The first few months of her new life were... informative, would be the best word for it, she supposed.
And frustrating. Can't forget frustrating.
Because, Meika was a war veteran, a general, with years of fighting experience and memories of killing fields and torture chambers, with all of the instincts that the past like that implied, and she was stuck in a body of a newborn, hardly able to move. She was not embarrassed, no, she had long since discarded that incredibly useless emotion. When one spends years living in tents or small, dilapidated shelters with quite a few people, a lot of them male, mortifying situations were hardly uncommon. She had been desensitized sometime around the sixth time Neville walked in to her changing clothes. So, no, she was not really embarrassed, but the constant need to depend on someone else infuriated her beyond belief.
She was helpless! Utterly and completely powerless! She had killed Voldemort when she was twenty, for God's sake, she had annihilated the most powerful Dark Lord of the century, an incredibly dangerous duelist with more than fifty years of experience, relying on her frankly awful schooling, three years of battle experience and her smarts and wits. And she had done it! She succeeded and saved the Wizarding World and then continued on to catch all of his Death Eaters too. She had been strong and vicious and the best fighter in Britain.
Now she couldn't even lift her head without falling into an exhausted sleep right after.
At least she had Mikoto.
Uchiha Mikoto was an angel and godsend and no one was going to convince her otherwise. She was kind and sweet and gentle, she fed her and clothed her, told her stories and sang her lullabies, and she was generally everything she imagined a mother should be, but never had a chance to experience. At the beginning, she had wondered if she was somehow betraying Lily Potter, if she should maybe love her new mother less, if only to respect her old one, but she stopped such thoughts quickly. By all accounts, Lily was warmhearted, compassionate woman and she would've wanted her child to enjoy her new life to its fullest.
So, yes, she adored Mikoto, and the thought of actually having a mother made her giddy whenever she even thought about it.
Fugaku... Well, Fugaku was completely other story.
In the five months she has been newly alive, he had visited her four times. All of them had been during the night, at witching hour practically, when Mikoto was asleep. He would just stand there and stare at her silently, a strange expression on his face. She did not know what to make of it, so she simply tried to ignore it together with his continued existence.
If he will not make effort to at least like her and get to know her, Meika didn't see why she should.
The only thing that she was interested in during his visits were his clothes, strangely enough. He wore some kind of uniform, one unlike anything she had ever seen before, and she often wondered what he did for living. It was clear that her new family was rich, if only because her room was strangely luxurious for a newborn and filled with small, white and red fans, that were probably some kind of crest. It was weird for her, living like that, an exact opposite of cupboard under the stairs, but she was slowly getting used to it.
Mikoto, as usual, came to the rescue, and assuaged her curiosity.
Her new mother liked to talk. She chattered when she fed her, or took care of her, she often talked about her day, about local legends and fairy-tales and generally made things more interesting. She was a well of information about her new home, and Meika soaked it all in.
"... visited Kushina today, see, and she had just came from a mission. There was so much blood! Thankfully, not hers, but she's terrible at cleaning..."
Kushina? Mission? Blood?! This was not the first time that Mikoto talked about such things with a gentle smile and unconcerned voice, not knowing that her daughter can understand every word she said. But after a few times, Meika grew... concerned and slightly, only slightly mind you, excited.
She seemed to live in a world were fighting, training to survive was accepted. Even more importantly, it was allowed for women. She didn't even realize how worried she had been until the giant weight was lifted from her chest and she could breathe freely again.
Because, for all intents and purposes, Mikoto was the submissive one in her marriage. The first argument Meika had overheard certainly implied so. Her mother was strong, yes, there was steel in her spine and fire in her eyes that reminded her of Hermione's quiet, gentle strength during the war, but Fugaku had the last word concerning the family matters and Mikoto obeyed.
Meika... Well, she had never really been good at obeying, not even during her first childhood as Harriet. The thought of having to respect someone, to bow her head and keep her eyes down just because of her gender made her blood boil and her eyes see red.
She wouldn't have done it either way, but if women were allowed to fight here then it will be immensely easier.
"... said that Minato took little Kashi-chan in his care now that he's his sensei. I'm so glad. The poor boy, he must've felt terrible finding his father dead..."
Sensei? So an apprentice-teacher system, it seemed, and fairly common, judging by Mikoto's tone. Interesting and very informative about her new society.
Does that mean that she will have to find her own sensei? Or is she assigned one?
"... Fugaku will leave soon, of course. The war is really spreading now, and they need every available body at the front..."
The world stopped. For a second, Meika forgot to breathe.
The war. War. The panic and despair she felt at the mere mention of the word gripped her tightly, and she struggled to regain her mind. Flashes of blood and screams and constant, never-ending agony, both mental and physical, rushed trough her memory, and she screwed her eyes shut in a feeble attempt to ward them of.
Calm, she told herself, repeating it like a mantra. Breathe. Think.
There is war in this world. She had been killed by one of the last remaining enemy forces of the war that ruled her life and now she was reborn in a time of another war. It was... so unfair that she wanted to rage and scream and wail, but calmed herself with the strength of will she didn't know she possessed.
Think!
She was a child, a newborn at that. Nobody knew about twenty years of memories in her head, nobody even suspected that she held the diamond-sharp mind of a successful general, that she could turn tides in any battle if only she was allowed a free reign.
Nobody expected her to fight.
The relief that swept over her caused her body to sag, boneless in Mikoto's gentle grip. No more fighting, no more killing, no more watching her friends die, at least not for quite a few years. She could be happy for that, at least.
She started to listen Mikoto's ramblings again, though. She desperately needed information.
"... Iwa is gaining ground in Kusa. They're thinking about sending Minato, but he's needed at the Northern front against Kumo. That A is too fast for anyone else, it seems..."
Iwa, Kusa, Kumo. The names of the opposing countries perhaps? Iwa and Kumo at least. Kusa seemed more like the current battleground, possibly a bordering land between the two warring countries.
"... would've loved to fight myself, but I have you to look after now. I can't leave you at the mercy of the Clan for months of deployment. Who knows what could..."
To fight herself? Mikoto, gentle, loving and kind Mikoto was a soldier?! Meika... Well, she could see it, when she thought about it. She remembered Mrs Weasley and her formidable and quite frightening rage when Bellatrix attacked Ginny. She remembered Hermione's frankly terrifying expression as she killed Dolohov, the cold fire that borned in her eyes whenever someone even mentioned the man. Then she remembered the fury in Mikoto's voice the first day when she fought with Fugaku, the defiance against someone who clearly outranked her.
Yes, she could see it.
"... hope that it ends soon, but I doubt it. Every shinobi nation is now fighting. It will take years..."
Ah. Shinobi. Su talked about them, in hushed voice and in the cover of darkness. Ninja, she said, the killers and warriors that made bloody money and lived to fight.
A whole nations of killers.
At least she'll fit right in. She had been a killer since she was eleven.
"I need your help."
Kushina looked up from her bowl of ramen, cheeks bulging and eyes almost closed in bliss. Mikoto was seated across from her, straight-backed, and twirling her chopsticks nimbly, long fingers fast and graceful.
She swallowed before speaking up. Mikoto would've given her tongue lashing of her life otherwise. "With what? I won't be your test subject for genjutsu again, dattebane. Once was enough, thank you." She shivered at the memory. Her friend had a very twisted mind.
Mikoto's lips twitched before she managed reign herself in. Kushina narrowed her eyes, ready to launch in an indignant, one-sided screaming match. Their arguments usually came to that.
But Mikoto interrupted her with a raised hand. "It's about Meika-chan."
Kushina deflated, all of the anger leaving her, worry taking its place. "What about my goddaughter? Is she okay? Do I need to kill someone? I'd be happy to!"
"No, no, she's okay," Mikoto shook her head with a small smile. "It's just... Look, you now that she may never have the Sharingan, don't you?" she asked and Kushina nodded, not knowing why is that relevant. The girl could easily become a kick-ass kunoichi without those freaky eyes, just look at Kushina herself! "Well, Fugaku... Fugaku was angry. He said that the Elders won't approve a female without the doijutsu as an heir and he's right. So he decided that she's... not important."
Kushina stilled in absolute fury. "That... that ass-licking, brown-nosing little bastard! How dare he?! I have a half a mind to..." her rant dissolved in half-spoken, barely discernable curses that would make a sailor blush.
Mikoto's look was partly disapproving and partly impressed. "You won't do anything to my husband, Kushina. I need you for something else." The smile she favored her with was more of a barring of her teeth than anything else, and Kushina felt excitement bubble up inside her.
This was the Uchiha Mikoto that had sent their enemies running to the hills with only a look of her crimson-coloured eyes.
"What do you need me for, then?"
That horrific smile widened. "I can teach my daughter genjutsu, taijutsu and tessenjutsu of our Clan. I need someone to help her with ninjutsu and possibly fuuinjutsu," Mikoto explained. "Who better to teach her than her own godmother?"
Kushina grinned and tilted her head. "Isn't it a little bit early to think about training?" The answer very pointedly wasn't a denial.
Mikoto's expression darkened. "Fugaku thinks her weak. I want to disabuse him of that notion as quickly as possible." The chopsticks, long since stopped their spinning, creaked, at the verge of breaking in her strong grip. "Will you help?"
Kushina knew that with her smile she looked very much like a fox. She widened it even further for an effect. "Of course I'll help! Meika-chan will be the most kick-ass kunoichi in the village, dattebane!"
A/N: Someone mentioned that Su Li is Chinese. I'm aware of that, but I needed someone to teach Harriet Japanese so I decided that Su's mother is from Japan.