Warning: crippling pain, extreme paranoia, chakra exhaustion, etc.

Disclaimer: always the same

Notes: Happy Holiday's everyone! As promised, here is the next chapter :) It's the last of this arc of the story, I suppose. The beginning stage of suspicion and building up relations is done. On to the deception and fun part! Woo hoo! I won't even try to hide how excited I am to show everything that's coming up.

I decided to leave the half chapter as it was posted for the time being. Originally I was going to absorb it into this chapter, but I didn't want everyone who just read it to have to skip or repeat and all of that jazz. Eventually, I might bring it into another chapter, but it's not really hurting anything sooo...

Enjoy!

Like before, translations and explanations are at the bottom. This time I marked the words with an * so you know. Hopefully that helps :)

Updates should be the last Thursday evening of the month still, US time. A giant thank you to my wonderful beta DimiGex!


Catching Lightning In A Bottle

Chapter 7

A young girl swung her feet off the finely upholstered sofa, absentmindedly tracing the embroidered blossoms and twisting branches with her finger. At six years old, Mitsuki's foot dangled above the floor.

"Why can't I go see Haha-ue* again?" Mitsuki asked the guards standing beside the doors. No matter where the little girl went, guards followed. Today, more than normal stood around: two at each door and others she could hear reporting happenings around the compound.

Hideyoshi, her little brother, prepared to flick a painted pebble on the ground towards Mitsuki's piece, protected by the chair leg. To win her rock, he had to bank off one other surface before touching her pebble. She didn't dare glance away in case he cheated, not even as the guard responded. Mitsuki asked a dozen times before, continually poking and prodding for any variation or verbatim she could manipulate, but the guard hadn't wavered.

Most of the Kenshin shinobi expected the test from the Clan Head's second daughter. It was better that than her insatiable curiosity and boredom latching onto a more … entertaining idea.

The man's voice tinged with frustration regardless. "It is not time, Mitsuki-dono*," he repeated again.

Shikishi sighed near the window. "Why do you always have to be such a brat, Imouto*-chan?" Lolling her head back towards the ocean outside, Mitsuki's older sister of two years glared.

Hideyoshi flicked the pebble, sending it skirting off the table, up past the flower vase, and tumbling into the side of the chair leg. For a second, every eye flickered over in rapt attention. They were met with the same suspended disappointment as always, filled with potential and talent, but falling short. Hideyoshi's stone missed Mitsuki's pieces completely, leaving itself vulnerable. Ultimately, it marked the beginning of the end, where the admiration and awe of natural talent would eventually be overcome by disdain and jealousy.

Mitsuki pointed petulantly, still tracing designs with her other hand and said, "Maa, maa, Yoshi-chan! You should go under the table, not over it, Baka! At least then, I can't catch you."

Dark eyes glared up at her as Shikishi scoffed at being ignored from across the room. "I was trying. Your piece is up there, Onee*-chan!"

The guards hid their smiles behind their half-lowered face shields. Mitsuki always beat her little brother; her ninja skills were incredible for someone at the tender age of six. Even the game of Ohajiki*, where opponents captured enemy pieces by hitting them, turned into a complex collaboration of banks and ricochets across the room.

"You two are getting your clothes dirty," Shikishi scolded, but no one paid the eldest daughter any attention.

"My turn!" Mitsuki chirped.

Sliding off the couch, Mitsuki skipped towards her favorite piece, a unique blue stone that had a sparrow painted on the top. With a quick look around the room, she dropped low for the best angle. The dress that she'd been forced into dragged awkwardly along the floor, fading the fine silk at the knees. Not that Mitsuki minded. Before she could wiggle halfway underneath the table, the double doors at the end of the room swung open.

A metallic tang filled the air.

"Otō*-sama!" Hideyoshi called.

The three children spun around to see their father step into the room, exhausted and dirty. The stains of blood on his hands and the creases in his shirt from an anxious grip fell back behind the awkward smile of a man too serious and hallowed. The guards frowned, picking up on the melancholy undertone in the man's body language. The kids missed it. In a second they rushed across the room, Mitsuki and Yoshi flashing over with incredible speed as Shikishi walked quietly. Three sets of eyes turned upward expectantly, and the guards shared a glance as the commander and clan head hid traces of blood from his children.

Their father smiled, weary and relieved. "Come see you're new sister."


It wasn't death that lingered in the air. Death, Mitsuki knew: the metallic tang and rotting stench, browning crusts of blood and fluid over the floors, and morbid silence, similar to shock, bleeding into horror. Here in the hospital, it lingered in the air and always would. The gruesome shadow wasn't what kept Mitsuki's muscles rigid where she sensation felt different. A creeping chill wiggled up her muscles in a nerve-tingling itch. Out of all the feelings that plagued Mitsuki throughout her spotted history, paranoia tasted the worst.

Mitsuki muffled the hum radiating through the medical tents by holding her head in her hands. Despite the throbs of pain from her head, details in the room pulsed with heightened clarity.

Yuko sat next to Ryuuta's bed, swinging her feet with a perpetual squeak from the uneven chair legs. A few strides from Mitsuki, Ryuuta babbled about fantastic feats. Isamu's hands wrapped plaster strips around his arm as he talked, easily keeping the limb at the correct angle. Outside the curtains sectioning off the small alcove, carts rushed by on wobbly wheels. Patients groaned and cried, while medical-nin rushed about in flurries of words.

Anxiety made Mitsuki twitch with every breath of noise. A splitting headache forced her eyes shut—the one caused by never sleeping no matter how hard she tried—enhanced each noise.

Headaches, she could handle. Years of her decaying body built up enough pain resistance and will power to shove the pressure on the back of her mind.

Danger she couldn't ignore as easily.

Fourteen ninja stood within lethal range. The vivid energy signatures lit up Mitsuki's mind like prison spotlights when she turned her focus outward. Some were likely patients at the temporary hospital, but Mitsuki knew better than to trust an injured shinobi; that mistake had already cost her everything in the Land of Water when a man robbed her of her birthright. Whenever a shinobi walked towards the tents, Mitsuki's hackles rose, aware a kunai could pierce the fabric walls with only a split second to react.

The feeling in the air might not be death, but it tasted like everything leading up to it. This place held nothing but promises of murder and nerve-wracking trepidation.

In less than an hour, every ninja in the vicinity was on high alert.

She'd given herself away. Stupid, Mitsuki mentally cursed again. Her fingers dug deeply into her scalp in frustration, but no one in the room noticed over the relentless noise.

Possessing chakra control hardly warranted concern in a village of refugees. To survive, most people had to fight. Speed wasn't the worst ability in Konohagakure. Mitsuki's fate depended on whether or not Tobirama connected her abilities to the infiltrations at the Hokage Tower. She'd always been careful to mask her presence, but any time that shinobi used enhanced speed or strength, some of their spiritual energy activated. One second could have blown her cover. How many times had Tobirama been inside the Tower when she'd busted in?

If he connected her energy signature to the one sneaking around, nothing that Mitsuki had worked for over the last two months mattered anymore. Maybe Konohagakure wasn't a military state, but with the Hokage determining everyone's lives, it might as well be. With Hashirama and Madara outside the village, Tobirama held her fate in his hands.

Did he have enough intel to act? Or would he try to find more information first?

Those were the only questions that mattered.

Either Mitsuki escaped the village gates tonight with all the kids, or she implemented her backup plan. Killing was never her goal, hardly even a thought, but if push came to shove the blood on her hands dripped black enough that a few others souls wouldn't make much of a difference. Three deaths, maybe five depending on which guard rotation, and everything she came for could be in her hands. Before anyone could sound an alarm she'd be back at the house, grabbing the kids and—

"All done," Isamu announced from her position at Ryuuta's side.

Mitsuki snapped back to attention. Despite drifting off more than most people, she sensed that she'd been silent for too long. To uphold pretenses, she straightened, forced a smile, and blinked to focus on her children and friend in front of her. Isamu was smiling, plump cheeks rosy and genuinely happy while Yuko stared with bored curiosity. Ryuuta wiggled around the new limitation with a frown. The pristine cast spanned from his knuckles to above the bend of his elbow.

A shinobi passed the room, walking close enough to feel the curtain door rustle. Mitsuki froze. She waited as they moved by, waited for the flux in chakra, or the pause before a kunai flew in for the kill.

"Now, you can't get it wet. Hold it up when you take a bath, ok?"

Remembering the important conversation going on, Mitsuki's head snapped around. Yuuko stared with a furrowed brow at the strange behavior, but thankfully Isamu's and Ryuuta looked oblivious. Mitsuki ignored Yuko in favor of watching Isamu.

Grabbing the leftover bandages, her friend waited for Ryuuta to stop waving his new arm around and meet her gaze before delivering the final instructions. "As long as you don't push yourself, the cast should be able to come off in three weeks."

Isamu must have placed the bone and initiated the healing process for such a speedy removal. Not that Mitsuki remembered it happening. In case Tobirama managed to blow her cover, Mitsuki stored Isamu's information away; someone needed to be able to remove a cast without medical shinobi around. Without the ability to heal using chakra, the only option was to take care of Ryuuta's recovery herself if they needed to run. No one else in the Land of Fire would help.

"M'kay!" Ryuuta chirped, clearly not listening. "But I'm tellin' you, 'Samu-san, it was super cool. I had ta be fifty feet high and everythin'!"

Isamu met Mitsuki's gaze across the room, amused, and Mitsuki rolled her eyes. The kid's ability to lie might have been more concerning if it wasn't so obvious. There were bigger fires to fight at the moment.

"You were not, baka. Don't lie," Yuko snipped.

"Hey!" Enraged, Ryuuta whirled around on his sister, face threatening to match the color of his hair. Isamu had to sit back to avoid being caught by the end of his cast as it swung past, and a roll of bandages tumbled to the floor. "Take tha' back! You—Ow!"

Ryuuta crumpled on the bed, face twisted, and Yuko didn't even bother turning her head towards him with her scathing conclusion. "Baka."

"Kids," Mitsuki chided, ignoring how pleading and pitiful her voice sounded to her own ears. Both turned to glance at her, and she shot them exasperated looks behind the hand rubbing her temples. A vicious stress headache attempted to blend Mitsuki brains to puree, but she refused to pull her senses inward to doctor the feeling in hopes of it going away. "Just let Isamu finish her job, alright?"

For some forsaken reason Isamu smiled, but her adopted children looked apologetic when they glanced away. "Yes, Mi-chan," they chorused.

Mitsuki stood and took the two steps to cross the entirety of their curtained off room and placed a hand on the taller woman's shoulder. "Thank you, Isamu. I mean it." The way the crinkles in the corners of Isamu's eyes eased in a smile made it easier to return the gesture, even if the emotion behind it probably looked pathetic as it felt. "How much do I owe you?"

The rejection crossed her face before it could escape her lips. "Don't be ridiculous! With everything you do around the hospital, I'm the one indebted to your unending kindness," Isamu declared, catching Mitsuki's hand before it made it to the inner pockets of her clothing.

Nearly jerking back in surprise, Mitsuki stared at their hands, knowing insomnia ate away her flesh underneath the skin. The several layers of clothing hiding her withered body couldn't disguise her hands. Over four years without enough sleep cut a brutal mark. A headache throbbed against her head, but even distracted as she was, Mitsuki knew better than to make a scene. As long as disgust or horror never crept into the kind smile on Isamu's face there was no reason to react. "Really, I—"

"I insist," Isamu pressed, waiting another moment of sincere eye contact to release Mitsuki's captured hand. She reached out to squeeze her arm affectionately.

Mitsuki flinched, trying to angle away, but it was too late.

"It hardly took any—"

Isamu eyes popped open, staring down where Mitsuki's bicep belonged. Instead of the slight give of actual flesh, there was hardly anything more than bones and tendons. A medical ninja wouldn't—couldn't—miss that. It felt as alarming as Mitsuki's pounding heartbeat.

No one in the village knew about the malnutrition and insomnia that let Mitsuki do her job. Part of the reason that she got away with breaking in at night with little suspicion was due to the facts humans couldn't survive without sleep. Sleep deprivation killed. No one knew that underneath the layers of fabric, a skeleton perversely played human by stretching haunted flesh across bones.

"—time at all," Isamu finished, voice no more than a murmur.

Mitsuki's smile cracked a little, feeling forced and fake, as she nearly jerked out of the woman's grip. There wasn't time to think of anything cleverer to say, and she blurted, "I'll bring over some herbs then."

Kami, that sounded like a bribe.

Clenching her fists tightly, Mitsuki quickly spit out, "I mean … if you need some, of course," but the words only twisted something odd into something awkward, pointing out the unease and insecurity for the world to see. Stop, she really needed to stop talking.

Damn it, Mitsuki knew Isamu was more affectionate than most people, but she didn't expect her to reach out.

Fix it. Mitsuki had to fix this now.

Genjutsu was out of the question with the kids in the room. The only one that she was decent at changed a person's perception beforehand, making it useless now. Too many people respected Isamu as one of the head medical ninja to discredit her if Mitsuki told someone.

Gesture to tell a secret, smile at kids, pull her into a hug with head out of sight, the dark voice in Mitsuki's head hissed. Then reach up to snap her neck until her body jerked and the life was gone. Years of survival and war strategies flashed through her head, hundreds of different ways to kill flashing before her eyes, but none of them solved the problem of the children. A senbon needle in the back of the neck, severing connection to brain stem, quick and silent so she sits down and no one realizes until

No. No. No.

Mitsuki cringed, jerking away from the thoughts. They weren't an option. The very fact that killing Isamu seemed like a choice left nothing but the bitter taste of cruelty and horror on her tongue.

Even worse, Isamu stared, shocked and concerned, but clearly unaware of the desperate thoughts swirling through Mitsuki's twisted mind. While Mitsuki would kill her to hide the truth, Isamu's concern laid with her friend. That burned a piece of her humanity inside.

The silence stretched on long enough for Yuko and Ryuuta to notice that something was amiss. Both looked over, seeing far too much. Then after a beat, Isamu stepped back to start organizing leftover materials, eyes meeting Mitsuki's for a moment too long before she smiled.

The tension fled out of Mitsuki without another thought, but the repulsion festered deeper inside, a sickness twisting her gut.

Trust used to come easy, before the death of her sister and father and mother. Before lies sent her here, and this damn curse ruined everything.

Even the most beautiful flowers withered without the sun.

"It'd be appreciated," Isamu stated.

Mitsuki had to think back to even remember what nonsense tumbled out of her mouth a few seconds earlier. A bribe: herbs. Right. It was hard to tell if she was reading too much into Isamu's voice, or if it really sounded as distant as it felt.

When Isamu turned her back to put away leftover supplies, the anxiety of not seeing her expression ate Mitsuki's gut. "After all, we would have been in a tight pinch without the ingredients you brought to make some soldier pills," she continued with another questioning glance her way.

Mitsuki twisted her face into something resembling a smile, fighting the flinch as her headache chomped into her brain, ripping out the flesh with vicious fangs. Only faking smiles for years let her find the rusting mechanics to lie again. "I'm sure if I asked everyone else they wouldn't be so excited considering the awful taste." A sad attempt at humor, even by Mitsuki's standards.

Like that, Isamu's strange concern was swept away as a passing lapse of thought. Her laugh tinkered like bells too pure for ears. "Yes, well, I supposed we can't be good at everything now."

First, the bad information she'd gotten about when the Hokage was leaving, then Tobirama, and now this. The stabbing behind Mitsuki's eyes brutalized her vision. With a jolt, she realized that, in her shock, Tobirama's presence had slipped from her mind. She closed her eyes tight to expand her senses again until she found him. The small amount of relief seeing him in the same location hardly eased the tension along her spine. With everything closing in the pressure threatened to strangle her.

Sixteen ninja were near enough to kill now.

It wasn't until the shush of the curtain that Mitsuki realized she zoned out from the awkward silence of the room to nurse her headache. She hadn't even felt a person coming, meaning they hid their chakra, and—

"Jin," Mitsuki breathed out in surprise. It wasn't until her muscles relaxed that she realized her hand had slipped halfway inside her outer coat for a weapon.

Everyone's head turned eagerly at the distraction. Yuko stopped rocking in her seat, and Ryuuta sat up. Jin paused halfway in the room under the attention, eyeing everyone with a strange look on his face; one hand lingered on the curtain while the other hid behind his back. "Did I interrupt something?" he asked cautiously.

"Not at all," Mitsuki said a beat too fast. She eyed his hidden hand wearily but forced herself to act as though she'd been rubbing her collarbone to hide her movement.

Clearing her throat quietly, Mitsuki took a deep breath to center herself again. Kami what is today coming to? Jin's sharp eyes seemed to catch the strange mood lingering in the air. Four people staring made it blatant. Even if she had the words to explain things quickly, Mitsuki didn't want to think about them again.

Giving up on hiding the pain in her head, Mitsuki brought up a hand to sooth her throbbing temple. Forget the hawk eyes staring at her. She had a right to be stressed. Isamu didn't comment, even as her eyes followed the motion, and Mitsuki willed herself not to care.

"What are you doing here, Jin?" Mitsuki asked, only because the silence was stretching too long.

"Rough day?" he guessed, finally entering their secluded alcove and closing the privacy curtain behind him.

The snort was unavoidable.

Jin smiled with a fondness that should have never been there. The same meaningful gaze jerked something inside Mitsuki's chest too tight in a wholly guilty way. Regardless, he straightened up, his towering form pulling his shirt tight around his slender chest and making his features cut shadows in the light too unique to ignore. The small area felt tight with five people or maybe just with Jin. "And it started off so good too," he teased. If his voice didn't have that soft rumble, Mitsuki might have been able to convince herself he didn't care.

"I'd have thought you'd be asleep by now, Jin." It was a sad distraction, but honestly, at the moment, it was all she could come up with.

His toothy grin made her realize her unintentional set-up. "Don't worry Mitsuki-chan, I can go all day when I put my mind to it."

She could not handle this now.

Despite herself, a flush roared into her cheeks and she tried to hide it pitifully behind a hand. Jin smiled triumphantly and Ryuuta and Yuko looked over at her confused. It was Isamu's piercing eyes, standing across the room that took willpower not to glower her way.

Mercifully, he turned towards the others before anyone could even think to ask about what he meant. "I heard someone talking about one of you sobbing, so I figured I'd find you all here." The normally tormenting comment struck a different cord after what happened, but thankfully Mitsuki didn't see anyone else react oddly to it. When his eyes fell on Ryuuta, the little nugget didn't seem to know how to feel about the information. His face contorted into something between offense and pride, but he was apparently too subdued to protest. "That wouldn't have been you I heard about, was it?"

"What of it?" Ryuuta challenged, flaring his plump cheeks out in a pout.

Rubbing the back of his head, Jin admitted, "I thought for sure I was going to find Yamaguri-kun again…"

Out of the four children that leeched onto her, Yamaguri had been hurt the most. Picking fights with Uchiha capable of reading every move he'd make before he thought it, tended to be bad for his health. Ryuuta tried hard too; one day maybe she'd find a tally of battle scars.

Yuko puffed out her cheeks and glowered quietly. "I don't know why. Ryuuta's way more of a baby."

"Take tha' back!" Ryuuta roared, leaping out of the bed. He crossed the room in two small bounds, good arm cocked back to punch.

Without thinking, Mitsuki flashed over, catching his arm before the fist could make contact with Yuko's stunned face. Twisting him around with his momentum, she launched him back towards the bed, wheels skidding across the ground. Her foot barely touched the ground before she appeared back across the room, standing as she had before.

Everyone stood still. Mitsuki dropped her head, letting out a sigh as her bangs covered her face as time seemed to pick back up again. With her other hand, she dropped the ram seal of her jutsu, hidden in the long wide sleeve of her overcoat.

That was too close. She almost didn't get to cast it in time. Quickly checking Isamu and Jin's eyes, Mitsuki felt the relief weaken her knees seeing the way they blinked to refocus.

They hadn't seen her move.

The drop in chakra hit with a painful twitch, a vicious reminder that most of Mitsuki's chakra remained sealed away thanks to the curse. Without some rest, two more small jutsu's would push her below the danger zone.

Yuko frowned, seeing how Ryuuta appeared to have tripped getting out of bed, falling and shoving the whole thing back nearly into Isamu's legs. "I told you, Baka. Don't be such an idiot."

It was going to be a long day.


By the time Jin waved goodbye, the sun vanished behind the trees and the wind blew bitter cold. Ryuuta and Yuko grumbled while they walked back to the house for dinner, but Mitsuki let them be as long as the conversation didn't grow too heated. Instead, she tugged her outer cloak tighter, face nearly completely covered, and cursing the seasons for taking a long time to change. Days were too short, and nights stretched an eternity, especially without decent sleep. Mitsuki's clothes barely kept out the cold. She sauntered on, waving at the few people she passed on the way out of the heart of the village while Yuko and Ryuuta trailed behind.

A flicker in the back of her mind followed as she weaved down streets, away from the heart of the village, and towards the outer walls where her house hid in the trees. As alarming as it might have been, Mitsuki never acknowledged the people following her. They confirmed that Tobirama suspected something.

Jin's visit hadn't been chance. Hearing about Ryuuta was one thing; hunting her down and finding her in the hospital to check on him when he should have been sound asleep was another thing entirely. He'd hung around the entire time that Mitsuki checked out, subjecting her to the meaningful looks Isamu shot when she thought he wouldn't notice. The bastard didn't even have the decency to hide his toothy smile about the whole thing. Afterwards, when he'd insisted upon taking Ryuuta out for a treat, Mitsuki nearly brushed it aside.

Then, all of the sudden, he'd asked about the flower shop, and how it was going. Then, what she did there, who she worked with, how long she'd been there, and why. Innocent enough questions for a stranger maybe, but never something Jin, the flirty guard with too sharp of teeth that teased her pink in the face every morning, would talk about.

He got a mission: check in with all vendors in section 4B and make a report. The Hokage, who wasn't even in the village, sent him out to inspect vendors today of all days.

The two ninja trailing her probably had the same agenda.

Tobirama was clearly looking into her abilities. It was too early to determine whether or not he believed that Mitsuki broke into the Hokage Tower, but her skill appeared threatening enough to warrant an individual check-up by shinobi. Three, in fact, though to be fair, she probably wasn't supposed to notice the two following her. They were staying far enough back that a normal shinobi wouldn't detect them or sense the threat they presented. Thankfully, Mitsuki had never been normal.

If Jin hadn't been the person to question her, Mitsuki didn't want to think how things might have turned out. It felt cruel to manipulate his affection for her, but for once, Mitsuki felt grateful that she hadn't crushed his attentions earlier. They might have saved her.

Her two tails were most likely for assurance on the report.

With a sigh, Mitsuki shouldered open the door to her house, stepping aside for a moment to let Ryuuta and Yuko shuffle past. Being in the small hovel never felt as relaxing as it did when she shut the door and temporarily escaped the eyes following her. She took longer than normal to slip out of her shoes, reaching up carefully to flip over the red and blue token at the door, and hang up her outermost coat on a hanger. Four small sets of sandals sat by hers, and the sight tugged at a raw place inside.

Takeda stood by the stove, stirring something that smelled appealing. From behind, his ordinary brown hair and slender frame echoed of the past, but Mitsuki ignored the pressing memory in favor of surveying the rest of the room. Yamaguri sat near the fireplace, working on sharpening a knife by the looks of things. The sound of metal scraping on stone cut above the sizzle in the skillet.

For a few seconds, everything felt right. Mitsuki's smile came easy for the first time in hours, like everything would be ok.

"Welcome home," Takeda called warmly.

Mitsuki paused, her grin dimming at the familiar twinge of pain the words brought. Home. Crazy how one little word dropped the world back into place and Mitsuki couldn't ignore how fake it felt. It wasn't Tatsuya standing by the stove or the sound of her little brother sharpening his weapons by the fire.

It was the pairs of eyes outside the window, watching everything.

Forcing a smile, Mitsuki put back on the face she wore every day and ignored the bone-weary exhaustion in her body to bounce across the room as she always did. Ryuuta and Yuko grumbled back greetings of their own, before flopping down at the single couch.

"Smells good, Taka-kun," Mitsuki grinned from across the room. She paused behind Yamaguri, leaning closer than necessary to check his progress with his knife. He flinched, nearly nicking a finger, but before he could whirl around for a well-deserved whack, Mitsuki fluttered across the room towards Takeda at the stove. "What's for dinner?"

"Mi-chan!" Yamaguri screeched at the same time Ryuuta shouted, "Check out my cast!"

"You can't scare me like that!"

"She's been awful all day," Yuko complained from the couch. "She had to talk to everyone on the way home. It took forever."

"Yama-kun!" Ryuuta cut in. "I'm talkin' to ya!"

Takeda leveled her a mild look Mitsuki stoutly ignored as she stepped up beside him with a smile. Chaos naturally happened. It didn't make her the single cause. "Vegetable stir-fry," he answered instead of the lecturing comment he probably wanted to say.

Mitsuki spared a second to smell the sizzling vegetables before grabbing the pan and tilting it over the sink, tuning out Ryuuta telling the epic adventure of falling out of a tree. "Remember, too much water and juice steams them, not fries. Use some of this oil if it starts to brown." Before handing the pan back over, Mitsuki reached up on her tiptoes to reach a few herbs in the cupboards above. "Here. For more flavor."

"Thanks," Takeda mumbled, eyes intently taking in the details. He'd started cooking a few days ago when he noticed Mitsuki scrambling to get back in time for dinner, and since then, had soaked up any advice. From the way he handled the pan, moving it back over the heat and remembering to use a towel against the metal, Mitsuki trusted him enough not to burn anything. Takeda was one of the few she gave enough credit not to hurt himself, despite only being fourteen.

Despite her stomach grumbling, excited by the tantalizing smells, other things needed to be taken care of first. Mitsuki glanced around one more time to check that everything was in order before slinking off towards the back of the house. "I'm going to get some more work done before dinner!" she hollered.

She was gone before anyone could question it.


The Kenshin Clan never stood out as a powerful or influential clan in the Land of Water. They were small and reclusive, hiding near the sea, in a fortress protected by rock despite the battles waged on neighboring clans. War brought resources, survival, but few outside the Land of Water knew the Kenshin existed.

However, there was one scroll cherished by Mitsuki's people that set them apart.

Mitsuki meticulously went around her room, making sure that every detail looked as though she were sitting down to work. Lock the door, close the blinds, activate the silencing seal placed beneath the window to cancel all sounds to eavesdroppers, and set out her worn tami mat for a comfortable place to sit. This jutsu took energy and time, neither one was abundant now. At least, if she passed out using it, Mitsuki would land softly as long as she sat on her bedding. She wandered over towards the window pretending to look for something else once everything was set up. Mitsuki worried at her thumb nail, glancing around the room before biting through the calloused skin. A small dot of blood welled just enough for her to press it under the window seal as she braced herself to bend down and grab a book from the small pile on the floor. The chakra neutralizer hummed into activation.

The tug of chakra from the small jutsu's made her fingers tingle in a sickening way. Her head swam as she stood. Four years ago, they would have hardly scraped the cream off the top of her reserves, but it already felt like a considerable amount of her energy zipped away casting genjutsu earlier at the hospital.

Mitsuki couldn't wait to get off that damned chakra restrictor cursing her body into this shell of herself.

Patience. All it would take was a little more patience. Convince Tobirama she wasn't related to the break-ins at the Hokage Tower, then, break in to find the information she needed on the Uzumaki Clan and get out of this forsaken village.

Easy.

With a sigh, Mitsuki plopped down on her mat, turning her back towards the only window in the room and cracked open her book. It was time. The moment she pressed her bleeding thumb into her opposite wrist, a swirling black tattoo rose to the surface along the inside of her arm, compact kanji lining the main chakra network running from her fingers to her heart.

A hammer knocked into her chest, nearly making her wheeze. The chakra feeding into the writing pulled out of her body faster than before, a burning pain searing through exhausted chakra networks until it felt like too much. Her vision blurred. Her entire arm screamed and shook.

Then it stopped.

Sucking in a breath of relief, Mitsuki closed her eyes and gauged her chakra levels, finding them too close to dangerous zones for comfort. It would do for a few minutes, at least, if she was lucky.

Quickly then.

Breathe in. Picture the seal upon another's arm. Breathe out.

Behind her lids, a plain room materialized, filled with two cushions; one for her and the other empty. For a second the world stood still. Mitsuki waited anxiously for the stretching pulse of chakra to connect to the other end.

A woman fazed into existence across from her.

Breath-taking couldn't describe her. She was exquisite; high cheekbones under crystal blue eyes, and glowing skin accentuated by luscious dark hair tumbling down her back. This woman belonged in rooms filled with the softest furs and exotic furniture, not the pathetic excuse she stood in now. Considering the lack of smoky paints and powders accentuating her naturally seductive features, Mitsuki could only assume the woman had been getting ready for bed. With two sophisticated steps, Mitsuki watched the gorgeous creature kneel on the cushion. Any doubt as to why men and shinobi alike fell at her feet that had grown since Mitsuki last saw her fled away. It didn't matter that she couldn't carry kunai or daggers in the revealing silk gown; deadly weapons slowed kunoichi of her status down.

"Koneko," Mitsuki greeted simply. She ignored the strain in her voice; chakra deprivation wasn't anything new anymore, and the woman across from her witnessed lower times. "It's been a while."

Rather than responding, Koneko's eyes roamed the room around them, taking in the state of wear on the paper walls, and the splinters along the wooden floors; a room cast through Kokoro* Hashi* represented the direct health and strength of the user. Her plump lips twisted down into a sensual frown. For a moment, Mitsuki thought she would speak, but her eyes eventually moved down towards the book Mitsuki held in her hands. It was the only object from the real world that manifested over the mental connection, and Mitsuki turned the page absently to uphold pretenses back where prying eyes lurked outside windows.

"You're being watched," Koneko concluded.

Mitsuki grinned, opening her mouth to make a wisecrack when a sharp pain shot through her heart. Too much chakra already fed into the jutsu and Mitsuki recognized her pitiful reserves were quickly drying up. This conversation needed to be fast. She'd send the details later with her summons.

Shifting slightly, Mitsuki cut straight to the point. "Tobirama suspects me." Koneko straightened reflexively. That name, even without context, preambled images of bingo books and dangerous ghost stories to keep children dutiful. "I made a mistake and am being investigated, though they haven't found anything yet. Two ninja are outside," Mitsuki explained, turning a page again.

Koneko's eyes narrowed, but Mitsuki figured the dark look came from the threat to her life; at least she hoped it did. "How?"

Mitsuki waved her hand dismissively, before catching herself and realizing the action probably looked odd to the shinobi watching. She quickly dropped her hand back to the book and fingered the pages. "Not important. I'm going to need to stay longer than I thought. The cover that I've built up should hold, but I won't be able to get the counterseal with shinobi following me around. My chakra's too thin to hold a genjutsu that long." While not originally part of the plan, her adopted children served as deterrent thinking for the time. They provided leeway to run around the village with more freedom. While Tobirama expected her to break into the Tower, she could utilize Keiko to get into the Uchiha Compound and check for information there. If things broke down too quickly, Jin wouldn't stop her from leaving the village and she could find Kosei and Yushin, the two farmers, to hide out at their place until the searches past by. Everything worked together. The alibis should hold. "Have other lands heard about Konohagakure yet?"

"Taicho*," Koneko began, but Mitsuki straightened up with a snap before she could.

"Don't."

The tone was dark, rolling with power and confidence of everything Mitsuki represented in another life. Koneko stopped, reassessing, and Mitsuki held her gaze, daring her to use the title again.

Those days had passed. Mitsuki wasn't the commander of anything anymore.

Sighing, Koneko turned her head away to check her nails. "Mitsuki," she amended, "If they don't lock you up as a traitor, you know what they will do to you as a ninja."

Captured enemy ninja didn't live long. Mitsuki knew the cost of freedom in those situations—she'd seen them herself. A lucky person only sold out their friends and family. Few lived to serve a clan they hated like a stolen weapon. Others...

Closing her eyes, Mitsuki took a deep breath. "I know the risk, Koneko."

A lull of silence fell over the two, filled with decaying pain. Mitsuki couldn't determine if it came from the chakra being stolen by the jutsu or her soul.

Koneko shook her head, brushing some hair behind her ear, changing the subject. "The other nations shouldn't have heard about the village. Right now, Hideyoshi has me on a mission in the Land of Lightning." Mitsuki flinched at the name, but Koneko graciously didn't comment. "Word hasn't gotten here yet, though rumors about the end of Uchiha and Senju clan's war has spread. People worry about a powershift."

"And the Compound?"

"Surviving," Koneko stated, and Mitsuki could sense there was something deeper from her tone. "Wars broke out again with surrounding clans, but Hideyoshi keeps gaining ground. Not many people see him anymore."

Staring down at her hands, Mitsuki nodded. Numbly, she turned another page in her book, but her mind was far away in memories too rugged to hurt after too long. A long time ago, she'd convinced herself the Kenshin Compound ended their last war; a foolish thought. The Land of Fire might have been lucky enough to discover a peaceful conclusion to war, but the Land of Water lived under bloody revenge and jaded perceptions of brutality.

Another painful tug of chakra shot up her arm. This time, Koneko's form fizzled in front of her, flickering in and out before Mitsuki grounded herself to stabilize the technique. Her chakra dipped dangerously low.

Straightening up, Mitsuki gave one last order. "Keep an eye open. The world's going to change quickly now."

Koneko nodded as the connection broke. She phased out before Mitsuki could catch the ghost of respect echo across the mental connection, a promise to a commander, a princess, and a friend: "Of course, Mitsuki-taichou."


A long time ago Mitsuki learned a bitter truth, one that formed by carving the life and color from her dreams. Like all truths, the price to learn it crushed everything.

People were cruel. They liked it. People hurt others, broke their hearts and stepped on the pieces. In one second, they shattered promises, chained them up and dragged them naked through the gravel to make them understand a fraction of their pain. In the end, cruelty was easy. Satisfying.

Those bastards that cast her out should rot in the deepest pits of hell. They chose the devil and ate his lies instead of believing her, instead of showing a second of faith and gratitude for everything she'd accomplished. She deserved to drag every one of them down into the muck until it bleed into their lungs and the filthy lies popped from their bulging eyes in misery. Those traitors choose their fate.

That's how she should feel; stitch the shattered pieces of her heart back together with the thread of steel and watch with a razor smile as she lunged for the throat.

But she didn't. Kami she couldn't. If she could go back or one second and change, if she'd been stronger or see the avalanche her choices were causing then maybe—

No. That was enough for now.

It was time to wake up.


-ue: literally means 'above', and denotes a high level of respect; only used for family titles; mainly used in samurai families before the Meiji period

-dono: roughly means 'lord' or 'master', typically below -sama because it doesn't equate noble status

Imouto: little sister

Onee: older sister

Ohajiki: a traditional Japanese children's game similar to marbles historically played with pebbles or rocks; also refers to the small coin-shaped pieces used to play the game

Otō: a very formal and polite way to say father

Kokoro: has three basic meanings: the heart and its functions; mind and its functions; and center, or essence.

Hashi: basically means bridge

Taicho: means 'captain', 'leader', or 'commander'