"Scars remind us where we've been. They don't have to dictate where we're going"

~ David Rossi, Criminal Minds

...

"What do you mean you knew this whole time that everything that has happened to us was going to happen?! Why didn't you do anything?! Why didn't you tell me?" Mitomi squares her shoulders, purses her lips. She glares through the angry tears streaming down her cheeks. Throws her arms up.

"What was I supposed to say! I died and I used to be someone else oh and by the way you were a fictional character in my previous life. And this world is ass. It wouldn't stop you from doing everything to protect everyone else! WHO protects you Naruto! Who?! ME! It's always been me. I'm the one who keeps us safe, I protect you! Everything I have ever done, I have done for you!" Years of trapped emotions bubble over, Mitomi seethes, she sees red.

"You lied to me! You keep lying to everyone! You're not my sister. I don't know who you are anymore. You let Jiraiya die!" There are tears in her brother's eyes. Mitomi straightens. She has caused him this pain… and she doesn't even care.

"Fuck you! You ungrateful, brat. For seventeen years I have given up myself for you, I have watched your back, I have protected you and this is how you repay me?! I am your sister, it is not my fault that you don't like my true colors. Have you ever even considered how I feel? I lost everything, and was reborn in this sad world where every single fucking person hates me. Did you ever stop to consider what that could do to a person? No you didn't, because of me you never saw how badly people despised us, you are my little brother and I protected you." Mitomi balls her fist, Naruto looks about ready to pounce. This was a fight he wouldn't win.

She walked away.

The memory plays itself slowly in the back of her mind. Mitomi bites her lip, forcing herself to take even breaths. She barely notices the taste of copper in her had been the last time she'd seen her brother in her last life. They'd fought, because he finally learned the truth about her, and he hadn't liked the picture the truth painted. She was a liar… who bathed in blood and darkness, and he was truth basking in sunlight and love. Mitomi had never claimed to be a good person.

There was so much blood on her hands.

Someone slips a shot glass into her hand, she looks up to find Sai. He's giving her one of his soft smiles. "You look like you need this, it's from Iron." Which meant it was the closets this universe had of vodka. Once when it was just them she told him about her first life, about the different countries, the languages, about what she did for a living, about her favorite alcohol. They were on the verge of death so it hadn't mattered too much, Mitomi did not usually like talking about her very first life. She downs it without much thought, it would burn out of her system before it did anything to her.

Sai sits next to her. Shikamaru who had been kindly letting her work through her emotions to her left squeezes her hand. As if to say I am here, you are not alone. Mitomi smiles down into her lap and takes another steadying breath.

She was so afraid that Naruto was going to hate her…. He had before.

"The longer you wait the more likely angrier he will be. But I know for a fact that no matter what happens he will forgive you. He did eventually last time, when he made me promise to look out for you." And Sai had willingly followed her into death because of that promise. He pours three more shots, hands one to both Shikamaru and her before setting the bottle in front of him.

Laughter filled the night air surrounding the Inuzuka compound, Mitomi really wasn't sure how they all ended up here after ramen. Kiba might have challenged Naruto to a drinking contest but she hadn't been paying attention. Sakura was telling a story about how twins develop in the womb when the mother doesn't know that there are two, how does a whole baby go unnoticed? Mitomi had been giving her own two cents on the topic because she used to be a midwife, she's delivered babies here and took the certification course this world had during her spare time. So she doesn't know how they all minus Temari and Chiyo who sneakily bowed out together ended up sitting around a bonfire in the Inuzuka compound. O when exactly Sai showed up, he must have come straight from his ANBU shift.

But everyone was having a good time so perhaps it didn't truly matter.

"You and Naruto fought before?" Shikamaru asks quietly when it takes her too long to respond to Sai, he discreetly activates the privacy seal she has ink stitched into her sleeve.

"Yeah.. we had a huge fallout. I left the village and he chased me. I couldn't take it anymore." And she knew a war was happening soon and she was trying to save Itachi's life because the results would have been easier with him still alive. Naruto had stopped her before she could get there in time and then the war escalated quickly and beyond any of their capabilities to fight it.

Aliens. Kaguya summoned her race… it didn't end well.

Mitomi was working hard with the Godaime and the few jinchuriki she knew to prevent such a conquest from happening again. Shikamaru hums and takes his shot, Mitomi sips at the glass in her hand and Sai pours himself another shot.

"Do you want me to be there when you tell Naruto?" Mitomi leans into Shikamaru's side and Sai leans forward to refill both of their glasses. He understands that this isn't a conversation any of them should be having completely sober.

The three of them, Shikamaru included because of his Nara genetics, burned through spiritual chakra fast so the effects of alcohol on their physical bodies was about half as what it could have been. Mitomi didn't make the rules, she just knew that spiritual chakra had some shit to do with how shinobi got drunk. Those with low levels of spiritual chakra usually get drunk faster. Case in point Lee. While, say, Shikaku could drink four bottles of saki and not even feel tipsy.

Mitomi shifts so she can put her feet in Sai's lap, he gives her a majorly unimpressed look. But he doesn't move her feet, instead just refills their cups. She looks up at Shikamaru, his nose almost touches her forehead in this position. It's cute. Like Ino who has roped the majority of their group in what appeared to be beer pong of some kind. Mitomi doesn't know if she should be concerned by their drinking, since technically they were all legal adults in the eyes of the world, yet they all still had at least three more years of development ahead of them. Shinobi developed quicker than their civilian counterparts, chakra and physical training did interesting things to ninja.

She shrugs at his question, realizing that she keeps spacing out thinking about other things. "Things are different now, maybe he won't be mad. I'll talk to him in the morning." Mitomi decides, and deactivates the seal with a whistle.

Ino comes to drag Sai over to her team and Shikamaru and Mitomi watch their friends descend into rowdy chaos. It's a good way to end the night, to celebrate Naruto's return.

The fun is completely ruined the next morning when Tsunade calls her in for a meeting. Rasa is dead, the Akatsuki made their first move, they tried to take Gaara. She grits her teeth, why didn't he use the kunai she could have come to him?

"Gaara is missing, one of the emergency seals went off this morning, his brother has been poisoned." Tsunade tells her as Team 7, and Temari arrives in the office.

"Well it's a good thing he has one of my seals then isn't it." She mutters sardonically, Mitomi turns to look at Naruto.

"Can you lock on the seal I have in Suna and transport Kakashi and Sasuke? I can take up to three people with me." Naruto grins at her and gives a bright thumbs up.

"Yeah once we get in range I can." Mitomi smiles before turning to address Tsunade.

"Can I request Neji, Sai, or Chiyo for this mission?" Tsunade nods her approval.

"Chiyo can accompany you now she will meet you at the gate. I can send Team Gai, and Team Asuma as back up as needed. You and Kakashi are team leads for this, handle this quickly. We don't want the Akatsuki completing their goal." No they did not.

Mitomi bows. She turns to give Temari the most reassuring look she can muster. "We will save your brothers, Sakura is the best medic in our generation, she's not going to let anything happen to Kankuro." Sakura gives a cute determined look at that.

"Kakashi, I can transport Sakura, Temari, and Chiyo from the gate. If that is alright with you. Naruto can either directly transport you and Sasuke to Suna or the three of you can begin trying to track Gaara from here. Chiyo and I will follow suit once we get Sakura and Temari to Kankuro." Kakashi seems to consider her for a moment, thinking.

"It will be best to follow the trail from Suna, we can regroup once we get there and start tracking then. Naruto, Sasuke let's head out now so we can hopefully all arrive at the same time." The boys nod and they leave. Mitomi closes her eyes and tugs at Chiyo's chakra signature and the seal she inked on Chiyo's shoulder. The older teen is conveniently downstairs from the office in the Chunin missions desk. It takes less than a second for the fellow red head to appear in the Hokage's office.

"You called?" Mitomi nods.

"I did, we are going to Suna. Sakura, Temari, grab my shoulder. Chiyo anchor your chakra to mind." Mitomi commands quickly, they need to work fast.

She had a tanuki to save. So she'd deal with the vertigo when they got there, because it wasn't going to be pretty but quite frankly she didn't give a shit. No one was going to harm her friends and get away with it. Mitomi hopes that whoever the Akatsuki sent was prepared to deal with her.

If it was Tobi… well it was well past time that she beat some sense into him.

XOXOX

In which the show begins.

I warned you that Mitomi was going to be a badass…

Thank you for reading!

~LaRae