Whirlpool was under attack. Minato knew it was only a matter of time before the small hidden village came under attack, he just didn't know it would be this devastating. Iwa had started their merciless attack only a week and a half ago and already the small village was in ruins. Minato and his team were to meet up with a whirlpool shinobi named Yoni, one of the few survivors. Their mission was to locate any other survivors and destroy any enemy ninja.

Yoni, they discovered, was a middle aged man with absolutely no hair and tattoos on nearly every inch of visible skin. He looked exhausted and Minato couldn't blame him, reinforcements hadn't arrived until it was too late and what few whirlpool ninja were left barely had the energy to move let alone scout for more survivors.

Minato walked ahead of his students with Yoni and couldn't help but feel a little awkward around the man. He was a very short man, only a few inches taller than his eleven year old students, and Minato who was only eighteen towered over them all at more than six feet tall. There was no doubt that Yoni had a commanding presence and it furthered unnerved Minato that the man was flirting with one of his very underage students, Rin.

They finally reached the outskirts of the village and Minato felt his stomach sink, the only thing they would probably find here was bodies. The only movement he could see was the various fires that had started to burn out. He glanced down to Rin who he was most worried about but her face was determined and refusing to acknowledge the worried glances that he and Obito were giving her.

Minato opened his mouth to ask where the most likely place a survivor would be holed up when there was a loud explosion and large cloud of dust rose above the tree tops to the south west of them. Without a word they all began running to the sight of the explosion, Minato holding back for the sake of the others, it would be a mistake to split up in unknown territory.

When they finally reached the source of interest they saw that the area had recently undergone some serious changes in landscape. The clearing was littered with bodies which was to be expected, what wasn't expected was that they were all Iwa ninja's and that the only person standing was a woman with bright red hair that reached down to her mid-calf.

Following Yoni's lead Minato and his team dropped down to the ground and since the other man hadn't drawn a weapon he assumed that she was an alley or a surviving whirlpool ninja. She must have sensed their presence because she spun around and for the first time in his life he paused at the savage look on her face. She was caked in dried blood and mud; she looked like an abused animal that had been backed into a corner. But then she caught sight of Yoni and relaxed.

All of the sudden she looked tired and a lot more vulnerable then she had a few moments ago. He noticed that she was wearing some weird short dress shirt thing with tight black pants underneath; both articles of clothing were torn and stained.

"It's okay Kushina, its over." Yoni told the woman.

She gave a sigh and a weary glance to Minato and his students before nodding. "That's a relief." She said right before her eyes rolled up into her head and she collapsed.

Rin, being the only medical ninja, rushed over to her and began assessing her wounds while Minato took a look around. There had to be at least thirty Iwa ninja here and from what he could see, there were no whirlpool ninja amongst the fallen which meant she had killed all these shinobi by herself.

"Who is she?" Obito asked Yoni.

"That would be Kushina Uzumaki." He said with an amused shake of his head. "One of the best damn ninja whirlpool has to offer; only she would be able to keep fighting for more than a week like that."

Minato turned his attention back to the Uzumaki girl, she had to be his age or younger. He couldn't imagine this tiny woman fighting off all these shinobi by herself and coming out on top like she did.

"I don't understand how she was even standing." Rin said aloud.

She cut away some material around her abdomen to reveal where she had apparently been impaled by something. The blood was dark and sticky looking around the wound as though it had happened a few days ago and she couldn't be bothered with patching it up. Rin shook her head as she ordered Obito over to help her clean the wound so that she could start healing it properly.

"Do we need to get her to an emergency medic tent?" Minato questioned.

"Amazingly enough, other than a few bandages, I think she'll be fine." Rin said.

Minato looked over to the older man when he started to chuckle. "Yeah that girl is one of a kind, she had unbelievable stamina. It's also a good thing we found her before the enemy could defeat her." He said.

"Why's that?" Kakashi asked.

"She's got this special kind of chakra that the other villages have been after for years. I'm not sure how it works, but I've been told she can restrain tailed beasts with it."

Minato took another glance back to the girl; she just kept getting more interesting by the second.

"Okay, that should do it for now until we get her back to the Leaf and to a proper hospital." Rin said as she reexamined her work.

"What kind of kunoichi has hair that long?" Kakashi asked as he glared at her extremely long red hair.

"You'd think it would slow her down but I've seen her choke the life out of people with that hair." Yoni said smiling at the obscure memory.

Kakashi glanced to Minato who could only shrug, this was certainly the first time he had ever heard of someone using their hair as a weapon. Morbid curiosity made him want to see this particular assassination technique in action.

"Okay she's ready to move." Rin declared as she stood up and brushed the dirt off her knees.

Minato nodded and bent down to scoop her up bridal style, he was surprised at how heavy she was, she was so thin it didn't look like she had much muscle but he was apparently wrong. Using his flying thunder god technique, he transported himself and the kunoichi to the front gates of the Village Hidden in the Leafs. He deposited her with a team of waiting medical ninjas before using his jutsu again to meet up with his team.

XxX

It had been a week since Yoni, Minato and his team had returned to the Leaf Village, besides the Uzumaki girl only three other survivors were found and things weren't looking up for them. Yoni was the only one able to walk around while Uzumaki was in a coma and the other three were in critical condition and not expected to survive.

Minato had been unsurprised that Yoni and his sensei, Jiraiya, had gotten along so well. he had rolled his eyes when he caught the two 'researching' at the bath house and left before they were caught and he was grouped as a pervert with them. He was currently eating BBQ pork with the two super perverts and couldn't help but shake his head as they traded stories on the various women they had come across.

The conversation was thankfully disturbed when Rin ran into the restaurant followed by two other medical ninjas. She looked frantic and out of breath.

"What's the matter Rin?" Minato asked his only female student.

"Kushina, she's gone." She turned to Yoni. "Do you know where she might have gone to?"

"I told you that you needed to tie her down." He said with a chuckle, apparently this wasn't the first time she had escaped from the hospital. "Every time she ran away from the hospital in Whirlpool she could always be found at a ramen stand, said it was the only thing that got the taste of hospital food out of her mouth."

The two old perverts laughed and Minato couldn't help but join in.

"She shouldn't be walking around, she shouldn't even be awake!" Rin said exasperated.

"You really shouldn't worry about her, she's a fast healer and sitting around in a hospital all day isn't in her nature." Yoni explained.

"That's not the point, she had a concussion, multiple fractures in her legs and arms, two broken ribs and she was impaled! Not to mention that she had complete chakra exhaustion! She needs to rest, not run around the village eating ramen." Rin argued.

"If we see her, we'll bring her back to the hospital." Minato said.

Rin sighed and nodded before leading the other two medic ninja's out of the restaurant and in search of the red headed kunoichi. Minato briefly entertained the idea of joining in on the search but decided against it.

"You here that Kushina, you're supposed to be in the hospital." Yoni said.

Minato followed his eyes to the cloaked figure sitting at the table across from theirs. He hadn't paid much attention to the cloaked figure and had only noticed that it had been there before they had arrived. The figure lowered the cloak to reveal the shocking red hair that was even brighter now that it was clean. She had a bandage on one check and didn't look the least bit surprised to having been caught.

"They don't know what they're talking about, I'm perfectly fine." She said sticking her nose up at the thought of being too weak to walk around.

Minato couldn't help the smile on his face, this girl was something else.