Chains of the Senju Princess – Uzumaki/Senju Oc

Part 18

Opening the letter the mouse had carried with it, Naruto laid his eyes on the third letter Uzu had sent him after her departure.

Between every letter, there had been months of silence … and after every letter, he feared that it would be her last, since she took so long to send another one.

At moments like that, he hugged his fox and just reread all of the previous letters, trying to convince himself that she would inevitably come back to him.

Reading the letter, his eyes widened.

Dear Naruto,

As you are reading this, Jiraiya and I are already on our way home, we’ll arrive in Konoha in about two months’ time. I’m already excited to see you again~. I hope you’ve been well. And I hope that the fox continues helping you sleep well at night, you told me how much you appreciated that.

Naruto chuckled, seeing a small drawing of his fox next to her words.

Through Jiraiya’s information system, we’ve found out about Asuma’s death … and that Hidan and Kakuzu of the Akatsuki are either dead or ‘dealt with’.

You’ve told me that you have gotten a bit closer to the ino-shika-cho trio, so … are they well? I would have told you to take good care of them or something … but I know that you, especially you; would never abandon your friends. I have full trust in that.

If you want, you can keep the animal that brought you this letter, or send me a letter back, though since Jiraiya and I are constantly moving, it might prove to be complicated for me to receive it and read it before coming back to Konoha.

Either way, I’m happy to finally get to see you again soon~. I’ll show you my Rasengan when I’m back!

Love,

Uzu

…

Again, Uzu stood in front of the huge gates of Konoha.

She still remembered the first time she had seen these gates. Back then she had just woken up to a completely different reality. And honestly, she believes that she has done quite well till now.

“Come on little princess, let’s go in. Let’s meet Tsunade first, we need to tell her about all the things that we found out.” Jiraiya said, snapping her out of her thoughts.

Walking past the two guards, she saw their bright smiles and took it as a sign that they probably remembered her. Those two from all those months ago were still on guard duty every day, or again on guard duty.

Normal people could never sit there all day and wait for people to come to Konoha’s gates.

Sending them a partly genuine smile back, the one she had worked so hard on perfecting, she finally entered Konoha again.

Honestly, the first thing she wanted to do was meet Naruto and spend some time in the forest. She had planned on creating a huge cuddle pile with the animals she had left there in hopes that her safe space would remain the same until she got back.

Seeing that it was quite early in the morning, Naruto should still be asleep, and she was fairly sure that he did not sleep in his own apartment anymore … he simply did not need to. He had another home now.

Stepping into the Senju apartment and past all the seals that prevented sensing what was inside, she finally sent out her chakra waves, hoping to find his familiar chakra signature inside of his room.

However … to her disappointment, neither Naruto nor his fox were there and her other animal seemed to be gone too.

Her mother was in the kitchen, preparing food, when they stepped into the apartment.

Seeing Tsunade look towards them, Jiraiya spoke: “Tsuna! We’ve come bearing good and bad news …”

As Tsunade started walking towards them, Jiraiya opened his arms, intending to accept her hug, only to find that Tsunade had not hugged him, but Uzu instead.

His mood seemed to drop, but he had a gentle smile on his face, looking at the mother and daughter pair finally reuniting.

Feeling the warm embrace of her Mom, Uzu relaxed and took in her Mom’s familiar scent that she had come to associate with safety, love and warmth.

Honestly, hugs from the people she loved were therapeutic for her. When her thoughts occasionally spiraled to places she had lived in for years in the Before, a simple but genuine hug would calm her and snap her out of it.

Uzu really didn’t know if her past life could have been different if she had had support like this. Sure, it would have been slightly easier to brave through all the aspects of society that she just wasn’t strong or motivated enough to face, but it wouldn’t have changed the fact that she just did not feel like living back then. Nothing anyone ever said to her was able to change her view on life. Really, she did not really understand how she managed to live for so many years in her past life. Mentally, she started wishing for death when her puberty started. Physically, when her already nearly non-existent social circle died and left her all alone. As her social obligations faded, she someday just randomly decided that it was enough. And from then on, it just solved itself.

It’s different now. It’s so different now.

There are people that actually care about her, or so it seems, she still couldn’t help but suspect that they had other interests at times, but she at least felt like they cared for her. And that is enough.

Uzu had warmed up to a few select people and she would try to show her affection for them through actions, not necessarily words, those just weren’t her forte. Well, she had wished to be mute in her past life, no matter the consequences, if she could just stop talking to others. That should give some perspective to the deep dislike she had for social interaction with people she just did not care about.

…

Sitting on the couch, resting her head on her Mom’s lap, something she had actually not done before, she let her legs dangle down the couch’s edge.

Currently, her Mom was carefully and gently stroking her head, making waves of satisfaction rush through Uzu’s body.

She had loved it when her Mom had patted her head before she departed from Konoha and she loved this even more.

People need hugs, head pats and kisses in their life’s …, Uzu thought, mentally sighing in content.

She mostly ignored the conversation Jiraiya had with Tsunade, only catching bits and pieces of it.

“So … the information we got from Uzu is mostly accurate. We couldn’t find any information about Madara or Obito yet. Also, there is a person named Zetsu in the Akatsuki, but his appearance is different from what Uzu’s information suggests and Pain will come for Naruto soon …” Tsunade sighed.

(A/N: I’ve decided that there will be no Kaguya revival in my story. Black Zetsu was there and got Madara on the path to do what he did in Canon, but Black Zetsu died at some point for a currently unknown reason. Just wanted to clarify that. This will probably cause potholes to appear in some ‘experts’ eyes, but I honestly couldn’t care less. The whole Kaguya fiasco seemed pretty … uh … boring to me. No story of mine will ever feature a Kaguya revival. Probably.)

Jiraiya nodded solemnly: “We need to figure out a way to protect the village. Since we don’t exactly know when the village will be attacked, we can’t just have everyone move right now. Since no one but us three actually knows about the impending danger coming towards Konoha, we also can’t just order everyone to move somewhere else for an indefinite amount of time. We did find out a bit more about how Akatsuki came to be who they are now though. And we were able to confirm bits and pieces about the member’s abilities, though, not everything. Sigh … if only I had been there for those three …”

Tsunade nodded, halting her hands that had patted her daughters head. Tsunade looked down, seeing the very, very small pout on her daughters face before Tsunade smiled softly and continued moving her hands.

Seeing her daughter’s eyes close again and the smile return to her face, Tsunade felt a rare moment of peace that she had missed over the past months.

Not knowing what was really happening to the two of them, she had worried, even though Jiraiya sent reports on their well-being from time to time.

Tsunade raised her head, seeing Jiraiya fondly smiling at her daughter’s genuine smile that she so rarely showed.

It really was a good idea to have her go with him. He could be dead by now, which he, thank god, isn’t. And they were able to bond. I know that Jiraiya must have taught her a few things and her combat capabilities must have improved as well.

Snapping out of her thoughts, Tsunade looked down, having noticed that her daughter’s breathing had turned soft and even. And sure enough, she had fallen asleep.

Others might now know, but for a shinobi, with their inbuilt sense of danger and paranoia that they simply needed in order to survive, sleeping near another person was a sign of trust.

Though Tsunade knew that her daughter trusted her, she still felt a warmth spread in her body, seeing her daughter sleep so peacefully on her lap.

…

A/N: This chapter is quite a lot shorter than normal, but I hope that that’s okay. It just seemed like a nice place to end the chapter?

I don’t think there will be another chapter today … but there’ll be more tomorrow for sure! :3

Please make sure to comment and heart the chapter :c