DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the Naruto universe. This is my Mito, though.

Thinking (+ flashbacks, "Mito speaking to Kurama in her mindscape," etc.)

Emphasis

Bijuu, etc. speaking

Bijuu, etc. thinking

Mito had a bad feeling about this mission but it was right up her alley. Medical support to a Konoha ANBU or squad of them? It was as if this mission was made for her - and that made her extremely nervous. WHY would a mission like this, one that required speed, stealth, and MEDICAL assistance, be sitting in a BOX at the regular forces mission's desk?

Was that normal? –It didn't seem right. A mission or request coming in like that should have been taken to the Medical Division immediately if ANBU needed assistance.

As she flashed to another marker closer to Yugakure she also wondered about the rank of the mission and if this had been a setup. Yes, she'd been overly zealous in wanting (or being allowed to take?) an S-ranked mission but had been running on adrenaline as she attempted to get outside of the village. To get away from Tou-san's heavy presence.

Shit, she was fucked! And weren't S-ranks normally meant for squads to handle?

Maybe not? "Mito, you are SUCH an idiot!"

Now to find the squad that needed assistance. She hid in a Balsam Fir and closed her eyes, reaching her senses out even more for anyone waiting to attack her. I should've taken the route they took but it would've taken me a lot longer to reach the squad in need by not flashing to our markers. Fuck. She was going to have to ask around once inside Yugakure. She jumped through the trees to the nearest Hot Springs, keeping her chakra tightly coiled and hidden as much as she could.

An old man greeted her excitedly when she walked through the gates that led to the nearest inn. "Excuse me, sir, can you tell me where the Old Fireside Inn is?" The mission mentioned it but at this point, Mito had begun to believe it was all a ruse.

Calm down, girl! You can do this!

She had to! Mito had already taken the mission and she couldn't leave someone potentially down out there.

After a lot of attempted negotiations on the gentlemen's part to have her stay at his inn instead (she finally convinced him that she would talk the idea over with her friends but that she needed to FIND THEM first,) he gave her directions to a place on the Northeast side of Yugakure. Once she found it, she followed the coded directions given and found a small, abandoned-looking cabin in the forest. She knocked using the last ANBU code she knew of and heard the faintest sound of movement inside. When no one answered, she ensured that she was otherwise alone and pulled out a kunai, pounding on the door hard enough to almost break it off its hinges. "Open up, goddammit!"

She was ready to battle!
Probably.
Eek!

The door opened and Mito gaped as she found her wounded godfather. "What the hell?!" She pushed the sputtering, limping, BLEEDING shinobi onto the heavily covered futon he'd been lying (and bleeding) in - whipping off the top layer of covers first. Not that this is sterile by any stretch of the imagination… She bit her thumb and wiped it over three of the seals on her upper arm and pulled out supplies. "Oh man, you were doing a hell of a job hiding your chakra, Ero-ojii. Until you opened the door, I had no idea it was you in here."

Jiraiya rolled his eyes and in a low voice explained how he hid his presence. "Seal: duh. What are you doing out of the village, Mito?"

"I'm on a mission: DUH," she said, throwing his word back at him. "Where else were you hit and do I need to prepare for an attack? Tsk: what am I saying? I'm always prepared." Pretty much. She gently pushed him to lie down again and continued running a diagnostic after making a bunch of clones to help her out. A few of them took off to create a perimeter and watch their surroundings. "Turn over." She rolled over his grumpy ass and began healing his deepest wound after disinfecting it. Jiraiya had bit back a holler. "Sorry: I should've warned you!" She was nervous. "You dressed your wounds well but you were lucky, ya know. Two millimeters up and one more in would've done a number on your kidney."

"Oh well. I've got two of them," Jiraiya groaned. "I thought I'd lost that one: it really…" He grumbled rather than say how much pain he was in.

"You've got kidney stones, Jiraiya. I bet you are in pain!"

"Stones?! Old people get stones!" How outrageous.

Mito pulled a face behind him. Jiraiya was kinda old. She continued working on him, hissing every now and then because Ero-ojii had really managed to get himself into a pickle.

"Holy shit. You got… gallstones, too?! What the hell, old man? …It's like you're gonna turn into one of those stone frogs you've talked about. When was the last time you even had a checkup?" She waited for an answer that obviously wasn't going to come. "OUT WITH IT!" She rolled him back over after taping up his back and gave him a mean look. He needed labs run, badly.

"Little Miss Grumpypants: I tell you what," Jiraiya mumbled. He appreciated her healing and checking him out, though. "I got cleared after… Hmm. My last check-up was sometime after the nine-tails attack I guess."

Mito's eyes widened and then narrowed dangerously as she blew out a stream of air and continued disinfecting and healing some of his other wounds despite his shouting and cursing her very existence. It was understandable. "All shinobis are to have a yearly physical and you haven't had one in 12 years?!"

"11," Jiraiya whined. He didn't like it when her hair flew out in nine directions: it reminded him of her wonderful/horrible and much-loved mother. Scary.

"Idiot." Mito continued doing all that she could for him but some things were better off healing on their own or REALLY needed further evaluation. She pushed chakra into another seal on her arm and began unrolling more scrolls that were within it after working on him for a good while. "I've got some medicine you're going to need to take and you need to change your diet. Eat less red meat, avoid organ meat altogether, all that shit; cut down on your salt and SAKE INTAKE." Jiraiya booed her and Mito felt a reluctant smile pull at her lips. "We'll go over this more in-depth after you get some sleep. How many blood-replenishing pills have you taken?"

"Three. And a few soldier pills."

Mito groaned. "Jiraiya, before I knock your ass out, why is this an S-ranked mission?"

Jiraiya sighed, feeling the need for sleep pull at him now that help had arrived. He thought it had been a couple of days since he'd been wounded trying to cross into Ame but wasn't sure. They had definitely been waiting for me, he thought for the hundredth time. "I'm the Great Toad Sage and the village spymaster, brat; the Hokage's sensei, and I thought… Well…" I needed help - ouch: my pride! - to at least take my body back to Konoha. He couldn't even properly use jutsus at this point!

The last thing he was able to do aside from lay here and bleed was to send a small (new) messaging toad to the Konoha's general mission desk and had hoped for the best. He didn't want to worry Minato needlessly but maybe he should've done things differently. It looked like he'd made the right decision, though. Mito nodded and had him bite down on something that would relieve his pain a little before working to hook up an IV to his arm.

Shinobis hated getting IVs in their hands because of potentially being limited in using hand seals. Paranoia: Mito understood it well. "You thought you'd been poisoned or were dying." Jiraiya's very pale cheeks heated up the tiniest bit and he looked away from her. "I thought I might have been set up but it's a good thing I took this mission, ya know. You're doing remarkably well considering the pain you've got to be in." He looked up at her with a fond, sleepy grin and pushed the hair out of her face.

"I won't tell anyone, Ero-ojii. AS LONG AS YOU SCHEDULE -AND PROMISE TO GO TO - A REGULAR CHECKUP WHEN YOU'RE BACK IN THE VILLAGE AFTER ALL THIS SHIT! And keep going, based on what your medical professionals tell you! You need scans, anyway: pronto."

"Alright, geez! I promise! What… Hmm. What are you putting in that, kid?" She had hooked up two other bags (and was working on a third?) to his IV and he was already feeling a little woozy.

And how much shit did Mito have sealed in her body? Good Gods!

"Only the best for you! You're getting saline, a strong antibiotic: yes, I know you're allergic to penicillin so chill, and pain medicine plus uhhh. –Fuck this one." She set the other bag aside, intending to reseal it later. "I think it's a good idea to put in a stent to your gallbladder because the last thing you want me to do is to remove that sucker - but let's see how things go first and get some proper images. I've got some oral acid pills you can take; Nah: you never know if that'll work and it's REALLY long-term therapy that usually results in surgery anyway," she continued rambling. "I'm gonna keep working on your wounds… Anyway, I have to do the real work at a good hospital, Jiraiya. You desperately need labs anyway and um, Yugakure's hospital is good and…"

"NO."

Mito tried to glare at him but gave up quickly: she was too worried about him. Jiraiya was right about all that he meant to Konoha. Pervert or not, he was an incredibly important shinobi and author. "I'm sure they'd allow me to oversee your case and we can hide your identity," she told him softly. "I can also flash you to Konoha?" She knew he hated that.

"Oh God," Jiraiya moaned, hating the feeling that jutsu produced. He fell asleep before he could say more as he held his goddaughter's clone's hand.

Mito kept a careful eye on everything she could while she let him sleep for a while and mended what she was able to. Her clones had set up a perimeter outside AND had reactivated the seal Jiraiya had laid down to hide their chakra signatures so it was very surprising that she heard scratching on the door a while later. She heard it three times before Mito decided to lay down a subtle genjutsu (cursing herself for it being hard to do when she could once do it almost without hand seals as a CHILD) and henged herself into an old woman. She opened the door and didn't see anyone but unintentionally looked down and blanched. "Why, hello handsome. Would you like to come in for a drink, Ninken-san?"

Pakkun preened at the compliment and nodded his head as he trudged inside. "So tired."

"You're from Konoha," Mito said, noting his cute little flack jacket and adorable hitai-ate. She dropped her henge once the door was closed and poured a good deal of water into a bowl so that he could have a long, deep drink. "You must be really fast unless you were in the area. Are you following me or… someone else, perhaps?"

Please let it be someone else!

"You. Boss said that you took off but I didn't know that the Toad Sage was here." Mito dropped the genjutsu and cursed herself for sucking but Pakkun explained that he knew Jiraiya's smell very well. "I couldn't see him before." He smiled fangily at her. "So you're Minato's bigger pup? And you summon cats, right? –Disgusting. I'm Pakkun: should've introduced myself first before insulting your summons." He went back to drinking and flopped down on the ground, panting.

Mito had laughed: that was a cute way to put it and it just figured that a dog wouldn't like cats. "I am and I do: the Jungle Cats. I'm Namikaze Mito but I guess you already knew that." Pakkun had whistled as if the Jungle Cats were really something and Mito wondered how a cute pug could both embarrass and flatter her. And her summons were entirely awesome, so he was smart! "Can I offer you a scratch or how about some jerky?" She had some somewhere… And ninken or not, I really want to cuddle and smooch on this cute dog!

I just need to worm my way into his heart. She opened a seal from her thigh and began going through food and ration scrolls. "Ah-ha!" She laughed and jumped when he snatched the jerky from her hand.

"Thank you," he said as he happily drooled and pulled at the jerky. "Would you like to feel my paw? –It's soft!"

Mito gasped. "I do: so, so much! Oooo!" His paw was soft!

"What's wrong with Jiraiya?"

"Ah, I can't discuss my patient's prognosis but I need to get him back to Konoha. I was just about to haul his ass up and leave when I heard you outside. He's stable enough to be moved now. Who is this 'boss' you mentioned, by the way?"

"Hatake Kakashi."

"Oh, right. I forgot he summoned ninken," she muttered to herself. Now she understood what the little henohenomoheji scarecrow on his jacket was all about. That's funny.

"SHIT. Does that mean my father realized I took off on a mission?" Pakkun nodded and gave her a look that seemed like he was disappointed in her. "Hokage-sama allowed it; I didn't lie!" Why am I defending myself to a ninken? "What a drag!" She turned and bent down so that her clones could gingerly pick Jiraiya up and put him on her back after disconnecting his IV line and resealing all of their stuff. Jiraiya was heavy and gigantic plus he always carried that huge, heavy set of scrolls; it was a good thing that she was tall (and a human tank.) "Um, do you want a ride back, too, Pakkun-sama?"

Pakkun grinned even more broadly. "Just Pakkun is fine, Mito-hime and I can get back on my own. You're leaving now?"

"Yeah. Just 'Mito' is what I prefer, too. Jiraiya's super heavy and I'm putting his pervy ass in the hospital - in Konoha. It was nice meeting you!"

Pakkun nodded. "You, too."

The kunoichi flashed away and Pakkun drank the rest of his water before dispelling. "Good luck when you get to Konoha, Pretty Lady." Minato's angry!

.

"What did this dumbass do?" Tsunade asked as she crashed into the OR perimeter, already outfitted for surgery.

"He didn't tell me the specifics but he's got gallstones and kidney stones. Dumbass; have you seen his chart? The Pervert avoids checkups like no one else! I'm waiting for a few more labs but having him prepped for surgery." That was clear. Why did she say obvious stuff like that? Mito was washing up again and standing in surgical garb, so "DUH," as her godfather so succinctly put it.

"I'll do it," Tsunade said and began washing her hands, too.

"C'mon! He's my patient!"

"You're too close to him!"

"And you're not? I'm too aggravated with him to back off or let something happen to him and already know what's going on."

"Then we'll do it together!" Tsunade continued reading through her teammate's chart - Shizune had followed her in and was holding it - and cursed Jiraiya for being a dumbass again before dismissing her. "Hmm. You're obviously ready to do microsurgery. –I'll observe. When was the last time you did this?" Mito had observed civilian surgeons doing surgeries like these several times (and had performed one once under her careful direction at the capital) but that had been years ago.

"A year ago, I guess? I had to go to Hi no Kuni Central to do the same thing for monks a few times like we did before. We didn't have the facilities at the temple, of course. …I swear to God, I could NOT get that last guy to stop drowning fried organ meat in soy sauce," she mumbled to herself about the old monk. "I had to go back in and remove his gallbladder."

"Ah. I don't want to do that here; that could severely limit the Pervert's career," Tsunade sighed.

"No kidding."

Tsunade felt good about this. "I'm gonna stick a wire in his pervy ass. Well, to blast those stones. You'll observe while I handle that, alright? It will be a good procedure for you to learn!"

"Oh, okay. I haven't seen that before, I guess?" Stick a wire in his ass?! Yeah, her mentor better have a good reason for doing something weird like that… And hopefully, she's not being serious about it going in his butt.

The last of his labs came in and both women fumed again as a nurse held out the latest results for them. Mito pulled down her surgical loupes and began (nicely, she thought) barking orders to the tech and those there to assist them. Tsunade was quietly speaking to the anesthesiologist and having another tech reset a camera. Then they began.

Mito walked out of the OR less than an hour later feeling good about how things went. –Until she met the angry blue eyes of her steaming father. "Yo!" Shit, she still needed to put those seals she'd discussed with Tsunade on Jiraiya.

"Don't 'Yo' me, young lady. You took off on an unauthorized mission and I had to have…"

"Bullshit. You told me to go to the mission desk for a mission and that's exactly what I did!" Minato's chakra unrolled angrily and hers met it head-on.

"I am your Hokage and won't have you speak to me like that," he hissed. "Withdraw your KI!"

Mito did so but… "Aww. That's not KI, that's just my weird chakra! And not only am I your daughter, Hokage-sama, but I am also a… physician and you are degrading me in front of my peers," she whispered back to him.

Minato took a deep breath and asked for details on the mission she'd completed. His Chunin at the mission desk had said that the mission came from a toad, so it had to involve Jiraiya. WHY his sensei asked for S-ranked assistance from anyone but an ANBU squad was beyond him. Briefly, he wondered if Kushina had been right about corporal punishment and children (it being a no-no) because Mito refused to give him any information other than saying that Jiraiya was recovering - and she was snarling at him as she reported that. He was so ticked off that he left her there seething.

"Well that was embarrassing," Tsunade said from behind her. Mito's shoulders sagged.

"Tired. That Jiraiya! He really scared me." Dumbass Tou-san scared me more. –Whaa.

"What a dumbass," Tsunade agreed, guessing Mito's real thoughts. She patted her back. "You did good in there, kiddo. Excellent work."

"Thank you. And it's always a pleasure working beside you." Mito waited for a second or so, biting the inside of her cheek before hugging her godmother with one arm tightly. "Man, I'm glad I had you growing up," she whispered into her blonde hair.

Tsunade smirked and reached up to ruffle her crazy, pulled-back hair. "Unprofessional brat," she joked.

"Fuck you, Tsunade." I love you.

"Fuck you, too, kid." I love you, too.

.

The next afternoon, Mito stood in Jiraiya's secured room with her arms crossed over her chest, leaning on the wall with one foot propped on it because my ass and head are big and heavy, she thought to herself. Jiraiya was reporting to her father and he had asked her to stay. She'd already written up her own report and had filed it, using Tora to take it to her grumpy Hokage - who was sometimes glaring at her and "displeased" that she sent a giant tiger into the Hokage's office again.

It was Tora's turn: what was I supposed to do?!

Mito sighed. She'd pseudo-slept on her office floor and the noisy environment and harsh scents had kept her awake most of the night. (Tora had also raided a bodega for snacks which would undoubtedly take a bite out of her paycheck. She really needed to have another talk with him.) "If Jiraiya-sama had used official protocols, the mission might have ended the same, Hokage-sama. ANBU may have asked for our assistance and…"

Jiraiya put an end to this nonsense. "This is all my fault, brats."

"You may leave," Minato said to his daughter. She blankly saluted him and then turned on her heel and left. "I don't know what to do with her!"

"That's obvious," Jiraiya snarked. "You're totally fucking up. Mito's ambitious and you're treating her like a child." Oops: maybe he'd said too much? –If so, he'd blame it on the drugs.

Minato closed his eyes and sank into an uncomfortable visitor's chair. "I don't want anything to happen to her. She ASKED for an S-class mission," he exclaimed, running his hands over his face. "Solo!"

"Yeah, she mentioned this morning that she may have been overly eager." My guess is that she wanted to hunt Obito: THAT was concerning but he sure wasn't going to mention it to Minato. "She learned her lesson."

"How?!" Minato asked in disbelief. Mito had taken on a high-priority mission, alone, knowing that he wanted to keep her in the village, under guard, and had succeeded in that mission. He let out a groan and allowed his head to flop back so that he was staring at the ceiling.

Jiraiya sighed and could only offer a shrug. "She helped me out: my goddaughter's healing, noisy presence was like a loud, divine intervention!" His student turned his head toward him and Jiraiya grinned. Minato was growing quite a bit of white hair in that sunny blonde of his. He couldn't help but chuckle at that and then realized that if Minato was getting old, then he was getting REALLY old! "I don't like getting old!" Stupid stones! Now I have to consider what I eat or drink, goddammit.

"Beats the alternative?"

"I guess you're right about that."

Minato sat up straighter in his chair and folded his hands together. "I'll let you get some rest after you tell me how this whole thing with Ame unfolded. But first, what kind of seals are those?" Jiraiya had ink that to most probably looked like "squiggles" wriggling all over his torso. There was a pattern and rhythm to their movement, though: they would be hypnotic if they didn't look so creepy. Interesting, though.

"Hell if I know: it's Mito's doing. Tsu said that there's some medicine in one of them and another is making tiny little shock waves? Or maybe I was too drugged out to understand. I'm fairly sure this one's got a pain reliever in it," he added, pointing to one seal.

"The morphine's not in your IV? Or in a pill or something?"

"That's just saline, I think," Jiraiya groaned and began reporting, blowing off the seals for a moment. "They took some risks, those Ame nins. Either that or they didn't realize they crossed their country's border to get to me."

Minato frowned. "Ame crossed into neutral territory to pursue you, a well-known Konoha nin? War's been declared for less."

"Let's not go there. Yugakure didn't detect the confrontation and I disposed of all evidence, including my pursuers. I was in a remote area but there were two squads of them, Minato, and they were good!"

.

Mito woke up, startled, and freaked at realizing that she was holding a kunai at Naruto's neck. She quickly put it under her shitty pillow. Her good one was in her quarters. "Otouto! Never startle a ninja! I'm so sorry," she said, biting back the tears that surprised her for all of a second.

"It's okay! Dad does the same thing, 'ttebayo."

"Well, that sucks but does sound about right." Mito propped herself up on an elbow but her body really wanted to go back to sleep. "I used to throw a pebble at him or Mom if I wanted to wake them up and then dodge, ya know? Same with Baa-chan and Ero-oji but I used heavier objects with them," she added with a grin. "They used to dodge in their sleep! –That's pretty awesome, right? ...Mom once told me that I used to do the same thing with my pacifier. Uhhh. I'm rambling: sorry. Don't laugh at me!"

Naruto thought that was funny. "Y-you had a- a pacifier!" It was hard to imagine his big sis as a baby. He could only remember one picture that he'd seen of her when she was like that: Baby Mito was in a crib, looked angry, and had that weird two-toned hair of hers but it was all standing out in all directions.

"Hush you! Babies are orally-fixated and…" She stopped when Naruto squealed in laughter, flopping down and rolling over on his back. "What?"

"'Orally-fixated;' that's funny."

"Hmph. You're funny."

"Thank you," Naruto grinned brightly as he sat back up.

Mito smiled and laid back down and looked over at him again. "I love you, kiddo." She bit back a chuckle at seeing him turn tomato-red. He had the same embarrassing overabundance of capillaries or issue with his sympathetic nervous system that she had, then. "So what's up?"

Naruto rubbed at the back of his head. "Um. Why aren't you coming home? You haven't been at family breakfasts or anything. And why don't you ever come downstairs? I could um… Use your help with homework?" Was it bad that he wanted to get to know his sister a little more? "But you gotta stay out of my way."

"The hell?" she said more to herself before rubbing her eyes. "Oh, sorry: there's no excuse for that kinda language, 'ttebane. –Ugh, I hate that tick."

Naruto scooted forward, still sitting cross-legged. "Dad said that it comes from Mom."

"It does." She smiled gently at him. "Sorry that I'm so sleepy. Do you want to hear a Mom story or are you full up on them?"

"Never!"

"Okay but tell me if you've heard this before," she requested and scooted over to the far side of her bedroll. Naruto didn't lay on it with her - he still seems so wary - but he did share the end of her pillow as he lay perpendicular to where she was. "This one time she took me to the Uzumaki Temple - somewhere I need to take you, by the way - but she was in a real hurry to get there, ya know? We fed the koi and the tropical fish we used to have there…"

"What kind? And why were there fish in a temple?"

"Well, the Uzumakis hail from Uzushio which is an island surrounded by the sea - which we hold incredibly dear, of course. Not only did we have real fish in a saltwater tank there - and Kaa-chan maintained some kind of seal on everything that kept the fish fed and the tank cleaned but I didn't know how to do it and… I… I let those fish die," she choked out as her throat clogged up. She felt her brother's fingers tentatively touch her own for a second and felt a little better. Or maybe worse: she wasn't sure. Sighing deeply, Mito admitted the truth. "It was my job after Mom passed to maintain our shrine and I failed."

"...ANYWAY; so-rry! I kinda went on a tangent there, didn't I?"

"Yeah," Naruto said sadly. "Will you take me there someday?" He was afraid she wouldn't want to although she did give him those scrolls about the temple. Naruto just wanted to see it and help if he could.

"Absolutely. Hey. Do you think it would be okay if I brought some similar fish back from the ocean around Uzushio? We could set up a tank again beforehand…" Mito let out a gasp. "I could assign a team to help buy and haul the crap there and…" Naruto had started giggling. "What is it? Why are you laughing?"

"Cuz you're all over the place, man! You talk like me but UNLIKE me, you tell a bad story!"

I know that! "Don't say that! I'm an adult and you're a brat: you know, a young person, I mean."

"You suck is what you are, dattebayo!"

Mito purposely gasped after internally questioning that strange statement. "You suck!" She jumped up and started tickling the VERY ticklish boy's sides, she found, before quickly zipping back to the ground and pretending that nothing happened. Then she let out a loud yawn.

Naruto rubbed his sides but was still smiling. "You're fast, nee-chan. I didn't even see you move… Ane."

"Maa, you can call me anything you want. Pretty much."

"Finish the story and YES! Let's get some fish. I want to help you catch 'em! I've never been to the ocean; it's supposed to be super, unimaginably big!"

"That it is; and it sounds really good, by the way. You're going to LOOOOOOVE the ocean. And Uzushio!"

"...So, back to the story - although I'll make a mental note to hire a team to help me out some cuz I can be lazy sometimes." She tapped her chin, trying to remember what had happened to upset her mother so much. "Kaa-chan made me travel on her back even though I was a Genin and fast, ya know. But she was faster back then. Or maybe it was because I had short legs, like you." Naruto began denying that as expected but Mito kept going. "We got there and ugh: maybe this isn't a good story. There are these masks at the temple that scare the crap out of me. But anyway, my clones helped clean them, and then Kaa-chan wanted to help me with a water jutsu while we were talking about the saltwater tank."

"She was water-natured," Naruto knew.

"And wind. She put a jellyfish in a water prison and tossed it at me." Naruto let out a bark of either laughter or disbelief. "I caught it! But when I sent it back to her, I guess I got carried away cuz I hit her and she got zapped."

Naruto gasped. "Was she okay?"

"Yeah," Mito said with a soft smile as she recalled what her mother did. "I had asked her to add a jellyfish to the tank at some point - but back then, when she did, the jellyfish was really little, right?" Naruto nodded, waiting for more of the story. "It got BIG, weirdly quickly. Anyway, it only managed to get one tentacle wrapped around her arm but each one of those suckers contains thousands of nanocysts, ya know: they produce the animal's venom. I thought she was either gonna kill me or the jellyfish but after yelling a little - which was understandable - she lowered it back into the tank and let me heal her as much as I could."

She told me she was proud of me afterward. Mito sniffed as she discreetly wiped at her face, hiding her eyes, feeling TERRIBLE that Naruto never got to hear their mother say those same words to him.

It was so unfair. "She was a really good person. She was so excited to be having you. She - we all - loved you so much; right from the start."

Naruto thanked her quietly and got up to leave the room, which said a lot about how much she'd possibly screwed up. Mito turned over and wished that she'd told him something else(?!) She was terrible at telling stories; her mother was a great person and so funny and bright; she deserved more and better from her. Letting a curse fly, she wrapped her arms around herself and closed her eyes again.

Red hair and equally red chakra whipped and burned the very air she tried to breathe.

Kaa-chan?

"Ojii-san? No!"

"...Don't let your chains control you, ya know."

Kaa-chan, it burns!

Don't die! Please don't die! Please be okay!

Blue eyes wept over her. "Oh no. Kushina… –Our baby girl, NO! Hiruzen, what have you done ?! BOTH of them?"

Mito sucked in a breath as she woke up. She put away the kunai she was holding again and turned away from the door a little as Shizune reclosed it. –The other medic had offered an apologetic wave for waking her up. Mito turned inward, took one look at the fox (again: as he'd just been there in her nightmares, trying to kill her family,) and wanted to vomit.

"Fuck me."

.

Naruto didn't seem to hold what she'd talked about against her and as she sat down at breakfast one morning (after reluctantly returning to her quarters. Sleeping in her and Shizune's shared office wasn't working out;) she asked him about something that had been on her mind. "So what are we doing for your birthday, kiddo?" Naruto looked a little uncomfortable. She hoped that wasn't because she was in Konoha now.

Stop being so self-centered, Mito! Naruto will be a teenager next year.
Oh, the angst! Oh, the drama!

- I can't wait!

"I don't always celebrate it," Naruto said. He looked like he was chewing the inside of his cheek.

"Bullshit and Blasphemy! I waited for a decade to even have a little brother and this is the first year I've ever gotten to celebrate his birthday with him. So, do you want a surprise party?"

Naruto wiped at his face and smiled foxily at what she had just said. "It wouldn't be a surprise now, though, would it? Now that you've said it?!"

"Hey! Oh, you're right," Mito joked with a knowing smile. "If you want one, I can genjutsu you and hopefully make you forget I ever mentioned it. I'm quite bad at genjutsus now so you could also end up quacking like a duck or something."

"Hmm," Naruto rubbed his chin as he looked up at the ceiling. "I don't care. And I like ducks! –Quack quack!" Mito laughed, making him happy. "No, really, I just want to graduate. Maybe I can get Iruka-sensei to give me my headband for my birthday!"

"Graduation's on the 15th, though, isn't it?"

"Yeah! Shikamaru-kun's Mom is throwing a big party for us."

"That's nice. But first, what about your birthday, Naru-kun? What do you want for it?"

Later that same night, Naruto sat next to his sister and in front of his homework, wishing he'd never, ever asked for help. Mito had been answering the first question, "Describe what a paralytic does" for what felt like hours.

"I THINK I'M GOOD NOW," he hollered as he ran for it as soon as she took a breath.

"Naruto? Naruto-kun?! Did I get carried away or was there something I was unclear about? Hey, come back here!"

.

A few days after that, Mito stepped into the arena housed in the hospital's administrative section. She adjusted the old projector and reluctantly looked up at her latest punishment for taking a mission and saving Jiraiya's ass. Oops: she meant that she looked up at her "students."

"My name's Namikaze Mito. Welcome to Level 3 Fuuinjutsu." She smiled when she met her brother's eyes; he was in her class. Most of those present were Chunin-level although there were a couple of other Academy students attending. "I understand that most of you have missions and your attendance here may be sporadic - so why don't we just call today's class something fun, ne? What do you think of calling this evening's lecture 'Basic Intermediate Fuuinjutsu: Fun with Explosions?'" A few of her "students" called out "YEAH!" or at least laughed or smiled and Mito decided that she could do this.

They seemed friendly enough.

She could definitely do this! She grabbed an earlier-made transparency with a standard explosive tag's matrix displayed on it and put it on the horribly bright projector.

Jeez, I wish I had one of those computer things. They had them in the west but Mito guessed Konoha hadn't stolen any recently.

"Alright. Why don't we start by enhancing your standard explosive seal? –To this one simple seal, we can add more power, we can contain that power in a variety of ways; we can replace the elements, or we can put a timer on it. OR, we can use it in a series to create a small barrier that will explode, of course. We can really go nuts! -Or you know, we can blow up the continent with a series of them: timed or with one massive BOOM. –Well, not with this seal exactly but you know: where there's a will, there's a way! Now, who's got an idea? Don't be shy!"

…

Her class went great! Which was probably why her father was now saying she wouldn't be doing it regularly anymore.

Mito was beginning to want to give him an up-front, personal view of that last hellish seal they'd come up with in class. Instead, he handed her three files. She opened the first one and sucked in a breath.

"I had some trouble deciding which kids to put with which Jounin-sensei. These three are yours. Don't say anything to anyone about who you've got, hm? Feel free to ask me, Gai, Asuma, or Kakashi for guidance on how to test them but I'm sure you'll lead them well. The Guard Platoon's previously tested kids, too."

Mito blinked rapidly several times as she checked who the other two kids were. "Very good. Um, like the bell test you used to evaluate teamwork? Is that the test you mean?"

- Tsunade repeatedly forced her and Shizune to get her cards or sake, sometimes with Asuma before he was placed in a Genin squad. The decks of cards or small bottles were a substitute for the bells, she'd said. She and Anko had also performed a "Bring Me the Snake Without Getting Bit" version of it with Orochimaru once.

Minato sighed, almost hating that test at this point. It had enabled his prodigious student to repeatedly send Genin candidates with real potential to the Genin Corps, year after year. "Kakashi uses that one so you might want to try something else - or I can get you another set of bells? I gave mine to him."

"Right," Mito nodded, lost in ideas for not torturing, er testing these three kids. "This is really happening, huh? I can't imagine these three NOT passing," she said with an excited grin that she tried to hide. "Are you sure you trust me with them? I won't let anything happen but two of them are clan heirs. One of them…"

"Of course I do! Lead them well, Mito-chan. You're dismissed –unless you want to go with me to get some ramen?"

"I guess we can do that. And seriously, Tou-san: um, thank you for your trust. Hokage-sama," she said, fist over her heart, "I'll do my best with them." She really would. The three students might not be the kids Mito had hoped for but she wasn't going to complain as long as Naruto and Sora got decent senseis, too.

These kids aren't going to know what hit them!