Hello everyone! I finally found the time to edit this story and get it posted! I hope you all enjoy this new story.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or its characters, just those of my own design
A Story Omitted from the History Books
Chapter 1
To the recorded history of the Shinobi World, the seeds of hatred of the Uchiha towards the Senju were planted during the times of the Sage of the Six Paths. The seeds grew and the conflict that was an eventuality of this growth came to a head during the times of Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju. History records that their tension and final battle resulted from the subjugation of the Uchiha to the Senju; but what if history only recorded a fraction of the truth? What if history left out a key figure at the center of this conflict? A young, powerful woman named Mito Uzumaki.
Shrieks and giggles of pure joy could be heard over the many sounds of construction of a large manor that would overlook Uzushiogakure. The construction workers found this amusing and added a little pep to their step as they worked around the large piles of white pine boards and sea foam green ceramic singles. The cause of these sounds was a young, brightly redheaded child of seven who was currently occupied by trying to catch various small frogs or fishes in the lake that would be visible from the home above her. Behind her, her mother stood dressed in a pale purple kimono with white trim and decorated with thin green vines. Her hair was a deep wine red shade and hung freely down on her back to the crook of her elbow. She laughed softly as her daughter stumbled and ended up falling in the shallow water of the lake, soaking her own white kimono. This didn't faze the girl, however, for she merely took the chance to swim towards a whirlpool that was gently swirling near the center of the lake. Her father, whose hair was as equally bright as his daughter's but beginning to become gray at a rapid pace, sighed and stepped into the water and scooped her up.
"Oh, Mito, how can you get so filthy so quickly?" The man asked as he placed the girl before her mother then inspecting his armored shinobi uniform to make sure he hadn't gotten it damp just yet.
The child pouted, "I'm not dirty, I'm just wet!"
"She makes an excellent point, Munashii," the woman replied, a small giggle escaping her throat at the end.
The man grumbled and began stroking the neatly trimmed square beard before replying, "Be that as it may, Kiyoi, she is the daughter of the leader of this budding village; a princess by some clans' standards. You know how precarious our position is here: an island nation that is just beginning to expand its village with very few ties to the mainland. She is the key to ensuring the continuation of the Uzumaki Clan and Uzushiogakure."
His wife sighed as she stood picked up their daughter, ignoring that her lavender kimono was beginning to become soaked, "That is a long way away if that is truly to be her future. Our prospects here may improve. Let's just focus on finishing our home and the additions to the village, shall we?"
Mito was oblivious to all of the information her parents were relaying back and forth, for her attention was draw to the wonderful flowers that grew around the lake and especially at the base of the centuries old tree that grew nearby. Suddenly, she fixated on one particular flower and wriggled out of her mother's grasp, landing carefully on the ground before running up to a small bush. Her father cried out to her to come back immediately, which she obeyed, but with a small, thin, flowered branch in tow this time.
"Mommy! Mommy, look! It's just like the flowers that you grow at our old house!" Mito exclaimed as she held up the twig.
The gentle woman smiled and knelt down before the child, "Yes, it is. This is called an orchid and someday, I will show you how to grow everything you see here."
"Really, Mommy?" The young girl asked, excited that she could learn how to grow such pretty flowers.
Kiyoi nodded, causing Mito to cry out loudly in joy as her father simply shook his head then stated:
"Only after you learn the proper ways of being a diplomat, Mito," this quelled the girl's excitement as she listened to her father as if he was giving her a scolding, "You will soon realize how important you are to this clan and that will change everything."
"Oh, come now, my husband," Kiyoi stated as she nudged him gently, "Let our daughter have some fun once in a while, hm? She will learn to garden, a ladylike activity, and be a strong diplomat for our country, your specialty."
The man looked as if he was going to protest before sighing and picking up his daughter, finally getting his uniform wet, letting the happiness his daughter felt fill him, "Fine, fine. It seems I can't fight both of the women in my life. Now, how about we all change for dinner? Hmm?"
The family ventured back up the construction site that was finishing the additions to the back of the manor to provide an overlook to the lake and the ocean beyond. That evening, they would enjoy their dinner as a happy, picturesque household, mildly dismissing the future as a time that was far and away. Little did they realize, however, that their world was about to be changed drastically and, as viewed by the young woman Mito would become, not for the better.
Fourteen years had passed from the time of the joyous scene at the lake. Mito was now twenty-one years old, the prime time for a young princess to be meeting suitors in order to find a husband. The construction on the manor that had been completed when she turned eight and the construction occurring the village was completed two years after that. However, a recent fire tore through the hospital and part of a housing district, stirring up construction once again and creating an opportunity to expand the village's borders. Mito, for once, had agreed with her father on these expansions, but, beyond that, they would constantly quarrel. Although, by his laws, she could not marry until she was twenty-one, she had been meeting with the sons of clan leaders on the mainland since she was twenty. This arduous and, frankly, ridiculous charade was putting Mito at her wits end, leaving very little room for error on the suitors parts; often, this led to one of many incidents that would occur, the most common being violent outbursts.
A sickening crack could be heard down the halls of the manor, which was promptly followed by a loud banging noise and then rapid footsteps down the hallway. Munashii arrived in the tearoom where Mito was supposed to be entertaining a blonde young man, the son of the leader of the Yamanaka clan, and sighed as he saw the boy clutching at his broken and bleeding noise and crying exclamations of "She really did it! She broke my nose!" The man sighed, stepping aside to allow the servants and the boy's father tend to him before heading to the one place Mito always went after these incidents: her garden.
The young Uzumaki woman, whose hair had darkened to the shade of her mother's, stifled a frustrated scream before sitting down on a small bench near a koi pond and in the shade of a sakura blossom tree.
"Idiot!" She muttered to herself, "Always an idiot!"
"Mito!" A harsh voice exclaimed, causing her to look up into the enraged eyes of her father. Before she could speak, he continued, "You, once again, have injured a young man who wants nothing more than to be your husband! Do you realize what you are doing? Do you even care?"
This caused Mito to stand, "Yes, I know what I am doing. I am protecting myself from being hurt by marrying a man unworthy of my love! I am saving this village from having a leader who is weak! And of course I care!"
"Then why? Why don't you just come off of that high horse of yours and settle?" Her father asked before adding, "He was a very nice boy."
Mito scoffed, "Oh, please, father. His head was so far up his posterior that he didn't know the sky was up and the sun set in the west!"
"Mito!" Her father exclaimed before sighing as she sat on the bench once more, the seal tags hanging from the large buns of her hair swinging, "Mito," he spoke more gently, "Clans are fighting one another to the death on the mainland. I fear we will be invaded if we do not make a powerful ally, and soon. If you truly cared about your home, you would give one of these men a chance."
She looked up at her strict, but weary, gray-haired father and watched him leave before she stood and moved to a small memorial statue in a secluded area of the garden. She gazed at the image of the beautiful woman carved into the pure white marble. Mito reached up and delicately touched the diamond marking on the woman's forehead, a marking that she now also wore.
"Oh, Mother," she whispered, "I wish that you were still here. You wouldn't let Father treat me this way. You would let me find my own path and not be pushed into an arranged marriage. You would make Father listen to how I feel," she glanced down at the engravings on the base of the statue and whispered, "Has it really been eight years since that horrible night?"
Sighing once more, she turned and quickly returned to the manor, deciding to clear her head another way.
Soft pants escaped from Mito's lips as she stood in a defensive position while holding her mother's family katana before her. She stared out across the training room in the manor at a cloth dummy that hung in the center of the room; its comrades lying on the ground with their stuffing littering the floor through the many cuts and gashes the dummies bore. She had changed out of her typical dress of a high collared mint green kimono with a darker green trim beneath and white beneath that into a grey and black shinobi training uniform. Instead of wearing her hair in buns with the large gold headpiece, she wore it in a long flowing ponytail high atop her head. She shifted her grip on the katana and dashed towards the figure. She blocked an imaginary downward swipe of the defender's blade then spun to the right while bringing her sword down, slicing the mannequin in half at a downward angle.
Mito, pleased with the training session, motioned to a pair of servants standing in the doorway. They quickly entered the room and, while one began cleaning up the fluff, the other sheathed the katana for her in order to clean it later and took the heavy armor she wore over the training uniform. After slipping off the black gloves carefully, she moved to a door to her left and slid it open. Stepping out onto a porch and into the fading light of the day, she sighed contentedly, feeling much better about the day's events before sitting down. Once seated, the servant who had been cleaning the room brought out a lap table, a scroll, ink, and brush before bowing and leaving. Mito thanked the young woman before beginning to practice her fuinjutsu. She was growing frustrated as to why she couldn't figure out the problems and use for, what would be, an especially powerful seal that she had been developing and after several failed attempts this time, she moved on to practicing other, simpler seals she knew.
She moved to pick up another scroll when her father stepped out on to the porch with her. Mito sighed, hoping to avoid him for the rest of the evening by taking her dinner either outside or in her room, which was later than usual in either case.
"Mito, why were you not at dinner?" Her father asked.
The young woman turned forward once more, "I believe you have already discerned my location based on my attire and the current activity I am engaged in."
The man growled in anger, "You know I do not approve of you practicing the shinobi arts!"
Mito looked up at her father, "I am practicing the sealing abilities that our clan is notorious for. I believed that would be acceptable. As for my skills with kenjutsu, I believed you would accept that on two grounds."
"Oh really? Enlightened me, my child," he asked as he folded his arms over his chest, quelling his agitation for now.
"First, you are extremely skilled with a blade, thus the curved swords you wear on your person at all times," her father touched one of the blades on his back before she continued, "Secondly, I don't want to rely on others for my safety. If my life were on the line, I want to be the one to protect it. I want to be the one who determines if I live or die. Not my attackers, not the men or women in charge of protecting me."
Her father sighed as he reached up to rub his eyes, "Mito, what happened to your mother-"
"Save it, Father," Mito interrupted, "I read the reports. The guards did all they could, but they were overpowered."
"Those reports were sealed away," Manashii stated, the anger swelling in his voice.
"All seals can be overwritten. I deserved to know the truth since you were sugarcoating the details to me all of my life," she replied calmly while looking out across the village from her seated position.
"You-!" Her father began, shaking his finger at her before sighing, "Fine, now you know and I hope you are happy. I wanted to discuss with you at dinner the fact that a suitor shall be arriving in the morning. Behave yourself this time, Mito."
"And why does this time garner a special warning?" She asked, genuinely curious since he had never requested this of her before.
"I especially like this one and I believe you will, too," her father quickly reentered their large home to turn in for the night.
Mito sighed and set aside the table before standing and walking slowly around the grounds. She found it especially curious that her father would place so much emphasis on this suitor. She was also intrigued that he hadn't even bothered to tell her the young man's name or station in life. The young redhead chalked it up to the fact that he was trying to spark an unusually high interest in the man in her so that she would be more apt to agree to marry him. However, she found it interesting that he had recommended him so simply. If she knew her father like she believed she did, this meant that he greatly approved of the man; something that he hadn't done, not entirely anyway, with the others. Could this suitor finally be the one who could capture her attention and her heart? Would he be suitable after all? Mito sighed, pushing these thoughts out of her mind as she reentered the manor and made her way to her room.
'Mother, if this man is to be the one I wed, send me a sign to guide me. I need you now more than ever.'