They told her that she had her mother's eyes.
A pale blue that danced with silver specks.
She would smile when they said that, and giggle when they cooed at her blush.
Yua was her mother's name, and she was a beautiful woman.
She was long limbed and graceful with a thick mane of sapphire hair. It framed a face that was angled with a sculptor's knife, and trailed down the length of her spine.
Yua only ever had one daughter, and she loved her with all of her heart.
Nanashi was her name, and it meant no one and nothing.
But she remembered having other names.
Icy white hair hung in heavy waves —
Crimson curls that strained against any tie —
Around her toddler's face —
Around a crone's weathered gaze.
—
"Nanashi has an old soul."
That's what her mother and aunties would tell each other when the girl would sit in a quiet melancholy every now and again.
She was mourning their faces, and forgetting their names.
"Nanashi is just smart for her age."
Is what they would assure themselves when she began to speak and read and run years too early.
She always remembered the basics.
But her mother was a prostitute, and her aunties as well, so Nanashi was spared any prying eyes.
They taught her how to dance with her toddler's feet —
Steps not completely forgotten —
And they showed her how to play music on their chosen instruments.
"Because men always like a lady that's cultured, sweet Nanashi."
Oh, how she missed her wife.
She took each of their lessons and did as they asked, but when night came she fled to the trees.
—
"I love you, Nanashi."
It's what her mother would say when Nanashi brushed careful fingers over the bruises littering her skin.
"It's okay, sweet Nanashi."
When she rubbed salves onto rope blistered wrists.
—
No one ever said anything about Nanashi's nightly wanderings.
Perhaps they would be more concerned if she lived somewhere safer, but surely the village couldn't be more dangerous than a brothel at night.
At least for a sweet little girl.
Right?
—
Nanashi was three when she first saw a ninja —
And oh, how he looked like her brother's first son
— as he sprinted along the rooftops at midnight, laughing and flipping and free.
So Nanashi began to mimic his movements on the ground during her twilight adventures, and came back later and later each time.
—
"Why would you want that?"
Is what her mother said to her when Nanashi asked if she could be a ninja like the one she saw.
Nanashi just stared at Yua's mottled blue throat.
—
Nanashi was four when she first found out that the warmth in her stomach that echoed through the air was chakra, and that ninjas could use it for everything.
She remembered it as magic —
As power —
As sin.
She began to play with it.
—
"She's just entertaining herself."
Her aunties would say when she stuck things to furniture and walked up the walls.
"How lovely, Nanashi!"
When she kept flowers in bloom.
Nurture life and it will nurture you, my child.
—
There was a bird with a broken wing on a hot summer day, and Nanashi took it into the backyard to mend it.
Her aunties had said that healers used chakra to fix their wounds when nights were rough, so Nanashi knew it was possible.
She was a medic once —
A mother —
A witch —
So Nanashi could puzzle out a method that worked.
It was not conventional, and the first few animals died.
She buried them each and let tears fall and dry.
But eventually her hands glowed green and she could get broken wings to fly again.
—
Her mother was bleeding.
"Don't look, Nanashi."
Is what her aunties had said.
"Just come lean on me."
But Nanashi just smiled in that old weary way, and let green light pool in her hands.
"Prodigy."
They whispered when her mother kept breathing.
"Perhaps she'll have a future yet."
—
She became their own little healer, and they loved her even more.
But she wondered if it would have been so if she had cried out or fussed as an infant.
Because Nanashi had seen some children go straight to the orphanage when their mother could work again.
Though they had kept her with them for years now.
But would they ever let her go?
—
They did not get a choice in the matter as fate would have it.
Because when Nanashi was five, she saw another ninja when she was flipping off walls under the light of the moon and stars.
And he saw her too.
Soft blonde hair and warm azure eyes that crinkled in concern when he smiled at her.
"My name is Minato," he said with a strained little smile. "Why are you out here alone?"
Nanashi just giggled, and pointed behind her where the brothel shuddered and loomed.
"Don't worry," she said. "I'm going to be a ninja one day too."
Hook, line, and sinker.
—
Nanashi was six when she first entered the academy, and the teachers loved her when she did.
"Such a diligent student!"
They would praise as she burned through the work.
A nice trip down memory lane.
"What potential in fighting!"
They grinned as she flipped, twirled, and danced in her spars.
She was a warrior —
Scavenger —
Hind.
And she flowed through forms new and old.
The children didn't like her, but she smiled and reached out anyways.
Because she'd always had a soft spot for kids.
—
Nanashi found that she liked knives the best.
Juggle them, dearest!
But she also liked katanas —
Off with their heads!
— though they told her she would not be able to get real ones until she graduated.
She supposed she was lucky it was wartime.
If it wasn't, she wouldn't be able to practice until her hands bled without becoming a political pawn.
Speaking from experience of course.
As it was, she was just awarded more drills and tutors to get her up to battlefield standard.
Better than a pawn during peacetime.
—
The library was a sanctuary of knowledge and silence, though it was smaller than those in her dreams.
She blamed the early times of this world
The only downside was the fussy librarian that scowled if Nanashi dared rustle paper too loudly.
Some things never change.
—
Crimson hair slapped Nanashi's cheeks as she was yanked to her feet where she'd fallen in front of the academy.
"Oh my god I'm so sorry Chibi-Chan!" A woman's voice cried.
Nanashi laughed as she looked up into her superior's face —
Because oh, how young she looked.
"It's alright Shinobi-San, I should have been watching where I was going."
"Wahhhh!?" The woman cried, fussing over Nanashi like she had grown a second head.
Nanashi tried to listen as words tumbled past fast moving lips, but her gaze kept getting caught on fiery locks.
"I like your hair." She said warmly, admiring how the light danced in the strands.
Her own used to do that, and "…" would tangle her fingers in it each time.
Oh, how she missed her wife.
The woman stopped talking then, and leaned down to Nanashi's level with a grin stretching across her face.
"Do you like ramen?" She asked.
"Who doesn't?"
—
Her mother cried when Nanashi came home with a metal plated headband upon her brow, and Yua's long arms crushed her daughter to her chest.
Only seven years old, and a trained bitter killer —
How could you let this happen again?
"Just come home to me each time you go."
Nanashi promised —
You swore —
Though she doubted she'd keep it in the end.
—
"Troublesome." Was the first word her sensei gave her.
His hair was pulled back in a spiky ponytail and his eyes glinted with razor sharp intelligence.
Nanashi grinned a sister's smile, and laughed when he huffed at the sight.
Because, oh how he looked like, "...".
"I always get the difficult ones." He muttered forlornly.
"My teachers say I'm quite docile, Shinobi-San." Nanashi assured him.
But he just rolled his eyes and gestured for her to follow him out of the academy for the last time.
"I'm sure they do, brat."
He eyed her small placid face.
"Just call me Shikaku or Sensei." He sighed after a moment.
"Of course Shinobi-San." She agreed obediently., dutifully following him to one of the village's many training fields.
She ducked the cuff on her head with a giggle.
—
"The brat has you doing, what?" Kushina demanded as she plowed through her fifth bowl of ramen.
Nanashi watched in silent admiration for a moment before she answered.
"He said I have perfect chakra control so the basics would be useless." Nanashi clarified.
Her Jonin-Sensei had her practicing jutsus all morning, and then strategy games all afternoon.
After that he would shove a bento at her and she would eat while he found a chunin to practice taijutsu and kenjutsu with her.
Then she would go home and play with chakra,
heal her aunties, sleep, and repeat.
"And when do you rest?" Kushina demanded.
Nanashi cocked her head, a smile teasing at her lips when she said, "when I'm dead?"
Nanashi fled when Kushina's hair started to float up in spikes.
—
"My leave is almost over, brat." Her sensei grumbled after six months had passed.
Nanashi cocked her head as she placed another shogi piece down, raising an expectant eyebrow.
Not quite chess, but it soothes just the same.
"You're chunin level, but you need at least a year as a genin before we can actually promote you." He heaved a sigh as he placed his own piece down, and Nanashi frowned at her impending loss.
"So who will I be shadowing until then?" She prompted when he didn't appear to be keen on elaborating.
Shikaku smirked with a slightly vindictive glee. "Who do you think?"
It was Nanashi's turn to sigh.
"Troublesome." She muttered sourly, already mourning the loss of her quiet afternoons of old man games.
The bastard just laughed.
—
"Be nice, Kakashi-Chan!" The red head howled from the other side of the door.
Nanashi shifted on her feet at the entrance, debating on whether or not it was too late to flee.
But the airy chakra zipping to the doorway sealed her fate a moment before it swung open to reveal a man in a viciously pink apron with a beaming smile on his face.
"Nanashi-Chan! Kushina and I are so excited to have you as a student!"
Nanashi wasn't given time to reply as she was whisked inside to be plopped onto a screaming orange couch in a cozy living room.
A boy around her age sat scowling at the other end of it, and Kushina stepped away from him to squeeze Nanashi in a welcoming hug.
"Thank you for inviting me Kushina-Sensei, and it's nice to see you again, Minato-Sensei," Nanashi smiled.
The boy with silver hair scoffed at her words, and Nanashi's brows lifted in amusement.
His type never did like to share.
—
"You're never home."
Her mother said softly, gazing at the bouquet in Nanashi's hands with a far off attention.
"I've begun to take missions with my sensei and other genin teams." Nanashi replied.
I've begun to fly again.
"Do you feel like you're seven now?" Her mother responded, taking the flowers and guiding Nanashi into the crumbling kitchen.
Nanashi just laughed.
Happy birthday —
Surprise —
You're so old now, mommy!
"I guess so," Nanashi lied.
—
"Why does Nanashi get C-ranks?" Kakashi asked one day as they trained.
It went like this: mornings for sparring and weapons and jutsus, afternoons for D-ranks or more training, and nighttime for sealing with Kushina.
"Nanashi has proven her team-work skills, Kakashi." Minato chided with a ruffle to silvery hair.
Kakashi huffed like a sweet angry puppy.
"Teamwork is important, Kashi-Chan." Nanashi said idly as she flowed through her katas with her eyes closed.
"Why? They're always so slow."
Nanashi laughed. "It's like a system — you can't get emergent properties without joining two separate components."
She opened her eyes to Kakashi's blank look and shrugged. "Sometimes two is better than one, and three is not always company."
Minato beamed where he sat pouring over his seals, and Kakashi just rolled his eyes in begrudging contemplation before picking up his sword and tossing Nanashi her katanas.
"Spar with me."
One day he'll realize it too.
—
"You seal like my great-grandmother." Kushina exclaimed one night after ten bowls of ramen.
Your handwriting looks like calligraphy!
Why are your poems so sad?
"What do you mean?" Nanashi questioned as she twirled her brush around her hand.
"Slow and twisting, and it almost doesn't make sense!" Kushina groused as she sat in her carved kitchen chair and studied the page in her hands.
Nanashi giggled at the sight of pinched brows and a vicious dark scowl.
"Does it work?" She asked.
Kushina rolled her eyes. "Of course it does, but you don't adhere to any of the twelve branches of sealing!"
Nanashi shrugged, humming to herself softly.
A divergent thinker? After all these years?
How shocking.
—
Nanashi first killed a man on a C-rank turned A-rank when she was eight years old.
Is it ever really the first time anymore?
She was escorting three nobles to Suna when bandits attacked them, and her knives found their throats before anyone could scream.
Her two genin companions watched her clean the knives with horror lining their young faces, and their sensei just sighed long and weary.
Nanashi kept walking.
No rest for the wicked, after all.
—
Nanashi came home to a patch of ashes where the brothel once stood, and a mass grave in the backyard with no marker.
The only reason she knows it's there is because of the faint traces of chakra lingering on the bodies buried deep in the earth.
Minato and Kakashi stood behind her as she fell to her knees, palms pressed to sooty black soil.
"Is she dead?" Nanashi whispered to nothing and no one.
"I'm sorry, Shi-Chan." Minato murmured back.
Another one gone, an orphan once more —
Did you visit —
I left flowers for her.
Twin sapphire markings slipped from the corners of her eyes as Nanashi let tears fall and dry once more.
She almost didn't feel Kakashi's hand on her shoulder.
Orphans always did stick together.
—
"Wake up, brat, it's time for your promotion."
Nanashi's eyes peeled open to a spiky ponytail and a newly scarred face.
"Shika-Sensei!" She crowed, leaping from her mattress to give a tackling hug.
You always did like to wrestle, sweet cousin of mine.
He grabbed the collar of her shirt and held her at arm's length like a meddling puppy.
"Troublesome," he sighed after a moment of studying her smiling face. "How did you manage to end up with ten A-ranks under your belt?"
"I think the rats in the tower want me dead or outstanding." She tossed back without missing a beat.
There's rot in the system, and death lurking softly, so don't trust the ones at your back.
Shikaku raised a brow at her words before sighing once more.
"Of course you know that." He groused.
—
Kushina was sparring with Minato when Nanashi first felt a whisper of vengeful chakra.
Who did that to you?
She waited until they slowed to a stop before padding up to peer at Kushina's belly.
"Who is that?" She asked plainly, not watching how the two of them paled.
"When you're older, Nanashi." They told her softly.
So she nodded and went back to her seals.
—
Nanashi was not a good cook.
Kushina was laughing, Minato was crying, and Kakashi was just staring in shock.
"Of all the things you cannot do, '…'."
"It's a curse '…', I'm telling you."
—
Kakashi was getting a team of his own.
Nanashi told herself that it didn't sting —
Were we not our own team?
— and laughed at his scowling face.
"Maybe they'll surprise you." She offered generously as they strolled with their dango sticks.
Kakashi huffed.
"Maybe you'll like them!" Nanashi exclaimed.
A baleful glare.
"I'll still train with you, if you want."
Kakashi smiled.
His type never did like forced change.
"I don't understand why we can't be our own team." He sighed.
A warmth grew in Nanashi's chest, and she nudged him with a shoulder.
"Maybe one day."
The terrible twins —
Trouble and Terror —
Oh look, here comes Dumber and Dumbest again!
—
Nanashi was sent to the front before she could meet Kakashi's new teammates.
A nine year old chunin with extensive seal knowledge and a ruthlessness not often seen.
They sent her with Kushina to wreak havoc on Iwa's front, and together they set troops ablaze.
"Nanashi the Reaper," they whispered each night around fires —
A kiLLeR, a siNnEr, a demon.
She learned how to set seals over battlefields that drowned her enemies in dirt.
She picked up a scythe when her katanas were broken and ripped through their ranks like the Fury she was —
OnCe uPOn a DrEAm.
Her sapphire tear tracks slipped further down her face as blood coated her hands and her friends met their graves.
And Nanashi kept killing.
—
"We're going to Kiri." Kushina murmured over rations one night.
They sat on two logs away from the rest of their squadron that feared a demon-host and her student.
Nanashi cocked her head at Kushina's drawn expression.
"Aren't deployments usually over by now?" She asked.
"We're too good at what we do." Kushina said sourly, kind mouth twisted and bitter with exhaustion.
Don't let your spirit break.
So Nanashi just hummed and settled in next to her mentor with a sleepy child's haze.
"Braid my hair Nee-San?" She asked.
Some tension drained.
—
Nanashi the Reaper learned many things in Kiri.
She learned to walk on air —
It's just surfing the currents, though it was far easier with wings
— and said it was like water walking but harder.
She grew faster and stronger, and became a blur in the teal Kiri skies.
Lighting filled water birds soared with her — she did not have enough chakra for dragons — and arrows of air pierced Kiri-nin hearts.
The last thing she learned was how to take someone's chakra and store it in the seals on her arms.
I always wondered what a dementor's kiss felt like.
"Konoha's Soul Stealer," they whispered when troops dropped without any last words.
—
She made Jonin with no opposition.
Such a vicious little thing.
"Are you ready to go home, Shi-Chan?"
Nanashi grinned.
—
Nanashi was ten when she returned to Konoha as a koala on Kushina's back.
Their squadron didn't dare say anything about it — for what chunin would dare question a Jonin, let alone two?
The gates opened wide for them, and Kushina charged towards Minato at once.
Nanashi rolled off her back before impact and smiled at their reunion.
Ah, the rush of young love.
"Nanashi."
She turned at the tone of relief and startled when arms wrapped around her in a bone breaking hug.
"Kashi-Chan," she said happily around a mouthful of silvery hair.
He smelled like her dead husband's cologne.
"You said you'd train with me." He murmured into her shoulder, arms not loosening yet.
"We still have time for that." She assured him, resting her head on his shoulder while she could.
Savor the quiet moments, Little Drifter.
Her friend pulled back enough to examine her face, his brow pinching when he noted the growing blue marks beneath her eyes, and the scar that now slashed down her throat.
"Kiri played dirty." She confided with a conspiratorial wink.
Kakashi just huffed and hauled her onto his back.
"She needs sleep." Was all he said to Minato's raised brow.
Nanashi was tired, so she didn't protest when he carted her off.
But she managed to stay awake long enough to see two children Kakashi's age gaping at her in open shock behind Minato.
She gave them all a parting wave before she passed out.
She'd made worse first impressions.
—
She was able to salvage that initial impression when they all had a team dinner…
Even though Kushina banned Nanashi from doing anything but setting the table.
"My old sensei is coming home in a few weeks, Shi-Chan." Minato sang before his students arrived.
"That's exciting Minato-Sensei." She replied from where she dozed on the classic orange couch.
He gave her a pointed smile with his hands placed firmly on his hips, and Nanashi wisely peeled back an eyelid to watch him.
"I want you to meet him, Nanashi — he's a seal master and a wonderful shinobi."
Why did that seem like a cover?
Nanashi sighed as she smiled, nodding and closing her eye once more.
"Troublesome," she muttered (much to Minato's sorrow).
There had been Naras with her for far too long.
Three sharp knocks on a weathered oak door, and Minato welcomed his students inside.
Nanashi dragged herself upright as Kushina came hustling out of the kitchen to grin at her with pointed teeth.
"This is Nanashi." She declared proudly, hands resting on each of the girl's shoulders like a proud mother.
Though her mother was gone in this life and the rest.
"It's nice to meet you," Nanashi said kindly.
She learned that the boy was named Obito, and he held onto childish wonder like no other.
One day you'll be a monster too.
Rin was the girl with purple marks on each cheek, and manners that rivaled a queen's.
The martyr returns.
"You know how to heal people?" Rin gasped, dinner forgotten as she stared eagerly at Nanashi.
"I taught myself when I was small." Nanashi affirmed with a gentle nod.
"And you're not small now?" Kakashi muttered reflexively.
Nanashi nailed him in the face with a piece of chicken, and Obito squawked in disbelief.
"Don't be a brat '…'!"
"Then don't be an idiot, hime!"
Kakashi pointed his chopsticks at Nanashi in a silent promise, and she brought two fingers to her eyes before jabbing them towards him in response.
"Did Baka-shi just make a joke?" Obito squeaked, eyes bouncing between the pair of them like a tennis match.
"Does he not do that often?" Nanashi asked mildly, flicking her eyes to a snickering Minato and a smirking Kushina.
Obito squawked again before launching into a rant about uptight jerks that Nanashi only half followed.
"Mahhh, does he always talk so loud Kashi-Chan?" Nanashi asked as she rubbed her ear.
All she got was a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, more squawking, and an unreadable look from the girl.
—
"Are you settling back in?" Shika-sensei questioned over a game of shogi.
Do you blame yourself?
"I've mostly just slept all week, but I'm getting back into a routine." She replied, futilely staving off checkmate.
Mornings were for training and sparring, sometimes with Minato's team and sometimes with others.
Afternoons were for sealing, inventing, and dango, and nights were for relaxing with family.
Because that's what she'd gained in this life.
"Good, you needed the rest."
She still lost the game.
—
Nanashi met Minato's sensei three weeks after her return to the village.
She had finished sparring with Kakashi — he couldn't win anymore — and she stared into the bushes where she could swear a chakra signature flickered.
"Mahhh, Kashi-Chan, what should we do with a stalker?"
Kakashi signaled Minato where he was lecturing his two other students, and Nanashi palmed her new katanas with glee.
She was always restless when she first came home.
"Jiraiya, what did I say about waiting until dinner?" Minato bellowed, flashing in front of Nanashi in an instant.
She'd figure out that seal if it was the last thing she did.
It was the last week before Minato's team was promoted, and he was cramming in as much training as he could.
The bushes rustled, and a man with hair rivaling Nanashi's burst out of the foliage like a giant porcupine.
Ah, so that's who the father was.
Nanashi gave a slow blink at his matching white hair. Hers was less spiky, and braided intricately instead of tied back —
Viking braids for a warrior queen
— and her facial markings were blue, not to mention shorter than his.
But there was no mistaking it.
He stood stock still and anxious as she silently watched him, and his chakra bled from him in waves.
Ah, the oblivious father.
"She's dead." Nanashi told him succinctly. "The brothel burned when I was eight."
His shoulders sagged, and he floundered for a response, but Nanashi just shook her head.
"You didn't know." She stated.
"I'm sorry." He rasped, eyes flicking to anything but hers.
Nanashi shrugged, a bit curious about who he was now.
"I'm hungry." She told him, and he smiled when she let him drag her to a ramen stand.
—
"You're a Jonin at ten." He told her incredulously.
Nanashi slurped her broth.
Play nice, Little Drifter.
"And you're a Sannin." She replied after a moment of letting him stew.
He narrowed his eyes. "They call you Nanashi the Reaper."
"And you, the Toad Sage."
"Konoha's Soul Stealer!"
"Super Pervert and Bath-Stalker."
Jiraiya choked on his noodles.
"I win again, old man."
"Shut it, brat."
—
Nanashi was feigning sleep on Kakashi's stomach where they were sprawled across the apartment floor.
She heard Jiraiya in the kitchen with Minato and Kushina as they murmured together, and she pretended to feel bad about eavesdropping.
"Curiosity is your fatal flaw."
"No, that's all the apathy and you know it."
"How long have you known?" Jiraiya asked tiredly.
"I suspected from the beginning, but I only knew for sure when she came home from the front." Minato answered.
"Her sealing style isn't anything like yours, and it's only the hair and the markings that give it away." Kushina added.
"And I think the personality can sometimes hint at it." Minato mused.
A muffled thump as if he was smacked in the head.
"She's no pervert you idiot!"
"Who did she lose?" Jiraiya interrupted the soon to be fight. "To make them grow so much, I mean."
A brief silence.
"Her mother and…aunties when she was younger, and she had made a few friends with the older Chunin on the battlefield." Kushina said slowly.
"But she's always been melancholy, though it has been getting better." Minato offered.
"Melancholy?" Jiraiya repeated in numb bemusement.
"She's like an old woman," Kushina groused fondly.
"She gets a dreamy, glazed look in her eyes sometimes — like she's watching a memory." Minato explained. "It drives Kakashi mad when it happens because she'll get quiet and spacey, and she'll ignore what he says."
"It only happens when she's relaxed and with people she cares about, but it's exactly what Mito would do on bad days." Kushina finished.
"I see." Jiraiya murmured. "And she has friends?"
"She has us and Shikaku." Minato said quietly. "And Kakashi, as well as a bit of Obito and Rin."
"And who told her I'm a Super-Pervert?" He demanded sourly.
Two sets of laughter.
"She always knows more than she should."
Nosy little girl.
"Damn it, she is my daughter," he cried.
Nanashi smiled and tumbled off to sleep.
—
He began to visit more often, bringing stories each time with a token from each far off place.
A hair tie from Taki, a set of senbon from Kumo, and a ring from a traveling circus.
She rarely had a father that she could bother to remember.
They were often too flighty or sickly or cold.
So she indulged every visit and took the time she was given.
He showed her his toad summons and she giggled when they deemed her unfit to sign the contract.
"Stop looking offended, Jiraiya — even she knows she's too much of a wolf."
"She is much too kind to be a wolf, Gambunta!"
"A dragon then."
A wolf and a dragon and panther's cruel son.
"She's a child!" Her father yelped.
"Are there really dragon contracts?" Nanashi asked.
The toad looked at her in amusement and shrugged. "They've never deemed anyone worthy of signing it."
"I see." She replied meditatively.
"Absolutely not," Jiraiya warned as he leapt to his feet.
Nanashi laughed as she flashed through the hand signs and popped out of existence to the sound of the toads' bellowing laughter.
—
Minato found himself afraid on the battlefield in Iwa as if someone was howling his name in Konoha.
He probably shouldn't have taught Nanashi that reverse summoning jutsu.
—
Nanashi did not find herself met with a dragon, but she did find herself drowning in an ocean.
It was luck when she was saved by a fish.
—
Twenty four hours later, she popped back into existence just where she'd left it.
Jiraiya still stood there with his toads, but Kushina and Kakashi were with him this time.
And they all looked thunderous.
"Well now you've done it, hime."
"Oh so this was my idea, bastard?"
Gambunta was the one to break the silence with a surprised chortle.
"The koi actually let you sign?" He asked her. "They're even pickier than the dragons."
Nanashi flashed newly pointed teeth at him in a proud smile, and she summoned a trident from thin air.
"They said my chakra was interesting." She replied.
"Nanashi." Kakashi said in a dangerous voice.
"Mahhh, I just wanted to know what my spirit animal was Kashi-Chan."
She honestly deserved the right hook.
—
Nanashi was sent back out to the front when she was freshly eleven, and Iwa buckled under her relentless assault.
She wasn't a squadron leader on paper, but she covered the chunin and genin on the field like a leader would anyway.
The koi were a contract that mostly preferred healing and sealing over fighting, but there were some that were as bloodthirsty as sharks when they smelled blood.
They shredded through troops with her as she learned to harness their chakra, and she sent electrified water dragons into enemy ranks.
Her trident replaced her scythe, while her knives and swords remained on her back as Nanashi killed and killed and killed.
For her family she would do this.
For her loved ones that gave her so much.
"I'm a pacifist, you know."
"You're literally an assassin, you absolute dumbass."
"What's your point?"
—
She remained on the front for a year.
Team Minato would drop messages to her outpost sometimes, but she was always on the field when they came.
"I miss you, sweet dear one — do you remember my voice?"
She even fought beside Minato a handful of times when he was stationed in Iwa, and he watched over her when she couldn't fall asleep.
Does anyone ever really win a war?
—
Nanashi found a few friends in her squadron, though most did not approach out of fear.
"It's your chakra, Little Drifter." Her main summons told her as she bathed in their realm.
Her name was Lena, and she had midnight scales streaked with golden tides. She was roughly the size of a horse, and she always appeared to be under water — even when swimming through air.
She was a healer first, but she indulged in battle every now and then.
(Her flowing fins would hypnotize the enemy as her songs dragged them down into death.)
"What about my chakra?" Nanashi questioned.
"It's far too old for a body so young." Lena replied as she flicked dirt from Nanashi's back. "It rolls off of you like the mist haunting a shipwreck; an anomaly in your village of fire."
"Is everyone a sensor then?" Nanashi asked wryly.
"No, Little Drifter, but prey can still sense a predator when it's near."
—
The Kannabi bridge was destroyed, and Nanashi was sent home as the war wrapped up.
She offered to stay and tie up the final skirmishes on the border, but Jonin Commander demanded her return.
"Just because you're f*cking lethal doesn't mean you're not still a kid, brat." Shika-sensei had written in a messy scrawl. "It's time for dango and sleeping and shogi, you've done more than your share on the front."
So Nanashi went home with blue markings down to her jaw and an eager light in her eyes.
—
"Kashi-Chan." Nanashi murmured as she stepped up beside him at the memorial stone.
"Happy birthday." He replied in a numb little voice.
"Let me see it, Kakashi."
He turned to look at her fully then, his head band slouched over one side of his face.
She pushed it up with gentle fingers and traced the scar that sliced down the center of his eye.
"Does it hurt?" She asked calmly, watching the lid slide open and the red iris spinspinspin.
"Everyday." He said tightly, fist clenched at each of his sides.
"I came back to you." She told him, letting her hand drop from that bloody red eye.
His shoulders shook then, and she pulled him close without a second's hesitation.
Rest now, sweet child, I'll watch out for the shadows —
He let her.
— and keep the nightmares away from your mind.
They did not go home for a long time, silent and mourning and worn.
—
Nanashi was snuggled on the couch against Kushina's side, and she couldn't be moved for the world.
"You realize you're twelve, right?" Jiraiya demanded in the arm chair across the room.
He was staring incredulously at an Iwa bingo book and had outrage written in each line of his face.
"Mahhh, I thought I was going on fifty." Nanashi replied without opening her eyes.
Kushina was running a comb through her ice white hair, and Nanashi knew that if her summons had been feline she would be purring.
"I'm serious!" Jiraiya shrieked. "Iwa has you listed as S-Rank and Kiri has you listed as A!"
"Yes but Konoha has me listed as B." She assured him, popping an eye open to watch the vein in his forehead twitch.
"Minato!" He howled, seizing on the opportunity for support as the new Hokage walked in with Kakashi and Rin in tow.
"Jiraiya!" Minato responded in turn, not even blinking at the frantic mania surrounding the Sannin.
Kakashi and Rin both turned to Nanashi, but she just rolled her eyes and settled further into the couch.
"Have you gotten sick of the hat yet?" Nanashi asked Minato baldly.
Rin stuck close to Kakashi to avoid the flailing Sannin as they made their way over to the couch.
"Is that your way of asking if you can have it?" Minato teased as he used the distraction to also tune out Jiraiya's ranting.
Nanashi wrinkled her nose at the idea and gave Kakashi the stink eye when he lifted her feet to make space on the other side of the couch.
"Too much paperwork." She told the Hokage, kicking her legs over Kakashi's in defiance.
Kakashi just rolled his eye as Rin settled next to him and Jiraiya continued to wail.
"And that's why you're my favorite student!" Cried Kushina as she began braiding Nanashi's hair.
"Love you too, Nee-Chan," She murmured sleepily, drifting off in that sweet peaceful haze.
—
"Did she just fall asleep?"
"Damn it, I'm trying to parent."
"Mahhh, I think you're failing, Super Pervert."
"I hate children."
"Wow. Father of the year over here."
"Shut it, Hatake!"
"Hmmm? Did you say something?"
—
"You want me to do what?" Nanashi questioned as she stared at Kushina's bright face.
"It's just for a few hours," The redhead promised. "Mikoto needs a spa day and I haven't seen her in months!"
"So you want me to babysit her son and nephew?" Nanashi deadpanned.
"Only for a few hours!"
"How do I always get stuck with the f*cking kids, hime?"
"It's your cuddly personality, moron!"
—
"Are you really a Jonin?"
Shisui was a curious boy — six years old and already questioning life's many mysteries.
"Ne, Shisui-kun, I'm actually a genin in disguise." She told him sagely.
"I knew it!" He crowed, dancing a strange little jig.
Nanashi smiled as she bounced the four year old Itachi on her leg where they lounged in the Uchiha living room.
"She's joking, Shisui." The clan heir regally informed his cousin. "I saw her in the bingo books — she's the youngest Jonin in Konoha."
Shisui pouted while she waved it all off. "Mahhh, thirteen isn't that young in shinobi years."
Itachi hummed in agreement while Shisui pouted some more, but all was forgiven when she pulled out the dango.
And if Mikoto and Kushina walked in to see Nanashi being the base of an unconscious dog pile…
Well honestly, Nanashi never lived it down.
—
"I left for a B-Rank and another one died?"
—
Another night at the memorial stone, and another friend that never came home.
Nanashi held Kakashi once more as day bled into night.
Breathe deeply, sweet child, the wounds will stop bleeding in time.
—
Nanashi was fourteen when she donned a dragon's mask and got the Hokage's seal on her shoulder.
She joined a year after Kakashi and learned to be invisible in plain sight.
Minato had hell to pay with Kushina when she found out, but Nanashi had grown restless once more.
It's always harder to stop fighting than to start —
"Please just make it stop!"
"I'm sorry."
They became Konoha's ghosts within a year, and only stopped for rests when Kushina's hair started to rise in spikes.
—
"You know, brat, I would think you'd have given up by now." Shikaku laughed as he beat her once again.
"Mahhh, Shika-sensei, you know I can't say no to a game." Nanashi replied.
"And that's why you always lose." He said wryly.
"One day you'll wish you had impulse control, you know."
"Yeah, yeah — you'll just have to say I told you so, jackass."
"I found a rat in Kushina's house the other day." Nanashi said offhandedly.
"Another?" Shikaku questioned carefully. "I thought Minato knew what poison to use."
There was only the sound of the final few clacks of a hard lost game for a moment.
Then —
"I found some in his house too."
Rotten rOtTen RoTten—
Just take it all up at the root!
"Troublesome." Shikaku sighed.
—
"My eternal rival!"
Nanashi sent Kakashi a bewildered look as he actually ducked behind her to avoid a massive green blur.
It skidded before them until it took on the shape of a boy.
"Doesn't it have an off switch?!"
"If it did it wouldn't be singing like that, hime."
"Just f*cking kill it, you freak!"
"Hello, Youthful Flower!" The beastling cried. "I can see your beauty is as abundant as the —"
"What do you want, Gai?" Kakashi drawled as he stepped out from behind Nanashi when her jaw went alarmingly slack.
Gai straightened from his repetitive bowing and dropped Nanashi's hand from where he had brought it to his lips in a courtier's greeting.
"I have come for our weekly challenge, my Eternal Rival!" He bellowed to the rapidly emptying street.
"Mahhh, Gai, I think you've broken Nana-Chan, I might have to take her to the hospital."
"We've been spending too much time together, I'm beginning to rub off on you."
"Shut up, it's endearing and you know it."
"See, I told you — now she's gone catatonic."
"WAHH! My Youthful Flower, I'm so sorry! I shall do a thousand push-ups as punishment!"
"You do that, Gai, I'll take her home."
—
"Is he gone?" Nanashi whispered.
"And you'll never see him again, Nana-Chan."
"Somehow I doubt that, Kakashi."
"Shhhhh, just pretend it's a dream."
A/N: you like? Review!
This was literally just a random daydream I had with too much time on my hands, so good job getting through it! Also "Nanashi" technically means "nameless/anonymous," because it was the closest I could get to "nothing/no one," so I'm sorry about the slight inaccuracy.
:D