Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

Status: Incomplete

"You found him?" Their father asked her, eyes serious.

She stared at nothing, her hands shaking, her face as white as bone. Her hair was around her in inky black trails, stuck to her skin, sap and sweat and rain matting the thick locks. Her lips were blue in her face, and her eyes were wide, dark as slate, the whites showing.

Yasuo had brought her to their hut, had sat her down onto a seat, and run back into the village for the old healer by the creek. By the time he had come back, the healer-woman and her son in tow, Hitomi had not moved from her perch, eyes riveted on the rising and falling chest of the boy.

"Hitomi." Their father asked again, reaching out to catch her chin. "Hitomi this is important, this time, you have to listen to me."

His sister looked at their father, mouth opening in a speechless gape. There was something horrifyingly wrong with the way her face screwed up, her mouth pursing into a sob, and her eyes welled with tears. She didn't make a sound as she bowed her head into her hands, fingernails digging into her scalp, as she rocked herself back and forth.

She looked broken there, holding onto her head, her shoulders shaking with her sobs.

Their father had gone white in the face, and he made a little sound in the back of his throat—something caught between a sob and a grunt—before bending down to clutch at his daughter.

"Hito-chan, my little queen…" he enveloped her in his enormous arms, and pulled her close, tucking her head under his chin, his eyes closed in a grimace. "Did they do something to you? Did they…did they…touch you?"

Yasuo felt dawning horror grip his stomach, and he thought he stumbled back. He thought about how he found her, eyes wild, mouth open, blood around her fingernails—her hair a mess. How she was crying, and stumbling, and falling as she ran, and she could barely reign in her hysteria.

For a half, breaking second, he thought…

"N-No!" Hitomi sobbed out, and this time, she let out an accompanying grief-stricken whine. She clutched at their father, hands digging into the fabric of his yukata. "No…I there wasn't anyone but the child…he was alone Papa…he was dying, and I couldn't—I couldn't—"

Their father gasped in relief and brought her closer. "Shhh…hush, musume."

Yasuo watched, chest rising in relief, in awe of the way their father clenched his eyes, and pursed his mouth in silent worry. How he trembled and shook in terrible easement, and clutched at his daughter tighter, until Yasuo was sure that Hitomi couldn't quite breathe without a twinge in her lungs.

Ensui was not a sentimental man. He was quiet, and never quite voicing his thoughts. He was like Yasuo in the way he watched instead of speaking, and only raised attention when he interrupted, untroubled, when he didn't quite agree.

To see him, his father, a man of soft pride and importance, break at the sobs of his daughter was almost surreal.

"Will you tell me where you found him, Hitomi?" Their father asked, voice low. Hitomi cried harder into his chest, "It's important, my sweetling. Will you tell me?"

"Why?" She rasped, breaking away from their father's hold. Her eyes were wet, red, and her mouth trembled. She looked a mess of tears and snot and grief. Her hands still shook. "Papa…you're not going to hurt him…are you?"

"His people may come looking, Hitomi." Their father said evenly. "We cannot afford to lose more to the Clan Wars. Our crops are thin, our cattle are starving—we have no land to make fields from, no more rice paddies…we cannot bestow the child with our protection, not when we have so much to lose."

Yasuo, trying to lighten the blow, pitched in. "We do not even know if he is a clan-child, Otou-sama. We may be worrying for nothing."

His father's eyes were dark and strong. "He bears the Uchiwa emblem on his back—the blood thirstiest of them all. We cannot let them know we housed one of their own. Where the Uchiha roam, the Senju follow."

Yasuo winced at the stony look their father graced his sister with as she let out a stifled noise, looking away. He didn't think he could bear to see the betrayal flash in her eyes; the clearest and most pained they'd ever been.

"But Papa—you can't—Papa—" Hitomi's eyes went wild, panicked, and her throat worked as she grasped at her father's sleeves. "We need to protect him. We need to."

Their father's eyes were hard as he stepped back, even as his mouth creased in worry, arms crossed over his chest. "Hitomi I have allowed you to do as you please for all these years. We have had no troubles, inklings or stirrings of war…but now our village is suffering. The Clan Wars are closer than ever—the men in our village cannot protect us if they come here. We will be ravaged by war and bloodlust and their foolish squabbling."

Hitomi shook her head. "The earth is angry Papa, the winds roar for their grief—we cannot leave the boy; he is important. I beg you Papa, we must keep him safe."

"Hitomi!" Their father shouted, mouth severe. He looked, in that instant, paralyzed with fear and grief and rage. "I have had enough of your mind wandering. The earth cannot be angry, for it is a thing. The winds cannot roar, because they are not capable of emotion! You must be grounded in these times of fear, Hitomi—you cannot allow yourself to wander within the strange, eclectic whirring of your soul."

Their father looked her, shoulder stooping. He looked defeated, head down, eyes heavy. "It is better to let them believe he has died, to have them find him there in the forest, and think it was another Clan."

His sister stood, eyes unusually clear, her hands clenched at her sides. She was still wet, dripping. Her face was pale, her eyes red, and her mouth trembled.

"I will not let you." She whispered, and Yasuo gaped in shock at the blatant way she defied her father. "I will not let you harm him Papa, even if I have to stand in front of the blade myself."

…

Chiharu had not heard her daughter leave the house, but she had heard her husband rise from their futon, and pretended she was asleep. She breathed evenly when he dropped a kiss on her brow, and didn't murmur anything back when he whispered that he loved her.

She stayed quiet, and listened to the way his feet thumped on the ground as he made his way towards the thatched living room; listened to the way her daughter breathed loudly and panicking; listened to the way the old healer woman and her son made their way to the free bedroom, a gift from the butcher's family when young Hiroyuki landed his eye on her daughter, to check on the boy Hitomi and her son had dragged home.

Chiharu pretended she didn't listen to her daughter's distraught sobbing, even though her heart clenched, and her throat tightened, aching to run to her side.

If they had taken her virtue and stripped her of dignity, Chiharu did not think she could bring herself to shame her daughter for the vulnerability. Ensui…Ensui would take up his daisho and wakizashi once more and hunt them down to the ends of Amaterasu's green earth. She knew he would spend years hunting them, decades; that he would even let them take the last breaths from his lungs if he could strike them true.

Her husband was strong, and fierce, but while Yasuo and Hatsue were his children beloved, Hitomi was truly his heart. He adored her with a ferocity she knew would consume him if she were truly gone. Hitomi was the jewel of her father's eye—and while he was fair, and true and good to their other two, she knew that if Hitomi perished, Ensui would change; he would darken and obsess, and the light that came into his eyes when she stumbled on up the dirt path, flowers in her hair, songs in the wind, would wither and die.

And then she heard her daughter's words, strong and fierce, like her father, ever determined.

"I will not let you," Hitomi swore, and it was true and strong. Chiharu's heart beat too fast in her throat. "I will not let you harm him Papa, even if I have to stand in front of the blade myself."

And Chiharu, terrified of a life without her daughter's songs and quiet, ever-lasting adoration, rose up, and ran to the door and tore it open, and in her nightgown, with her silver hair unbound against her back, she rushed to her husband's side.

…

She startled so badly at the sight of her mother, hair unraveled and face squinty with sleep, that she nearly fell over. Only Yasuo's hands kept her knees from buckling beneath her.

"Chiharu—what are you doing—" her father stuttered in open shock, dark eyes wide. "I thought you were sleeping."

Her mother didn't stop to turn over his words, merely fell to her knees, forehead pressed against the dirt, hair fluttering around her.

"Ensui-sama." Chiharu said, and Hitomi's heart leapt in her throat.

Yasuo's grip tightened on her, and she thought she felt faint as she watched her father's looming figure, eyes awash with wary anger, look down upon her mother's. Hitomi knew her father was no cruel man—he treated his wife fairly, kindly, a great difference to some that resided in the village.

But with her mother prostrated on the ground in front of him, she could not help but wonder if he would degrade her like this, just because he could.

"Ensui-sama." Her mother spoke again, and her words did not waver, nor did her gaze look up from the dirt floor. "I ask that you grant her request."

Her father's eyes darkened, mouth working in anger, and for a searing, terrible moment, Hitomi thought he would strike out in anger.

"And why," her father bit out. "Should I do this?"

Her mother did not move from her bow, her feet did not waver, her arms did not tremble, and she bowed her head in the dirt. "Because," she began, and her words were strong and fierce, all the love of a lioness within them, "she has never asked for anything."

Her father's mouth tightened so much his lips went white in his face. The tendons in his neck strained, "Chiharu this is madness. You cannot ask me this."

"Shujin-sama. I beg this of you." Her mother did not rise. A lock of silver hair fell around her. "Hitomi-chan has never begged for anything. She has not asked or cried or sobbed for greed. She has been a good, kind child. She has not made herself a nuisance, has not even begged for food."

At this, her mother looked up at her father, gray eyes pleading in the flickering light of dawn. "This is the only thing she asks, Shujin-sama. I pray that you let her have it."

Her father said nothing for a small eternity. He merely looked, eyes dark and serious, on the sight of his wife, lying before him in the dirt, her nightgown wet and muddy, her skin pale, hair around in a pile.

There was a moment, a single, fleeting moment, when his eyes softened, just a hint.

Then he turned, hands tucked at his sides, and looked to the door.

Hitomi held her breath.

"If they come," he told her. "You will take responsibility."

And she thought of the cat's green eyes, and the way the earth had screamed its fury, and breathed a sigh of sobbing relief.

His footsteps were last thing she heard as the sun rose behind the clouds, shining down on the little village.

shujin-sama: the formal way to husband, or so I am led to believe.

wakizashi: the traditional sword of a Japanese samurai

daisho: the matching sword to the wakizashi worn by the samurai class

Sorry I have not been able to update for a couple of days! I've been so busy with class and such I have not had the time.

Expect more chapters in the following days.

Thank you for all the wonderous reviews,

Enjoy :)