AN: My apologies for taking so long. Shortly after publishing this story I found myself in need of a home and many hectic situations robbed me of the will to write. I would like to address a couple questions that have been asked by people in the reviews. Heiwa is a 'genius' naturally, but her past life plays a part as well. But one of the reasons this story comes off with her being so adult-like is because Heiwa is actually writing this as a young adult. I won't spoil much, but this is the first draft of a memoir she attempts to write as a nineteen-year old.

Seeking Peace

Chapter 3

When one is a child, one's world as small as the eye can see. A drawback of writing from memory is when one tries to remember, even with the aid of jutsu, every memory is tinged with the color of today's thoughts. Even now, as I try to recall the few weeks where my world began to widen beyond my Hovel, something that started with the arrival of the Suna shinobi, my memories offer up details that I as a child would have not noticed or perhaps didn't even understand. Even a child with a mind like mine, where a past life was only covered up, waiting to be found by the barest of searches. But still a child nonetheless.

As true to Kojiro's worries, the outside was nowhere as peaceful as the Hovel. At that point my world truly only consisted of the Hovel. Saboten was the edge of the world in my mind back then, with places like Amegakure and Sunagakure barely imaginable. But news started trickling that marked the map outside as changing. Squads of shinobi from Suna were crossing the border for some reason.

Patrols were stepped up. While the reach of a shinobi village generally extends to its own borders, it was regular protocol for shinobi to be stationed along their countries' borders. Our part of the border, made of nothing but dry rock, desert, and canyon, was generally neglected by the shinobi from Amegakure, according to Kojiro.

After an afternoon of making me practice somersaults and cartwheels, Kojiro was resuming the old game of 'throw things at Heiwa that will make her tear up'. I was doing relatively well today, using my new skills to throw a twist on just normal dodging. Of course, there were limits to what I could do as young as I was. But everyone noticed. Training so much in the sun had cause the splotch of freckles on me to grow all over my body. My mother commented that Kojiro must have me running laps because I suddenly became stronger and faster (he also had me chase chickens in his yard).

The dry heat of the canyon in the summer day was subsiding, giving way to a cold night as the sun set behind us. I turned my face to admire the sun's disappearance in one of the few minutes my teacher had given me to rest before dodging a pebble suddenly thrown at me.

I narrowed my eyes at Kojiro, whose bearded face looked pleased that he caught me off guard. A wheezy snicker is returned as he bounced another pebble off his palm, this time catching it and showing it to me.

"On your guard, Heiwa. That coulda' been a kunai and I would've hadda talk to your mother."

He leaned back easily and threw the next one with more force than the one that almost got me by surprise. I dodge again, twisting my body as I pirouette to the edge of the cliff we are on. I cock my head now as if to express surprise at the lone projectile thrown my way. It was too easy.

Kojiro's normally expressive face doesn't disappoint me. His bearded face scowls but there's a hint of pride in his russet brown eyes as he shows five more stuck between his fingers. I steel myself to prepare to bend, to force my short limbs into activities that still strained my muscles, but suddenly Kojiro stopped.

"Heiwa, get back here right now." Kojiro says, a hint of something in his voice that I didn't recognize. I did immediately, but Kojiro doesn't do much but stare off into the horizon of the surrounding cliffs. I watched as his fingers flex in and out of a fist. He closes his eyes and raises his hands in a hand sign, exhaling loudly. I didn't recognize what he was doing and nothing happened, or so it seemed, for a moment.

"Heiwa," my teacher said, "I cannot leave you here in this place. I need to make my way a few miles northwest of here without my chakra, so you have to climb on my back and not let go." The strangest part was not that my teacher was not using chakra to get around (his wooden leg was a very complicated thing that used his chakra apparently), but the fact that for once, Kojiro lacked the dialect I'd associated with him.

He, like the other people of the Hovel, had a way of speaking that minced words but drew out sounds. I knew not everyone talked like them because my mother would occasionally practice her dialects, including one she referred to as "rich Amegakure speak" that was different from our usual way of speaking, more drawn out and rich with longer words. Kojiro's current speech was stranger still, in one sentence he didn't shorten his words as he usually did. The pronunciation was different enough that I noticed the difference immediately.

He was tenser now, I could see from his muscles, than he ever was with the boy from Suna.

I tugged on the pant leg over his wooden limb as a way of asking if he'd be alright. Instead of answering, he picked me up over his head and placed me on his back. I channeled a bit of chakra to my palms as I gripped his jacket.

"We will not get there quickly, and it will not be the smoothest of rides, but bear with me, girl. There's deep, deep trouble afoot."

It look him an hour or so to traverse the cliffs far enough northwest that he stopped and set me down and instructed me to use some rocks as cover. He crouched down beside me, peeking out a little.

"There they are." Kojiro mumbled to me. I couldn't exactly understand what he was getting at until I strained my eyes and realized that the sandy ground I saw down at the lower parts of the canyon earlier was moving.

My eyes widened and I turned to face Kojiro with fear plainly on my face. Those moving, beige things down there, where they truly what I thought they were? I'd never seen so many men in my life, let alone shinobi.

"A whole regiment of Suna shinobi, dressed to infiltrate." My shishou whispered to me. "I cannot count them all by sight and I suppressed my chakra because if I could sense them, they can sense me, but if I know my regiments, I can say there are over two hundred men coming into Ame right now."

Quickly, they crossed the canyons, hopping from cliff to cliff, before disappearing into the dry lands of our area, like beige ants, all in a formation. We watched them for over half an hour as they left the border. I couldn't help but wonder where the border patrol was. I never met them as the stations were far from one another and the shinobi manning them tended to keep to themselves and far from civilians, but surely something as large as a whole regiment of Suna nin would be noticed?

Annoyed that I left my writing pad near our training spot, I used my finger to try and write the question in the dirt.

"How are they getting in with no trouble from border watchers?"

"They must have gotten permission from Ame to cross into our land without any trouble. But why is the real question." Kojiro looked down, messing up my characters with his fingers, and when the dirt was smooth again I see that he had written something down as his answer.

"War."

"And so my teammate, Daichi, forgot that the mine was set to explode and attempts to do a low grade fire release, the idiot. One second later, all of us were hightailin' it out of the mine. Daichi was last." Kojiro said once more in the dialect he always spoke to me, knocking back another swing of shochu. We were sitting on his porch, watching the chickens squawk amongst each other and chase tumbleweed while the deep summer sun shone on us.

I cocked my head to the right, the symbol between us that he should keep talking.

Kojiro took another long drink of his recently begotten alcohol and I watched as some of dribbled down his white-flecked red beard.

"He burned his hair clean off for his stupidity. Never grew it back as far I know. Of course, by the time we got to the port, it was too late. The boat had left us behind. We had to sneak back into Uzushiogakure in barrels full of fermented cabbage. Disgusting."

I wrinkled my nose at this opinion. I loved cabbage, well most vegetables really, and it sounded like a tasty trip to me.

It was the day after he and I watched the Suna shinobi cross into this part of the country. Thankfully they bypassed the Hovel, though Kojiro says he can tell if they'll come any closer. Sensing is what he calls it, telling me that since the first chunin we saw, he's been worried about trouble.

It fascinates me that Kojiro, as a sensor, can tell the difference between people with just their chakra, as he explained to me when we got back to the Hovel.

"Civilians and shinobi had different chakra sizes," He said. "And you can tell what kind of person you have by their chakra signature. Clan members feel similar to one another, also chakra natures, and personality. My sensing has gotten worse with age, but I can still feel from a couple of miles in any direction."

It didn't escape me how he looked away when he said that clans felt similar.

It spoke of my youth how I wasn't terrified of those soldiers and went to sleep with dreams free of the images of war. Kojiro predicted that they would head somewhere else, wage war somewhere else. Perhaps then we would all be plunged into the war stories Kojiro filled my head with, but that seemed such a faraway prospect. In fact, I was only living for tomorrow.

My birthday.

More than that, I knew that today was the day that the mail would come. Packages delivered from Saboten's mail system took days to get here by cart. So today, hopefully, I'd get presents. I knew my mother and my aunt barely had money but they gave me things and the other neighbors dropped off sweets and little straw dolls last year for my third birthday.

Kojiro noticed my distraction.

"Don't think I can't see you bouncing in your seat, girl. Spirits, you're so little." I pout at him.

"You act so grown up sometimes that I forget you're barely outta diapers." This prompts more pouting from me. My own mother said that I somehow managed to figure out how to properly attempt to go to the bathroom as soon as I could walk and I walked fairly early for a toddler. I didn't even remember diapers.

Before I could angrily reprimand Kojiro via writing of how talented a toddler I had been, we heard the clambering of wood and the clapping of a horse's hooves from the only road in the Hovel, one right by Kojiro's house. The postal cart was finally here.

I flew out of my chair, hopping over the chickens, who squawked loudly and ran everywhere once my feet disturbed their rest. I put the unhappy chicken noises and the loud chuckles of my slightly intoxicated master behind me quickly, not even stopping to open the gate but pushing myself up and over his fence.

I ran like a loon, smile wide on my face, towards the cart. The familiar sight of the portly (unofficial) postal master of our area greeted me, along with his horses and cart. As I approached, he tugged on the reins in his hands, slowing the horses' trotting to a stop.

"Well, if it isn't Heiwa-chan? I guess you want the packages that I brought for your household."

I nod my head and he gestures for me to go around back. But unlike the usual empty back of the cart, I find a woman sitting amidst the packages. She was unfamiliar and all her clothing showed signs of wear and long travel. A hitchhiker or stranded traveler, I think. Not common to these bare and empty lands, and this is the first I meet traveling with the mailman from Saboten.

Her eyes lit up as she saw me approach.

"My word, look at you little one. And all those freckles!"

I blush, taking this as a compliment about the dots that cover my skin. No one besides my mother and I have them, something that easily physically distinguishes us from the rest of the Hovel. Like I always remember doing since I could carry small things, I make my way to climb to cart and look for some packages, looking for the markings that my mother had always pointed out to me represented her name – or Rei's. Now that I could read, it was very easy to locate, except this time I was stopped by the aforementioned woman.

An arm blocked my path and I looked up into the face of the startled woman.

"Kiminori-san? Is she supposed to that?" She sounds unsure as I raise my eyebrows.

A slit opens in the caravan and I could see a flash of the postal master's face in it.

"She's could, she's just getting packages for her ma and friend."

Immediately after hearing this, I go to get the packages, the woman having pulled back her hand to eye me warily. As I look for the packages, I hear her whisper to the slit.

"Is she alright? She hasn't made a sound. She simple? Mother drop her on her head or something?"

The question makes me stop in my tracks. Simple. I've heard that phrase before once, when my mother and Rei were discussing a man in the Hovel, Keichi, who lived with his older brother and would do also all sorts of tasks around the Hovel. He had a rather vacant stare and would speak slowly. I'd see him with play with his cats in the road once, meowing to them. Rei had watched this from the cracks of our window.

"Poor man. Simple with no wits." I hadn't understand why it was there, but Rei's tone was both disapproving and pitying. Simple, then, was a word that when connected with people was in no way good.

I stare at this woman, unsure of what to do. No one has ever basically asked a personal question about me like that while I was in front of them, as if I wasn't there. The Hovel's residents knew that it was better not to ask me questions but if needed to be, they would treat me respectfully, as they did my mother or Rei. Of course, being a very young girl, I was used to normal baby talk and people talking to me sweetly. It didn't demean me, I was little, and I liked compliments.

But that was the first time I can really remember wishing I could speak. My life had been, in the short span of four years, not too marked by the fact I couldn't produce sound with my throat. Perhaps that was why Mother's worries and tears over my future flew over my head. I didn't feel incomplete.

Until that woman called me simple.

I wanted to speak. I wanted words to fly out my mouth and land on her to make her feel my anger that she would dare imply that my mother did something wrong (at this point I had very little understanding of why I was mute), that I couldn't think and feel like anyone else. I wanted to yell at her as Kojiro yelled commands at me. I wanted her to understand that I was not less than her.

And I wanted the false sadness, the pity, in her eyes to go away.

Anger as a child is a strange thing. Society teaches us to restrain feelings as we grow older, and tantrums are deemed 'childish'. I had never been a tantrum-thrower, preferring to retreat from whatever angered or saddened me.

But that pity in her eyes was the first time I ever wanted to punch someone. I didn't even understand that I wanted to until I noticed my fingers had automatically balled into a fist. Shocked by this reaction, I turned my gaze away from the woman and grabbed the packages as quickly as I could and jumped out of the cart, not looking back because I could feel moisture on my eyelashes. I stomped back on the road, ignoring the postal master, marching past Kojiro's.

"Heiwa?"

My shishou called to me, leaning on his fence. I turned my tear-stained face away. I didn't want him to see me this angry, this upset. It was too late as he got a glimpse of my face and repeated my name with double the concern. I just kept on walking home, not bothering to turn back as I heard Kojiro's angry voice fill the air as he started to question the man driving the cart.

I brooded over this feeling of insecurity by myself for a few hours, resisting my mother and Rei's attempts to cheer me up and tell me that the woman's (Kojiro had come over to explain and yell a little) opinions didn't matter. My mother told me that I was intelligent and anyone who spent more than a minute with me could see that. Rei told me everyone in this world is an asshole and you'd faster fall off a cliff than take anyone's unsolicited opinions seriously. Kojiro just yelled. But I kept to myself, silently, as if I could ever be anything but. The incident with the woman had showed me that there was something I had overlooked in my short lifespan, something I hadn't really thought about even though it had marked me from birth.

I couldn't talk. I would never effortlessly be able to introduce myself to people, never just idly gossip as Rei would, striking conversation easily with neighbors. I would never sing, like Kojiro when he had too much shochu.

Writing was a way I could communicate, but it took twice as long as the conversations that I noticed others have and there was little way to explain how I was feeling. My words could be misread.

I started to wonder why everything was so centered on speaking. Why singers were praised, why my books would describe the lilt in someone's speech, why no story I had ever read had a girl like me – a girl who couldn't speak.

Eventually I went to bed with unanswered and unvoiced questions, to wake up as a year older.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY HEIWA!"

Our generally shabby kitchen was filled with Rei's ribbons and yarn as decorations. A sign with my name written in bold, large stylized letters, obviously Kojiro's handiwork, greeted me as I entered, rubbing sleep off my eyes.

My mother came closer first, putting a lipstick-covered kiss to my cheek and pinning a stray hair behind my ear.

"Happy birthday, sweetheart."

I looked up to look at my mother, surrogate Aunt, and teacher. I could see the small concern in their eyes leftover from last night's events. Though my heart still feels heavy I crack a smile for them, hugging my mother and then Rei and Kojiro. A part of me is warmed by the fact Kojiro has now become part of my life and that he was willing to come to our house this early to wish me a happy birthday.

After a nice birthday 'brunch' (my mother let me sleep in), the adults sit down and watch me open the presents. Occasionally we are disturbed by a hovel member dropping in to congratulate me and give me birthday sweets.

I notice something strange going on between Rei and my mother as they keep looking at each other as if sharing a secret. Hesitantly, I open the first package, roughly wrapped in leftover brown paper, and see that Rei has made me a very nice dress. I look up to find Rei smirking.

"You'll need that for later." Unsure of what she means, since this dress is way too nice to chase Kojiro's chickens in, which is my usual form of non-book entertainment, I folded it back up neatly, not wanting to damage it.

The next present is books. I could see wear and tear on them, but not much and they all look like books I could curl up and get lost in. I look at my mother fondly, guessing it is her present.

She nods and smiles widely, hiding it immediately with her sleeve.

"Put it away now, dear. You'll have plenty of time to read it tomorrow." I blink, feeling that there is definitely something that neither of the women raising me are telling me. I, however, do as I'm told.

Kojiro's gift is pretty fancy, though I could tell he's lying to Rei and my mother immediately. He holds up a sack for me.

"Got it from a ninja a couple decades ago who owed me a favor. You can put more stuff in there than it looks like and nothing will get lost. Seein' as I don't think I'll be travelin' anytime soon, it might be better use to you."

I take the bag and look at it, recognizing Kojiro's own sealwork, while my mother and Aunt "ooh'd" and "ahh'd" over the magical bag. Though he has refused to teach me about sealing until I can prove competent with a couple basic ninjutsu, it covers his home so much that I can tell now what is his and what is not. But some of Kojiro's words strike me as funny in a different light and so I finally bite.

I took out my little notepad and scribbled a note for them.

"Am I going somewhere?"

My mother read the note out loud to the rest of the room and Rei gave out a laugh.

"I knew she was gonna figure out that one."

My mother seems a little dismayed.

"I was hoping we could play a guessing game with you, Heiwa, but it seems you figured it out anyway. Yes, you are going on a small trip with me for a week. Can you guess where?"

The answer comes easily to me. We have no money to make a long trip anywhere but Saboten and a trip anywhere else would take us more than week. I quickly write the name of the town for them and she claps her hand.

"Very good! We'll pack tonight and leave with someone tomorrow at sunup."

The thought of a trip with my mother definitely improved my mood, so much that right by the time Kojiro was ready to take his leave, I was grinning wholeheartedly as followed I him out and walked him to his house. But the moment we got there, my shishou stopped me from leaving.

"Heiwa, I have your real present in here but I couldn't give it to you in front of your mother."

This makes me pause in my steps and I immediately come to the conclusion it is more overtly ninja-related than Kojiro can pass off as "something some ninja gave him". I looked up at him expectantly.

Kojiro goes into his house for a few minutes while I wait in his yard, taking the time to pet some of the newborn chicks cheeping away at my feet. When he returns, it is with a stack of papers.

"Had to go through everything I have for this." Said Kojiro, handing it to me. I notice the stack of papers are actually connected, forming a pamphlet as I reminded myself, but all the edges were frayed and the papers deeply yellow. The writing on the cover was a little faded, but I could make it out.

UZUSHIOGAKURE NINJA CORPS GUIDE TO NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION AND STANDARD SEAL LANGUAGE

I held the guide in my hand, unsure of what the title meant. The word 'verbal' was one I had never encountered, but I could tell that this was some sort of language. 'Seals' were used to make ninjutsu, as Kojiro explained, but I couldn't exactly tell what this was. I pointed to 'verbal', shrugging to show my confusion.

"Verbal?" The old man asked when he saw my gesturing. "Oh, that means talking. This used to be the standard guide to a code our forces used to use in the field to communicate with hand signals and body language. Each country has one and it's based off a real language in the elemental countries that hearing or speech-impaired people use to communicate."

I lowered my head, feeling my hands go slack around the paper.

"I thought you'd like to talk in a way that you don't have to write things down." My teacher sounded sheepish, even a little nervous. I couldn't fathom why.

Hearing or speech impaired. It sounded so official. Nothing I read had told me that there were people like me, in fact I never considered it, though it made sense that my mother and Rei knew to call me mute. And people like me, we had our own language, one that wasn't limited to walking around with a notepad. Of course, only people who took the time to learn the language would be able to talk, but it was something.

"I had to brush up on it, but I think I got it down. When you come back, I'll teach you so we can talk. Together."

I feel liquid at my eyes again from Kojiro's words, his gift, just everything. I come closer to him and jump, hugging his middle and burrowing my tearful face into his shirt.

"Thank you," I repeat in my mind. "Thank you for doing this for me, for being my teacher. Thank you." Kojiro hugs me back, patting my hair as he does so. When I finally let go, his weathered-looking face has a small smile on it, and I could see a laugh line through the beard.

"There's something else. Your mother," he paused, looking unsure of himself. "She may leave you alone for a couple hours in Saboten. I put a paper in the book with an address to a place where you can get somethings I already ordered for your studies. Just write my name down when you go there and give it to the man."

I nod and hide the pamphlet under my shirt.

Kojiro coughs and his demeanor changes to the grumpy crotchety old man he usually is.

"Off you go now, girl. Happy Birthday."

That night voices and visions I've never heard or seen, but yet did, filled my dreams.

"Hey, what are you watching?"

"Oh, just Naruto again."

"Cool, scooch over – oh wow, old school! Is this pre-chunin exam?"

"Yeah."

"Awesome, the good times before all the shippuden BS."

"Never forget, you are my prey." A boy with black-rimmed eyes and red hair says.

The sound of footsteps reverberate throughout my dream, but I don't hear them directly, the same as the last voice. And then I saw, as if through glass, a moving picture of a boy I've seen before.

"Hold on." The boy I've seen before asks.

"Why me? Why are you so fixated on me?"

"I see in your eyes you know what loneliness is. True loneliness. You understand that is the most painful form of suffering that there is in the world. As I said before, we have the same eyes. Eyes with a hunger for power, full of hate. The same as me. Eyes that seek revenge against those that made you so lonely. Eyes that burn to see them all dead."

The black-haired boy gasps and there's a flash – people on the ground.

"It's all in your eyes." The redhead finishes.

"Okay hang on a minute here. So you're the one called Gaara." An adult man speaks, cool and drawling.

"Seems you can read a lot in Sasuke's eyes. Be careful, you may not be able to read as wel as you think. If there's something you wanted to say before the final rounds, go ahead and spit it out." The man says.

"When we finally fight, it won't be to advance to the next stage, but solely for survival, one seeking to destroy the other. Only the last one standing will the feel the full value of his existence."

The man quickly cut in.

"You're not talking about a match; you're talking about some kind of grudge bout to the death. It's crazy!"

The red-haired boy narrowed his eyes at the black-eyed one.

"Uchiha. In the depths of your soul, it's what you want too, isn't it? You want to confirm the value of your existence to know if you're as powerful as you think you are."

"…" The black-eyed boy just meets his stare, keeping silent. Suddenly, my dream turns fuzzy and I hear something strange. A strange, unpleasant sound like the ruffling of paper.

"EMU-YREA-NAC-ANRO"

"G-I-YR—E_HC"

"!A-RO-"

"!A-R-L"

I wake.

AN, part II: I wanted to put in Saboten but I realized it'd make the chapter way too long and I really wish to keep the chapters between 4k and 5k, and I don't see myself passing 100k with this story. But I may. Anyway, this is the last of the introductory arc and fleshing out our initial characters chapter, though the next one might be very slice of life. Sort of.

I really hope that I'm accurately portraying the experience of someone with muteness. Heiwa has an unusual case, but I really tried to do my research and one of my biggest desires is to sensitively portray people with speech disorders. Kojiro is an Uzumaki, kudos to those who guessed and a sensor/seal expert who was part of a sabotage unit in the Second Shinobi War. His story will not be very deeply looked into, but I might post drabbles somewhere.

Unfortunately, links on my profile are currently not working, but I had a picture of Heiwa as an older child, and will post others for the next chapter. I also made a playlist. I might just post them on my tumblr so keep checking the tag 'seeking peace' on my tumblr. I also have a poll on my profile about a name change if anyone is interested in such an inane thing.

Thank you for reading, reviewing, and subscribing. That means a great deal and I hope you continue to stick with this story.