Mother love is a killer. Everyone knows that. Nadeshiko didn't know she'd get five years minimum to raise her children without running a mission outside Fire Country- she's getting special leniency because she's not from Konoha, not a Leaf sprung straight from the branch, but she can't help but be grateful- she's not a heavy combat ninja anyway, what use would she be in a war? Of course, no one's actually at war yet but it's coming, she knows it is- Mother taught her to look for such things, and she's never been wrong yet.

She paints the clan seals onto her daughters half a year into her stay in Konoha; the Iga and the Koga weren't known for anything because they could hide so well, a "gift of the blood" her mother had called it, and the scrolls in her mother's trunks were very clear about what could be done to her daughters if they were not sealed.

Multiple children from one breeding runs in the blood. So does being able to hide so very well.

The Iga seals will destroy their bodies upon death- turn them from flesh and blood into water and dirt, vanishing their humanity into nothing but the world. The Koga seals will protect them from harm- a specific and damning harm, one that women face more-so than men, rape. The Koga seal masters of ages gone had been women, and they had not approved of their sister-kin going into the world unguarded. The seal would turn the would-be rapist's chakra to flames, burn them to ashes from the inside out.

Six months is when the seals must be inked, is when Natsume inked Nadeshiko; is when Nadeshiko inks Raiko, Kirara, and Yayoi. They can tell the difference between her and the genin- prefer her to the genin. And so, they can tell the difference between someone who will care for them, and someone who means them harm.

She leaves a very stern warning in the mission parameters about her daughters' protection, and how mental focus is important. No one dies, thankfully.

For her daughters- Raiko, Kirara, and Yayoi- the seals seem to… settle them, into the world. Raiko starts being able to go longer and longer without her mother there, for long enough that Nadeshiko can risk going on longer and longer missions, can risk leaving her precious daughters with teams of genin. Kirara starts to gurgle and babble like a baby should, though her eyes will never quite be human. And Yayoi doesn't fade into the background anymore.

And then her daughter's Marks come in, and she cannot leave them to grow untempered any longer.

Natsume, Mother, had been raised in Wind Country (had fought in the First War before it was)- and so, for the first time since she was a girl, Nadeshiko adorns herself with veils, dull browns and soft, faded greens, dark blues splotched together underneath. Invisible and shy, but she needs a name- and so she picks one.

Iga. If she ever has sons, they will be the Koga. She writes out her Clan's laws, it's workings, it's… history. It's legacy.

Condenses her knowledge into scrolls and poetry, books and folktales.

(A tree and a girl who ate from it, and a boy who loved her, the sage who walked the earth and his two sons-)

A lull-a-bye she sings her daughters every time she can, because her five year's limit is coming faster and faster- and then it is upon her, and she's written everything she could.

(And who are you, the same as I; must I now bow so low?

Only a cat of a different coat, that's all that's true I know.

For a coat of brown or a coat of blue; a cat will still have claws,

And mine are cool and sharp, my love, as cool and sharp as yours.

And so we spoke, and so we spoke, the Koga and the Iga,

But now the rains weep o'er our halls, with no one there to hear.

Yes now the rains weep o'er our halls, and not a soul to hear. )

Her bingo book page reads something like this- and bingo books change with every war. It's the first time an Iga has ever graced it's black covered pages. It's the first time anyone has known an Iga or a Koga to exist.

Iga Natsume, tokubetsu jonin of Konoha. Infiltration and Sabotage specialist.

Wears a brown, green, and blue veil. Has black eyes, pale skin.

Has completed 50 D-rank, 35 C-rank, 10 B-rank, 25 A-rank, 86 S-rank missions.

Wanted by Iwagakure, Takigakure, Mizugakure for the theft of information. If spotted, kill on sight.

She dies before her daughters are five years old. Poison. Ambush. The details blur together.

Her thankfulness that her daughters- her dear, sweet daughters- know enough of her, and have enough of her family and their arts, to survive, to learn, to become credits to their clans- the Clans- makes her passing, if not peaceful, without overly many regrets.

Iga Nadeshiko breathed her last breath during the very first days of the Third Shinobi war. She remembers writing a letter to who must have been her daughter's father- remembers sending it.

Sealed it with her- with their daughter's blood, so only he- or her- could open it. Chakra is a funny thing sometimes, and why a bond between parents and children should be more important that an actual key is beyond her understanding of the esoteric nature of Nature.

The precautions Nadeshiko took to ensure the safety of her daughters and their father will have to be enough.

(It is.)