The tension headache that comes with the end of a mission isn't the source of the throbbing pain in her head. Neither is the egg-sized lump that she's pretty sure that comes with it.
No. It's something that's far more mundane.
Her eldest nephew had just gone on a warpath, killing her clanmates without abandon. Yet instead of killing them all, he's decided to leave behind his younger brother- a kid who's bound to need counseling after dealing with one of the clan's strongest ocular ninjutsu techniques: tsukuyomi.
Evidently all geniuses were considered loopy. The genius Mizukage had apparently decided that anyone with a blood line should die. Namikaze Minato decided to ditch his infant son with a demon fox in order to die with his wife. Heck, even the current third hokage turned a blind eye towards the fact that his own student was a sociopathic mad scientist with a taste for young prepubescent boys.
She wasn't included though. Not with fourteen extra years of memories that shouldn't be there. Her crazy comes from being grafted from a life of tender idleness to this hell they call a ninja world. Of dreams peppered with nightmares of dying once and screams of those trampled underfoot as they run-and-run-andrunfrom her red-redblade.
"ANBU Kasai, you may unmask yourself."
She can't remember the last time that she's had the novelty of being able to take off her mask in the hokage's office without thick layers of seals swabbing both her voice and face from existence. After the kyuubi attack, the remaining ANBU had been stretched across the mission board to the extremes, barely taking the time to rest before returning to patrol duty. The village couldn't have afforded to display any more weaknesses in a time like that. If a single word had gotten to Iwa about the attack before sufficient forces could be rebuilt, the village was as good as done for in the face of enemies.
Two eyes spin lazily with tomoe, and she suddenly feels naked despite the chakra-reinforced vest and special cloak donned by the ANBU head. She takes in the Hokage's tense form, and hears a slight gasp from her right.
"Kaa-san...Kaa-san! You're alive! You're alive! I-"
"Who are you."
It's not quite a genuine reaction, considering family relations and blood; but it's one that seems to draw a slight wince from her Hokage.
The boy, (her nephew? He shouldn't be that old right? Wasn't he still five or something?) Sasuke, sputters wildly, eyes widening to a comical degree before his frame starts to shake with hyperventilation. Luckily, one of the nearby ANBU med-nin quickly knock the young boy out with chakra, stopping the thrashing boy from falling off the hospital gurney.
"That...Could have been handled with a bit more finesse."
The Hokage sighs deeply, his lips forming the words of: Danzo before wincing and rubbing his forehead. It's almost a reprimand, but she shrugs. She can't help but look like Mikoto-albeit with far more scars.
Looking at her reflection in the slightly reflective ANBU post, she nearly gapes at how much muscle mass she's lost in the past year through acting as a civilian in water country.
Her skin is pallid and stretched thinly across high, skinny cheekbones that characterize the starved civilians of Kiri. White-ish. almost an unhealthy pallor and not unlike Mikoto's. Almost like porcelain, she thinks; like the bone-tea set that she had indulged her sister with in their childhood. Most likely destroyed in the kyuubi attack from the fact that even the "high and mighty" Uchiha had been reduced to living in the emergency shelters within the hokage monument.
"ANBU Kasai. This is a long-term S-rank mission."
She straightens to attention, mind going into overdrive with calculations of maximum rest-time, teams, and how long she can avoid the managing her thoroughly neglected apartment.-
"Two days ago, the Uchiha clan population was...Severely depleted...By your nephew, Itachi." The third sighs and takes a long draw of his pipe. "You will take care of Uchiha Sasuke using the identity of Mikoto Uchiha."
She pauses, gapes as much as a blank-faced ANBU can, sputtering out something rough sounding from her idle throat. Unfortunately, it's an unintelligent: "huh?"
She isn't sure whether its the stress or the probable concussion that caused the blackout
The first course of action she takes after waking is to take a bath.
Hot water is a luxury that she is not accustomed to. Time spent in ANBU has molded her into a cold blooded creature, continuous missions stringing into a endless cycle of red lifeblood and constant fleeing. Time spent in Kiri as a civilian has dulled her senses, the monotony of the masses, a mundane parody of society. She tries to remember just which name she goes by in Konoha. Kasai is most recent, though she's been known as Richard, the monster, the devil; Konoha scum and the Ripper.
At one point in time, when she was called Richard, she distinctly remembers being a male. That was until stupidly stumbling into the woods and never finding a way out.
" Konoha scum" was another: after being desensitized to the blood and gore, she is sent on battlefield clean-up duty near the end of the second great war. One of the dying Suna-nin nearly takes off her head with a swipe of puppet before she manages to launch a fire jutsu at his face. It is a slow, slow way to die, layers of flesh flaying and crackling as heat melts the muscles off of bones. It is then that she realizes that she will never be suited for Torture and Investigation. Softer sentiments of Richard following over to encourage a more merciful, quick death. It is then that the ANBU snatch her into their forces, making her watch silently as her younger sister cries without abandon, clutching at the body scroll containing "her ashes" while sobbing hysterically.
The rest of the titles are fluid. She was once cat. Called " the monster" for her wire traps. She was once panther, after the notoriety of her mask reached new highs. Eventually she takes her old captain's mask after his knee is completely shattered by a doton jutsu. Kasai exists for more than a decade.
Those titles don't matter now. She is Mikoto. Delicate wife of the late Uchiha clan head, traumatised by the betrayal of her son.
She can only hope her imitation can match up to the real person