Her eyes fluttered open with a visible struggle. Those sapphire orbs, once brimming with an unyielding fire, were now dull and hollow—vacant as a drowning victim just pulled from the depths.
Her gaze drifted aimlessly across the dim ceiling for a few seconds before finally focusing, inch by agonizing inch, on the two blurred silhouettes beside her bed.
"Ugh..."
A thin, fragile whimper of profound agony escaped her bloodless lips.
"Kushina! Sensei Kushina!" Saiki and Tsunade both cried out in unison, their eyes filled with desperate hope as they leaned closer.
Seeing her awake, Saiki pushed his own bone-deep exhaustion to the back of his mind. He caught her slender hand in his, slowly funneling his remaining Sage Chakra into her battered system.
As the warm current surged through her, the crushing weight of her physical pain and weakness eased significantly. Kushina felt a sudden spark of clarity and alertness return. She finally recognized the two people at her bedside.
"Lady... Tsunade...?" Kushina's voice was a dry, raspy scrape. "Saiki...? Where... where am I?"
"It's me, Kushina. It's me!" Tsunade hurriedly grasped her other ice-cold hand, carefully transferring Yang-natured chakra to stabilize her spirit. "Don't be afraid. You're safe now. You're in the Konoha Hospital."
"...What happened to me?" Kushina tried to reach for her memories, but the drugs the Uchiha used had wiped her mind clean. She only knew that she felt unimaginably heavy, as if every ounce of strength had been siphoned from her bones.
Watching her struggle to remember, Tsunade soothed her. "It's over now. Don't talk. Just rest. Don't overthink things; we can discuss everything later."
Saiki remained silent, gently tucking her hand back under the quilt.
Tsunade told her not to worry, and in her dazed state, Kushina initially didn't notice. But the horrifying reality of her condition soon became impossible to ignore.
Aside from the indescribable emptiness permeating her limbs—as if her body no longer belonged to her and every cell was screaming out a signal of decay—there was something far worse.
The familiar, savage presence she had lived with every day for a decade was gone. The boiling, chaotic, and terrifyingly powerful chakra she had to constantly suppress with every fiber of her will... Kurama was missing.
"The Nine-Tails... it..." Kushina's voice trembled with a rising, disbelief-filled panic. "I... my chakra..."
Tsunade and Saiki exchanged a grim, meaningful look. Finally, Tsunade took a deep breath, her voice dropping to a heartbreakingly soft whisper. "Kushina, listen to me. The Uchiha... they forcibly extracted the Nine-Tails from your body. You... you no longer have the Tailed Beast."
The confirmation hit Kushina like a physical blow. Her head spun.
The Fox had brought her nothing but pain and isolation, but she was different from Saiki. To her, being the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki was a badge of honor—a way to serve the village that had taken her in. She took pride in being the shield of the Leaf.
And more importantly... she had lost her beast.
As a Jinchuriki, she knew better than anyone what that meant!
It wasn't just the loss of power. It was... a countdown to her death.
"Extracted... the beast...?" Kushina repeated the words like a hollow mantra. A gargantuan sense of despair swallowed her whole. The last spark of life vanished from her blue eyes, replaced by a grey, defeated haze. "I'm going to die... aren't I?"
She remembered Mito Uzumaki dying before her eyes. Now, she was following that same path. Even though she had prepared herself to sacrifice her life for the village, she was still just a young woman who yearned for a future. Silent tears began to spill from the corners of her eyes.
"No! You won't!" Tsunade cut her off with iron-clad certainty. She squeezed Kushina's hands, trying to pour her own resolve into the girl. "I am here! Saiki is here! We will never let you die! Look at yourself—you're still here, aren't you?"
Saiki nodded heavily. Although his haggard, pale face made his vow look fragile, his eyes were burning with an absolute, terrifying conviction. "Sensei Kushina, you are going to live! I promise you!"
Kushina looked at them. In Tsunade's eyes, there was a burning fighting spirit; in Saiki's, despite his exhaustion, there was a resolve that felt as immovable as a mountain. A small, sad smile touched her lips. With people like this caring for me, maybe dying isn't so scary after all.
As a remnant of the Uzumaki clan, she had seen her world burn once before. She wasn't truly afraid of death. She was afraid of having no home, of having no one to love her, and of a life spent in aimless wandering.
This was why she had accepted being a Jinchuriki—to be a part of something. She didn't hate the village for using her as a tool; she just craved love.
Seeing that faint smile, Tsunade panicked, thinking Kushina was giving up on life.
In this condition, a strong will to live was the most important medicine. Tsunade realized she had to give Kushina a reason to keep fighting.
"Saiki, step out for a moment." Tsunade gave him a sharp look. Saiki understood the signal immediately. He nodded, gave Kushina one last lingering look, and dragged his weary body out of the room.
"Kushina," Tsunade said, sitting on the edge of the bed and gripping her hand. Her voice dropped to a somber, serious register.
Kushina looked back at her with curious, tired eyes. "What is it, Sister Tsunade?"
Tsunade shifted slightly, letting Kushina see the emaciated, ghostly state of Saiki through the small window in the door as he sat down in the hallway.
"Listen. Your situation is extremely rare and incredibly dangerous. Extraction of a Tailed Beast is a death sentence. Current medical ninjutsu—even my own—cannot even delay the end. The only reason you are breathing right now is that Saiki is using his unique Sage Chakra to forcibly chain your soul to your body."
Kushina remembered Saiki's haggard appearance just now—how he looked hollowed out and broken. He's dying to keep me alive... just for me... Her heart clenched with a massive wave of guilt and agonizing affection.
"But," Tsunade's voice pulled her back, growing even more grave, "Saiki's current method is just a bandage. It can't cure the wound. And the toll on him is too high. If we keep this up, both of you will collapse and die within days."
Kushina's heart sank. The tiny spark of hope flickered.
So... there really is no way?
"However," Tsunade's tone shifted, her eyes locking onto Kushina's with a piercing intensity, "there is one more way! A way to completely heal the trauma to your soul and body."
Kushina's dull eyes ignited with a faint, desperate light, like a drowning woman catching a final straw. "...What... what way?"
The hospital room fell so silent that the wind outside the window sounded like a roar.
Tsunade pursed her lips, choosing her words with clinical precision.
Finally, staring into Kushina's pale, expectant face, Tsunade took a deep breath. She leaned in close to Kushina's ear and whispered a single, forbidden term in a voice that was barely more than a breath:
"...Dual... Cultivation."
"What does that mean?" Kushina looked puzzled. Seeing Tsunade act so mysterious, she assumed it was some kind of top-secret, solemn ritual. She looked at the Sannin with a questioning gaze.
Tsunade looked at Kushina's innocent, confused eyes. Her own cheeks began to burn with a heat she couldn't suppress. This was harder than performing surgery on ten dying men.
Kushina was a pure girl. She might have heard crude rumors, but this specific terminology was entirely foreign to her.
Tsunade cleared her throat, trying to explain it in a way that was direct but not entirely scandalous.
"It means..." Tsunade weighed each word, trying to maintain a professional, detached tone even as her heart hammered against her ribs. "You need to engage in a specialized chakra connection and fusion with Saiki. An... incredibly deep connection. Through this act, the immense life-force of his Sage Chakra can be transferred directly... into you... to repair the lethal damage left by the extraction. This isn't just a transfer; it's a fundamental restructuring of your life-source. Only the most intimate, unreserved union of Yin and Yang can achieve this effect... Do... do you understand what I am saying?"
As she spoke, Tsunade watched Kushina's face.
At first, Kushina just blinked in confusion, trying to wrap her head around terms like "chakra connection" and "Yin-Yang fusion."
But slowly, as the words "most intimate," "unreserved," and "union" sank in—combined with Tsunade's visibly flustered expression and the bright red flush on her face—a blurry, terrifyingly erotic realization crashed into Kushina's brain.
She wasn't entirely ignorant of the world. She had heard whispers of the hidden things that happen between men and women. She had simply never considered them in relation to herself.
"In... Intimate?" Kushina's voice spiked, carrying a frantic tremor. Her pale cheeks were suddenly painted with a violent, throbbing blush that spread all the way to her ears.
Her emerald eyes, previously dull with weakness, were now wide and round, filled with shock, panic, and an overwhelming sense of violated modesty.
"You mean... like... like a husband and wife...? With SAIKI?!"
The shock was so great she nearly forgot her weakness, attempting to bolt upright, only for Tsunade to catch her shoulders and pin her back to the mattress.
The physical contact seemed to confirm her worst fears. Kushina felt her blood turn into molten lava. She was mortified beyond words.
"ARE YOU INSANE?!" she practically shrieked, her voice raspy and breaking from the strain. "Sister Tsunade! Have you lost your mind?! I... I am his teacher! He... he is just a child!"
Facing the hysterical Kushina, Tsunade simply nodded, her expression grim and immovable. "Kushina. I am not joking. This is the only way you survive the night."
Seeing the absolute lack of humor in Tsunade's eyes, Kushina's screams died in her throat. Her fury and her protests were strangled by a cold, invisible hand.