Chapter 05 | Web
Sachiyo started off Mio's conditioning with target practice and hand-to-hand combat. Training begun the morning after she received the last of Hiryuu's threats and while she was perfectly capable of learning alongside Madara and Izuna, but they were years—practically worlds—apart and the last thing Sachiyo desired was to disrupt their training accommodations. That and spy training required a bit more attention to detail, something Hiryuu couldn't and wouldn't provide given the circumstances.
While Sachiyo never assumed a role in the shadows, she was well versed in the unknown methods used in conditioning all potential spies. Mio assumed she picked it up from years of using sleuths, no matter how quickly one died or how long one lived there was always something that set them apart from the rest of the pack. You didn't just need to be a perfect liar or particularly stealthy to be considered a perfect spy, you needed that trait or that goal, that unique aspect—that special something that aided you in your endeavors.
The most important lesson Mio received from her parents was simple: "Being a clever girl won't be enough. You have to be more." Photographic memory or not, the fact she had that tool meant little, at most, she could serve as someone's messenger and be the best one could be.
"Relying on the fact that you remember everything you've read or heard word for word will get you killed," her mother had explained over a topographic display of unconquered land. "It is common knowledge to lie as a shinobi, doubt is second nature. Now, the information you've given me is false. What do you do?"
Mio stared wondrously at the strength in Kikyo's eyes and gulped down the lump in her throat, croaking, "I don't know."
"Your memory will be useless. You need something better."
"And what's that?" she had asked curiously.
Kikyo touched the tip of her nose, smiling gently. "Your father and I can teach you many things, but this is something you figure out on your own."
Mio grew discouraged by the thought, figuring out something she couldn't name sounded impossible to her six-year-old self. Was it possible to find something she didn't know anything about? Truthfully, she doubted she understood what it meant at that time. Watching them the last remaining years taught her everything she needed to know about what it meant.
Sachiyo didn't understand it, probably ignorant of its existence. She reiterated the basics and taught her some of the clan's innermost workings, not knowing she knew everything and more. Mio remained as silent as ever, picking up techniques and information as if they were completely new to her. She pretended those years of grueling training under her parents' strict circumstances didn't exist. Some of the methods were so severe they plagued her nightmares alongside their grisly deaths. She suffered at the expense of becoming a shadow that would grow into the elusive Uchiha clan. She would gather information when necessary, kill when asked, and destroy evidence. And she needed to be the best if she expected to survive.
Better than the best if Madara came into power.
Mio understood from the moment she saw him that as he grew older his desire for perfection would leave no room for mistakes.
If Izuna was the next leader, she predicted he would be fair. If she chose a leader between the two at that stage in their lives, after sitting by and watching them train relentlessly to improve their already heightened skills, she picked Madara. Izuna needed to be older, less emotional and less inclined to run to Sachiyo when he deemed appropriate. His fighting style may well be near flawless when compared to Madara's recklessness, but the latter had a knack for trying idiotic things when all odds were against him, simply because he felt he could manage them.
Mio hoped Madara would eventually discover there was some sort of thinking mechanism in his head. When that happened, he would undoubtedly be fearsome.
But they were young, years away from taking on life-threatening missions out in the warring shinobi world. There remained plenty of ongoing training months and obstacles left to conquer. During which her focus wavered from target practice with Sachiyo to find Hiryuu observing the Uchiha brothers spar. He shouted corrections to them when there was something in need of fixing, but mostly yelled at Madara to take things seriously and stop being so cocky.
"There'll probably be a fight you won't be able to win one day," Hiryuu said firmly, one day, earning himself a glare.
Mio sat on the verandah holding a kunai in her hands, occasionally putting the tip to her finger to gauge its sharpness. She listened to everything. Hiryuu implied an Uchiha might one day lose a battle, a proud man said, "You're not always going to win." Those were the words of a traitor.
Real Uchiha never lost battles.
Madara sneered. "Impossible."
And those were the words of an asshole.
Madara caught her staring. "What are you looking at?"
A complete asshole.
Mio smiled and rose to her feet, returning indoors where she met with Izuna by accident, and proceeded to power walk the entire grounds until she shook him off. He persisted with his friendship offers, though she never bothered giving him a straight answer. A part of her enjoyed watching him return each day with that tortured look on his face, mostly because it bothered Madara.
Madara shouted at him plenty of times, words that went in one ear and out the other. Things like: "You don't want to make friends with that," "Don't bother," and "Stop being pathetic!" He yelled all sorts of things that got him into more trouble than recklessness had his entire life.
The difference between the others and Madara—she noticed in the way he looked at her, not sympathetically, not in acknowledgement, but in a way that spoke a million words yet spoke none—was that he wasn't stupid. Maybe he had always been intuitive when it came down to recognizing manipulators and liars because he didn't seem to think too highly of her.
The longer she stayed a mute, the better an understanding he grasped. It wouldn't be long before he took Hiryuu's route and tried to choke her into admitting the words scrawled on the paper left by her mother.
Sachiyo's teachings were easy to grasp and Mio found much improvement after three months of continuous training. She had started hitting the marked targets the elder prepared within the web of trees, improved her chakra control and taught her reflexes to react faster than normal. She used the inner forest and the swampland twenty miles south as training grounds. She normally stayed with Kana, her cook and temporary guardian, in an inn near the swamps for a week. Sachiyo only accompanied her to the marsh to test her.
Mio returned from her travels to an empty house for weeks after Hiryuu had taken the brothers northwest to the mountains were the winds were strong and the dangers at their peak. Sachiyo spent most of her time at the compound dealing with an uprising involving savage bandits in the desert of the Wind Country that dragged a number of shinobi clans into a dispute, which included the Senju clan making the Uchiha clan's involvement an inevitably.
Sachiyo's continuous absence made it difficult to progress in training. In the worst cases, the clan's nameless elder of her clan often dropped by the manor with the intention of visiting her.
That morning, he appeared at daybreak with a bag slung over his back and a mouth full of sweet bread three days before Sachiyo's slated arrival. He walked into one of her target practices and ducked under a stringed line of kunai that stabbed into seven different trees lined together perfectly. She stood in the center of the woods, caked in mud and covered in scratches she gained when she set off a shuriken trap to test her reaction time.
He glanced over her shoulder to her accomplishment and chuckled, amused. "Working hard, I see?"
Mio strode past him to uncork the kunai from the trees, taking chunks of bark along with them. She returned them to her weapon's pouch as he followed her like a shadow.
"Sachiyo's told me all about your progress," he remarked. "She says you have your father's skill and your mother's stealth. I see what she meant. I used to see your dad do the same trick when I was young, 'course he did a full circle. And that one over there was out of line, this one is crooked, oh and that one is—"
Mio's frown deepened with every mistake he pointed out and he noticed it, silencing himself. She finished packing away her used weapons and took the dirt path out of the forest, gesturing him to follow.
"Are we going in?"
She ignored him, leading him into Sachiyo's property. She wanted to ask if he planned to stay long, but didn't have anything to write with or on because she assumed she would be training well into the morning.
Mio discarded her sullied shoes before stepping onto the verandah and waited at the top step for him to do the same.
"How do you get on with Tajima's brats?" asked the boy, earning a curious glance. He blinked in disbelief. "You don't know Tajima?"
She shook her head, venturing into the hallway that led to the kitchens to fetch Kana.
"Well, he's never around, so it figures you wouldn't and he wouldn't be caught dead leaving his post to pay his lot a visit," he remarked. "You've never wondered why Sachiyo's taking care of them?"
He needed a lesson in keeping his mouth shut, but she couldn't say she wasn't curious. Sachiyo never mentioned a father and she only knew about their mother dying.
"You don't want to meet Tajima, he's a terrible one, only thing he's ever been proud of was his sons, but that only lasted until their mother died."
Mio knocked on the kitchen door. A clamor of voices rose from behind the closed entrance as the remaining staff spread out to continue their duties before Kana appeared at the doorway. She pushed back strands of her disheveled hair behind her ears. She frowned at Mio's sullied state and looked to their guest with a horrid disposition.
"You again?"
"Been long, has it?"
Mio didn't want to know the relation behind their tone of voices.
The nameless boy shook his head of whatever travesties floated by and placed a hand on Mio's shoulder. "I was just asking how she got along with Sachiyo's boys."
"Better with Izuna than Madara, I'd say if she gave the poor boy the time of day," said Kana curtly, turning her around toward the bath. She kept a look on the Uchiha elder, suspicious and strange. "You go do what you do best and not disturb anything. I'm taking this one to get cleaned and if you're hungry, you best be at the kitchen in three hours."
"I haven't eaten all day," he complained.
"You have bread crumbs rolling down your front," she said pointedly, steering her charge away from him.
Kana bent over to whisper warnings into Mio's ear when they were out of earshot. "You shouldn't be friendly with that one, even if he is an elder. He isn't likely to help you if you ever encounter any trouble and if you're in need of a trustworthy friend, he will cast you into the fire to see if you can amuse him."
Mio inclined her head to meet the woman's eyes.
"I've seen it happen before…it didn't end there."
The young woman steered her into the bathroom where she seated her on a stool as she stepped out to prepare warm water. Mio tugged off her muddied clothes and gathered a bucketful of cold water from the tub.
She seated herself with her back to the doorway and splashed the freezing water over her head. She gasped as it washed over her skin, itching over the tiniest of scratches.
Mio scrubbed the mud out of her hair with scented oil and soap. She cleaned the blood crusted over her flesh as Kana filled the round wooden tub with hot water.
"Have you washed your hair?" asked the cook.
She nodded.
"Good. I'll leave your clothes on the shelf," she said, patting the lowest shelf on the wall. "Get into the tub now before it cools. I'll rub ointment on your scratches once you're out."
Once Kana exited, Mio slipped into the tub to soak in the hot temperatures and soothe her aching muscles. Although her training had been cut short by the elder's arrival, she managed some strenuous exercise and practice, and she would study scrolls in the afternoon followed by a number of drills she used to learn them properly.
"She says you have your father's skill and your mother's stealth…"
The purpose of the spy rang negatively in her ears like a silent whistle that only reached her. She had everything necessary to reach the goal Sachiyo placed before her and trusted she could reach it, but she had not always thought that way. Mio used to take cover under the table to avoid anything she deemed unfair, meaning training and complicated explanations. She knew the benefits of normalcy and wished to live in it, never anything beyond it.
She never cared that she was an Uchiha. Her parents had to pound the idea in her head just like they did many other teachings. Once she acknowledged escape from one's predestined plan was impossible, she settled down. If learning meant earning even an ounce of freedom, she would do it without complaint.
The problem was that nobody bothered to tell her that she would never truly be free. She would be a caged bird handed down from one lord to the next. Nobody told her she wouldn't ever be whom her name indicated. She would be the bird without a name, an incarcerated nobody.
Mio could relate to being invisible. She understood the emotions behind every sentiment and knew how tightly her insides wound with each reminder.
So, forcing people into corners came easily to her. Manipulation and insanity were the best poisons, she could attest to them. It only took a moment to plant the seed of doubt and a few hints for it to propagate and turn into venom.
The hot water brought reality back to her and she hated it.
Sachiyo returned to her manor a week after the nameless elder's arrival, though he seemed to have disappeared over the last two days. Mio didn't question it, she preferred the quiet to his rancorous stay. Sachiyo swept past the training grounds on the opposite end of her property and strode through the corridors practically breathing fire.
Mio heard the hag stomping from hallway to hallway, barking out orders to a group of flustered maidservants and a guard of Uchiha from the compound. Meanwhile, she listened to the howl of the wind and enjoyed scent of olives and grass it carried with it. The wooden floorboards were cool. She liked the feel of the cold on her skin, especially after staying in the hot bath for too long.
Sachiyo caught her in small shorts and a tank top watching the clouds spread along the sky. Behind her were three unfamiliar Uchiha still dressed in their travel worn clothes and saddled with their luggage. Each one eyed her uncomfortably.
She pushed her shirt over her stomach and got onto her feet.
Kana appeared at the nearest doorway looking as disheveled as always.
"The girl is coming with us to the meeting, pack her a bag and dress her in something appropriate," Sachiyo ordered, leaving the verandah with her guard in tow. She glanced over her shoulder to see Mio standing in the same place and grew frustrated. "Go on now!"
Mio scuttled in after her cook. Kana rushed her in and out of her room with a leather satchel full of light clothes. She snuck in a bundle of dumplings for the road and kissed Mio's forehead, startling her.
"Hiryuu-sama might be there, but so will Sachiyo-sama," said Kana softly. "Remember that." She looked a bit concerned, biting her lower lip. "I wish I could go too. I could smack him upside the head with a pan if he tried to hurt you again."
"Mio!" came Sachiyo's vehement call.
Mio's heart leapt. Not knowing any other way to thank the cook for the long-term concern, she wrapped her arms around her before running off to meet the elder outside. She slung her bag across her chest and followed the elder into the sea of trees, wanting to ask if there would be a possibility that she might run into Hiryuu, but given the tense environment, she remained curious.
.
.
They arrived to the compound faster than normal in the middle of a cold night. The three-man Uchiha guard dispersed the moment they reached their stronghold and Sachiyo led the way through the web of corridors to a room containing the elders of the clan, including the nameless boy that had been staying at the manor and Hiryuu, who upon recognizing her behind Sachiyo, sneered so loud everyone shot him a quizzical look. Everyone of importance sat by a long squared table toppled with scrolls and maps. There were mugs of steaming tea and plates toppled with freshly served manjū. By the disgruntled look of the head of intelligence, they had interrupted something important when they walked in.
Eijiro, the sturdy, white-haired elder welcomed her with his unfamiliar gruff voice and placed a cushion to his right. Sachiyo pushed her forward, not bothering to apologize for her tardiness and looked at everyone's faces.
"Where is Tajima?" she demanded. "He was supposed to attend today."
The nameless elder dropped a hand over the shoulder of a younger boy with brown waves and hard, coal eyes. "He's sent Katsura in his place."
Katsura looked no younger than fifteen, but he had a sturdier build in comparison to others his age. He must have swelled with the pride of having been given something important to do from a man that should have been in attendance of the meeting. He certainly looked smug.
Mio couldn't shake the feeling that he was staring at the side of her face as Sachiyo grumbled incessantly over Tajima's absence, going as far as calling him an idiot, but Katsura wasn't the only one glaring at her. The head of intelligence kept stealing glances, but she felt the burn of each one. He was a frail looking man with a thin face and a long, pointed nose. He wore glasses that were too big for his face and an ego too big for the world. She knew why she received the attention, but she also didn't ask to be present while they discussed important matters.
"Do you have something to say? All of you?" snapped Sachiyo, having noticed the unwanted attention her student was receiving.
"We don't normally allow brats to sit in on classified meetings," said Hiryuu viciously. "This isn't a world she can understand."
Sachiyo turned to their information courier pointedly. "Anything else, Jouji?"
"I agree," he remarked.
"I disagree," chirped the nameless elder, forever on her side. He winked at Mio as if in affection.
"Mio is our brightest sleuth," started Eijiro. "It's about time she has a taste of the world she'll one day be a part of."
Sachiyo didn't ask for Katsura's opinion, so he wasn't allowed to give his input on the matter. She considered him irrelevant and ordered for the meeting to continue. Jouji smoothed out a scroll and started the conversation where he had been interrupted.
Mio found it difficult to follow along, but Sachiyo caught on quickly and she was throwing out opinions before the others could start up their own discussions. She caught the gist of it. There was some territorial breach that endangered the daimyo's family in the Wind Country and somehow the blame fell on them because the bandits that caused the uproar were masquerading as Uchiha's in order to challenge the Senju. Furious, a suffering, neighboring country made contact with Tajima and hired the Uchiha to act as their primary defense. The fake Uchiha clan had gone around stirring up trouble with as many shinobi clans as they could manage in an attempt to stain their reputation. They also caused trouble with the Uchiha's current employer by making threats as one of the officials to an enemy country, who went on to hire the Senju clan to smooth over the possibility of war.
Everything was a mess—a complete misunderstanding caused by a band of idiots hoping to soil the reputation of their clan. But that didn't matter to the elders. They were interested in knocking the Senju off their high horses and taking another victory for themselves. The easiest way to have resolved this was probably going after the bandits that caused it in the first place, but throughout the meeting, they were ignored.
"Tajima-sama has been scouting the outskirts of the country," offered Katsura. "There are dozens of Senju at the gates and hidden within the walls. He took half the Uchiha he commands and planned to attack them, but the Senju found them first."
"It's that Hashirama brat again," grumbled Hiryuu, arms crossed over his chest.
"Tajima reported that much, he said it was a different brat, the brother," added Jouji.
"Send more shinobi to accompany Tajima, take more spies and sensors," ordered Sachiyo. "The faster this ends the better. It won't do us any good to be affiliated with the country, no matter the amount of money they are giving us."
"The only reason Tajima agreed to their offer is because we need the money," admitted Eijiro with traces of annoyance.
"The fool," cursed Sachiyo. "This is no longer a simple skirmish. It's war against enemy countries and it does us no good that our temporary enemies are allies of Kurata. We don't have nearly enough shinobi to send to the mountain ranges."
The argument heated between Sachiyo and Jouji until Eijiro put an end to it, using Mio as an excuse. That didn't stop Sachiyo from storming out of the meeting just as things were being resolved, but not before shouting at Katsura to deliver a message to her son.
"I want him in this compound within the next four days!" snapped Sachiyo, stomping off into the heavily shadowed corridor.
"We should leave this for tomorrow," Eijiro decided, finishing his tea. He glanced in Katsura's direction. "Do as she said. Now."
Katsura rose from his seat and exited the room. Meanwhile Jouji gathered his scrolls and maps. He left with Hiryuu at his side, leaving her with Eijiro and his grandson.
The young elder left his seat and headed for the door. "I'll start gathering men."
Mio took it as a cue to leave, but she felt Eijiro's hand push her back into her seat. She searched his ancient face with curious eyes. She should have scuttled behind Sachiyo the moment she stormed out, but she was too scared of what the outcome would be. She figured the woman wanted time to cool off and so, she overstayed her welcome. She could taste the bitterness in the air and the irritation radiating from Jouji and Hiryuu, along with the discomfort she received from Katsura's pointed glance.
"Do you understand our stance?" he asked in a tone unsuited for his crotchety voice. He pushed a piece of paper and something to write with in front of her. "Nobody's bothered to give you a notebook have they?"
She shook her head, taking the thin brush from the coarse paper and dipped the tip into an inkwell. She looked at him briefly.
"You can write, you've been reading the maps," he said lightly. "You have good eyes, perfect for a spy."
Mio wondered if her improvement changed his opinion of her. If she remembered correctly, he had been adamant about her survival and would have accepted her aunt's suggestion of death if Sachiyo had not shown interest in her well-being. She appreciated the change of heart, but not the reason for it. Nevertheless, it was a battle she would fight with herself. Nobody understood what it meant to be in her position; anybody else would have already been dead because they didn't have parents like Genji and Kikyo to fall back on.
As she scrawled across the page, she found herself resenting them.
'I understand that involving the enemy's allies from the mountain ranges can start a large-scale war and that the clan's defense aren't strong enough to withhold against something like that.'
It took a second for the elder to read over her small shoulders. He nodded. "You're quite perceptive, yes, that is our biggest problem," he admitted. "Our youngest generations are dying faster than they are thriving in skirmishes and so we have lesser adults on our squadrons."
'The Uchiha clan has allies in the Earth Country and the Water Country and many more debts owed to them that could award them a war.'
"Our connection to the Yagi clan has fallen through in the past year and we are working to repair our ties, but I doubt if a war broke out they would be willing to offer their shinobi to our cause," he answered. "The Water Country is a different story, best saved for a different evening. You make valid points, girl, but you've forgotten something important—"
Mio quickly scrawled 'No' on the corner of her paper, drawing his attention before he reminded her of what she's forgotten. He let her talk.
'The Uchiha will always win their wars without need of allies.'
He laughed boisterously, patting her shoulder. "Sachiyo has taught you well."
'My mother and father taught me. Sachiyo-sama improved me.' She paused, glanced at him. 'Can I go now?'
"Yes, of course," he said, letting her get on his feet before beckoning for her. "Take this, I've no need for it."
Mio had gotten as far as the door before returning to receive a wide leather notebook full of empty pages. She felt her heart hammer in her chest, knowing she earned his approval through the improvement she slaved for, but told herself not to feel it. She didn't want to feel good about her mediocre accomplishments because there was so much room for mistakes. She could fall from his good graces and this instance wouldn't have mattered.
"I want to see you at the next meeting as well, Mio."
She bowed deeply in appreciation and scampered out of the room, hugging the notebook to her chest.
Mio left the main building and started toward the housing building to leave her gift with the rest of her things when a black blur intercepted her path, knocking her on her backside and the notebook into the nearest wall. There was a loud crash when her body hit the ground. She heard a familiar groan and lifted her head to see Madara lying on his stomach with Izuna on his back rubbing his head.
"Mio!" announced the youngest, scrambling off his brother's back to offer her a hand. "Look Madara, it's Mio! What're you doing here?"
She accepted his help and in one tug, he had her back on her feet. She went to pick up her notebook when Madara grumbled unhappily. She made a walking gesture and pointed behind them to the entrance into the wide hall.
"Were you just in the main building?" asked Madara, bothered.
She nodded, confused.
"Didn't they tell everyone to wait in the housing building because there was a meeting?" Izuna remembered, looking from his brother to Mio before smiling wide. "Did they let you sit in on a meeting?'
Madara's fury was almost tangible without him having to glare at her. She felt her skin peeling away with the burn and pushed past Izuna instead of answering, not the least bit happy to see the oldest of the brothers. She could do a lifetime without encountering him.
"You stupid!" snapped Izuna. "You scared her away! I'm telling grandma you're not getting along!"
Izuna complained to his grandmother that Madara wasn't getting along with her and went as far as to say that she avoided him. Sachiyo took her complaints to Mio and requested that she do herself the favor of strengthening communication links with her grandchildren. The worst of the whole situation was that she found Mio flipping through the crisp, new notebook Eijiro gave her and forced her to use it as a medium. She couldn't refuse Sachiyo's orders, although it was safer to admit that she was scared of doing so.
Sachiyo's son refused her summons back to the compound and she had been furious since, going as far as sending shinobi with the specific task of dragging him back home before she went and did it herself. Everyone in the compound had been tiptoeing around her and the only person taking advantage of his cuteness was Izuna, who spent his time keeping her company in return of sweets he split between his brother and Mio. She couldn't taste food after going through one of the old hag's grueling training sessions, so she had been giving her share of candy to Izuna, who gladly took them.
Two weeks had passed since their arrival to the compound and unlike the first time she was there, Mio had been accommodated into a larger room that she had to share with Madara and Izuna. A doorway in the back of the room lead into Sachiyo's, making it that much easier for Izuna to get his brother into trouble. She spent most of her times indoors if it didn't involve training, while the boys continued theirs deep in the forest with Hiryuu.
That morning as she was scribbling commonly used phrases and words in her notebook, Madara appeared to glare at her for not waking him earlier. Izuna had sprained his ankle and was asked to rest and he was doing just that as his brother laid out his complaints about how she should take responsibility for her actions even though he never asked her to wake him and she didn't communicate in barbarities as well as he did. He stormed out as Sachiyo entered the room to the sight of Mio sticking out her tongue at his back.
"Are you still avoiding him?" she asked critically.
Conversation with Madara was tricky and she liked to avoid it if she could.
Mio flipped her notebook open for Sachiyo to read the messy scribble on its surface. 'I don't like either of them.'
"I never asked you to find them agreeable, you do as I say," she remarked, reaching over Mio's head to open the door. She gave her a push out into the empty hallway. "Start now."
The door clasped behind her. Mio suppressed a grumble and fished out something to write with from her pocket. She flipped the page over and wrote a condensed version of her complaints in conversation form to propose to Madara.
Madara had barely made it outside when she appeared, dragging her feet to cross the distance between them. She held up her version of a peace treaty and greeting to eye level when he glanced in her direction, but he chose to ignore her.
Mio dropped her eyes to the big, 'Greetings' in her notebook and turned to an empty page. She crouched on the ground and used her lap to hold it up to write something different. That something different took three pages.
Madara moved out of sight. She jumped after him, drawing his attention with her noisy footsteps. She held up the notebook once more.
'Your stupid grandmother made me do it!'
He arched an eyebrow. "Why don't you tell her?"
She showed him the next page. 'She doesn't like being called stupid.'
He snorted. "Obviously."
Talking could make this easier. 'Sachiyo wants us all to get along and I want her to stop bothering me. So do something about it.'
And he did. He snatched the notebook out of her hands, tore a handful of pages, and tossed it over his shoulder. He looked oddly proud about what he did. "Done."
Mio breathed deeply and approached the remains of her notebook. She bent down, reaching under her arm in the process to pinch herself hard enough to draw tears. However, real tears mixed with the fakes because she actually felt the accomplishment that earned her that notebook end the minute he destroyed it. She gathered the tatters and shot him a final glance, counting the seconds, before speeding off into the house to present the fruits of her approach to the wicked witch that shoved her out the threshold. She took her tears to the person who sent her to Madara in the first place.
Sachiyo stared at the torn up notebook for three long minutes and then lifted her eyes to Mio's sniveling form. She was in the upstairs sitting room speaking with Hiryuu over a fresh brew of green tea. He was standing by the open window, observing her suspiciously.
Mio avoided meeting his eyes, unable to contain the real tears.
"That ungrateful—" She left her seat, pausing at the doorway to address her once more. "Go back to your room, Mio."
Once the door clasped shut, Hiryuu snatched her hand and forced it over her head. The sudden jerk sent a bolt of pain down her side. She suppressed a yelp, biting down on her lower lip.
"I saw you," he accused lowly. His eyes found the purplish red bruise forming on the inside of her arm once her sleeve fell over her shoulder. "Did you tear up the notebook too?"
Mio fisted her hand and tried jerking it out of his grasp, tired of dealing with his grabby hands. "If I did, who would believe you?"
Hiryuu tossed her back, seething. "I don't know what the fuck you're doing, but you better stop now!"
She hit the ground, elbow first. A tingling sensation spread through the rest of her arm, substituting pain. The remains of her torn notebook fluttered in all directions, raining down on them as if they were trapped in a windstorm.
Mio felt a swell of panic in her stomach, snatching the pieces from the floor and tucked them into her pockets. She kept her eyes glued to the ground, away from his face, but he followed through with his aggression. Just as she had gotten tired of him, he had felt the same of her taunting. She hardly blamed him. He must have considered the idea of insanity; he probably felt the bite of her words and wanted, in desperation, to put an end to them.
"You know, you're the only one that hears me talk," she said lightly, clearing the tears that clouded her eyes. She resolved to be strong. "Don't you think that's strange?"
He made a move towards her, reaching out to grab her by the collar, but she slipped out of the way. "You're doing this on purpose," he snapped. "I don't know why, but—"
"You don't know why?" she repeated with a hint of humor. Sachiyo's shrill cry resonated outdoors as she beckoned Madara over for a reprimanding. "Mother always said you were a special case."
Hiryuu's hands grasped at her arms at the mention of her mother. His eyes looked like those of a wounded animal. "What about your mother? Did she say something? What did she say?"
The desperation in his voice brought a crooked smile to her face. Hiryuu's fingers dug into her skin as Sachiyo demanded Madara apologize to her and prepare for his punishment. Madara snapped at her repeatedly, but she silenced him when she threatened him with scrubbing the bathroom floors for an entire week.
"She told me everything," answered Mio confidently.
Putting emphasis on the supposed secret served as the final push. His grip loosened, one arm disappearing behind his back, and his face darkened, eyes flashing maliciously beneath the heavy shadows streaked across the room. He drew a kunai into her periphery, holding the pointed end near her eye. She could taste its sharpness.
"…She shouldn't have told you."
Mio stared at the weapon placidly, letting the moment pass. Sachiyo needed enough time to return from her shouting session, which she assumed ended as silence set in and the clouds outside shifted one final time, tinting the sky a thousand shades.
An image flashed through her mind of another man threatening her life. He disposed of her parents. It pumped adrenaline through her heart and contorted in her expression as her eyes widened and watered.
Mio's back hit the wall, though she never realized she had been walking backwards. She stepped away, warily, forcing her eyes to meet his.
Hiryuu moved closer to her, at a snail's pace, every step he took registered a different level of fear in her usually calm expression. He remembered that twisted smile of hers and thrust the kunai forward. There was no need for hesitation. He shoved her onto the wall by the shoulder.
Mio made contact with the wall with back of her head. The insurmountable pain that spread along her skull forced a high-pitched scream from her throat, not in anticipation of the kunai carving into her skin, not for the possibility of death. She flashed back to the final moments in her tiny cottage, to the heavily shadowed man destroying what little hope her parents had for recovery. The picture shook as she felt the blood dripping onto her body, sliding down her skin as her mother whispered her last words into her ear.
"Remember everything we taught you." Kikyo's hand gripped the back of her head painfully, nails digging into her skull. Her voice was so broken and foreign, the words barely registered. She repeated them. "Remember everything." She repeated them until they were the only thing she heard before a guttural noise grumbled in her mother's throat and her head fell limply on Mio's small shoulder.
The moment reminded her of how quickly bodies turned cold. Kikyo's freezing temperature sunk into her flesh like a thousand pins and needles. It felt exactly like that moment, like being showered in frozen water before a whipping. She felt that same pain lashing at her.
A throbbing ache pounded in her head as she forced open her eyes to see the complacent smile on Hiryuu's face. It blurred and broke into a dozen pieces, breaking apart until the corners of her eyes blackened. She hit her head too hard. She realized that belatedly and a second later, she lost consciousness. Thrust into the hands of her tormentors, Mio returned to the lovely cottage by the woods and every moment after she entered that morning flourished with vivid colors.
Mio opened her eyes to blinding sunlight. She shut her eyes quickly, twisting under the sheets, bearing the waves of unwelcomed pain throbbing in the back of her head.
"Ah, you're awake!" chirped Izuna, leaning over her.
His body cast a shadow across her face, enabling her to open her eyes without the sting of sunlight. She blinked away the blurriness in her vision and focused on the boy's glowing face. She wanted to ask him many questions, but desisted. Somehow, she felt it was useless to question what had happened if she was still breathing.
"You don't have to worry about Hiryuu," he said suddenly, as if he read the curiosity in her expression. "The elders had a meeting and sent him away. Grandma told him to rot in hell." He smiled in amusement, straightening out in his seat, allowing the sunlight by. Her eyes had already adjusted to the brightness in the room, but she still flinched as if it hurt. "They had a huge argument before. I think Grandma really likes you because Hiryuu just kept shouting 'useless, useless, useless," and grandma said, 'That's for me to decide. She can be a maid if she can't be a spy!' but I don't think she actually meant it. I heard you're doing pretty good with your training and that you can actually hit a target now. That's great!"
Mio stared at him blankly. She bet he could hit a bullseye at two, but she didn't hold it against him. He was a natural.
He pouted, disappointed. "You could at least say something."
She reached to smack his cheek softly and smiled. "You're cute."
Izuna's face exploded with color. His smile grew twice as large as he continued filling her in on unattended details. "Taiga-kun is gonna take care of me and my brother's training from now on," he said excitedly. "So, everything's going to be okay! You can still be my friend, Mio-chan."
He watched her long and hard, waiting for her to shake her head in response to his pestering proposition, but she let it slide. Izuna jumped to his feet, announcing to her his departure by the doorway.
"I'm going to tell grandma and Madara-nii that you're awake, so just stay there!"
Mio doubted Madara cared as the younger boy disappeared into the hallway. The shuffle of the Uchiha compound reached her ears and it felt relieving.
The morning's events nearly spoiled her plans to reveal Hiryuu as a rat. Perhaps, it was best to say the sudden turn of events might work in her favor later. The aggressive bump to her head could have been fate's way of asking her to slow down, not to rush on trying to become a useful asset to Sachiyo and her grandsons.
She agreed to the thought as she waited for her headache to disappear. Maybe her information wasn't enough to condemn him and she burned the note her mother left her.
For now, all was well in the world. The trash was finally swept out of the house. She could do as she wished without Hiryuu hounding her or pleading Sachiyo for her death. The only remaining opposition was Madara, but there were numerous ways to deal with him. She already had that past afternoon. The problem lay in the moments when Sachiyo could no longer be of use.
Mio turned toward the window to the clear blue skies and remembered that she had forgotten to ask what day it was.
"…I'll figure it out."
She gave in to sleep.
.
.
Mio woke from dreamless slumber on the third day with a familiar face at her side. She glanced in the elder's direction, the teenage boy with mousy hair smiled wickedly at her, casting a shadow over her whorl of emotions.
"I heard you spoke with Izuna," he remarked. "Found your voice, did you?"
She remained silent.
"Izuna probably didn't tell you, though, did he?"
The menacing glint in his eyes frightened her and without knowing, she knew what to expect.
"I stopped Hiryuu from killing you," he said, grinning from ear to ear. "He was just about to carve his name into your neck and spill the blood your parents and Sachiyo-san fought hard to spare. To think you kept your silence for the sake of your mother—"
"What do you want?" she asked directly. "What do you want to stay quiet?"
"I want a lot of things for starters," he admitted, "but not all at once."
She hated this.
He leaned forward, touching the bandage wrapped around her neck. She winced, wiggling over uncomfortably. He left a tingling on her skin and brought tears to the rims of her eyes. He smiled down at her reaction.
"I quite liked Kikyo-san; she was fun, but not quite as amusing as Genji-san," he said. "You have your father's humor, manipulation was Genji-san's trade and he taught it better than anyone in this clan. Hiryuu hated him because of it."
Mio breathed deeply, his hand cupping her cheek.
"You should indulge me one day," he continued. "Don't look so suspicious. I gain more keeping your secret than spreading it around, besides, I like you…I'm amazed you don't believe me when I say it."
She frowned. "I was taught to be suspicious."
"I'm on your side," he said quickly. "I've never gotten along with Hiryuu and if my grandfather wasn't Eijiro, he might have treated me as he has you. I don't hate that you've sent him away, nor do I want to demand your reasons no matter how curious I may be. You should want to tell me when you feel like it."
She hated the feeling of control he imposed on her that clutched and wrung her insides like a wet cloth. She had to do something, but no ideas sprung into her head. She felt as weak and frail as she looked for the second time in her life.
He finally rose from his seat after giving her a final pat on the shoulder and stopped at the doorway. "We'll be seeing more of each other from here onward," he said calmly. "I'll be taking charge of Madara and Izuna's training; you can start calling me Taiga."
Mio cried in frustration once she was certain he was gone because everything that had been in her grasp spiraled out of control. It might get worse, she knew it would, but only the years could tell.
xl note: This chapter marks the conclusion of the "Snake in the Water" arc and while not many questions were answered, it will tie in somewhere in the near or distant future (I suggest you expect both). Funnily enough, I think this chapter had the most changes in comparison to the last four (prologue included). There are so many things to look forward to from now on, but I'll be taking it easy in the next three to four chapters before introducing the problem that sets off a domino effect.
Chapter five picks up the "Bandits of Kurata" arc that takes place 5 years after Hiryuu was sent out of the Uchiha compound and Taiga took his place and it is the first of three arcs meant to introduce the Kuronuma, Ito and Motou clan. I figured it would be best to split the work and there will be many more names to memorize, so I'll be posting a journal entry full of OCs and their importance to the plot (while trying not to be spoilerific) to make your reading experience that much easier.
To anyone curious about Madara and Izuna's ages, they are 10 and 9 respectively at the end of this chapter. Mio is older than Izuna by two months. Since, the next arc takes place in August/September, five years later, both Izuna and Mio are 14, while Madara is 15. I'll keep you updated on age changes if I have another time skip.
Thank you for reading!
P.S. I'll be posting the entire Bandits of Kurata arc all at once. There will be rewrites to the first part, but not too many. I'll see you then. You can re-review if you can, I'd like to know if the changes were for the better or for the worse, but if you want privacy, you can send me a PM. :)