Characters: Mito, Kyuubi
Summary: It's been a long road.
Pairings: past Hashirama x Mito
Author's Note: I can't help but think that in the flashback Mito may have been optimistic only to make Kushina feel better.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Jinchuuriki.
The word is bittersweet and aching on Mito's tongue, all arsenic and acrid taste for the single word that has brought so much pain down on her throughout the years. Mito never knew that a single word could have so much power until the day when the Kyuubi no Kitsune nestled in her belly for the first time.
Overnight, Mito fell from the well-loved if somewhat bemusing wife of the Hokage to a figure of hatred and terror, women whispering on corners that they always knew a foreigner (and that word hurts nearly as much as jinchuuriki does when it's spat or screamed at her in the streets) would be nothing but trouble, and here's the truth, as they all prove in her eyes that fear and ignorance will always be stronger than love and respect, no matter what Hashirama tried to say to comfort her.
It's almost impossible not to be bitter. Every time jeers hit her and grotesque and even lewd graffiti is found in the poorer industrial districts of Konoha, Mito squeezes shut bright turquoise eyes and tries to remember Hashirama. It gets harder as the years go down; Mito has never had much faith in things she can't see or can't touch. She can't see love, nor touch it; however, fear is painfully visible and she thinks she could touch it if she tried.
She is not a living weapon as other jinchuuriki (the ones of Suna and Kumo) are; Mito sealed the Kyuubi so it would be hidden too far inside for her to utilize its chakra in battle, so she is merely a vessel for the bijuu. However her reputation is that of a formidable kunoichi and she is never attacked physically. That at least she can be grateful for, in a world where Mito can't be grateful for much.
Mito's most intense daily battles are fought with the Kyuubi in her belly. Robbed of the chance to work through her directly, it instead tries to force the issue and make her release it. Toxic chakra is pumped through her veins until her skin cracks and flakes, until her long hair curls and smokes. Bones soften and pop out of join; at the worse Mito felt like her blood was melting.
This is the Kyuubi's way of saying it wants out, but after it became clear that Mito could not be strong-armed into complying, it relented and settled for grumbling in its prison, thrashing against the bars every once in a while so Mito wouldn't forget it was there.
She can pity the fox far more than she can the villagers who paint their fears and their anger on her. It's been a long road for both of them.
But it's nearly over.
Mito has lived for decades with the hatred of the place that isn't home and without the love of her husband. Her children have died, her grandchildren have either never known her or avoided her like the plague, though being a solitary soul this has never truly bothered her. The girl she cares for is about to be damned by the village that all but kidnapped her, and she herself will be killed.
But it will all be over soon.
And the Kyuubi will have a new "pet", one it can use more freely—Kushina is to be made into a living weapon. Maybe then it'll quit complaining.
Mito can smile, wry and sharp with teeth. She'll be dead, but at least it will all be over, and she can go to a place where the words "foreigner" and "jinchuuriki" don't exist.