Hello again, everyone. Sorry for the wait. We've had a death in the family and I'm going to be driving halfway across the country this weekend in order to move in with my grandparents and help take care of them, so my update schedule is going to be a bit wonky for a little while while I adjust to that. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

This chapter is really just a peek into the girls' day-to-day life, that first year. They aren't necessarily in any sort of chronological order. I hope you enjoy, and as always, please let me know your thoughts. Thank you.


Juro-sensei towered over the girls at an even six feet and weighed in at a bit over 200 pounds. His favorite activity seemed to be doing handstands on his students' backs as they sat in a straddle position and tried to get their stomachs to touch the ground. When he wasn't doing that, he was standing on various body parts or leaning almost his whole weight on them in order to get them to stretch themselves to their limits. It was painful and the noises that escaped through teeth gritted in pain were embarrassing, but Mayuri couldn't deny that the results were impressive. She had never been able to do a full split no matter how hard she had tried, Before, since most of her flexibility was in her back and shoulders. Now she could. (Though she admittedly wasn't sure what good it was going to do her.)

"Brace yourself, Hiroko-chan," Juro said, his voice cheerful as he stepped on Hiroko's right foot and forced her other leg up until it was behind her head. Mayuri winced in sympathy, watching the scene upside down as she balanced in a handstand against the wall. The blood was rushing to her head, and she knew that her face would be an unattractive shade of red when she stood back up.

Her sister had had years of gymnastics training, but that was a whole different life, and an entirely different body. It was easy to see how frustrated it made her to know what each movement and position was supposed to be, yet find herself unable to do them. Even with those years of experience, though, Mayuri didn't think that Hiroko had ever been pushed to her limits by any of the coaches before Juro. She could sympathise; though she hadn't taken any classes until she was in her 20's, none of her instructors had ever forced her beyond her limits like Juro did.

"Keep holding that handstand, Mayuri-chan!" Juro called without looking at her, and she barely bit back a groan.

"Yes, sensei!" she managed through gritted teeth, trying to regulate her breathing and ignore the burning in her muscles. Her arms were trembling already, and not even a full minute had passed.

"Just ten more seconds," he announced, and Mayuri wasn't sure which one of them he was talking to. She hoped it was both of them, really, because as much as she was worried she wouldn't be able to hold her position much longer, Hiroko looked like she was seconds away from snapping. Her face was screwed up in pain, her cheeks flushed red and teeth grinding as Juro inched her foot further behind her head towards the opposite shoulder. They were both shaking violently by the time Juro announced that they could relax.

Mayuri collapsed to the ground as she finally allowed her elbows to fold beneath her, chin scraping against the stone. Hiroko let out a huge sigh of relief as Juro stepped back and allowed her to untwist herself from her pretzel-like position. For one blessed second, they were both allowed to relax and catch their breaths. Mayuri's head was pounding as the blood that had flooded it struggled to return to her extremities.

"Alright, time to switch!" Juro announced, clapping his hands together. The sound echoed throughout the high-ceilinged room. Hiroko pushed herself away from the wall and walked, unsteadily, to where Mayuri lay on the ground. With a soft moan, Mayuri rolled to her feet and brushed her hands together to rid them of the pebbles that had embedded themselves into the soft flesh of her palms. They grinned at one another, smiles stretched thin and full of the stress of their lesson, but not altogether unhappy. They high fived and traded off, Hiroko pushing herself up into a flawless handstand, feet barely brushing the wall, while Mayuri trudged over to their sensei.

"Have you been practicing your chest stands?" he asked with a grin, and Mayuri felt her heart fall.

"Not as much as I probably should have been," she admitted, not meeting his eye. Juro laughed and reached out to ruffle her hair, and sometimes it was easy to forget that that gentle hand could kill her easily. She ducked her head, feeling her face growing red again.

"Well, we'll have to work on that, kiddo. Show me what you've got."


After the first few times he sat in on their reading lessons, it was surprisingly easy to forget that Orochimaru was in the room at all. For the most part, he did not speak or even seem to be paying attention to them in any way. He always had papers spread out on the desk in front of him and an ink well and brush on hand to make marks or sign his name where it was needed. The scene was strangely domestic.

It reminded Mayuri of school, when there was that odd sense of peace that settled over the room as students were instructed to silently work on their homework while the teacher graded papers or caught up on their own work. The only real difference was the fact that there were only two students and an overly attentive teacher. The tense lines of Mao-sensei's shoulders and the way her eyes would flicker frequently towards Orochimaru showed how on-edge she was. She didn't seem scared, really; just nervous and maybe a little excited.

"Do you have any questions?" Mao asked, watching them both with catlike green eyes. Her clan marking were dark splotches across her cheeks, and in the dim lighting they looked almost like wounds. When they had first begun lessons with her, Mayuri had always halfway expected to see teeth clacking together through her cheeks whenever she spoke.

The girls both obediently chorused, "No, sensei." Mao nodded and continued with the lessons, her deep voice echoing through the small space. Orochimaru didn't raise his gaze from the documents he was examining once throughout the entire remaining hour of both girls struggling to identify certain kanji and remember their meanings.

When the class was over, though, he stood and gestured for them to wait. Both of the girls froze, staring up at him uncertainly, not certain if they should be scared or not. Mao stepped aside as Orochimaru moved forward, more silent and graceful than any predator could possibly hope to be. Mayuri swallowed nervously as he came to tower over them, staring down with golden eyes that seemed to reflect the light as he considered them. She wondered what he was thinking.

"You are progressing very well in your studies," he told them after what had to be at least a thousand years of heavy silence. Mayuri felt the tension drain from her immediately, and from the corner of her eye she caught Hiroko's shoulders relaxing as well. They turned to beam at one another, then turned their attention back to Orochimaru. Behind him, Mao was smiling broadly, practically preening that the indirect praise from the Otokage.

Orochimaru placed a gentle hand on top of both of their heads. He did not ruffle their hair, but the weight and the small smile on his face made Mayuri glow with pride and affection. She could feel the tinge of self-loathing and the hint of guilt that curled within her chest as she smiled back at him, though. She could see that that smile never truly reached his eyes, but for this brief show of affection...well, it was easy to pretend that things might be okay, if only for a moment.


It was by pure coincidence that they were in the cafeteria when a large squad came back from a mission. The sudden flood of people brought with them the thunderous sound of many voices, talking and laughing and shouting. It was the first time in months they were faced with so much noise, and with so many people. The cafeteria usually only had a handful of people in it by the time the girls made their way to it.

Mayuri felt Hiroko freeze beside her, food halfway to her mouth. Mayuri hunched her shoulders and focused only on her food, but beneath the table, she nudged her sister's knee with her own and left it there. It was a comfort to have that point of contact. Hiroko didn't move, her eyes wide as she stared down at the table with unseeing eyes.

It was unnerving to have so many strangers so close. They were bigger and stronger, and it was impossible to know just how dangerous they were and whether they would want to hurt someone who couldn't defend themselves. Mayuri was of the opinion that she and her sister had done more than enough hurting to last them through several lifetimes.

Mayuri nudged Hiroko's knee again, and pointedly took another bite of her own food. It felt heavy in her stomach, making her feel nauseous. She ignored it and took another bite, struggling to swallow it. After a hesitation, Hiroko followed suit, though her hand was shaking slightly. They stayed quiet and did their best not to draw any attention to themselves. From the corner of her eye, though, Mayuri watched the group as they dragged chairs and tables together and sat down.

Most of them still had their mission uniforms on, masks and all. The dull grey of their tunics and the black of their pants almost fading into the shadows around them, though the metal on their foreheads reflected the light. It was easy to see why that particular color scheme had been chosen for their uniforms, but the shiny metal seemed counterproductive, and she didn't think she would ever understand the ugly cowprint camouflage. She noted that only two of them wore the stupid rope belt.

"Did you see me tear out that kid's entrails?" she heard someone say, laughing as they pulled off their mask to reveal a mess of green spikes. "That was the most disgusting shit I've ever seen."

"Watch your language!" a man with long brown hair snapped, smacking the green haired one across the back and causing them to choke on their drink. "There are kids present."

Hiroko stiffened and Mayuri sunk further into her seat, but she had to hide a smile at the exchange. So talking about tearing out entrails was alright, but cursing wasn't? Shinobi were a strange group, indeed. Almost too late, it occurred to her that this group was apparently not at all bothered by the idea of killing kids in awful ways.

Her smile faded immediately, and the second she was finished eating, she let Hiroko drag her from the cafeteria and back to the relative safety of their room.


She had grown up in a world of light and technology, one where true darkness hadn't actually existed. Even on cloudy or moonless nights, there were still street lights that illuminated the world outside her bedroom window. There was the faint glow that shone into her room from the bathroom light being kept on so that children could safely stumble their way to it if they were to wake up in the dead of night.

When she was young, even on nights where she was scared of the darkness that crept into her world, afraid of the monsters that might lurk beneath her bed or mere inches from her face, there was always the comfort of the lightswitch only feet away and her parents just downstairs. She knew that if she were to cry for them loud enough, they would come running.

There was no such comfort here.

She had wondered why it was that Hiroko would be on her best behavior whenever punishments were threatened. Her sister had been loud and angry when they had first awoken here and she wasn't afraid to scream and cry and threaten when she was upset. She still wasn't afraid to do so, really, but it was more tempered now. She would be wary around Orochimaru and Kabuto, and even when she lost her temper or backtalked, it was cautious in a way that Mayuri had never seen her before.

After she had thrown her ink pot at Orochimaru in a fit of rage, ink splattering his face and pale blue kimono, he had smiled. It was angry and dangerous, and both of the sisters had stilled immediately, stomachs sinking as they realized just how badly Hiroko had fucked up. She had been pulled away, had disappeared for hours and no one would tell Mayuri where she had been taken no matter how much she begged.

When she returned, pale and shaken, she refused to say a single thing about what had happened to her no matter how much Mayuri asked. There was not a single new scratch on her, but her eyes were distant. After a few days, Mayuri had just stopped asking.

Standing in that awful darkness, she finally understood her sister's haunted expression. It was impossible to see her own hand right in front of her face, and she flinched when she felt her chilly fingertips brush her own nose. This darkness was different than anything else she had ever knows, and it would grow to be the punishment she learned to fear the most.

It piqued every one of her paranoid senses, until she was certain that there was someone in the room with her. Every one of her wheezing breaths, every stone she accidentally kicked as she began to feel her way to the wall or slight sound she made echoed back to her until she was certain that there was some creature just out of her reach, watching her. The hairs that prickled along the back of her neck and the goosebumps raised across her flesh seemed to make the paranoia all the more believable.

She found the wall by meeting it face first in what was not quite a run, but instead an awkward, panicked shuffle. She put her back to it immediately, hands stretched out on either side of her and one leg kicking desperately at the air in front of her. She was sure, if anyone could see her, she would look absolutely ridiculous. As it was, though, she was too scared of the possibility of something lurking in the nothingness that surrounded her to be worried about what she might look like.

By the time she lost her balance and went crashing down to the ground, Mayuri was mostly sure that she wasn't about to be grabbed and killed by some unseen monstrosity. Still, she pulled her legs close to her chest and curled over them, tucking her hands firmly over the back of her neck as she did so, just in case something wanted to rip the flesh from her calves or try to take off her head. She rocked back and forth, just the slightest bit of movement, but it still helped to comfort her, even if it was only a little bit. (She did her best not to think of the way her mama's eyes had stared at her, after her head had been removed from her shoulders.)

For a while, she listened to her own heartbeat, felt it as it pulsed in her throat and reminded herself that she was still alive and that she really existed. She focused on the feeling of rough stone at her back and underneath her bare feet and reminded herself that if there really was nothingness all around her, then she wouldn't have been able to feel such things. It made her feel a tiny bit better, though it didn't stop that creeping feeling of being watched, of being hunted. Even that first week, left alone in darkness, was not nearly as bad as the time spent in this awful emptiness.

She wasn't sure how long she had been in there by the time she couldn't bear the silence any longer. She only knew that her stomach was twisting with hunger and that there was a worrying pressure on her bladder. The only sounds were her heartbeat and the echo of each of her shaky breaths. If she focused enough, she could almost feel her blood and something other – but by this point, familiar – thrumming beneath her skin. She did the only thing she could to take her mind off her discomfort; she sang.

It wasn't a pretty sound, really, and the song itself was more of a Frankenstein-like monstrosity of every fragment of song she could recall from her life Before, but it was comforting all the same. She rocked, singing into her knees, and the sound echoed back to her, amplified as it bounced off the stone walls. In that moment, she wished she had synthesia, just to see the way her voice filled the nothingness all around her.

By the time she was let out of that awful nothingness, wincing in the light, her throat was raw and she had almost forgotten what she had been thrown in there for in the first place. She stared up (and up and up and holy shit would she ever get used to being this tiny?) at Orochimaru, her hands twisting in the fabric of her tunic. He didn't look angry, but it was frustratingly difficult to figure him out most of the time.

"Have you learned your lesson, my dear?" he asked.

"Yes, Otokage-sama." Her voice was barely a whisper. He smiled and she couldn't meet his eye.

"Will you obey your orders in the future?"

"Yes, Otokage-sama."

He laid a hand upon her head, warm and comforting after so much nothing, and she didn't flinch away. When she finally met his eyes, she couldn't help but think that his expression looked softer than usual. She answered his smile with one of her own, shy and uncertain. She remembered her mother and blood beneath her bare feet. She remembered fear and the pain of bones piercing her skin and the horror of not knowing if Hiroko was alive or dead.

When Orochimaru reached to take her hand, she let him. She smiled at him, and she let her mouth run with childish chatter, and she didn't let on that she refused to believe that he was as good as everyone said he was. When she was led back to their room, she locked eyes with Hiroko and took in the worry in her sister's expression, the sweat on her brow, and the smell of panic that filled the room. She silently promised herself, yet again, that they would find some way out of here.


"—and next thing we knew, she was falling right into the fountain, sacred scrolls in hand!" Kaito finished, arms thrown wide and eyes bright. Hiroko and Mayuri howled with laughter and the old man watched them with a wistful smile. It was good to see them so cheerful, especially since Hiroko's seal had been giving them so much trouble during their session. He had become so used to the child's cries of pain, it was almost a shock to hear her laughter instead. It was a good sound.

"Did she get into trouble?" Hiroko asked as soon as she had the breath to do so. Beside her, Mayuri was still trying to stop her giggles, one hand pressed to her chest. Kaito snorted.

"Of course she did, but nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Everyone knew it was an accident. She actually left on a mission the next week, and ended up meeting a woman and moving in with her a few weeks after the mission was over. For years, though, parents and the elders told children that she had been smited for damaging the scrolls and that was why they never saw her again."

"Is she still alive?" Mayuri asked, head cocked to the side, suddenly very interested. Kaito shook his head.

"No, after the fall of Uzushiogakure, her clan was hunted down until there were no more."

"Oh." Hiroko's voice was barely more than a breath, soft and pained. "I'm sorry."

Kaito's brow furrowed, his heavy eyebrows almost hiding his eyes as he frowned. There was something almost guilty on the little girl's face, her shoulders coming up around her ears and her eyes directed towards the floor. Mayuri had moved closer, pressing their sides together. She stared up at him, her expression unreadable, like she was waiting for something and wasn't sure if it would be good or bad.

"Do people from clans get hunted down a lot?" she asked.

Kaito sighed, finally understanding. He held out his arms. "Come here, girls."

They stood and shuffled forwards obediently, and he scooped them up and settled them on his knees. The weight was familiar, and his heart ached as he remembered holding his own grandchildren like this. They both stared up at him with wide, sad eyes, and he marveled at how children so young could be so very somber.

"We've heard...rumors," Mayuri said, her voice so soft he almost couldn't hear it.

"People keep saying that certain clans in Water Country are disappearing," Hiroko continued, twirling her long hair nervously around her fingers, tangling it. He frowned, and knew he would have to speak with the Otokage about making sure that people knew to keep their mouths shut around children who already had enough on their plates to worry about.

He sighed and pulled them both a little closer, wishing he could somehow shelter them from the harsh truths of the world. But they were being groomed to become shinobi, and they would never have the luxury of an easy life. They had already had such a hard time, but he knew that they deserved the truth, no matter how young they were.

"Kirigakure is a village that fears power just as much as it covets it," he told them. They both watched him with those oddly intent gazes, too sharp and too intelligent for children so young. "If there is a clan or a person with abilities that Kiri cannot possess and control, they will do what they can to destroy them."

"So...like the Yuki and Kaguya clans?"

"And others, as well. Clans that have existed since before Kirigakure or organized shinobi forces even existed have been sought out and destroyed for their abilities across every part of the land. It is human nature to fear what one cannot understand, and to covet what one cannot possess."

The girls were quiet as they considered his words. They locked eyes, and he watched as they shared a silent conversation comprised of nothing but expressions and barely noticeable gestures. They were going to either be a godsend on missions some day, or their squad leaders and teammates were going to hate them for their wordless communication. He was reminded, again, of his own family and the ways they had known one another better than anyone else and how it sometimes felt like they could read each other's minds.

"Are either of our clans still around?" Mayuri asked at length, startling him from his thoughts. She looked uncertain, the words hollow in her throat, like she wasn't certain if she was allowed to ask, or maybe she didn't know if she was even allowed to classify either of the clans as "hers."

He smiled at both of the sisters, soft and encouraging, but still a little sad as he said, "The Kaguya clan is still around, mostly because the kekkei genkei you possess is so rare that there is very little fear or even knowledge of it outside the clan. They are an ancient clan who have been around since before Kirigakure was formed, and because they will fight with Kirigakure if they are called upon, there is little reason for the village to go after them."

He didn't mention the whispers he had heard of the tension that was building within Water Country, and the unrest within the clans.

"The Yukis...well, their compound was destroyed and the clan members scattered to the wind. It's very likely that there are many who are still alive, and that they are just in hiding."

Again, he decided against mentioning the fact that hunter-nin were roaming the land, following rumors and leads in order to wipe the clan from existence. The same thing had happened to his own people, many years before. These children did not need that added burden on their shoulders.

"You're very lucky that Otokage-sama took you in," he told them. "Otogakure is one of the few places I know of that will shelter people with kekkei genkei or with dark pasts."

"Yes," Mayuri murmured, her expression distant. "Very lucky, indeed."