Tap. Tap. Tap.
She stood covered by multiple blankets, all a futile attempt to make her feel warmer. At least three boxes of tissues were around her room. Two were empty and one was yet to be opened.
She sneezes, and scratches at her skin so hard that her sister fears she will peel it off her bones. Her body is boiling, fever, the doctors had said but then why did she feel so cold?
She couldn't understand and nobody bothered to explain it to her.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Her attention shifts towards the window once again and light blue eyes take in the sight of rain drops falling. The sound is strangely comforting but the sight of shattered trees and gloomy clouds sadden her. Even the sky cries for our nation. She thinks and quickly places under her chin the bowl she uses for puking.
Except it's not the food Hikari-dono cooks for her every day. It's a red liquor that she recognises as blood and every time it comes out of her mouth, her nannies look the other way, mumbling prayers, and saying how she was too young for this kind of punishment.
She can't understand that either. Punishment from who? What did she do? Miwa struggles to remember but she can't, because she never did bad things. Her uncle taught her to do good. Maybe I made tou-sama upset?
She doesn't know but when her sister comes to visit, she asks her:
"Nee-san, did tou-sama punish me? That's why I feel so bad and it hurts?"
Her eyes widen when her sister starts crying, feeling guilty; Mei was always so strong and she never cried and now she made her. "Don't cry nee-san. I'll try to be b-better so tou-sama will stop my punishment. Pinky promise."
Miwa held up her little finger and Mei through teary and puffy red eyes looked up at the optimistic smile of her littlest sister, nodding and locking her own finger with hers.
Mei didn't have the heart to tell her the truth so she chose to confirm an assumption. It wasn't their heartless father's doing, as much as she wanted to blame him for it. The bloody reign of their Mizukage was, the constant wars, the fact that Kiri had debts to pay that won't finish until at least twenty more years; the fact that their doctors weren't skilled enough and her father was too poor and prideful to pay medic-nin from Konoha or Iwa to help his youngest daughter.
The only thing Mei heard every day from the middle-aged man was:
'You have only one goal girl: To take the hat of the Mizukage. Rule one day over Kiri and end our misery. Until that day comes, don't expect anything from me. '
Everything he said to her sisters was the same but the worst of all, he treated Miwa. The littlest one. The one that needed love and protection the most from all of them.
The life of shinobi is cruel but in Kiri is a quest for survival. Mei thought bitterly, throwing one of her kunai a little more forcefully that necessary that ended up missing the bull's eye. She huffed but didn't stand up from her position on the ground to retrieve it. She didn't mean to hit correctly anyways.
But she did come out to launch one after another at tree barks because it was easier to hit wood than to allow madness and anger cloud her judgement. Mei pretended that the lifeless targets were her father and other people who wronged her and her sisters, vowing on a stormy afternoon at the young age of only eleven that she will change Kiri.
Even if she died while doing so.
A/N: Short, I know but it just had to be like this. The chapters to follow will be longer. This story will differ from canon and it will mainly focus on Mei and my OC's (Miwa's) lives that will intertwine at some point with some of our favourite Leaf shinobi. One thing, at this point because of her sickness, Miwa can't remember her past life.