Chapter Four
Kanae's death had hit them hard, and their brother's death hit them harder.
No—not just his death. His brutal murder. Seven years old and dead in the midst of war, hailed as a noble sacrifice in this world of (unnecessary) necessary evils.
Mitsuba didn't get to see the body, or the burial. Only heard all the dirty details secondhand, from Itama, as he bawled into her shoulder and tried, tried to be strong, be a shinobi, but utterly failed. And who could blame him.
Kawarama wasn't the first child to die, and he wouldn't be the last. Yet his brutal killing brought on a heavy blow that hit their family in a way that would never mend. The entire compound became sick with unrest in the wake of the clan head's loss—even Mariko allowed her a break from lessons.
It hardly felt real. And despite knowing he was long gone, a small part of her still expected him to stride into the compound with that dopey but sweet airheaded smile on his face while he picked his nose and sought her out to ambush her with a laugh and a smelly hug on his way to the baths, or whined and begged for an upset stomach fix when he ate too much, always the glutton.
No…no more of that.
Tobirama didn't speak. Didn't seem focused, either. The one time she saw him, he didn't even notice her, too busy staring into space, trapped in his own thoughts.
It affected Hashirama deeply. Sparked a defining outrage in him that would forever change history, and also drove a wedge between him and their father to the point where he frequently disappeared and left the compound on his own—likely to meet up with Madara for that short-lived summer friendship.
Kawarama's death and Madara's arrival were only numbers on a timer ticking ever closer to...
Mitsuba's fingers curled tight around the sleeves of Itama's dark green kimono top while he sniveled and hiccupped, face pressed tight against her sleeve in a mash of tears and snot as they sat on the veranda in the summer heat.
It was a familiar situation, just like the time he'd seriously fallen ill.
The memory resurfaced slow and blurry. Out of focus like an old-fashioned TV screen full of white noise—one that required fine-tuning for the picture to come through, but not so much that it was lost in passing as it overlapped with reality.
The sound of static, though, wasn't static at all. It was the steady and incessant pitter-patter of raindrops drumming against the wooden roof overhead, and the engawa just beyond the door. Thankfully staying outside where it should be, and not seeping through the cracks and into the tatami mats and thin, skewed futon that already failed to fend off the cold.
Mitsuba dipped an old cotton cloth into the half-filled basin at her knees until it was well and submerged, then drew it out and wrung most of the lukewarm, herb-infused moisture free. What remained dripped along her kimono as she dabbed at the sweaty, sticky face buried against her obi.
Crybaby, she wanted to say, but she couldn't, not when he was coiled up like an accordion, knees drawn to his chest, breathing ragged between muted whines of pain, eyes shut tight and seeping tears at the edges despite his best efforts. Instead, she hummed gently—not a tune she recognized, but one she remembered instinctively through the haze of a time long past. A soothing voice had always guided her through times of suffering, after all. A cool cloth to coax the heat of the fever out, and a soft lap to cry on, too.
Whether it was Kanae or a mother from another time, she didn't know.
But she did remember what Kanae had told her.
You must take care of your brothers, Mitsuba. They are far too diligent. She'd spoken those words almost as a tenet even before the days leading up to her death. But in retrospect, she was asking her a favor. She was asking her to be there for them when she knew she wasn't long for this world.
So she did. Even if it wasn't just for Kanae's sake.
Itama got sick often—whether from allergies or just plain lack of thought. But this time it was…bad. He wouldn't have gotten sick at all if he hadn't insisted on continuing his kata when he first started showing symptoms.
All just to impress their father.
"Stupid," she sighed out on a breath, a whisper hidden in the notes of the familiar song. There was no way a warmonger who threw his sons into the hungry, fanged jaws of combat as sacrificial lambs would ever truly praise their struggles. When death struck them down in cold blood, he would only bow his head a moment.
And it would strike them down. Again, and again, and again. Always.
Their body count would justify a victory, eventually. Those fortunate enough to live through it would ease their grief with triumph. They would pacify that sick, black serpent of guilt constantly by claiming they did the right thing, but it would always remain coiled up within—a sin burned deep into the soul.
Just seeing her brother here, so small, so weak, brought on a stale wave of nausea.
What if he died from this, instead of someone striking him down? Taken by sickness may have been the less cruel fate.
"Mitsu…keep singing. Please."
She hadn't realized she'd stopped. But with the way he pleaded, with that weak, raspy voice, through tightly clenched teeth, how could she refuse?
His small hands (the same as hers) coiled into the folds of her kimono as he curled up closer, like an animal seeking warmth.
Hey…let's run away from here. Let's go somewhere better. You can be a normal kid. You won't have to grow up so fast.
…You won't have to die before you do.
The words came so easy, in her head. But they stuck to her tongue, cleaved into pieces by the teeth that tried to speak them. "I'm sorry," was all she could manage before she picked up the song once more.
I'm sorry.
Mitsuba blinked away the memory when a sharp and sudden moisture pricked at her eyes. Back then, she hadn't been able to speak the words in her heart. But now…? Now, when it was more crucial than ever?
At some point, she'd threaded her fingers through his grown-out, tangled two-tone hair—black and white, light and shadow. With hair like that, surely he should have been prescribed a better fate. To stand as the balance and to help destroy the crooked system, or at least find a way to meet in the middle. But…he wasn't, and he wouldn't. Each time he set foot on the battlefield, it may as well be a funeral march. Because one day…one day, he wouldn't return. Just like Kawarama.
And as each day dragged by, she wasn't sure she could handle that. Not again.
Her eyes dropped from the treetops fringing the space beyond the compound's walls to the top of his head. "Itama…" She spoke barely above a whisper, and it went unheard, lost in his breaths that leveled out to snores. Fast asleep.
How far can we make it on our own? Can two children survive out there? Would it be enough?
No—she knew the answer instinctively.
But she couldn't stay here anymore. She couldn't just sit around in wait for his slaughter only to hear about it days—weeks—after the fact, left wondering and worrying. It was cruel. It was torture.
A low sigh left her lips as she let her fingers slip from his hair and fall quietly to the wooden slats beneath them. "Itama," she asked again, knowing her words went unheard as his calm breathing continued on, undisturbed, but carrying on his side of the conversation in her mind as if he had heard, and did respond.
Mitsu?
"Do you believe in reincarnation?"
Mm... I dunno. Why?
"I think…" She chose her words on measured breaths, choosing and laying them out one by one like she was setting up a castle of cards, "I think the person I used to be was waiting to die for a long, long time. In a wasted life. One not worth living, day after day, with more problems than solutions. And pain. But…seeing things now, maybe the me of the past was wrong. Maybe she should have wished she'd stayed alive a little longer, and shouldn't have taken what she had for granted before she lost it.
"There are always going to be struggles, and problems…and pain. And I don't want to waste this new life. I want something happy. I want hope. Even if I can't reach it, if I can't find it, I still have to try. Itama…"
She hesitated. Looked down at the fingers clinging loosely to her kimono, so small, so young, but so bruised and calloused, as she gently pried them away and lowered his head carefully, so carefully, to the floor. He tended to sleep heavy around her, safe at home—didn't stir at all.
"Goodbye."
Today—and today, only, perhaps, was simultaneously the best and the worst day to flee. Because, like an eclipse, it aligned perfectly with Hashirama's absence, and in turn Tobirama's. Whether he and Butsuma were aware of who he was meeting yet, she didn't know. All she knew was that her sneaky brother was nowhere in sight. Not in the main house, not meditating at his usual place on the stepping stones in front of the koi pond where Kawarama had once tried and failed to shove him into the water as he honed his sensory abilities.
Despite it being the midst of summer, a strained and solemn cold had dropped over the compound like a wet and heavy blanket. Even clouds had gathered, blocking out the sun. Promising tears as their way of mourning.
A little too late, really.
When her brothers were home, no guards watched over her. Perhaps it was something Butsuma overlooked, assuming her brothers could hold her attention and distract her from her true goal. Or with Kawarama's death still hanging over his family's thoughts, he'd simply forgotten. Either way, she used their absence to her advantage and ducked around to the back of the meeting hall where the hole in the compound's wall remained, well out of sight behind overgrowth and just waiting for mischievous children to find it again.
If it hadn't been for Itama, she'd have never known it was there at all.
She dropped down onto her knees and thrust her hands into the scratchy shrubbery, pushing it aside and squinting into the shadows for the telltale signs of sunlight streaming through cracked concrete. There—it was faint, but light did spill through from the other side. No one had noticed a slip of deteriorated wall or even tried to repair it after so many years.
All the better for her.
She drew her hands back and took a quick glance at the sleeves bunched at her arms, then dug a hand behind her obi to pull out a folded length of white fabric—took the tie between her teeth and quickly wrapped her sleeves up, to keep them well out of her way.
Now, there was nothing in her hands—no supplies, no weapons. Only the clothes on her back, and the field journal tucked away deep into the folds of her kimono, stuffed full of loose leaf pages of her own messy notes. All she needed was the forest—to feed her, and when there was a river, to bathe her. To hide her. To protect her.
Until she found something else.
She cast one, final glance over her shoulder, to the unoccupied meeting hall at her back, to the corner, fully expecting a familiar face to round it at any second.
No one showed.
She hiked her kimono up to her knees and crawled through the bushes until she was free and clear on the other side. Picked a direction and ran.
Never had running been harder.
The ground, deceptively even, without bumps, tripped her up at almost every step, as if the dirt itself and the roots below reached up with grabbing fingers to stop her. The trees, standing silent, bent down over her from above with branches like clawed arms that tore at her skin even when she seemed well out of their reach. And, as if sensing her strife, as if refusing to cover her escape with their sounds, the cicada did not cry. The birds did not chirp. The wind didn't even stir the leaves. The forest was silent, save for her footsteps that seemed to echo far too loud each and every time they struck the ground.
It's just in your head, she told herself. Just keep going. As far as you can.
Heat surrounded her—the thick, rising humidity of oncoming rain. It caught her like a web trying to pull her back the further she ran, refusing to break. The struggle coated her forehead in droplets that matted her two-colored bangs to her skin and ran into her eyes as she squinted to keep the ground ahead of her in sight.
Something snapped.
With a strangled cry, she threw her hands out in front of her to catch the dirt as the world turned topsy-turvy and collided with her body. One hand smashed against an outcropping of thick roots from a tree, scraping into her skin and jamming two fingers, but better them than her face, or her nose.
A quick glance at her left foot revealed her sandal straps had broken and slipped out from under her sole.
She exhaled deeply, letting her body relax against the ground as she dropped her forehead against one of her sprawled arms. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears.
After all the training… How embarrassing.
Slowly, she pushed herself up and retrieved the broken sandal, turning it over in her hands and contemplating just how she was supposed to keep on walking without its protection. There was no fixing it—not unless...unlesss…
It would leave her with a lessened range of movement, but she untied the tasuki to let the sleeves of her teal kimono fall free, and held the stretch of narrow white fabric between her hands, trying to figure out how to tie her shoe back to her foot and keep it fixed in place without slipping or coming undone again. She could forage, she could fish and hunt small game, she focus her chakra—but she wasn't a girl scout. She couldn't tie decent knots. Mariko had complained several times about her lack of fine finishing when it came to sewing, even if the knots and tie-offs were always out of sight. Especially when it came to tying fancy obi knots—the damn crone's birthday came early when she discovered that was a particular weakness of hers.
Just tie it like a shoelace, her mind provided, and she could visualize her reflection shrugging, nonchalant. But there was too much fabric for that—she couldn't leave it trailing along waiting to trip her up again.
Hmph. Some ninja you are, then.
Words of doubt grated on her ears as she set her foot back into the straw sandal, stepping onto the fabric strip and bringing it up over her ankle.
Why did you even run? Even with chakra, what can you do? Where can you go? This isn't like home. You can't phone Daddy to come find you when you're lost. Or your sisters. Or your brothers. Not that they'd even come.
And what about the bears? Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my.
This isn't Sesame Street. This isn't even Oz. This is a feudal land rife with wild beasts that are both human and animal, and you are on the enemy's territory, no matter how far you go.
Where will you ever find freedom in a place like this? How can you possibly survive?
Just go back. Go back and be safe and support your brothers, just like Kanae asked. There's no shame in putting aside the desire for physical strength and keeping your hands clean with sewing and flowers and herbs and housework. Everyone has a role no less than any other—something only they can do. Sometimes it isn't fighting or rebelling. Doesn't have to be.
She couldn't close her ears to the words that bit from within.
Support your brothers—until they died? No.
No.
Not again.
There was no hope—not back there. Only a pillow slowly pressing down, suffocating.
This—this was her answer, and the decision had been made long ago.
Eventually, she managed to wrap her shoe back to her foot with the length of fabric, and tied it securely across the top. It didn't loosen when she tugged at it, anyway. And when she took a few steps to test it, it didn't slip.
Her eyes wandered toward the patches of sky that filtered through the leaves and branches. The cloud covering still concealed the sun's position, but it was still sometime in the afternoon. Not much time had passed.
Still, she had to keep going. Sooner or later, her family would notice her absence and send pursuit.
The only way to avoid a shinobi was to maintain a vast distance and never let them cross it.
As for whatever enemies lingered out here, away from the safety of her home? She'd just have to do her best to avoid them.
She took a deep breath to balance herself, pressed her hands tight to her chest, and ran.
Or, tried to run, before she stopped dead in her tracks.
Really, she should have known. Just leaving, so simply, with no one blocking her way had been far too easy. Running for so long without someone on her tail had just been a foolish hope.
Thinking she could get away without saying a proper goodbye was just too much.
"Itama."
He stood in her path with unshed tears in his eyes and hands clenched into fists at his sides, meeting her stare with a pout. So, so small and taking the full weight of this responsibility on his shoulders.
"I thought I was dreaming," he said, voice clogged with sobs he did his best to hold back. "But then I woke up and you weren't anywhere, Mitsu. I looked all over the compound. I saw the bushes moved aside. I just… Are you really that unhappy here with us? Do you hate us? Hate me?"
Words failed her. Really, what could she say that wouldn't just make him cry?
"I can't think of anything else, because with Kawa—with Kawarama g-gone, there's no way you could just abandon us if you didn't." The tears dribbled down his cheeks and he lifted his arm to scrub them away before dropping it back to his side. "And—I never heard you talk like that before. I was—I'm scared. I don't wanna lose you too, Mitsu." He squeezed his eyes shut and sniffled, and the pain distorting his gentle face broke her heart as she struggled to respond.
"No, Itama, I…" She held out a hand and let it hover in the air between them, unable to cross the distance. Afraid that if she did, she'd never leave again. It fell back to her side. "Please just go back. Go back."
He sniffled, again, this time dragging the back of his gray haori across his messy face. "No! I told you, didn't I? I'll protect you. You don't need to—to be so difficult. Just—just come back home with me and…and be our sister."
"And what does that leave for me?" she snapped back, sharp and hot in a burst of rage, shoulders tensing as she raised her clenched fists, lips trembling from pressing them together so tight. "I know you care. I know. That's why you have to go! I can't—"
"Mitsu!" He dropped his hand away from his face and frowned, mirroring her expression with the face they all but shared. The fair half of his hair still stuck up, crooked, from where he'd been sleeping on the floor, but in this moment it was like an angry cat's puffed-out fur. "I told you I'm not going back! Not without you! How could I just leave you out here?"
His brief bout of fury cooled into resignation.
"Please. Please just…find a way to be happy with us. You…you don't know what it's like out here. You don't know how happy it makes us to have a little sister to go home to. Kawarama…" His voice caught. "Kawarama talked about it all the time. He thought so much of you. So, so much—sometimes I hated it because I always thought I liked you the most. Because we're twins…shouldn't it be that way? But you're always so closed-up and distant I can never tell how close you are to anyone. Then you go and do something like this and I just…"
He took a step forward—just a small one, to test her reaction. When she didn't move, didn't try to run, he continued forward and reached a shaking hand out to touch a jagged tear in her kimono, just under the shoulder. Then at the others that peppered her sleeves, and even at a scratch on her face she hadn't felt.
A little mother hen, parroting how she'd cared for him.
Slowly, slowly, she held out her arms and wrapped him in an embrace he gladly returned.
"Fine," she breathed, too exhausted to be angry as he clung tightly to her and she smoothed her hand along his back. "Fine, Itama. I was going to ask you to come with me, you know, but how could I when you say things like that?"
"If I could," he said, voice tearful and muffled by her kimono, "I would go with you. I have to protect you, after all. But…you don't get it, Mitsu. Hashirama, Tobirama, Kawarama... Dad says we all fight so people like you don't have to. We fight to protect our clan, our families, to assure them a future of peace and make sure no one who's been struck down dies in vain. Kawarama…I can't just let him die without reason."
You poor, brainwashed child. His death isn't yours to avenge. It wasn't your fault. And this isn't your fight.
Even so, he spoke with such conviction that it almost moved her.
"Shinobi are born to fight, and to die."
She pushed him away.
"It's shit," she spoke plainly, testing out a swear on her child's tongue for the first time and finding it bitter. "It's shit you don't deserve. Adults, fathers, using their children to fight a war is—is…it's shit."
"Mitsu! Don't speak ill of Dad!" A flash of anger—fear—and disbelief, sparked in his dark eyes. Absolute blasphemy.
"Come with me," she said, now, insisting. Demanding. No sweet or tolerant words left in her. "We'll run away together and you will be a normal child. If—if I can save you, then…"
He snatched her arm up by the wrist and tried to drag her back the way she'd run from.
Her heels dug straight into the dirt, chakra focused fully on keeping her anchored where she stood.
"Mitsu, you—"
"Don't 'Mitsu' me, Itama! You're right, okay? I can't understand! I don't want to understand something so stupid. If you could just…if you could just see how wrong things were, this would be so much easier."
"You sound just like Hashirama," he completed his sentence, expression set in a pinched and worried pout as his eyes dropped to the ground. His grip on her arm loosened, but didn't completely fall away as he turned toward her with trembling lips. "I don't get stuff like that. I just do what Dad says. If I follow him, I know things will be okay…so don't…don't say those things."
"You know Kawarama's death was wrong. And I do understand you wanting to—to avenge his memory." She struggled for the proper words—the words that would sway him. The words that would save him.
Because, if there was any rhyme or reason to why she'd been born here, this could be it. It was as good as any other.
She'd resigned herself to acting as their stand-in mother…and mothers protected their children.
No. So did sisters—they protected their brothers, too.
They didn't just run away, alone.
She grit her teeth. "But I can't be here anymore. I can't watch my brothers, children, die for no good reason, one by one. Think of how I would feel, to be the only sibling left."
She paused.
"Run away with me now so I don't have to be."
The right words hit her like a lightning bolt. She took a breath, and took the plunge.
"Mom would want you to."
He broke.
He snatched his hand away from her arm and held it close to his chest as if stabbed. Took a full step back.
Complete, ringing silence filled the space between them as he lifted his head and met her eyes with a vacant stare, struck speechless by the sheer nerve of bringing up their dead mother in this situation. But even he couldn't deny the validity of the statement.
Again, he squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head. "Mitsu, I told you…I can't do that. We should go, now, and get home before dark. Just—please, Mitsu." When he opened them again, they were red at the edges and full of tears.
He tore his eyes away from her and looked around them, anywhere else.
"I can't even…I don't even know where we are, right now. I wasn't paying attention. It's getting dark. Cloudy."
Looking around now, neither did she. Whichever direction she'd come from had long been lost to her eyes and all paths looked the same, lined by trees and shrubs alike, never ending.
She took a breath to steady herself. "How did you find me?"
"I can track. That's easy! But the reverse…"
"Did Butsuma ever say which direction the compound was on your way home?"
If he did, she'd just go the opposite way.
He shot her an odd look when she used their father's name, but didn't question it and only shook his head. A pout overtook his lips. His fingers curled into fists.
"…Are you playing dumb just to lead me back there?"
"No! I promise, Mitsu! I'm not that clever. But it's a good idea… Ah! Don't change the subject." He stopped, almost wincing as he pressed a hand to his forehead. "Hashirama said there was a farm north of the compound. Sometimes they give us rice when our rations are low. Otherwise, we—we can wait until the sun sets and find out where we are from that. If the clouds clear…"
She shrugged, setting her hands on her hips. "Fine. We'll look for the farm."
"You don't sound like you mean it."
"…There's no guarantee we'll find it. All we can do is walk. Somewhere."
Hopefully far, far away from everything.
"Yeah. I guess you're right. But—just remember I'm definitely taking you back, once we find the way!"
With a long-suffering sigh, she held out her hand. He took it immediately.
They set off once more. Wandering, not quite aimless, but as good as lost, like Hansel and Gretel without a trail of breadcrumbs. Only, a witch and an oven didn't await them. No, not a witch and her oven.
At some point, the clouds grew tired of holding in their moisture and dripped rain in a slow, hazy drizzle that caught on the overhanging leaves until it flooded over and fell in fat, heavy droplets on their heads. At some point, Itama draped his gray haori over her head to keep her dry.
When the dirt got too wet, their sandals began to stick in mud, slimy and treacherous and stinking beneath their feet and splashing up over the edges of their soles, all the way to their ankles.
To two children lost in the wild, the world was unforgiving. But she'd known that. She knew that, and she continued on regardless.
Between patches in the trees, the sky faded from pale blue-gray to a smoky purple-gray, threaded with spidering flashes of lightning. Thunder rumbled like drumbeats, distant but steadily approaching.
The rain became a torrent, swirling in the mud at their feet and creating small ponds like mires, eager to grab them and never let go.
Still not too late in the day, but could have been evening for how dark it had become.
"We have to stop," Itama panted out after some time, resting his hand against a tree as he pulled his mud-covered foot free from a sticky puddle. "We aren't getting anywhere in this storm."
"We can keep going," Mitsuba insisted, having lost her shoe and her tasuki to the sludge surrounding them—easier to walk through it than on sharp, dry land.
Their hair clung tight to their faces and necks—she'd even lost his haori to the wind, and to the mud it fell into. Low branches had caught the high bun on her head and snagged it from its tie, leaving it free in a long, wet tangle hanging heavy down her back.
Ahead of them was a wide, surging river, flooded, with its current strengthened by the unforgiving rainfall. It was the only way forward. Otherwise, searching for a way around it would take up the rest of their day.
"Mitsuba! Just look at the river. How?!"
Using her full name—he rarely lost his temper with her. Today, though, his irritation was understandable. She was pushing. Too hard, too far, persistent as the downpour. Even she knew. But it was too soon to stop.
"You're a shinobi. Can't you find a way?"
"I—I can't. We have to wait."
Wordlessly, she turned her back on the roaring river and crossed her arms as she took refuge under the tree with her brother, if only to show her displeasure. The foliage did little to actually shield them from the rain, but having something solid at their backs during the storm was at the very least reassuring when the ground shifted every second.
They waited in silence as they leaned against a tree trunk, side by side, shoulders pressed close together. There was nothing to say that hadn't already been said.
"How far do you think we are?" she asked anyway, watching him sidelong as his worried gaze flitted over the area around them.
He didn't answer, too focused to listen. And too preoccupied with something else, with his lips pressed together tight, like he'd sucked on a lemon. She hadn't noticed it before, but his shoulders had tensed up, and he wrung his hands together, shifting from foot to foot as the rain drip-dropped onto his head.
"Itama?"
"What?"
She repeated the question, eyebrows furrowed.
"I don't know. Not too far, I hope." He didn't meet her eyes, still staring at their surroundings.
"Well, we'll leave as soon as—why do you keep fidgeting?"
"I—umm. It's nothing."
"It's not nothing." She nudged his arm with her shoulder, frowning. "Tell me."
"It's—I have to pee! I was supposed to, when I woke up and saw you were gone. When I followed you I just forgot, and—this rain isn't making it any better. But there's not really a place to go…I'll just hold it! Don't worry about it."
"Don't hold it! That's not good for you. Here—I'll turn around. Just go." Saying so, she turned her back and crossed her arms, taking a small step away—as far as she could go without slipping in the mud.
He huffed a sigh, probably pouting at her, but didn't reply aside from a grumble. Fabric shifted behind her, but other than that small sound, everything else was lost to the rain beating against the ground.
Jeez. He needs to take care of himself a little better. She'd tell him that out loud, if she wasn't sure he'd just throw the words right back at her.
Even so…when he wasn't out watching, analyzing the woods around them, everything seemed so much bigger. And darker. And dangerous. Her senses hyper-focused in his absence, but there was nothing to see—nothing to give form to. Only a lingering, nonphysical presence of dread.
He bumped her back with his shoulder when he returned to her side.
"Done? Good. I—"
His hand slapped over her mouth—he grabbed a fistful of her kimono sleeve and dragged her down toward the ground, holding a finger tightly to his grimacing lips and glancing off to the side, eyes wide and pupils impossibly small.
At first she didn't see, didn't know what he'd spotted because: pee hands, pee hands! He's touching me with pee hands! But the indignation and disgust evaporated, replaced by something worse.
A presence—dark, heavy, hot,as hot as the first flames she'd awoken to—passed close by, not making a sound amid the thousands of raindrops striking the mud. So, so close—just above their heads, with only their tree and a small scrub of bushes between them.
It stopped. Lingered. Burned.
"Hn... I thought I heard voices." The voice belonged to an adult man. Speaking in a deep, rasping voice, more to himself than anything, but whoever he was, he was an enemy, and enemies did not travel alone.
Itama's eyes remained wide and his lips parted the moment he lowered his hand from them, reaching slowly into the back of his hakama for what she could only hope was a kunai. No—by the look of utter despair that creased his eyes, she knew he'd found nothing there but fabric. He shut his eyes tight, briefly, then turned his head slowly toward the man's voice. Just as slowly, he dropped his hand away from her mouth, trusting her to hold the silence that was crucial to their survival.
"Perhaps not."
Mitsuba curled her fingers deep into the squelching mud beneath her, not moving, not breathing, as they waited for the man to leave, none the wiser that there were indeed two children who'd been speaking only moments before.
They remained frozen for what felt like hours—but couldn't have been, because the rain never ceased and didn't let up at all. If anything, it fell faster. Colder.
Gradually, the burning presence dissipated.
Itama's eyes returned to hers as he pressed a finger to his lips once more, brow furrowed deep. The lines around his eyes were an awful sight; no child should ever look so frightened. But she was sure her expression looked the same. Felt it in the pinched, tight-lipped frown and squinting eyes.
He took hold of her arm once again and hefted them both to their feet, careful to keep her close and to keep them from slipping in the mud when they regained their footing. She was ahead of him, there, and controlled her chakra the best she could, knowing one bad step could ruin them.
They didn't even get to take one step.
"Only joking. I see you."
Red eyes burst to life before them like burning pin lights, so bright and bold she could see the single tomoe burning in each iris like punched-out black holes.
The scream died in her throat as Itama lurched forward and threw his arm out to shield her. Even unarmed in the face of their worst enemy.
Uchiha. He's an Uchiha. Uchiha… The name circled in her mind, whirling like a tornado.
"What are two children doing out here in the forest, alone, during a storm?" He spoke in a cool, deceptively calm tone, shrouded mostly in shadow save for those awful eyes. "You'll catch cold."
"That boy's a Senju. I recognize the ugly hair." Another voice. Another Uchiha.
A chill skittered down her spine faster than the rain that trickled across her skin as the silhouettes of the two shinobi advanced out of the shadows, starting with their eyes and ending with their devil smirks.
Itama's foot slid back against the mud, just slightly—he grabbed her and ran. Toward the roaring river, though he'd claimed they had no way to cross it. Maybe this situation called for it—for an adrenaline leap that would carry them both over. Because chakra could do that. It could.
It had to.
As they ran, sprinted, Mitsuba grew acutely aware of every tree, every root, every leaf surrounding them, glowing a dull green in the halo of the raindrops that bounced off their surfaces. Even the grass, swaying beneath the puddles they both kept their feet above, though hers dipped through more than she would have liked.
The river was close. Had only been a short distance away.
"Mitsuba," he whispered at her ear, voice hoarse with an urgent fear as they approached the muddy bank that sluiced rain straight into the raging current. "You have to jump. You can do it, you—you've been training your chakra, right? I'll help you. Just—just jump. As far as you can."
"I—" Words escaped her, stuck deep in her throat as one hand pressed on her back and the other gripped her at the waist and he ran faster, sandals pounding against the flooded ground in wild ripples.
"Go!" he shouted as his feet hit the edge, just short of falling straight in.
More than helping her jump, he threw her. She pushed off the river bank with both feet and, with the aid of his strength (all of his strength, she knew), her body sailed through the air, weightless. But only in her mind.
The rain weighed her down and that, combined with gravity, pulled at her as she descended hard and fast toward the other side, barely clearing the opposite bank. Her knees caught the edge and she crashed deep into the mud as the river whirled around her legs, trying to suck her straight into the rapids—but she gripped the muck and hauled herself up to higher ground with shaking hands.
"Itama." She expected to see him at her side when she blinked the blur of rain and dirt from her eyes. No. No one else had followed. "Itama!"
The rain beat down upon her like glass as she wrenched her body from the sucking mud and crawled back to the edge of the bank with fingers digging into the weak ground like claws, straining to see across—to find her brother.
She did find him—and the two Uchiha men, too. Smiling, cruel, looming over her brother, her brother, like wraiths as he remained standing at the edge of the riverbed, shoulders squared. Brave—so brave. Even when the men drew their katanas.
"Goodbye, Mitsu," she thought she heard him say, but the wind, the rain, was deceiving, and, really, how could he speak when his legs were shaking so bad? His lips, too, were surely pressed tight as tears raced down his cheeks, lost in the rain. Yes—they definitely were. He turned to smile at her over his shoulder just after speaking, eyes wide, terrified, as a blade sank through his stomach like a knife through tender apple flesh and not a child's body, not—
"ITAMA!"
Wind shrieked in her ears as lightning crackled down and splintered trees, as her heart shattered, as something within her snapped and pulled and wrenched free and grew and grew and grew and grew—
Her hands slipped.
The river swallowed her whole in its chilled, gaping jaws, chewing her up and tossing her about, bashing her between the roughened crags of pebble teeth at its floor and the hardened, slashing fingers of fallen trees and punching rocks that lurked within it.
Her kimono caught. Tore.
Her bones rattled in her skin.
Her face burned, straight across the eye. Ripped open.
She felt it—she felt it all, until she didn't.