Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.


"You were there?" I ask, as I sit. "There for the wedding, I mean." It is strange to think that Kosshi-baasan and Kouga-jisan were once young, and that they held a wedding on the seventh of May, and that they had invited Chichi to the celebration. The Inuzuka favor spring weddings, but I never did learn the date of theirs.

"I was invited." Chichi folds his hands together and sets them on the table. "It was a happier time." And there's a world of feeling that I do not know the extent of in those two sentences.

We lapse into a silence.

Chichi takes the cup of coffee that I'd set on his desk and tosses it back in two gulps. There's a tense moment when he glares at the cup as though it had done something to mortally offend him. He pulls open a desk drawer and hands me something else. "Jasmine and Violet."

And it's the first time I've seen Kosshi-baasan laughing. She's in a white kimono with black cranes and spinning her around the floor is...Chichi, also smiling. There are violets and jasmines in her hair. "Oh." And while jasmines could mean friendliness they could also mean grace. Grace and Honesty. This is an impromptu wedding photograph. The man with wild hair and an equally large smile, half cut out of the picture frame can only be Kouga-jisan. I never knew him.

My thoughts return to Chichi's reaction to my bouquet. It is merely disconcerting. It was a happier time. I did not know how many memories he had made with those flowers.

I look back at him. "I'm sor-" His eyes are red. Mangekyo. Chichi has the Mangekyo?

He closes his eyes. "Your jisan was my closest friend." Kouga-jisan had died during the beginning of the Third War. And with this confession, it can only be assumed that Chichi had seen him die.

"I-" What do I say? What can I say? This grief is not something that I can erase. It runs buried deep, and it is only now that I realize that Chichi's heart has been scarred before.

"You did not know him." Chichi replaces both of the photographs in the frame, and rises stiffly to look out of his window. He's been sitting all night. "It is understandable that you do not know what to say." Halfway to the window, he stumbles and I reach out to steady him, uncaring at last that it would not sooth his pride. For him to need help is one thing, for him to fall is another. Only one of those two outcomes would truly dent his pride.

My chair clatters to the floor behind me. "I know that you loved them both." Anyone who would think different is a fool. He does not have to struggle to tell me what had happened, does not need to speak of details. It is not in his nature to tell stories about happier days. It's not really in him to tell stories at all. He's kept two photographs with him through these long years when two thirds of the people in them are dead. And it is not the marriage that he's grieving today, on the seventh of May twenty years after the fact. He is grieving because they are dead. "It's enough."

And perhaps that's what he needs to hear-someone telling him that it's enough.

He nods. "Come."


We walk down the street rather slowly. No one in the station had made even a whisper of protest when Chichi had simply opened his door and walked out without a word of explanation. It is not even within the realm of his habitual actions. They love and respect him dearly as well. Kagen-san looked over his book of sudoku puzzles at me-Is Fugaku-sama going to be alright?-as Chichi and I walk out of the lobby together, I tilt my head to the side-He will be later-and he nods-I leave him to you.

It is neither for fear nor pity that no one even murmurs at Chichi going home though it is only ten in the morning. The Uchiha are a tight knit clan, and it shows the most in the here and now, in the little things that they do for each other without asking or question, in their respectful silence as they go about their daily business, in the way they pretend not to have noticed Chichi's grief. He wouldn't want them to express concern, so they offer none.

But still it is there, in the careful way they move about.

"You worry." Chichi comments as we pass the bend in the Naka River. His sorrow is firmly hidden behind a placid mask of indifferent scowling as soon as we leave the station. His pride is intact then.

There is nothing to be read in his features, it's too crowded around here for that.

"I care." I correct. "And that is a little different from worry."

"Most children your age do not." He remarks. He walks with perfect posture, and he does not look at me when he's talking, but surprisingly enough, it's warm. Chichi is nothing like Tou-san. Tou-san loved to call me Blossom, and he sang while washing the dishes, and when we walked down the street, it was always at least hand in hand. Tou-san was unassuming and polite and he'd always been porcelain to Kaa-san's wild storm.

The man beside me is steel and habit, tradition and heart. He is a blank disapproving expression with amusement and concern in his eyes. He is a steady hand guiding my pen down the page, and the simple admission that Doton is not his talent.

And in another life, I'd been older, but in this life I am ten. Even so, I refuse to simply stop acting the way I've always been. Perhaps a normal ten year old wouldn't notice, and if they did, would not know what to say, but I am not that way. I've never been that way. "I've always been an old soul, Chichi." I take his hand. "You should have known that already."

He inclines his head in my direction, and acknowledges my small hand in his, but says nothing.

We walk in silence for the rest of the way.


"Anata?" Mikoto-san looks up from her reading as we enter the house, concern in her eyes. "You didn't come home for dinner yesterday." But she does not say much more. She does not ask why he is now suddenly home in the morning. Sometimes it feels as though Mikoto-san and Chichi are actually two sides of the same coin, which means that they know everything there is to know about each other and don't actually need to exchange words between themselves at all.

Mikoto-san simply makes an effort to speak when addressing Chichi as a form of politeness for everyone else.

Chichi says nothing, but they share a glance as he makes his way down the hallway. Mikoto-san seems to find something in the glance that soothes her concern because she merely sets her reading down, and does not rise to walk with him. He disappears into the master bedroom at the end of the hallway. The door slides shut behind him. I stand in the doorway, uncertain if I am meant to continue following him. He'd wanted me to come with him to his house, but I doubt he wants me to wander around inside his room.

"Hana-chan?" Mikoto-san rises and walks over to me. "There's something we were waiting to show you during Itachi-kun's birthday party but..." Her eyes flick towards the direction that Chichi had retreated in. "I think it would be better if it is today."

"But Chichi?" If they'd planned to show me whatever it is during Itachi's birthday a month from now, wouldn't he disapprove? He's already unhappy right now. I have no desire to make him worse.

Mikoto-san sighs. "It was a happy time of year." And for the first time, I notice that her reading is not a book. A photo album. It is open to a brightly colored page, girls in kimonos for the New Year. Kosshi-baasan must have been friends with Mikoto-san as well."Ever since five years ago, this has always been how Fugaku is on this day." You aren't entirely happy either, Mikoto-san. She smiles, though her eyes are sad. "It's the first time he's come home early on the seventh of May though."

I nod. "He does need to rest." Perhaps without someone to remind him, Chichi never stopped signing papers until evening came.

Her hand lands on my shoulder, and she guides me down the hallway. "Thank you, Hana-chan." I haven't really done anything though.

The words stick in my throat.

She stops in front of a shoji door. There are golden chrysanthemums on the silk panels, and I can make out Chichi's handwriting on the dedication. 'Spring returns life to all flowers' "We thought..." Mikoto-san begins hesitantly. "That since you are our daughter, that you would like your own room here." She slides the door open.

The room beyond is outfitted traditionally, but each delicate silk paneled divider leaning against the opposite wall is painted with another flower. And each one has a dedication written in Chichi's handwriting. This is the space that he wishes to offer me in his life, more than the declaration he'd let me wear on my clothing, everything about this room is another whisper of affirmation that he could never say aloud. "I-" And I feel my throat threaten to choke the words from every escaping. "I don't know how to thank you."

"I should be the one thanking you." Mikoto-san smiles, more genuinely than she has all day. "He hasn't had flowers in his life for a long time before you crashed in."

And it is perfectly ironic that Tou-san chose to name me 'flower,' chose to name me for the very thing that my second father has lost in his life. Tou-san. I think, almost hysterically. Did you look into the future, and did you see the man that would watch over me for you? Did you know that this would happen?

I step forward into the room. "It's a beautiful place."

Mikoto-san slides the door shut behind us. "It is yours whenever you wish to stay over." She sits me down in a chair in front of the vanity and almost laughs as she slides Shisui's crane clip from my hair. "Shisui-kun does always love the shiniest baubles."

I sit as she runs a comb through my hair and a dam bursts. We talk about everything that we'd danced around before. It is sweet, compared to the bitterness of the day.


I return to the Civilian Council in the evening a week later. The men and women on the dais are busy seeing to affairs, so I stand in the shadows, and wait for them to conclude. They are not unfair in their judgments. They do better the lives of many of the petitioners. They extend loans. They broker trade deals, and they do not seem like they would forget the ninth district. After everything that has occurred, I still wish to believe the best of them.

"Hana?" San nudges my hand with one cold wet nose. "Why are we waiting for everyone else to go away?"

I scratch under his chin, and his eyes scrunch up to tiny satisfied slits. "Because it is only polite."

"I don't know why we would have to." Ni grouses from his curled up position at my feet. "We're just as valid as they are."

Ichi huffs. "Well, someone has to go last." That's surprisingly mature of you, Ichi. He turns his eyes towards me. "But it shouldn't be us."

I smother a laugh. "I thought you were growing up, Ichi." I pat his head. "But I'm glad to know that it isn't the case at all." The three of them pout and say nothing more.

The last petitioner ambles off into the night, and it's time that I had my answer. "Elder Nakatomi?" I step out of the shadows, and I see the elderly man startle, and the tensions in the room spike. "Might I have a word?"

He turns towards me, but the young man with dyed blue hair speaks first. "Why don't you understand that a shinobi's issues don't belong here?"

I turn to face him instead. "I am here for a civilian issue, on the behalf of civilians." And maybe it's because I've got a smart mouth that doesn't really know when to shut up when I'm angry that I continue. "As you would know if you paid any attention at all to what I said last time."

A middle aged man in red leans forwards. "You are the clan heiress of the Inuzuka." He looks as though he's said something exceptionally clever. "How do we know that you aren't here to advocate for your own clan interests at the expense of our power?"

"Because my clan has no interest in village politics?" We honestly didn't for the most part. As long as the village was safe, had missions we could take, and over all didn't do much policing, there's not much that we cared for regarding who does what, and what happens where and how. "We especially don't care about civilian politics."

While there are many Inuzukas, as we tended to have large families-as evidence...well, I have nine first cousins-most of us end up as some sort of ninja, working in tracking or frontline squads. There's no real stigma with wanting to be a civilian, but most of us don't end up that way. We're born for wild, brash, and impetuous things, and those do not often come to the lives of civilians.

"And how do we believe you?" The blue haired young man is back at it again. "Because simply altruistic reasons seem a little far fetched for a shinobi." The Triplets growl a challenge and I know it is only a matter of time before they get tired of listening to this conversation.

I replace myself with a vase on the dais so that I'm standing right next to him. It shatters on the ground behind me. Better not let the Triplets maul some petty noble. "I am an Inuzuka, little lordling. We don't lie to other people for fun." All around us, the people gasp and shudder away, but not him. He's still sitting perfectly calmly, a paper folding fan casually moving back and forth in his hand.

He turns to regard me with a lazy eye. "You're a strange breed of little girl." He muses. "There's nothing like you in the capital at all."

"B-be careful who you're speaking to shinobi." The middle aged man who'd been speaking with such pomp stutters while pointing at us. "You wouldn't dare disrespect the-"

"Oh enough Imube." The young man waves his fan at the older man whom I presume is Imube-san of Kakunodate's Imube Clan. The Imube Clan is related to the Daimyo. Who is this man, and how can he disrespect someone else who holds power at court that easily? "I think the girl is interesting enough."

The Nidaime himself had originally signed the contract for Yoshiwara with the Imube Clan. And Imube-san had said the, which implied that this young man has some sort of fearsome title.

The young man has turned back to regarding me with rather amused eyes. "Do be careful though little girl." He says as he rises from his reclining position. "I don't think aniue would like you very much." And then he stands up, and I notice at last, the sword at his hip-so he does know how to fight. He moves too easily for it to be ceremonial-and promptly walks towards the door. His consistent use of little girl is frightfully irritating though.

The Triplets block his way like the good partners they are. "Who are you?" I stalk after him. "And why do you think I would ever speak to your elder brother?" He'd used a rather outdated and overly formal way of saying elder brother as well. How many young men go around calling their elder brothers aniue? Nobles are such strange creatures.

He turns around, flipping the blue end of his high tail over his shoulder as he does so. "You, may call me Asahano." He announces rather grandly. This close, his makeup is unmistakable and obvious. The dragons on his formal kimono are inherently mocking, and the black chrysanthemums on his fan are mildly chilling. He has to be a close relation of the Daimyo. There's no way that he isn't, not with everything that he's wearing.

Dragons. Nobility. Chrysanthemums. Nobility. Black. Nobility. Gold. Nobility. Someone is trying very hard to say that they have an imperial connection.

He'd also said that I may call him Asahano which implies that his name is not really Asahano. "Very well, Asahano-san." I state, the suffix barely passing my tongue, but if he's really a blood relative of the Daimyo then I can't really afford to offend him. "Why would your aniue dislike me?"

He tilts his head to the side, and regards me with his cool green eyes. "My aniue hates outspoken women. I doubt he'll make an exception just because you're a girl."

"Alright." I respond, and I take a deep breath because today has not been going well. "You may call me Hana. My name is not girl."

He blinks very slowly, and I am reminded of a cat who doesn't care what other people think. "Very well, Hana-chan." And then he disappears in a swish of blue, out into the night.

One by one the other nobles rise and follow him out. It is clear that no proposal of mine will be heard tonight either.

The Triplets gather around me after we become the only ones left in the building. "What're we doing now?" Ni wonders as he licks his nose. "We're still helping the other people right?"

I pat his head. "Yes. Yes, we are." I suppose it's time to enact the next stage of the plan.

If the nobles won't listen to me because I'm a shinobi, then they'll listen to the one civilian that ranks higher than them on the totem pole: the Daimyo, Kageyoshi Minamaru himself.

The only obstacle is how I'd get myself to Kakunodate and close enough to the Chrysanthemum Throne to speak to the Daimyo.

The young man's words come back to me. I don't think my aniue would like you very much. There is something very off about 'Asahano,' but I have no idea what it might be.


I wake up the next morning still musing about how I would go about seeking an audience with the Daimyo despite catching his wife's cat one too many times. It does look like I'd have to find someone to talk to about that, because I doubt that it's an easy task. I spend my morning pondering it in various stages of hopefulness, until I decide that I might as well go outside to train instead of worrying about various ways of contacting the Daimyo.

The moment I step out the door, a hand curls around my wrist and I am gently towed away towards the shrine. "Cousin Hana." And it's Cousin Gaku who's pulling me along. "A moment of your time."

I allow him to drag me into the shrine, and securely bar the door. "What's the matter, Cousin Gaku?" For the first time since the Kyubi Incident, he doesn't look conflicted, or lost, or confused.

I take it as a sign that he has finally recovered most of his lost memories.

"I'm going to reenter the organization." That's...It takes me a moment to actually comprehend what he'd just said.

"What?" Did he just say that he's going back to ROOT? What does that even mean-why? Why would he do something like that when the first time around he forgot nearly everything about himself?

"The organization that we spoke of last time." Cousin Gaku says very carefully as he lights the incense in front of Okami's statue. "I am going to reenter it as an active agent." He sounds determined. He sounds sure.

And I still don't understand what he's saying. "Why?" I grab his elbow so that he has to stop lighting the incense sticks and turn him around to face me. "Why would you voluntarily go back to something like that? You lost yourself the last time you went, and right now I don't think that you're actually any better. This is mad."

He sets his other hand over mine, and smiles, fangs sharp and eyes dancing. He looks almost like he did in my childhood memories. Loud. Brash. Dancing eyes. Gruff words. He does remember himself again. "Hana-hime." He begins, even as he kneels. "You need information." And suddenly his motivations are all too clear. That's his plan to gain evidence? Has he actually gone insane?

"But you can't talk about anything you learn from there." I try to pull him off the floor, but he isn't to be budged.

"If I go back, then I won't have to talk." The wild light in his eyes speaks of a fevorous joy. "They will speak for me." He's going to take Danzo's records of his illicit dealings?

And what he's saying is dangerous. So, so dangerous that I don't even know what to do about it. If they caught him... "If you go back they'll break you again." I cup his face in my hands and pull his lips down into a frown. It does nothing for the wild light in his eyes. "You'll forget everything again."

He shakes his head. "No. I know exactly how they want me, and I know exactly how to fake it." His grin is bloodthirsty, and the smell of incense overpowering. The noon sun has climbed to it's peak, and I stand in a halo of lazy golden spring sunlight, and he is kneeling in front of me. "I will bring back your evidence, Hana-hime." Or I will die trying to do it.

I can't entirely bring myself to keep looking at his golden confidence, his wild determination. I can't. I kneel down and hug him instead, a hand tangled in his messy hair. "Don't do it, Cousin Gaku. I-" They'll break you all over again if you go back. And what's to say that they'd want you back a second time anyway? Of course, he couldn't tell me. The seal on his tongue prevents him from saying, but he seems so confident that they will take him back as soon as he just goes. "I don't need the evidence that much." But that's a lie I'm telling myself to make myself feel better.

The sad truth is that I desperately need whatever evidence I can get my hands on to condemn Shimura Danzo to an early grave, and I have no idea how I'm supposed to get my hands on it.

Cousin Gaku laughs, and carefully pries me off of him. "You do need the evidence, Hana-hime. And I am your best shot at getting it." He takes both of my hands and closes his eyes, but his determination burns all the same. "Thank you for caring." He opens his eyes and rises. "But I'm only telling you because I know if I just flat out disappear again you'll think the worst and come hunting."

"I might still come hunting." I whisper. "I don't want you to do something like this."

"I'll come back to you." He says gently. "The sun will rise in the west and the oceans will dry up before I break that promise." It still feels like I'm allowing him to casually wander towards his own death sentence. "I'm going to tell Tsume-baasan that I'm joining ANBU." So that's how he's going to explain it to the clan. "Please don't tear Konoha apart trying to find me, Hana-hime. I'm going to get what you need, and then I'm going to come back."

The last I see of him for a long, long time, is the back of his broad shoulders as he unbars the shrine door, and steps into the golden sunlight that spring day. The last in a long, long time.


A.N. And we get more Uchiha-ness. Some random politicking going on, Asahano finally naming himself. (He was being so difficult about it.) and Cousin Gaku's official (according to Hana at any rate) descent into madness. At least he's taking control of his own life. Somehow, new beginnings are sprouting everywhere during Hana's tenth spring in Konoha.

Thank you so much to Killing Curse Eyes (The reason people misunderstand is because flowers have multiple meanings and the nonromantic ones are more obscure. Note how Fugaku never misunderstands her flowers, he asks if he's uncertain.), n1ghtdr34m3r (Hana's meeting with Danzo will be...interesting.), Guest (Yep. So many problems...), LittleMissSugarLess, Thorn98Biter (I'm glad you like it! and yeah, a lot of the time, Hana doesn't have the power for what she wants to do, but she's determined to do it. It's just a part of her which does make her somewhat puppyish.), AnimeFreak71777, bookdragonslayer, WhiteFang001, MrKreper, NightsBlackRose13 (That could be interesting...if Kiba ever bothered to check what's in the Archives.), and libraryrockerr for reviewing!

And everyone who favorited and followed.

~Tavina