A/N: Hello again! Here is Part 2 of the double update. Hope this chapter sheds some light on Michi's background. Also just a little bit of world-building in here, if you look closely enough. If you hate Michi though, you could probably go without reading this chapter.

The war events of this chapter occur 4-5 years before Sunari's birth, and the post-war events about 3 years.

Disclaimer: The only one I own here is Sunari :^) and Michi, Takuma, and the orphanage, of course.

CW: suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt

Michi's mission that fatal night (her singular mission and how could she fuck up she only had one job) had been simple; while her squad rested for the oncoming midnight ambush, she was to enter the Iwa enemy camp and scout their shinobi, gathering information for her squad. A simple reconnaissance mission - nothing more.

The mission was complete; she had all the information she needed to assist her comrades when they fought in the ambush - enemy numbers, general battle capabilities, guard shift changes, the whole shebang. She was on her way back to her own camp when she passed one of the kunai markers she threw into a rock on the floor. She noticed instantly that instead of being imbedded in the rock as she intended, it laid flat on the ground beside the rock.

Thinking that to be a sign that enemy shinobi had passed the same spot, she started racing toward her squad. She hadn't a clue what gave her away, but her comrades were in danger and she needed to warn them. To stop the enemy, and to keep them safe.

In her flurry, she tripped over something on the ground and saw the same rock with the same kunai on the ground. She gritted her teeth in frustration. It was a genjutsu.

She slammed her fingers into the Ram seal and yelled, "KAI!"

The genjutsu dispelled, leaving Michi surrounded by a sight that would burn forever in her memory.

Fragmented stalagmites created by Earth Style techniques jutted out from the rocky ground, into the bedrolls, into her comrades. The campground was absolutely destroyed by various Earth and Fire jutsu, and there was blood everywhere.

It looked like a graveyard, with bloody tombstones built on corpses of the dead.

Michi stood frozen, glancing down to find a pool of blood collecting around her ankles. Her mind raged in frenzy, because how did they get here before me how did they know where we were camped how did they know about the ambush how how how?

Her thoughts ended there, because the stalagmites (grave markers) were quickly racing toward her. Michi leapt backward on instinct, overriding her grief response that threatened to bubble at the surface.

Her stomach dropped in agony, while her blood boiled in anger. She knew she had to stay calm. Everything Suna ever taught her was screaming at her to forget her comrades, to quiet her emotions, to assess the situation, and then to complete her mission at all costs.

But she just couldn't. In truth, she wanted nothing more than to slaughter every Iwa nin who dared counter-ambush their ambush.

So she decided right then and there that she couldn't be fucked to adhere to protocol; she would make those Iwa nin pay.

Her moment of inner resolve was interrupted by two chakra presences creeping behind her. Spinning ninety degrees, she flashed through a sequence of hand seals (more quickly and furiously than ever before) and raised her arms to her sides, palms facing both the stalagmites and her pursuers.

"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!" she roared viciously.

The chakra she had been gathering in her hands erupted into massive gales of wind that pushed everything in its path. The stalagmites were disintegrated by her jutsu, and the two Iwa nin that had materialized right before her attack were slammed into a nearby rock formation.

In her fury, Michi spared a glance toward her pursuers, confirming their demise with the amount of blood splayed behind their slouched bodies against the rock wall. She smirked.

"Who's next?"

After pushing all of the mangled Iwa bodies into a messy pile to be sealed away into a single scroll (emotional grief or not, spoils of war were never to be ignored), she then limped across the half-hour-old battleground and sealed each of her comrades away into individual seal cards, one by one.

Numbly, she returned to an outpost by the border and reported the outcome of the mission to the Kazekage by hawk. His response was nothing but militaristic praise for her ruthlessness on the field, and he quickly reassigned her to another mission on the frontlines. This time, she was to push even further past their previous proxy battleground in Ishigakure and toward the southeast border of Iwa, its larger neighbor.

She went, of course, displaying nothing but the perfect shinobi behavior. No emotions, no unnecessary actions, nothing that indicated she was anything more than a tool that Suna used to weaken other nations. (Couldn't anyone see she was hurting inside?)

Those missions marked the beginning of bloody massacres that gave her the war moniker of "Suna no Chikaze", the Bloody Wind of Sunagakure, after her calamitous wind jutsu that promised to spill the blood of her enemies.

Her mission was a complete success, as were all that followed. The Suna no Chikaze became a terrifying sight, and enemy shinobi who caught a sight of her pale blonde hair poking out of her Suna-standard turban or her (dead) lavender glare roared orders to either kill or flee on sight. She took down any enemies who came in the way of her mission, a blank slate on her face throughout it all.

Finally, the battles dwindled, as did the war itself. It ended. The war was over. It was finally over.

So why did she still feel like her mind was on the battlefield?

Michi returned through the narrow sandstone walls of Suna's village entrance a war heroine, praise upon praise bestowed upon her for her devastating ninjutsu abilities and her quick thinking in combat. There were even rumors of her receiving an ex post facto field promotion to jounin. She was moving closer and closer toward her dream. What more could she ask for? (An end to the storm beating down on her soul)

Each time someone thanked her for her contributions to the war efforts, her expression never failed to dazzle with the smile that the Academy taught her to use whenever she needed to hide a lie.

The lie? She was no war hero. She wasn't a perfect shinobi. At least, not the ruthless and merciless one that every Suna citizen seemed to think she was.

She broke shinobi protocol. Suna shinobi protocol. The rule that the mission always came before the comrades? Yeah, that rule flew out the window the moment she laid eyes on the bloodied camp. It wasn't just in that one battle, where her emotional grief over the loss of her comrades caused her to forget about leaving at least one enemy alive for information-gathering purposes, but it was also in the events that caused said battle in the first place.

The truth was, she was actually deployed to war initially for her expertise in stealth and subterfuge. Don't get her wrong, she was relatively decent in frontline combat. Her ninjutsu were short- to mid- range, and she had a taijutsu background that was slightly above average.

But the way she could almost entirely hide herself from enemy sensors and complete any infiltration mission assigned to her (which was indeed her track record thus far) was unmatchable.

But unmatchable or not, everybody made a mistake at some point.

Somewhere along the line, she messed up. Somehow, Iwa knew she was watching and knew about the ambush. They placed her in a genjutsu the moment she left their camp to return to her own, and they nearly cost her her life. She was the one who made a mistake, yet the twenty irretrievable comrades in her ambush squad were the ones to pay the price. She was the one who should have been punished with death.

Michi made certain to include this detail in her initial mission report, feeling overwhelmed by the guilt and wanting to take responsibility for the deaths of her squad.

After all, failure in Suna could result in any punishment as determined by the Kazekage, ranging from simple suspension to execution. (It should have been her)

Yet the Kazekage had decided to acknowledge and subsequently ignore that detail, instead commending her brutality and recommending she continue that battle style throughout the rest of the war, which she did.

(Was her one life really worth more than those of her comrades?)

To this day, she still has no idea what gave her position away. Regardless, she had tried sharing her blunder with others, waiting for them to snap and tell the Kazekage, where he'd be convinced to sentence her to the blade.

No one ever did.

Instead, they lauded her accomplishments, placing her on a pedestal reserved for legends. They all seemed to overlook her break in protocol, because technically the mission was a success. She singlehandedly (with the blood of her comrades on her hands forevermore) destroyed their counter-ambush, which allowed Suna to push deeper into Iwa's territory, forcing them to turn their offensive toward Konoha instead. She gave them the push to make it through the war, and for that reason, small technicalities like forgetting the mission could be swept to the side if it was achieved successfully in the end.

She continued to shine a bright smile for the villagers, but her soul felt darker than any night sky. Inside there was nothing, and outside there was nothing worth living for.

She considered herself a subterfuge professional, yet her friends in the village still managed to notice a dull in her eyes that contradicted her smile and a lack of emotion in their interactions with her. This of all observations they decided to report to the Kazekage, who called Michi to his tower, who shortly informed the Kazekage that she would be retiring from the shinobi service, effective as of that day.

He gaped silently for almost a whole minute, and subsequently proceeded to tirade against her insubordination and ungratefulness as a kunoichi of Sunagakure for all of three seconds, when she suddenly pulled a kunai from her pouch and held it to her throat.

She made sure to draw blood to reinforce the threat, a blank and impassive mask glazed over her facial features the entire time.

"Would you rather have me retired in the village, or dead in Hell?"

He declared Michi a suicide risk, and had her institutionalized. She still retained her shinobi status.

(They really did forget she was a master of stealth.)

Escape was child's play. No one ever checked on the psychiatric patients, because after all, what ninja acknowledged mental illness?

Michi slipped out of her small cell with ease, quickly finding the exit to the cold and dark streets of Suna. The chakra-limiting seals weighed down on her limbs, but she didn't need chakra for what she was about to do.

In her quiet studio apartment, Michi placed a vial and a glass of sake on her kitchen table. In the former was poison manufactured by Chiyo-baasama, the famed puppet mistress of Sunagakure herself (her village wasn't the only one claiming spoils of war).

As for the latter, well, she just wanted to enjoy her last meal.

She poured the poison into the sake, sniffing the concoction for no reason in particular (scentless, just what one would expect from Suna's revered poison master).

She picked up the glass and placed it to her lips. She had numerous regrets she wanted to rattle on about, but she had a lifetime in Hell to take care of that. Michi tipped her head back, and opened her li—

A crash through her living room window, a kunai shattering the glass, a hand wrapped around her wrist. She turned her head toward the lone Anbu member with sandy blonde hair in an Anbu uniform (of course, Rasa would send no lesser shinobi).

The young twelve-year-old Yashamaru was silent, but his iron grip circling her wrist and Killing Intent emanating from his body said enough.

(If they're going to torture me into compliance, they might as well just kill me.)

"The Kazekage wants to see you, immediately," he stated impassively.

Michi closed her eyes, dipping her head as a sign she accepted the implied order. He proceeded to Body Flicker her all the way to the Kazekage Office.

"Kazekage-sama, I have brought Michi-san as you requested."

Rasa's back was to the pair, his attention seemingly focused solely on the view of his village outside his window. He hummed in acknowledgement.

Michi scoffed in her head. When did the Kazekage ever request anything?

"You may take your leave, Yashamaru-kun."

"Hai, Kazekage-sama," Yashamaru bowed and turned to leave through the door.

As they made eye contact upon his departure, Michi swore she saw a glint of remorse in his violet eyes. She blinked, and it disappeared, leaving behind a face as blank as Michi's.

She furrowed her brows in mild confusion.

"Michi."

The chuunin recovered from the brief distraction, re-donning the familiar blank mask hiding her true emotions. She brought her attention back to the Kazekage, who had walked around to the front of his desk to face her, arms crossed and stance wide. A deep-set frown framed the lower half of his face, as black met lavender.

They held eye contact for an uncomfortable two minutes, before Michi finally couldn't take it anymore. Subterfuge expert or not, she had enough of his bullshit. She respected the man, but sometimes he was just an asshole.

"Kazekage-sama, if you're going to torture me into obedience, please feel free to start anytime," she spoke with a hint of bitterness.

And oddly enough, his facial features softened, as though a tension holding his face together was suddenly released.

"Michi-san," he sighed, closing his darkened eyes shut and shaking his head side to side.

"You have been testing the edges of my patience. You're right in your assessment of the situation; were you not the beloved teammate of my wife, Karura," he opened his eyes to meet Michi's with unsparing scrutiny, "I would have had you either tortured or executed for your blatant insubordination and suicidal ideologies."

Karura? He still remembered that she and Karura were teammates?

Rasa continued, "I won't pretend to understand what is going through your mind. I do, however, understand the bond you and my wife share, and I know she wouldn't want me to take the... actions... that I had in mind. She has, in fact, informed me of this many times since your return."

Michi's delicate mask started to chip away, ever so slowly. She avoided his gaze.

"Furthermore, you are an important person to this village. Not only for the strengthening of its military might, but also for the pride of its people. You may not recognize your life as having value, but these villagers do. I do."

Michi's head jerked to stare at him in shock. Her mask had cracked even more deeply, only half of it remaining.

"So, if the only way we can have you serve the village is as a civilian… that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make," he admitted. "Of course, there are conditions. In the event of village emergencies and other events that require the assistance of all available shinobi… you will come out of retirement, if only temporarily."

She couldn't believe the words she was hearing. The Kazekage accepting her demands, with reasonable conditional terms?

She nodded, slightly stunned. Her emotionless mask, the one she had grown accustomed to wearing since the night of the ambush, fell away entirely.

"However… make another careless attempt on your life again, and you won't find me nearly as gracious," Rasa warned gravely, with a note of fatality.

"Hai… Kazekage-sama. Thank you… for the opportunity," she bowed genuinely in reverence and gratitude.

Recognizing that there was bound to be an influx of orphans after the war, Rasa had decided to give her an indefinite assignment to start and lead an orphanage. The only vacant building suitable enough for the job was a two-story stucco house at the edge of the village, close to the village entrance. She accepted, and began preparations for the "Mirai no Saryu" Minashigo-In.

She found herself walking to her new home with an upward quirk of her lips. It could barely be called a smile, but it was the closest thing she felt to it since she lost her comrades in battle.

Little sand grains of the future…

Maybe for them… maybe for the future of Suna, she would stay alive. Just a little longer.

A/N: And that, my dears, is nepotism at its finest. Mahh it's not just a plot device - nepotism runs in all governments, including the ones in Naruto. Why else would every single Hokage be the former student of a previous one?

Anyway, thanks again for your patience! I hope the wait was worth it. Please leave a review if you think anything is off or should be explained more thoroughly. I do try to fit this story within the parameters of canon as much as possible, so I hope that I'm doing a decent job of that so far.

Note: Mirai no Saryu = sand grains of the future, Minashigo-In = orphanage

Next chapter, we'll see what Sunari thinks of everything happening in her life in the Narutoverse... See you then!