"Your pretty empire took so long to build, now, with a snap of history's fingers, down it goes."

~Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

...

Mitomi wants to say that she had forgotten.. But that would be a sad lie. She never forgot anything, ever. She tightened the grip she had on her shishou's flack jacket, her own sealed away because it was now torn. Which would have been fine since she only wore the stupid thing for mission but they were heading straight into the lions din and she probably was going to need that. She wanted to forget..

Sincere brown eyes, soft features, kind voice, innocent.

Her whole body shook. He'd been her first friend, the catalyst for change. He had become her teammate and lifeline… and then he died in a bloody mess protecting her when they both knew she would have survived. Shishou's grip on her legs tightened, she showed him her memories… he knew how she felt.

So much pain. So many regrets.

"We'll stop them." She nods into his shoulder and they race across the water's turbulent surface. Mitomi wanted to replace her graveyard with a garden.

Shishou lets her go as soon as they jump on top of the bridge, the fight has already started. Her ears are ringing. She doesn't reach for the sword at her side, Bo shuriken slips down her sleeve. Mitomi doesn't think she just aims.

Bo shuriken intercept bo shuriken and Mitomi is jumping over her brother and pulling a grumpy Uchiha out of the ring of fire… or cavern of ice. Mitomi would be able to hold her own against Haku. She was a high level chunin… She knew his fighting style inside and out.

He had once been her beloved teammate and partner. Her best friend.

"Why did you willingly pull yourself into my dome?" His voice is so haunting, it hurts her in ways she can never recover from. Haku had been her first absolute failure. Mitomi throws him a shaky smile.

"You don't want to fight him, and he didn't understand. I don't want to fight you but I understand why I have to… to protect those precious to us. Right Haku?" He doesn't seem surprised that she knows his name, which is slightly disappointing but for different reasons.

"You know my name, yet I don't know yours… but there is something about you that is familiar." Mitomi's heart flutters at that… something familiar. She takes a fighting stance.

Haku steps out of his ice, to her surprise and takes a step towards her. "I don't want to fight you either.." He mummers. And she smiles pleased by this revelation.

"That's good because the objective for our current disposition is about to change. Your master is about to lose his incentive." Mitomi thinks that Haku's life is not worth Gato's change of heart.

Gato would be better off without his heart.

The ice prison falls around them because the two chunin level nin have reached an agreement. Mitomi looks around for her shishou to find him standing next to Kakashi while looking very disappointed at the ex-kiri nin who was locked in a wooden restrainment. Aw she didn't get to see shishou use his cool tree powers.

Instead she grins at the grumpy swordsman because she had had the brief displeasure of meeting him a couple years back when she was running a spooky shadow mission with shishou. Well he was running a spooky shadow mission and she was running a currier mission but schematics.

"I see your brat is still lively as ever." Mitomi pulls Haku along with her to go to their teacher's sides. Unconcerned about team 7's shocked faces behind her. More important things to do right now.

"You know this girl Master?" Poor Haku is so confused. Mitomi pats his hand reassuringly.

She levels her gaze with the ex-kiri nin as he eyes her up and down then scoff. "We have met before. I see you have taken up kenjutsu." Mitomi nods once looking up at her shishou and pouts. He shakes his head and she sighs.

"Kouhai, as happy as I am to see you, what is going on here?" Kakashi asks plainly, Mitomi hears the threat for what it is and plants herself firmly between the friends. Still holding onto Haku's hand.

"Gato is about to arrive at the bridge and declare your contract over Momochi-san. Will you still fight against us when that happens?" Mitomi pointedly ignores Kakashi's rude threat and her shishou places a hand on her head. As if willing her to behave silently.

Not happening.

Zabuza shrugs in his wooden prison and looks at Haku for a moment with a curious expression on his face. "You didn't even try to fight her." It's an accusation that is definitely more of a question. Mitomi looks between the jounin and her friend.

"She feels familiar. Like an ally." Mitomi beams at him. He's so cute. Zabuza sighs at all of them.

"When Gato gets here we'll find out what happens. Hey tree boy let me go." Shishou raises his brow and an amused smirk lingering at the corners of his lips. The wood descends back into the bridge and Kakashi looks like he's about to lose it.

Silly silver puppy they were all friends here. Mitomi lets go of Haku's hand and steps towards Zabuza and kneels in front of him. Coal black eyes meet violet, he reaches out and surprisingly ruffles her hair. She pouts.

"Thank you for protecting him." Mitomi nods pulling bandages out of her pocket.

They have an understanding.

Gato arrives and his presence is less than desirable. Kakashi finally gets it together and helps the ex-kiri nin stand. Mitomi frowns at both of them, they were mean to each other for utterly no reason.

"Haku stay here, and good with that sword Uzumaki-hime?" Mitomi's heart flutters again and she nods.

"Shishou?" He nods.

"Try not to kill too many of them, It would be nice to have a few for Morino." Fair point, because someone was funding Gato and Mitomi had an inkling as to who it was.

Shimura Danzo's continued existence was really starting to irk her.

Zabuza steers her towards the mob, she growls something feral when they make rude comments about what they wanted to do to a pretty little girl like her. "We'll make sure to kill those."

Mitomi unsheaths her sword, a simple ninjato, custom made to fit her small stature. Laced with poison and chakra. Imbued with her secondary nature. Wind. She feels no sorrow for the men she is about to slay. Mitomi already had blood on her hands…

She had seen war. She had killed. Held her loved ones as they died. Mitomi knows the burden of taking a life.

It's over before it truly begins.

…

Haku is helping her wash blood out of her hair. Team 7 was being debriefed by the change of situation with the ex kiri-nin and shishou had volunteered to guard the bridge builder today. If the bridge was being built faster it would have been otherwise no one was going to mention it.

"We have met before." Haku whispers quietly. Mitomi turns to smile sadly at him.

"In another life, you were my best friend." She tells him just as quietly.

"Perhaps we can be so again in this one." Mitomi nods.

"I would like that."

The nice moment they are having is ruined by Zabuza approaching with a serious expression on his face. Mitomi frowns at him while Haku braids her hair. It is just the three of them sitting silently on the bank of the ocean, so there is no need to be secretive or guard her words.

"Uchiha Madara is a lie." The warning echoes on her tongue, resonating with a lifetime of pain. He flinches at the words. Mitomi continues.

"Your old buddy Hoshigaki will know what that means if you were to run into him in the future. Fishface is traveling with a man who has already been given that warning." Mitomi tells him. Zabuza's face scrunches up as he thinks.

"Uchiha Madara is a lie." He echoes and she nods.

They don't speak on the matter any further. He understands their implications.

The bridge is finished a few days later and they say their goodbyes. Haku stays with his master, and Mitomi hugs him. "See you around." Because she had no intention not to remain friends with him, hopefully this time around he'd live to at least twenty.

Shishou doesn't carry her as they travel back to the village with Team 7. She pouts at him the entire time. Naruto is chatting her ear up and she is half listening, focusing more on the fact her shishou is making her walk. It's so rude! Mitomi liked being carried.

Kakashi is still eying her suspiciously and she ignores him. He would have to get over it.

"Mitomi-san how did you know Zabuza and Haku?" Sakura asks politely and Mitomi looks up at the sky to think.

"Shishou and I have had a few missions where we have run into them before. I recognized Zabuza's chakra and that's how we found you." Mitomi skips up to where her teacher is walking and he sighs at her and she knows she's won.

She jumps up and he doesn't falter as she wraps her arms around his neck. "You know it isn't any faster when we're with a team." Mitomi sticks her tongue out.

"And.. I'm spoiled, and walking in tedious." He rolls his eyes.

"You are spoiled." She grins into his shoulder because he doesn't drop her and carries her mostly all the way.

Mitomi loves him so much.

…

In the privacy of their own apartment Mitomi tells Naruto about the nine tails. He hadn't known, and it was time he did. He is quiet while she explains, listens intently. She tells him about their mother, about how she was the jinchuriki of the nine tails before them, that she had been a fearless and amazing shinobi. That she gave her life to protect them, that she had died with a smile on her face.

Mitomi tells Naruto all the things she wished she would have before. She tells him about how she talks to her half of the nine tails, that all bijuu have names, and that Naruto should try to learn what the nine tails was for himself.

She does these things without permission under the privacy of heavy seal work. She tells him that he cannot tell anyone, that it is a secret that he has to keep. Mitomi shows him her own seal and explains that because she is friends with the nine tails that her's is different from his. That one day if he becomes friends with his half that she can teach him how to modify the seal himself. Mitomi offers to teach him the art of their mother if he wants, to teach him the favored technique of the Yondaime if he wants to learn.

They are the last remnants of the Uzumaki clan in Konoha. They deserve to be proud of their origins. Mitomi speaks a garden from her lips. She will prune them to be strong, train them to be resilient. She has her own plans, her own goals.

She will make them stronger, they will survive.

She is the last princess of Uzu, she will not let them die.

XOXOX

In which Mitomi makes plans and looks cannons straight in the face and tells it to fuck off.

Thank you for reading!

~LaRae