Dark Light
Summary: She can seal everything and anyone, but she cannot seal her own heart. (Mito never was a kind woman.) Drabble- Senju Mito, Uzumaki Kushina.
Warning: Drabble, complete. Angst. Also: this is another side to Mito, a completely different one than the character I usually like to write. It was an interesting challenge. Maybe you'll like it, or not.
Set: story-unrelated: Kushina arrives in Hidden Leaf for the first time.
Disclaimer: Standards apply.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name
[A. Tennyson]
…
The girl was asleep, and Mito was glad.
Guiltily, she peered into the small face of the child on the bed in front of her. This was her doing, her responsibility: she ought to have the courage to look the child in the eye and explain everything, reveal her own involvement. But the child had cried herself to sleep somewhere in the outskirts of Hidden Leaf and the empty, pathetic explanations would have to await her bitter awakening. (Yes, you're not at home anymore, no, you can't go back, no, your family won't come here.) For her, the only thing to be done had been to relieve the shinobi Hiruzen had sent to Whirlpool of their precious burden and to bring her to the room she had prepared. For a few seconds, she had toyed with the thought of placing a sleeping seal on the girl so she wouldn't waken during the short trip. But Kushina had, although she moved restlessly in her sleep, not stirred. She had to be exhausted to the bone. The trip from Whirlpool to Leaf wasn't a short one and she was barely five years old. Mito lingered in the door frame, unable to leave, and finally returned to the bedside. Her robes rustled softly as she sank onto the mattress, careful not to disturb the sleeping child. With a sigh, she removed the heavy sealing tags that held up her hair. Dark waves of blood silk fell past her shoulders and into her lap. Another tug and the heavy outer robe came undone. Breathing a soundless sign of relief, Mito closed her eyes and opened them again, her hand carefully caressing the sleeping girl's flaming red hair.
So innocent.
(So much like her, and so unlike.)
Looking at Uzumaki Kushina was like looking into a mirror and seeing the person Senju Mito never had been able to be. Five years old, the girl's face was streaked with tears. Desperation lined her lips, spoke of hours of screaming and shouting and begging and of the shock of realization that there was no going back. Like so many children, this girl had been taken away from her home and her family in order to be a pawn in a game she would never wholly understand. Unlike other children, she would bear a burden far greater than anything one could imagine. Oh, the girl was strong. And she was full of life and energy, just as Mito had been. But she also was innocent, and kind: her kindness shone from her like an aura of gold, a color Mito had seen in others but never in herself. Not for the first time she wondered how other people saw her. She'd only ever been able to see others, never her own heart. And she knew herself well enough to know that there was no beauty in it, or, at least, no beauty left. She was old. She wasn't innocent, wasn't naïve or even kind. She had made many decisions, some of them wrong and some right and all of them necessary. But that didn't stop the bitterness. She'd dreamed of power, once, and when she had been granted her wish she had realized how dangerous such power could be but then it had been too late. Kushina looked like Mito had – looked a lot like Mito, in fact – but Mito felt, with the staggering, steadfast realization she'd always had when looking at other people and seeing their hearts – that Kushina wouldn't repeat the mistakes she had made. Kushina wasn't like her in that regard. Not at all.
Mito never had been a kind person. For the first time in her life, she wanted to be someone else.
She had never thought of herself as a powerless pawn in a game of shogi. Mito had always had the power to change worlds, and she had used it. There were a million things she had been taught, and a million things she had excelled in. Senju Mito, born as a daughter of the ancient Uzumaki clan, had been the pride and joy of her family. A prodigy, blessed both with beauty and intelligence. She had mastered the sealing techniques of Uzumaki apprentices at nine and had been named Sealing Master at thirteen. At fifteen, she had been the one to be tasked with a diplomatic mission to the newly founded village of Hidden Leaf, where she had met Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara for the first time. Mito had wanted to change things, had wanted to mark them as her achievements. She had helped them build up their village; she had married a man and had broken another. She had been unable to save the place that had become her home and had not managed to contain the kyuubi for eternity. Mito had failed, again and again, and not the only but one of the greatest proof for her inability was the girl in the bed in front of her whose head moved now, restlessly, in her sleep. Mito had been able to seal everything and anyone. She could seal weather, water and wind, rations and weapons. She could seal her own chakra into her Yin seal and effectively prolong her life above what was the already extensive life of the Uzumaki. She could seal life, in a way, and death, darkness and light, spring, summer, fall and winter. It was ironic, really, that she couldn't seal her own heart. How much sadness could have been prevented.
So regrets were the only thing she had left now.
Had she only been able to love Madara openly and unconditionally. Had she been able to completely destroy the kyuubi, or to aid Hashirama in destroying it. Had she been able to hate Madara, perhaps Hashirama would have fought him seriously and would have managed to kill him. Had she even been able to just die – Kushina wouldn't have been taken from her home and her family and wouldn't be in Leaf, alone and scared. It was only one of the things that would be attributed to her: Senju Mito, daughter of the Uzumaki, Sealing Master. One of the Founders of Konohagakure, wife of the First Fire Shadow. First Lady of the village, the woman who chained the kyuubi and saved the village, the woman who had defied Uchiha Madara and who was on par with Senju Hashirama. Her name was known all over the five continents. She had become a name.
Mito was-
The child in front of her moved, unconsciously seeking her warmth. Already hating herself for it but unable to stop herself, Mito drew her closer, settled Kushina's head in her lap, and the child calmed almost instantly. Weaving her hand through soft strands of red hair, Mito wondered what kind of punishment would await her on the other side, for everything she had done and everyone she had failed.
Dreams passed by in the night, the morning nearing inexorably.