II. Sprout
Chapter Six
The thing about faking a smile for so long is that, eventually, it becomes second-nature. You start to forget it's an act at all.
Mitsuba liked to think she grew into her mask well.
Two years passed, but the pain in her heart never dulled. The memory—the voices that never left her, asleep or awake—sharpened her, propelling her through each day she trained in secret with Touka, and sometimes Souma.
She'd gained several tiny scars across her hands and fingers from handling kunai and shuriken and sometimes a sword (because, oh, she wanted to be ready for the day she found those men, to skewer them as they'd done to Itama) that she skillfully blended in to needle pricks from embroidery tasks and scrapes from chores and gardening incidents.
All things considered, she juggled her two sides of life as the obedient child and rebellious daughter well—even if she didn't really need to.
Butsuma still hadn't spoken to her. Not a single word. She may as well have died that day, for the way he ignored her.
Even so, she smiled at him whenever he passed her by and she followed his orders that were passed along to her through Mariko without complaint.
(Her demeanor had shifted along with her thoughts that Mitsuba's life as a woman had already ended before it even began, and she turned a blind eye to the unsightly scars peppering her hands—let her do as she pleased, now.)
She couldn't blame him, really…he was a busy man. Hashirama's infamously short-lived friendship with Madara and subsequent familial clash had sparked greater conflict between the two clans that pitted them against each other even more frequently than before.
It hadn't always been so extreme, but as word of their victories and losses spread throughout the lands, as two particular brothers and their siblings began to display notable strength and prowess, the names Senju and Uchiha became prevalent. If a lesser mercenary clan had harassed a village, a farming community and its coveted land, the victims pooled their funds and hired the Senju. If the patron who'd set that lesser clan upon that village lost it to said Senju, they spent twice as much to hire the Uchiha.
The conflicts grew from simple land disputes to assassination attempts and sabotage of the power-hungry opulent to—anything and everything. Whatever the ones holding the hiring contracts could conjure in their petty minds for a war they couldn't fight on their own. At times, even, the two clans intentionally sought each other out, hungry for blood.
There were other clans besides the Senju and Uchiha, though. Smaller, satellite clans found it necessary to integrate with one or the other or risk facing them in battle and falling to extinction. The braver ones, though, like the Hagoromo, still lingered, sometimes resulting in three-way deadlocks, if not a bloodier battle.
In the two years since their move to the new compound, the Senju clan had been joined by the Hou clan. The Uchiha had picked up the Naka, somewhere along the way—and they both continued to grow out of necessity in this war without end.
Mitsuba didn't have anything to do with any of that—but she learned it anyway, as Touka explained the current situation when no one else would.
Today, while Touka tended to other things, Souma took up that duty.
There weren't always such crucial developments and, oftentimes, the state of affairs were drawling and dull, more like the plotting of a shogi game than breaking news.
This clan has moved further out west, and that clan has purportedly expressed interest in a tentative alliance. The death toll has increased this week and the clan branch in the camp to the east is out for blood payment. A new patron has expressed interest in buying out an entire clan for privatized defense and everyone is anticipating a bid…
Mitsuba listened to his reports—what he could report of it, anyway—as she plowed out a trench for the season's seedlings, digging her fingers deep into the warm summer soil and foregoing tools because getting her hands dirty was just that much more cathartic.
The garden she'd been given—yes, given, whether it was by her silent father, to let others know that he remembered he had a daughter, or from Touka and Souma's combined efforts to return something that had been lost—was nothing special, but it was hers. There was no room within the compound's garden space for such a thing, so it had been constructed outside the compound's walls and provided a temporary escape from watchful eyes and stifling, stagnating relationships. It also provided a wonderfully clandestine cover to maintain her shinobi endeavors.
Again, Butsuma underestimated her. Just as the day he'd forgotten to assign her a guard and she'd slipped away…
No. It wasn't that at all. She'd long since come to terms with the fact that he just…didn't care.
Probably wishes I was the one who died. …Disappeared. The bastard.
Her fingers clenched deep into the dirt—something squirmed against the fine hairs on the back of her hand.
When she looked down, it had already latched on and crept slowly up her grimy wrist with all of its eight, spindly legs. She almost smashed it—but thought better of it and, with a sigh, gently shook the spider off into the edge of the grass where it could remain undisturbed and live on.
She leaned back on her heels and wiped a dirty hand across her damp forehead, letting it linger as she examined the newly-prepared soil, dotted with finger-sized dips for new seeds, surrounded by the carefully-tended herbs and flowers that still remained under the heat of the sun. Some of it was permanent, some not so much.
She drew out a stiff, hand-bound book from her pale pink obi and flipped through the first couple of pages until she found the seasonal garden plots she'd sketched out. Among the other pages were field notes—what she could recall from her old journal—and tried and true recipes for herbal remedies. Not as pretty as the first incarnation had been, with graceful, neat kana strokes drawn by a confident hand, but at least readable.
It had been a gift from Kiku, for her past ninth birthday—made specifically for her when she'd discovered her first and ever-present one had been lost to the wild. Each page had been gathered so painstakingly over the months and then bound into a single volume for her to fill with whatever her heart desired. On the front, in Kiku's hand, was Mitsuba's name in simple, but delicate, embossed characters. As if to emphasize that it was hers, without a doubt.
Someone else (Hashirama, she suspected) had left a few small, labeled bags filled with handfuls of seeds outside her room on the very same day.
"Mitsuba?"
Mitsuba looked away from the pages and met Souma's sunlight-squinting gaze with a squint of her own. "What? Sorry. I got a little distracted."
"Were you ever listening…?" A fake-wounded sadness tinged his slow, deadpan voice as he frowned—a bit too much like Touka. It was no wonder where she'd picked up that habit.
"I was! I was."
He blinked, face blank and bland as it ever was, and leaned forward to set his elbow on his knee and his chin on his palm. "Good. And, your answer?"
"I…" She took her time closing the book and set it on her knees, lips set in an automatic smile and eyebrows arched in apology. "I wasn't listening. Sorry, Souma. I tuned out around the bodyguard bid part."
"That was ten minutes ago." He sighed. "No—I understand. I am quite boring. Mariko-san says I should 'inject more' when I speak."
"Inject? You mean inflect? Anyway, who cares what the hag says."
"Don't be bitter. You'll become like her."
"Never." She stuck out her tongue. "Well, what did you ask, then?"
"I asked if you'd like to learn what your chakra nature affinity is. I managed to obtain some specialized paper slips that reveal them. Although I can't quite remember what the reactions mean…" As he spoke, he reached into one of his sleeves and pulled out three thin slips of eggshell-colored paper—the same kind used for explosive tags and seals that he'd shown her before.
"From what I know, it's self-explanatory." She pushed away from the ground and shuffled over to where he sat to get a better look at the papers. "Touka's mentioned the process to me," she added, even though said girl hadn't breathed a word about chakra natures yet. But—Mitsuba knew. Remembered.
He kept one on his grasp, but handed the other two over to her, and she held one in each hand, eyes roving back and forth between them, pensive.
"What's yours?" she asked.
The slip of paper held between his index finger and thumb crumbled away the instant he applied a blip of chakra. "Earth," he replied, gesturing to the fallen pieces as they fluttered in the breeze. "Touka, too. It's common among this clan." His eyes drifted toward the greenery among them. "And, well, you're quite in touch with nature."
"In other words, don't get my hopes up?"
He scratched at his short-cropped hair. "Well, short of channeling a fire affinity that puts you at a disadvantage against our greatest foes, it doesn't truly matter. What skills you learn will depend on your personal strengths. Touka, for example, excels in kenjutsu and genjutsu. She doesn't use many ninjutsu in combat. I, on the other hand, make use of Earth-based ninjutsu to alter my opponent's footing and catch them off guard in combination with kenjutsu."
"So, don't get my hopes up."
A smile flickered at the corners of his lips, but he didn't otherwise respond.
Mitsuba looked at the paper slips in her hands and, not getting her hopes up, flared her chakra toward her fingertips.
As expected, it crumbled. At least—the one in her left hand did.
The one in her right had slumped over, soaked through, and stuck to her skin.
Souma's eyes opened wide. "Strange—is it raining, suddenly?"
They both looked skyward, but no clouds were in sight anywhere among the great blue expanse.
An apologetic smile crossed his face as she met his eyes. "…One must be faulty. Sorry, Mitsuba. I'll see if I can find another, and you can try this again some other time."
She shook her head and picked at a corner of the damp paper, lifting it away from her hand. "No—don't bother. It was just for fun, right? As you said, it doesn't really matter at this point. Besides, I don't want you getting into trouble for it. Let's just count it as an Earth affinity and be done."
"As you wish, Mitsuba-sama."
"Come on, you know I hate that," she chided lightly, out of habit from dealing with his and Touka's strange and gentle way of making fun of her. She didn't pay it much mind, though, too caught up in wondering what two simultaneous chakra affinities could possibly mean. Interference? Was it really faulty? A fluke? Or…
She picked up the seedling bags and fished out a few seeds, bending down to sprinkle them into the pocks in the raised soil. Her eyes roved over them as she covered them up and let her hands linger over the dirt, feeling its warmth—its energy that churned through the ground like a network. Faint, but still noticeable under her touch. Her eyes drifted shut.
Life—it was full of life. Slithering, creeping in every direction. Ready to burst forth.
The forest damage looked like—
It was ruined. Trees upturned, weird growths—
Red eyes. A blade. A smile.
"No," she said under her breath, opening her eyes and moving on to bury the next cluster of seeds. "Not possible. Not…not me."
"Did you say something?" Souma piped up as the sound of idly-flipped the pages fluttered from somewhere behind her. Nosy—he was nosy and he liked to see what she put in her journal despite not being able to read much more than a few simple hiragana words.
She glanced over her shoulder with a smile. "About today's training—"
He held up a hand to silence her, sharp eyes aimed toward the compound.
"They've returned."
Even if she didn't really care to see them in such a state, Mitsuba always made a point to be nearby whenever Butsuma and her brothers returned from battle, all haggard and exhausted but holding their heads high.
Hashirama, soon to be a teenager, and Tobirama, still a little farther off, were both sinewy and a little gangly, on that awkward threshold of growing into their ever-changing heights. Despite that, their armor fit them well—like it belonged.
They still looked more like boys trying to carry the burdens of men.
The smile rose to her lips, automatic. Even as Butsuma's eyes passed right over her, refusing to see her; as Tobirama met her gaze and looked away, impassive; as Hashirama returned a small, tired smile of his own.
"Welcome back," fell from her mouth on auto-pilot, too, born from Kanae's and Itama's wishes more than her own genuine intent. But, well, there was no difference, not when she was the vessel of their dying will.
You must take care of your brothers, Mitsuba.
You don't know how happy it makes us to have a little sister to go home to.
She knew—she knew.
As they passed her by and headed into the training hall to put away their armor and leave those burdens behind for a short while, she returned to the main house to prepare the wash basin for laundry duty, back to her obedient child routine in their presence.
Before, she would have set the basin down beside the well and, once filled, just left it close by. But now…she carried it a safe distance away so she wouldn't have to be so close, so aware, of its depths and what lingered in the shadows.
Each time she did so, the water-filled basin grew lighter.
She didn't always have to do her chores alone, either.
As she tied back her kimono sleeves with a well-worn tasuki and stared down into the water-filled basin, at the way the water glimmered under the sunlight like glass and sent out waves when a stray leaf landed on its surface, another face joined hers in its reflection.
"Kiku!" she greeted with a grin, turning to face the older girl who returned the look with a tremulous smile of her own.
Always kind, always helpful, but still never really spoke a word to her, meek as a mouse. Before, she'd wondered if the girl was simply mute or otherwise incapable of speech, but in the dusk hours when everyone was granted some peace and rest from daily duties, she'd heard her speaking quietly, gently, with Touka, outside on the veranda.
Whatever the root cause was, Touka was the only one she trusted enough to sound her voice to.
Mitsuba didn't mind. Some people showed things better through actions than words, and between the two of them that was definitely the case.
Kiku bent down to fish the leaf out of the water and tucked it away into the tightly-wound, round bun atop Mitsuba's head in one smooth, graceful motion, smile gaining a rare humorous strength as she did so.
She reached up with a mock-frown and nearly plucked it out, but stopped and shook her head. "Well, if you think it suits me, then."
Kiku nodded and crossed her arms, satisfied.
"In return, I'll bring you a nice bouquet of flowers once they've blossomed."
Not in return for the leaf—no, she meant for the help she always provided. The flicker of doubt that crossed Kiku's brow seemed to reflect the way she didn't initially understand her intent, until it smoothed and she reached the same conclusion. She smiled and breathed a quiet sigh in response, then went about winding her sleeves back and securing them with her own tasuki, setting up the long pole they used for drying soon after.
Unlike the days where they washed yukata and kimonos en masse, shinobi underclothes cleaning was by far a simpler task—and, fortunately, the men cleaned their own underwear. Fundoshi, weren't they called…? Completely different from the type women of this era wore, which…were completely different from what she'd been used to.
All things considered, though, cleaning dark, battle-worn clothing that leaked dull, rust-red into the water as if it bled fresh was a trade-off.
Mitsuba eyed Kiku's fine, delicate hands as she gave the horizontal pole a testing yank to make sure it would hold up under water weight. They weren't the kinds of hands that should have to deal with that. But if it wasn't hers, it would be someone else's. Wives and daughters did the same for their husbands and sons, after all; they felt every bloodstain, from enemies and their loved ones alike, and lived through their battles vicariously.
Everyone had their own burden to bear in this messed up situation. But she still wanted to spare her gentle soul from it.
She took a step forward, to help her with the task, but froze as something heavy thunked onto the rooftop above them.
Reflexes kicked in. She pulled the kunai from her obi and held it in a death grip, eyes wide as she looked up, adrenaline shooting through her body in a fight-or-flight panic as thoughts of an enemy siege or those two Uchiha flooded her mind, beating in her ears with the overbearing sound of her pulse.
It wasn't an enemy.
Tiny claws skittered and scratched against the wooden shingles of the eaves as a small, furry body rolled over the edger, flailing as it dropped through the air and landed on the dirt at her feet. She took a few rapid steps back, away from the threads of blood it spattered around with its struggle, and felt a grimace pulling at her face as Kiku came up close behind her, glancing over her shoulder but not stepping ahead of her. She breathed a quiet sigh, shaking her head, then took note of the kunai clutched tight in Mitsuba's hand—and quickly stepped away again.
Mitsuba looked back, at that deep-set and out of place frown on Kiku's wide-eyed young face, and the way she clutched both hands to her chest, almost shaking.
The weapon scared her more than the suffering animal.
The grip on the kunai loosened. She held it out of sight, then remembered to breathe through the unpleasant thrill of terror. "It's—don't worry, Kiku." She didn't know what else to say. Wanted to say more, but something else drew her attention away from the suffering creature, catching her focus like a sudden ripple in a pond.
A presence—cool, calm, like a cat—slinked its way toward them. Mitsuba felt each step through the ground, reverberating.
It stopped behind her.
"You're being helpful today, Tobirama," she said brightly, trying to hide the adrenaline shake with false, mocking cheer, adjusting her sweaty grip on the kunai and wondering if he'd already seen it. Didn't bother looking over her shoulder at him.
"You're up to no good, as usual," he replied with a subtle bite in his otherwise level tone. She'd only caught onto it because she knew her brother, and her ears were trained to it. Others, like Kiku, heard only two siblings' teasing words—she didn't even glance between them as they spoke, too focused on the live weapon.
"Is taking care of my daily chores a problem?" Pulling up a stiff smile, she finally turned around and eyed the bundle of laundry he'd brought—which he dropped at her feet instead.
She ignored it, smile stretching thin.
Petulant brat. I'm your sister, not a maid.
"No, not that," he said, pointedly eyeing the kunai. "Your chakra was strange again—"
"And, what, you're spying again?" The smile dropped a bit as her temper flared—but she kept her voice low, doing her best not to make a scene. To keep her emotions level.
"I'm not in the wrong." His eyes met hers and it took everything in her not to flinch away, because they were red—not that red, but red all the same, and it had become her least favorite color.
She still couldn't hold his gaze.
He crossed his arms. Took a moment to decide his next few words. "But I wasn't spying. I know my family's chakra signatures well and I notice them—especially when they shift suddenly. Now I see what caused it." His attention turned to the creature squirming against the bloodied dirt—unable to move from the spot. He sighed. "I thought I saw something fall when a hawk passed over. So it tried to fight back and broke free, but for what…?"
Mitsuba's eyes followed his back as he walked by and crouched near the animal—a squirrel, now that she got a closer look at the limp, bushy tail spread out behind it.
Deep gouges, from grabbing talons, had pierced into its sides and oozed freely, matting the fur in a black and red mess. Its back legs refused to move—the body also lay crumpled, awkward, displaced somewhere at the spine and paralyzed from the waist down. Its head still moved, jaw working soundlessly beneath dark, eerily shining eyes as it clawed at the dirt with small paws.
The fear never fully receded, lingering with each heavy beat of her heart, but it mixed with pity, now.
"Maybe to die on its own terms. Better than becoming food." She took a tentative step toward the squirrel and her brother, but didn't crouch down like he did. Only watched it from above, considering the situation.
"It's suffering," he said quietly, but plainly. "The hawk might have put it to death sooner."
"What…should be done, then?" She looked at the kunai in her hand. Was a mercy-killing in order? With a body like that, there was no way it would recover. No way it would survive.
With a body pierced through—
She squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment and blinked a few times as the mask threatened to slip away.
"You have the kunai, Mitsuba," he said, much too stringently for her tastes, as he glanced up at the blade in her hand with narrowed eyes. "You make the call."
"I don't—I've never—"
If she wasn't mistaken, his eyes lingered on the little scrapes lining her hands, fully apparent when her sleeves weren't hanging loose to cover them.
If anyone would know a kunai injury, it was him.
He looked to the squirrel again.
"...You've never killed anything. But this one is small, and it's for mercy's sake."
Kiku approached them both, her presence warm at Mitsuba's back. She set her hands on her shoulder and upper arm, peering out at the writhing squirrel again. There was something sure and fortifying in the gesture, like she was trying to ground her. To make the choice easier. Sticking with her, even being so near to the kunai that had terrified her only moments before.
Because the three of them were the only audience to this event—the few final and painful moments of this creature's life.
The only sounds, for what felt like forever, were the squirming scrapes against the dirt.
"I don't know how," Mitsuba said at last, holding the kunai out. "You do it."
He didn't take it.
Her eyebrows drew together. "Come on, Tobirama. Just end it. Be quick."
He still refused.
Kiku's grip on her arm tightened, minutely.
Mitsuba glanced down at the squirrel, at its pitiful, slowing movements; at its tiny eye that seemed to stare straight up at her.
She pressed her lips together and dropped to her knees in front of it, holding the kunai tight in both hands to quell the tremor in her nerves.
What was the best way to end its misery? Slit its throat? Cut its head off? Break its neck? She'd only ever seen mercy killings on TV before, and people had bullets to use, then. Quick and painless: right to the brain. For animals and humans alike.
If she had a way, she'd save it.
If she didn't do anything, it would die soon enough.
Taking a deep breath to steel herself, she raised the kunai, aiming the point at the squirrel's throat—where the spinal cord should be. Or close enough, at least.
She plunged it downward.
But faltered—right at the last second. It didn't hit deep enough, even through the nauseating crunching and wet squelch as blood beaded up around the blade, as the squirrel's jaws opened wide in a silent, unheard scream with a retching jerk.
A hand quickly dropped down over hers and pushed down, shoving the blade deeper in—and it stopped moving altogether.
Dead.
Her lips trembled. She wrenched her hands out from under Tobirama's and rose sharply to her feet, almost stumbling over the forgotten pile of laundry as the memories of a rainy night overtook her and weakened her at the knees.
Eyes wide, breathing heavy, she stared at the ground. At the blood.
"Why are you even here, Tobirama?" It took all of her self control not to snap. "All you do is butt into other people's business. We could have just left it alone to die on its own terms." But she kept her voice low—low and poisonous and seething.
For a moment, he looked stricken. But he brushed it off and set his arms on his knees, eyes drifting down to the squirrel, too. "Don't be a brat. Show some respect, Mitsu—"
"I'll show some respect when you do."
"I don't respect mouthy little—"
"Little what?"
"Little brats. Like you, Mi—"
"As if you're any better."
He frowned, but didn't respond right away. Cutting him off while he spoke wore away his patience little by little. Hell, it seemed everything she did pissed him off in some way or another. And, really, some siblings just hated each other—but she couldn't fathom why he always had such a problem with her.
(Did he know? Did he know?)
Behind her, audible sniffles could be heard. She looked over her shoulder and saw that Kiku's eyes had welled up with tears that trickled fast down her cheeks even as she tried to scrub them away with the backs of her hands.
"And look, you've gone and made Kiku cry. Making her watch something like that—what are you thinking, Tobirama?"
"You let her watch, too. Besides, she's killed chickens for dinner before. I've seen her help Mariko-san. Maybe your poor attempt at ending that thing's life properly is what's making her cry."
Mitsuba grit her teeth, both hands clenching into fists at her sides.
"You shouldn't hesitate, or else it makes things worse. Be swift about it next time. It's for the best."
"What a wonderful lesson. I hope you aren't expecting a 'thank you.'"
"And I hope you aren't expecting an apology. Children younger than you have killed adults." His eyes narrowed, first at her, then at the kunai still in his hands, now removed from the dead, still creature and shining red in the sunlight.
He had a point. And on some level, she understood his reasoning behind it. But what could she do? Acknowledge this as some stupid change of heart? When he'd been so opposed to her learning things like this before, completely on their father's side? Telling her to give up?
Don't get my hopes up.
She glared at him as he cleaned the blade on the ground, then wiped the excess gunk away on one of the dirty shirt sleeves from the laundry pile. And, finally, held it out to her, hilt-first.
She refused it.
"Spar with me," she said instead.
"What?"
"Let's spar, I said."
He hesitated. "Mitsuba, don't be dumb—"
"You're the one being dumb. Why not just be forthright and tell me that's what this is about? You do think it's a good idea I learn. Or are you just teasing me for some cruel amusement? You hate me, is that it?" A smile returned to her face—the first, since the squirrel fell from the rooftop eaves and sparked the entire situation. And it was anything but kind.
"Quit making things up. You're too impulsive—why not start with minding that mouth of yours? As I said before, I don't respect mouthy little brats. Especially the green kind who jumps into a fight she won't win." His usual calm façade fractured with a twitch in his eye and a faint wrinkle at the corner of his mouth that threatened to turn into a scowl.
"That kind of confidence sounds like uncertainty to me. Are you threatened by this green brat?"
"No—why are you pushing this? You're well aware of what happened last time."
She prickled, but the smile persisted. "Well, that was some time ago. The only way to see if that's changed is to accept my challenge."
"Take it as a lesson, Mitsuba."
"It's an outdated one."
He sighed. "You're as persistent as Kawarama—"
At that, they both stopped short and fell into a solemn silence. Whatever had sparked the argument in the first place faded away into nothing but memories of those lost, and the words they would say to intervene in this childish exchange.
Neither could look directly at the other.
"Here," he spoke up after a while, holding out the kunai once again. "Take it. I have training to get to."
She took it back.
Her lips thinned, in a not-quite smile, but not-quite frown. "Are you going to tell Father what I've been up to?"
Tobirama looked her way, expression a closed-off mixture of indifference and that veiled disdain that was so much like Butsuma's it struck her somewhere deep. "This isn't worth telling Father about."
"You're not going to tell me to give up this time, either?"
"Just go back to your chores, Mitsuba." He narrowed his eyes, but didn't say anything else. Only turned his back and walked away, no longer willing to entertain her attitude.
"Brat," Mitsuba grumbled, tucking the kunai into her obi where it belonged, and making sure it wasn't visible when she turned to Kiku. "Um...sorry about all of that, Kiku. I shouldn't have made you watch any of that. The squirrel situation or the argument."
Kiku, no longer tearful, rushed to her side once he was out of sight—set a light hand on her arm and watched her with wide-eyed concern.
"I'm fine," she told her, looking down at the dampened handkerchief in her other hand. "Looks like we both are—good. Let's just start on the cleaning already. Then we can take a break and go see what Touka's up to."
Kiku nodded, appeased.
But for her, the whole ordeal left an ugly and unresolved feeling sitting heavy in her chest.
The kunai didn't hit its mark.
Mitsuba clicked her tongue, then ran it briefly across her lips as she took the next one into her hand, squinting and lining up a proper trajectory through the branches. She held her breath and let it fly from her fingertips, piercing through the air.
It ricocheted off one of the thicker branches and landed flat on the ground. Not even close.
She clenched her jaw as she picked up another, spinning it in her grip—not stabbing her hand, this time—and tilting her head as she observed the distance between where she stood and the overhead target.
With a sigh, she rubbed at her eyes and took a moment to collect herself.
"You're distracted today." Touka came up behind her and set a hand on her shoulder, patient as always. "Is it your eye?"
"No—I don't know. It is a little blurry."
"Let's rest a moment."
"I don't need rest. I'm just preoccupied. I don't understand Tobirama at all, aside from the fact that he's a brat."
Touka offered a sympathetic smile. "Ah…Kiku did mention the altercation."
She sighed. "It was hardly an altercation. But he knows what I'm doing and he still hasn't told Butsuma. It's been a week! He's always so quick to tattle, too. But this time…this time, it's as if he's goading me. Trying to shove my own weakness and failure in my face."
"Tobirama is…" Her voice trailed off as she considered her words, always careful to speak about Mitsuba's siblings despite their distant relationship. "Complicated," she settled on, shrugging a shoulder. "But I cannot believe that his intention is to antagonize you, Mitsuba. He is your brother."
"There's a fine line." She consciously reeled back the animosity clinging tight to her words and managed a wry smile. "If he truly wants to help, he should just say so. Otherwise it only makes me want to hit him."
"No—not yet. Please don't."
"I won't," she assured, pouting. "I think I can control myself better than that." Her pout leveled out as she stared up at the target again, kunai clutched firm in her hand. She held it up and blinked as the sunlight caught its edge. "I suppose I'm also a little jumbled up because it made me realize that… I'm still so far away from accomplishing what I need to."
"Didn't you beat Souma in a spar just the other day? He is fifteen, you are almost ten. You are progressing just fine."
"I still haven't beat you, though."
"Well, I am also talented," she joked, breathing a small laugh. "But am I not your mentor? Please believe what I say."
"Yes, Touka-sensei."
The smile persisted. "I insist you take a break, then. Let's check the garden."
It was a nice thought, in theory.
But there was barely a garden to check on.
Where fine, tall stalks and leaves once grew in proud tangles were nothing but green tatters, if anything at all. Ripped up—shredded. Straight from the soil. With stray roots and ruined seeds strewn about, too.
Dead—as dead as the thrashing squirrel, put out of its misery.
And the cause?
Two men—shinobi—stood in the midst of it, but not alone. On the ground at their feet was a mound of bristly brown and white hair, and a snout and tusks—a wild boar, hunted and captured. Chased through the garden that now lay crushed by hooves and feet alike. The proof of it still remained scattered beneath them, but they paid it no mind, too cheered by their future dinner. Grinning to themselves. Laughing. Completely unaware they'd just destroyed one of the only things Mitsuba could call her very own in this world.
It was…a small thing. Nothing to lose her cool over. Even so…
Something within her frayed and pulled loose. Hungry—reaching for the nearest thing to feed and grow from.
Bring it back.
"Oi, Touka!" called the oblivious man crouched at the animal's side, rope in hand as he tied its robust body up for transport. "Look what we caught! It's big enough to feed the entire compound." The grin on his face came off more callous than victorious. Blending into something ugly and misshapen as tears blurred her vision, ready to burst through the mask she'd so carefully cultivated.
Bring it back.
The other man gave an irritatingly bright laugh. "It gave us the run around for the better part of the morning until we found it here. Whoever planted this garden saved us a great deal of trouble! Shame it didn't survive the ordeal."
"Ah, we should have watched our step. Some of these herbs would have gone well with pork. Can any of it be salvaged...?"
Touka wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close to her side and holding her in an iron grip. But she barely felt it. Barely felt anything, as a flurry of emotions passed her by so hard and fast that none really caught on for too long.
When Touka spoke, it wasn't to her, but to the men. "Leave it. You've done enough. Neither of you were assigned to hunting duty today."
"Does it matter? Food is food."
"We couldn't just let it go once we saw it. And pork is your favorite, isn't it? You should be happy!"
"Bring it back." The words shot out of Mitsuba's mouth in a voice so commanding that it didn't sound like her own. She wrenched free from Touka's grasp and took three heavy steps forward, painfully aware of the grass that curled around her feet as her weight pressed it down.
The men stopped what they were doing, and the blurred shapes they'd become stilled, heads turning to her.
"Ah, who's this? Don't tell me the garden was hers." The one crouched by the boar sighed. "Little girl, you can understand this is just how things are, can't you? Something was lost, but something better was gained. And your plants can always grow back."
"Whose kid is she…?" asked the other man, under his breath, leaning against the spear he'd stuck into the ground.
"She is not a 'little girl,'" Touka said, voice cool. "Mitsuba-sama is the daughter of the clan head. Refer to her with respect."
The men froze.
"Shit—this was her garden? What is it doing outside the compound?"
"Don't look at me. The boar was already trashing it—it isn't as if we did this all ourselves! And I didn't even know Butsuma had another kid!"
"Hashirama's mentioned a sister! You don't remember?"
The man tying up the boar rose to his feet, holding blurred hands out to placate her fierce stare. "Well—what can we do to make this up to you, ah, Mitsuba-sama? You don't have to tell your dad, right?"
"Bring it back," she said again, without hesitation. Unable to say anything but that, as the words repeated in her head, pulsing against her skull. Cracking the mask little by little, until it was no more. Tested far too much in the span of a few days, and not nearly as resilient as she'd hoped.
At her side once again, Touka pressed her hand solidly on her shoulder, trying to anchor her down and comfort her all at once. "Calm yourself, Mitsuba—now." She spoke at her ear, voice low and urgent. "Please."
But the time for calm was long past. Everything but calm all surged, roiled, thrashed, and beat against the confines of her small body, trying to break out.
The men hesitated. "Bring it—bring it back? That isn't…"
"Bring it back," she said once more, hands curling into tight fists at her sides, fingernails biting into flesh to the point of tingling numbness. Her body was a livewire. Channeling something, whether it was rage or her chakra. But it built up, growing, racing through the ground and through her body and back again, and it did not want to be contained.
"Don't be unreasonable, now. No one could bring it back. Not so soon."
It broke free.
"Mitsuba!" Touka tried to grab her in a firm embrace and she shoved her back.
Their voices blurred together just as their faces did, and Touka's warmth at her side vanished, lost in a rush of green—not the red of anger. Green.
Someone yelped—one of the men. She couldn't see them, but she knew where they stood. Two sets of feet—both close. Shuffling across the soil and reverberating with each small step. One even stumbled over the still body of the dead boar, and crashed to the ground with a painful sensation.
Her garden grew.
Unburied seeds that hadn't sprouted burst open. Stems and roots still stuck in soil, severed, rejoined and regrew, shooting up from the damage like a million tiny phoenixes from the ashes. So small, but strong.
Alive.
They covered the fallen man's body. Seeking warmth. Seeking food. Because a corpse contained a myriad of nutrients, wonderful fertilizer, and a living body didn't have to stay living for long.
Grabbing vines latched onto the other man's leg as he tried to flee—caught him in a tight hold and dropped him, too, reeling him back into the depths of the upturned garden soil.
Mitsuba, someone said, but the name blended into the song of the growth, diluted.
Soft green stems, safe and gentle, hardened into rigid, unforgiving woody boughs, layer by craggy layer. Bending and looming over their prey like gaping jaws. Because someone had to pay. And the boar was already dead.
"Mitsuba, stop!"
This time, the voice was too close to ignore. Too loud. Accompanied by hands grabbing at her arms and a flash of red that cut right through her vision, so stark and bold against the green it made her flinch harshly away and cover her face with both hands.
And with that movement, the woody stems and vines lashed out, cutting into something familiar—but shallow. Because as soon as she recognized what it was, the connection terminated with a painful snap.
The garden stilled. The green ebbed away into a bleary haze of color—blue sky. Brown dirt. Branches. Green grass and vines and leaves. But also red.
Red?
She blinked.
Knocked down on the torn-up grass before her was the still body of a child. Splayed on his side and seeping something red into the ground, right from underneath the spikes of white hair.
Tobirama.
"No—" The word caught fast in her throat. Hurt to say. She tried to take a step, but her knees buckled and she crashed next to his body, catching herself on stinging palms before her chin hit the ground.
Footsteps shuffled rapidly across the grass, light and gentle, but echoing painfully in her ears like an elephant stampede.
A whirling rush of white, like peach blossoms, swallowed her thoughts, and grabbed her, too, before she lost herself.
Not even dying had felt this…awful. Not the first time—not the near-second. Not even the narrowly-missed third.
This kind of pain was a monster of a different sort. One that sank its claws in through every nerve like a fever ache—as a warning to prevent it from ever happening again. As its own way of saying: hey, idiot, next time consider how hard this body will have to work to replenish what you wasted! Take better care of yourself. It's the difference between life and death.
Chakra exhaustion, then? Had she used that much…?
When Mitsuba came to, when her eyes flickered open and squinted against the bright, burning light of a nearby lantern, she expected to see Touka, or even Hashirama, at her side.
It was Butsuma.
He sat with his head bowed, forehead leaned against one hand, shadows cast deep and dark throughout the lines etched into his face—it made him look much older and distraught than usual. More pissed than usual, too.
In other words, his presence—his acknowledgement, finally—was of no comfort.
Despite that, she sat up from the thin futon she'd been placed onto and rubbed at her eyes with painstaking care, biting back the surging pain that rolled and prickled beneath her skin like pins and needles. The heel of her hand came away wet, from tears she hadn't known she'd cried. She stared down at her open palms, eyes widening at the sight of curved, dried red crescent-marks.
Red.
"Tobirama," she rasped through a parched throat, turning her head to Butsuma so fast that a pinching ache shot through her neck. "Where is Tobirama?! Is he—"
"Do not speak," came Butsuma's gruff voice as he drew his hand from his face, harsh eyes lined and shadowed from not only the current predicament, but stress and problems that were beyond the compound. "Tobirama is fine. The wound was light. Fortunate, for both his sake and yours, you fool child."
She closed her eyes against his words, not cowed by his tone, but by the sheer gravity of the situation. Tobirama was alive. Thank god. But it was still her fault he'd been hurt. Even through all the times she'd wanted to spar, to knock him on his ass and win for once, she never wanted to hurt him. She didn't want any of this.
"Do you understand what you could have done? What you did?"
Before, she would have shot back a biting retort. But now the rebel in her had withered and she couldn't even meet his gaze. Only stared at the flickering glow of the lantern, meek where she'd once been so fierce.
"Mitsuba."
She nodded—a swift jerk of her chin. Just to move the conversation along.
He huffed in disbelief. "No. No, I do not think you do understand. And if you were not my daughter, a reckless child who knew no better, you would no longer be a part of this clan. You attacked two members of this clan. And your own brother. If Touka had not explained the situation, I…" He hesitated. Uncharacteristic. And that much more terrifying.
It was better that he left the sentence hanging in a long stretch of pressing silence.
"…It was not your fault."
She finally met his gaze.
Unreadable, closed-off eyes flicked briefly to the scar across the left side of her face, then back to her timid stare. "The Wood Release chose you—you had no choice in the matter. You were not taught to properly control your chakra in preparation for that possibility and it caused great harm. It could have killed others, including you. It… No, the fault is mine. For rejecting the proof in that forest, that day."
He took a deep breath, exhaled, and closed his eyes. There was no warmth, no regret in his words. There was nothing but a stern, factual perspective dealt through a forced patience.
"If I hadn't neglected you, perhaps you would not have come to envy your brothers and their training so. If I had told you of the dangers of this world, perhaps you would not have run off to play like a child, and Itama would not be lost. If I had trained you, perhaps you would have been prepared to harness the Wood Release."
Itama.
His name raked at the inside of her mind. Haunting her with the memory, over and over, rewind—play. Rewind—play.
Not lost. Dead.
She dropped her gaze.
The Wood Release…it wasn't him. It was me.
Something that should have been a blessing had become a curse. Something that only hurt.
"But I cannot train you."
She couldn't even protest that decision. Tears burned behind her eyes, but she didn't let them fall.
"I will not betray Kanae's wishes. Not even with your display of the Wood Release. However…you must be taught how to conceal your chakra, and how to better control it. Because, while you cannot be a shinobi, you now possess something of infinite value."
Pins and needles prickled as she clenched her hands into fists.
"Do you know what happens to those who are valuable, Mitsuba?"
She didn't nod—didn't shake her head. Only breathed in, and out, lips pressed into a flat line as she watched the lantern light wash over the swirling gray kimono pattern across her lap.
"They are pursued. The Uchiha Clan, for instance. Do you know what makes them so formidable?"
Again, she didn't answer. It was rhetorical.
"Their dōjutsu—their Sharingan. Yet, despite belonging to that clan, they function properly with any other person. Other shinobi strike them down in cold blood and pillage those eyes for themselves as cruel prizes. But if they are women—kunoichi and civilian alike—they face the risk of being…captured. Used. Shinobi lineage is as valuable as a physical Kekkei Genkai. I have heard of Uchiha women being stolen. We have had Senju women stolen.
"Do you never wonder why you are so cloistered away from the world and its ways? You are my—the leader of the clan's—sole daughter. Hashirama has obtained and begun training with our clan's blessed Kekkei Genkai—a supreme rarity that is at times unseen throughout entire generations. And now it has manifested in you. You, Mitsuba."
He let the words hang in the air, heavy, while watching her—watching them sink in and register in her mind as she held his gaze, refusing to startle or back down among the revelations and cruel realities of strategic murder and rape in this twisted, brutally competitive world.
Or maybe it was some fearmongering bullshit warning he'd spun just to convince a child who toed the line too much that this was all for the best. Empty, rational words to quiet a raging, impulsive beast ruled by emotion. Words he would never have thought to say if she hadn't been valuable.
Words he shouldn't have said at all, if he cared.
But there was no care, no affection, hidden between the lines of this lecture. Only a mountain, rising ever upward.
This wasn't just about Kanae's ghost holding her back.
This was brought on by a poor mixture of actions and consequences and Butsuma's inability to care for her as anything more than a future clan token.
Please. Just let me down easy. Tell me that you truly don't care. Never will, no matter what I do. Just tell me you never wanted a daughter. Never wanted me. Tell me—
He did.
"I do not know how to handle an unruly and volatile daughter such as you. Nor do I have the time to learn. Forgive me for that failure."
Mitsuba opened her mouth to speak, but found that words failed her as badly as he'd failed her as a father. Too locked up as a shock of fear prickled within her—because those cold words were final. Parting words.
A frigid goodbye.
Without waiting for her response, or a response at all, he rose to his feet and turned his back on her. "You will depart to a new, safe location better suited for you at dawn."
He disappeared—the door sliding closed fast behind him. Clicked shut—locked.
Again, and again, he shut door after door and never gave her a chance.
And this one…
For now, this was one she had to accept.