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Kushina's Thoughts
Kushina watches Kurama and Shukaku as they set up camp for the night. The two of them haven’t stopped arguing since she’s meet them, but they’re teamwork is amazing. It puts a lot of Konoha teams to shame even, and she’s not the only one who’s noticed it.
Obito and Kakashi have been watching them like a pair of Hawks, and Rin is only a small step behind. The bits of information the two have been dropping is astonishing. The fact that their doing most of it on purpose is just ridiculous. Rin’s picked up at least two new poisons, Obito is learning sealing in a style that Kushina never thought about and Kakashi has finished his jutsu thanks to Kurama.
But she watches them and she sees the way that their gruff attitude and tough exterior hold in a lot of their pain. Kushina would know too, she’s worn that same mask many times in her life. When she first came to Konoha, when she learned the fate of Uzushio, when Mito-sama died. She knows what it looks like to hide your hurts from the world and instead face it with a snarl and a curse. It’s easier to hate and rage. But these two, they also have compassion and gentleness.
It’s not even hard to see either. The way that Shukaku tells Rin how to mix poisons and antidotes like a simi-patient easily distracted teacher. The way both of them show Obito how to do seals and how Kurama’s lips curl into the slightest of smiles when the pink haired boy mentions the color orange. The way Kurama keeps an extra eye on Kakashi and pulls him out of trouble or even out of his own head when the boy needs it.
But the easiest thing to see is how lonely they are. For all Kurama’s gripping about not being cousins and not being her brother, for all his running away, he always lets her catch up in the end. He hasn’t run her off with his red chakra, he hasn’t spit unforgivable words at her (sure he’s called her tomato and been rude but nothing unforgivable), he hasn’t left her behind.
She catches him looking at her sometimes, like he kinda might hate her, but he kinda might not. He looks at her like she’s familiar and painful, and it makes her wonder if she reminds him of his family. She wonders if he had a wife and child and if they died in Uzushio or somewhere else.
She catches him sometimes mumbling about a kit and muttering about a brat. She wonders if it’s his child he’s talking about. She wonders what happened to them.
She catches Shukaku too. But his mutterings are harder to understand. He missing being called ‘mother’ for one and Kushina kind of wants to ask but it seems impolite. Though Kurama smacked him on the head for the comment and told him he was not allowed to drive people insane. Whether that statement means Shukaku himself or others is kind of up in the air.
Then the mumbles about ‘grandmother’, that she kind of wishes she didn’t hear but at least she learned never to bring up the woman in conversation. There’s also something about the ‘weed’ being dead, but she’s not sure on that one either.
The only thing she has learned from all their arguing and mutters is that they are brother’s, they have siblings, (though she doesn’t know how many), they loved their father, (apparently the man was a sage), and something is happening in a year and a half that they’re very excited about.