than physically possible, her presence moved downstairs, searching through rooms to find him. Most were discarded almost immediately. Blue's movements were predictable— he never went to the dungeons, never came to the first floor, and never traversed outside the castle's boundaries.

Faster, she told herself, zooming through different rooms and chambers and walls. Her mind whirled in frustration and anxiety.

Where are you?

Her thoughts lingered momentarily on the outer balcony— she'd sensed him there earlier that morning. Blue liked to stand there. Maybe he was—

Karin was there before the thought finished.

No Blue.

Shit!

She raced downstairs. Where was he? She needed to find him, and quickly. She rushed through the outer courtyard— wasn't there. She went past the small bridge to the place where boats were kept— absent. She sped through the dungeon in hopes he was hiding there from those monsters of titanic strength— no, faster!

The second floor was quickly discarded, so was the third. The first? No.

Where is he?

Karin pushed herself even faster, the anxiety now catching up to her as a growing sense of dread began to engulf her thoughts. She tasted something metallic on her lips, as a red haze crept inwards from the edges of her vision— the Mind's Eye didn't come without a price.

Faster!

Blue was nowhere to be found, and she'd pretty much checked the entire island. The only place left was the top floor, but if he was there, she'd have sensed him even without the Mind's Eye. She always did. But something inside her told her he was there. He just had to be.

Karin shifted her focus back onto the castle and soared upwards.

Still no Blue. Instead, all she found was—

Him.

Throughout her unfortunate life, she'd felt the chakra of many monsters— murderers without remorse and butchers beyond saving —and yet none had chakra so dark, so cold, so cruel, so unfeeling.

If Blue gave her hope, then the slightest contact with Black drained her of all hope.

He was a monster. An extreme psychopath, or as close to one as she'd ever met. Every time a white-coat came close to this person, their figure immediately became tinged with a purple, one that grew darker the longer they remained around them.

She refocused on the frightening chakra. There was something strangely familiar about it, a thin aura around the black, flickering in and out like a candle flame with specks of blue—

A frigid cold descended upon her.

No… No this can't—

Karin's head throbbed, the metallic taste filling her mouth. But she wouldn't be denied. She pushed past the cruel black and dove into the specks of blue, into the flickering flame of light, past the strange sigils of gold and steel and yellow and—

And then it happened.

She couldn't really put it into words. One moment, she was digging into the strange-looking sigils, hunting for her hope. And in the next, an inky darkness enveloped her as a long, skeletal arm belonging to a body at least thirty feet tall came out of nowhere and grabbed onto her.

Not her senses, not her physical body, but her very presence.

The stained black claws jutting out of knobby fingers dug into her, blinding her with a kaleidoscope of colors she didn't even know existed. Karin couldn't help but whimper as an absolutely murderous aura consumed her very existence.

This is it. I'm about too—

And then she was somewhere else.

No longer was she shackled in her prison, forced to perceive the world through her Mind's Eye. Instead, she found herself drenched in ice-cold water— no, not water. Karin's stomach lurched as she stared at the dull crimson liquid. This was blood— she'd recognize the familiar coppery scent anywhere.

Anxiety and nausea seized her as the skeletal fingers grabbed her once more and dragged her through the bloody grounds, the viscous liquid entering through her nose and mouth and suffocating her as she emptied her stomach in instinctive, blind terror.

Suddenly, she hit something solid— or was that liquid? She heard a loud splash and felt herself being spun around and dropped like a heavy sack. When she finally found a slight reprieve, she immediately used it to whimper from the sheer pain of it all.

"Who are you?"

Karin balked at the sudden voice, warily looking up. She'd fallen onto the floor— one overflowing with blood of all things, and there was now a stranger standing in front of her. He had bright yellow hair with sparkling blue eyes, and his face had strange whisker-like markings on each cheek not unlike a fox. He also looked to be in his early teens— probably thirteen or fourteen, if she had to guess.

"Look what the tide brought in," came a woman's voice. It was sharp, venomous, and raspy. Karin could sense overwhelming hate, weariness, and amusement mummified together in it.

She looked down at her shivering hands, then at her toes. She could feel the bloody waters caressing the top of her feet, lingering momentarily before being washed away by more crimson tides. It was cold, thick, and disgustingly slimy.

Those were physical sensations.

Physical sensations.

Karin gulped as she realized what that meant— she was no longer behind the safety of her Mind's Eye technique.

This was real.

That, or an elaborate genjutsu.

"Who are you?" the boy repeated, drawing her attention.

Karin opened her mouth to speak, but the words just wouldn't form. She tried to look around, but her eyes refused to focus on anything else. Instead, her attention was solely fixated on the boy.

"…Blue," she tried to murmur. It came out as a barely comprehensible croak.

"Huh?" the teen blinked. "Who's Blue?"

"You— you—" Karin raised a hand shakily, her mind refusing to believe what she was seeing. "You're him. You're— you're—"

"Naruto," the teen answered, smiling. "I'm Naruto."

"Nar—ruto," she repeated. "Naruto."

The name— Naruto —reverberated several times within her soul, resonating like a long-lost mantra that defined her very life and existence. Karin couldn't tell when she had gotten up exactly, but before she knew it, she had her arms swung around him as she embraced him in a tight bear hug. She dug her face into his neck, her hands clenching around him tightly, afraid he'd vanish if she let go.

It was only several seconds later that she realized she was draped around a stranger, one who had no idea who she was.

And he was naked.

"Ack!" She pushed herself off of him as if burned by his touch, her cheeks redder than the roots of her crimson hair, and looked him in the eye. "I— uh, sorry about that."

The boy— Naruto —looked torn between bemusement and confusion. Finally, a warm, lopsided grin spread across his lips. "That's alright, but who're you? How did you get in here?"

"This insect came in here looking for you, boy," the feminine voice from before growled out. Immediately a woman, one she could only describe as lethally beautiful, with blood-red hair stepped forward, appearing behind the bars of a large cage.

Karin immediately hid behind Naruto, tightly hugging his arm to her chest. Standing before her was the single largest source of chakra she had ever felt. Twisted and malicious and yet slightly playful at the same time, the blood-coloured chakra exuded a deathly aura in suffocating waves.

Then the entity— she refused to call her a woman —took a step forward. "Isn't that right, Uzumaki?"

Karin gulped. She— it — knew her?

"How— how do you—?"

A predatory glint appeared in the woman's eyes. "I can smell that stench anywhere, girl."

"Wait, you're an actual Uzumaki?" Blue— Naruto —spoke up, his gaze sparkling with curiosity, slowly shifting from her face to her red hair and then back to her face. "Well, you do have red hair. She," he gestured at the entity with his thumb, "was trying to convince me I'm an Uzumaki, too. Funny, right?"

Karin uselessly opened her mouth and closed it, repeating the action several times before her brain caught up.

"You're an Uzumaki, too?" she finally croaked out.

"Namikaze, really," Naruto muttered. "That's my father's family name. Plus, I have yellow hair."

But Karin's mind was racing far ahead for once. So close to his spiritual form, Naruto's essence and chakra glowed like the sun, blue and pure and warm. More interestingly, her gaze went down to his navel, where an incredibly complex seal lay drawn. As a student of fuinjutsu at her mother's knee, Karin immediately recognized it for what it was.

"That's—" she exclaimed, taking a step forward. "That's an Uzumaki creation! Eight Trigrams Seal. It's used to trap—" Karin choked, before slowly moving her gaze to the entity, who was now shooting her a mocking grin, a single fang protruding from her lips.

"You know what this is?" Naruto asked, looking at the seal with a strange expression on his face. "I thought it's just something I was born with. The Master—" he paused, with the air of someone realizing he'd spoken too much.

"...Yes," Karin moistened her lips. Seeing this entity, a tailed beast, inside this astral plane could only mean one thing. This boy, Naruto— her Blue —was a jinchuuriki.

A human sacrifice.

Was this why he'd been kept on this remote island? Away from the world?

Isolated, like herself?

It made a frightening amount of sense. For all the apathy the white-coats demonstrated, they would have to be a special kind of fool to mistreat a jinchuuriki. Tales of human sacrifices and tailed beasts alike were a part of Uzushio's legacy, and her mother told her plenty of such stories back when they lived in Kusagakure.

"Tell him," the Demon smiled at her.

It should have been comforting on the face of someone so beautiful, but instead it made her want to retreat to the safety of her torture chamber, letting all those pretty little machines drain the blood out of her. Why did she ever think this was a good idea?

She met Naruto's sky blue eyes.

And melted.

Again.

"Uh… you there?"

"Yes?" she yelped, shifting on her feet. "Yes— I mean, yes. What were you saying?"

Naruto calmly pointed at the ornate seal on his stomach. Karin cheeks reddened, and it took monumental effort on her part not to look even lower.

"It's called the Eight Trigrams Seal, the symbol of the main family. It's used to seal away beings of titanic strength, like her," she gestured to it with a finger, "inside people. To prevent them from destroying the world."

The blood on the floor began to shake.

Karin took a step back, but soldiered on. "Having that symbol means you're a jinchuuriki. A warden. A living lock that seals bijuu away from the real world."

The expression on the boy's face was priceless.

"Do you believe it now, boy?" the bijuu questioned, though Karin couldn't tell if she was smirking at him or snarling. Her aura of terrifying power was thick enough to roughly mask her emotions.

"I… yeah, I guess so."

Karin, however, had other things on her mind. The bijuu, whichever it was, didn't seem too murderous, given the way she was conversing with them just to prove a point. Besides, if such a beast wanted her dead, she'd be dead.

Karin pushed her fear to the back of her mind and focused on more important things. Blu— Naruto's lifeforce had been flickering earlier. It suggested that something more ominous was afoot, especially with the black-chakra of the monster melding with her beloved Blue. Something was utterly wrong and she wanted answers.

And if that meant interrogating a bijuu—

Karin glanced at Naruto, who was idly standing beside her.

—Then interrogate a bijuu she would.

"What's going on?" she questioned the ancient creature. "His chakra is fading. Why is he dying?"

The bijuu-woman ignored her and turned her head towards Naruto with all the haste of a snail. "So… Do you believe me now?"

"I suppose," he squeaked out.

"Good," the woman smiled. The very sight made Karin want to throw up. "Now, unless you want to waste even more of your miserable life, I suggest you listen to me."