The Namikaze Connection
by aishuu

Like most great historical discoveries, Uzumaki Sanae stumbles on the truth through sheer dumb luck.

She'a always had an interest in the history of the Hokages – in fact, it's her specialty at Konoha University. It's nepotism, really, since of the seventeen Hokages, eight have come from her Clan. The Uzumaki are synonymous with the strongest of Konoha's ninja-force, but flat feet had kept her from ever entering the academy. Not that she would have wanted to, but having the option denied to her rouses her sense of unfairness.

At twenty-six, she doesn't think about it much anymore. She's just been awarded her dream position at the university, and is taking the time to browse through the school's collection of primary documents. There's a scanning process underway which seeks to digitally preserve Konoha's earliest records, but it's been stalled due to a flat economy and the recent Shinobi War (the Thirteenth or Fifteenth, depending on which historian you asked). Other wars have taken a dent at Konoha's records (they'd been sacked, pillaged and burned multiple times), so the documents are really just a jumbled mess. Historians have to possess immense patience to try to sort through what remains.

Sanae's poking around halfheartedly, trying to decide what her next paper is going to be on. She's never liked the need for publishing, but it's part and parcel of her job. She'd much rather be in a classroom, trying to persuade students that understanding the past might stop it from happening again. It's probably a naïve hope, but it's her own way of fighting to protect her village.

One of the most contentious mysteries in Konoha's past is the ongoing debate about what happened to cause the Senju Clan to die out. The Clan, which boasted three of the first five Hokage, had faded into history with nary a whisper to what became of them. The Godaime, the last of the Clan, had passed away without leaving an heir.

Some say that the Senju had been eradicated through attrition in their subtle battle with the Uchiha; others believe the clan had always had a low birthrate and had married into others. Still others speculate that the Clan had changed names, and a few historians pose the wild idea of the clan never existing at all. Aside from the faces carved on the Hokage Monument (where the first seven Hokage are immortalized before space ran out for carving more), there's little concrete evidence describing Konoha's earliest years. A battle during the Godaime's time had squashed the village flat, and while Konoha had risen out of the ashes, not much had been saved.

It all comes down to the Godaime, really, who is considered the last of the classic Hokage. When Rokudaime had taken the hat, the second incarnation of Konoha had been born. Sanae, who's more interested in the earliest years of the first (and some say greatest) Uzumaki Hokage, hasn't spent that much time looking at Godaime except as the immediate predecessor to her family's eventual rise to power.

Maybe it's because she isn't looking that she finds it.

She stumbles on it while looking at a rough ledger of birth records taken during Sandaime's rule. It's long been speculated that Yondaime had been the father of Rokudaime. The famous Memoirs of Rokudaime Hokage confirm it, but there's no primary source record of his birth anywhere. Finding something might help spark speculation on the identity of Uzumaki Kushina, who is only mentioned once in the entire manuscript. If she can trace the Uzumaki Clan back farther than Kushina, it will be the success of a lifetime.

Yondaime is another of the historical figures that sparks debate, since his reign was the second shortest. There is no Namikaze Clan left in Konoha, but the village still respects his name. Annual pageants highlight his valiant sacrifice, and scholars still lament everything that could have happened, should the Yellow Flash have survived his fatal encounter with Kyuubi.

She can feel the weight of the paper underneath her white-gloved hands as she pages through the books. During Sandaime's reign, both books and scrolls had been used for record-keeping. Most important records – mission logs in particular – had been prepared in scroll-format. It's only recently that anyone paid attention to the books, discovering that many of the hospital's records had been collected and bound annually.

She's about halfway through Sandaime's reign, looking for any earlier mentions of Uzumaki Kushina when she stumbles on the treasure: the record of Namikaze Minato's birth.

Sanae forces herself not to squeal like a little girl, although she wants to. She touches the familiar characters of his name, marked in the book. Namikaze Minato, born January 25th to a Namikaze Kentarou, a merchant, and...

She blinks, and starts to hyperventilate as she reads the Yondaime's mother's name.

Senju Tamae.

It takes Sanae three years of research to figure out how things happened. From what Sanae can tell, Senju Tamae was the older sister of the famed Godaime. She'd married a wealthy merchant (who had some familial ties to the daimyo at the time), and given birth to Namikaze Minato, who'd become the Yondaime. From there, Yondaime had fathered the Rokudaime with Uzumaki Kushina.

So even though there are no longer anyone bearing the Senju name in the village, it turns out that the blood of the founding clan still runs strong in Konoha. It doesn't completely answer the question of what had happened to the Senju, but it does add another layer of pride for her clan. The Uzumaki can now claim twelve of the seventeen Hokage as their own.

She is proud of her discovery, but still annoyed. No matter how much she looks, she can't find any information on Uzumaki Kushina.