Reiko was beyond anxious. What she had took anxiety by the hand and showed her how it's done.
The silver haired child was thinking of so many scenarios that she ran out of realistic one and entered the real of fantasy.
It couldn't be helped. Reiko had never before been passed along from one person to another in such a short spam of time, and between so many different people. So many people.
She hadn't even seen Tokuma after they were escorted out of the Hokage's tower.
She was tempted to flee on more than one occasion, but doing so in a shinobi village? One on edge from the ongoing war? Yeah, good luck with that.
Reiko was worried about what was going to happen to her from now on. Will they kill her? Throw her out? Or will Tokuma's promise see through and things will be alright?
She didn't know and that scared her. 'This is my rewards for helping an injured person…thanks karma, you're great,' she thought sarcastically, nervously chewing her lower lip.
She could feel all the chakra signals around her. It actually hurt the fist time she tried to sense her surroundings. There were so many people here, and so many of them were trained shinobi, that the overload of sensory information burned her brain. Metaphorically of course.
All Reiko ever wanted was a quiet life. Simple. Away from all the drama caused by shinobi and the destruction that seemed to follow them anywhere they went.
She wanted to keep on living , maybe, maybe, have a family of her own, and carry on the memory of her mother and grandmother.
They would have wanted Reiko to live happily. (Knowing that and still missing them was painful)
Sure the girl learnt ninjutsu and trained, but that was more by way of learning how to defend herself. Not from any real desire of becoming a shinobi. (Although she might enjoy training more that strictly necessary for someone that wanted to know how to defend themselves)
The girl was currently in a hospital room. Brought here by ninjas and left in the care of the medical staff present. (Though she was sure some of the, far too close, chakras she sensed were shinobi watching her) The medic and nurses poked and probed her. Checking her vitals and taking blood samples. They healed any and all of the minor injuries she possessed and declared her relatively healthy, if slightly underweight for her age and hight.
Once done they directed her to stay and rest in the room she was currently in. A nurse coming very so often to check up on her.
It has been like this for hours.
The sun was already making way for the darkness of the night, and from her window, Reiko could already see two stars twinkling in the sky. And she still doesn't know what the future has in store for her.
It also seemed like a bad joke that the view of her window clearly displayed the kage mountain.
'Hmp, I wonder what he thinks of all of this,' Reiko wondered for the first time.
Finally closing her eyes and attempting to calm her whirling thoughts. Surely if no new came by now they wouldn't be waking her up in the night. Right?
'This is so troublesome.'
—.—.—.—
The next morning, before she even had a chance to taste the hospital's special breakfast, Reiko found herself looking up at non other than the Hokage himself.
There were no outward, obvious, signs of anyone else accompanying the man, but Reiko wasn't willing to bet on that statement.
"Good morning Reiko-kun," Hiruzen greeted her simply, his expression surprisingly gentle for a man such as himself. 'Just what is happening around here?' the girl thought, confusion marring every inch of her face.
However, in the silence that followed, she realised that he seemed to be waiting for her reply, and she tripped over her own words, in order to deliver the simple morning greeting.
It didn't seem to bather the man, and if the small quirk of his lips were any indication, he might just have found in amusing.
"I understand that the last couple of hours must have been extremely stressful and confusing. I apologise for not coming to see you earlier," Hiruzen told her, his gentle expression belittling the sharpness his eyes held. Cataloguing all of Reiko's responses mentally.
Now, Reiko might not know how a shinobi village is run…although having a kage personally visit you in the hospital, especially when you are a complete stranger with no ties to their village, did not seem like the norm. Or very feasible, depending on the number of people they would have to visit per day.
It made her wary of his intentions and drove away any of the sleepiness she might still have been feeling. Replacing it with a refreshed brain, ready to process any and all information feed into it.
After she ate of course. Her belly rumbling in the otherwise quiet room echoing rather loudly.
Kami the embarrassment.
Reiko could feel her entire face heating up from the neck upwards. Colouring her normally pale skin a rich tomato red. 'Can this be anymore awkward?' she bemoaned mentally.
Hiruzen on the other hand was left chuckling at her expanse, his shoulders loosing some of the tension Reiko didn't even notice they held previously.
She was at a loss of words, not knowing what she was meant to say or how to respond.
"Well, I guess our conversation can wait till you have something to eat. How does chikuzenni sound?"
'Is the hokage offering to take me out for breakfast?' Reiko didn't know what was normal anymore and simply chose to roll with it.
—.—.—.—
Sarutobi took Reiko to a small restaurant which served breakfast dishes as well. After they both ordered and ate, he paid and the two ended up going…on a stroll.
The girl did wonder is she was in some bizarre alternate reality. She also wondered when the raging kage was going to finally reveal his true intentions.
During her 'interrogation,' the blond man which conducted it explained that he will be entering her mind and extracting the information he needed directly out of it.
This was what terrified Reiko most. Because she doesn't know what exactly that man learned.
Reiko strongly considered that they learnt about that, and feared the repercussion this could mean for her. Ume told her never to share that secret with anyone. She never even told her mother about it. However, she refused to mention or give anything away before Hiruzen mentioned it himself.
For now, the odd looking duo was wandering through the village streets. Hiruzen pausing to greet someone every now and them, or to explain a sight to Reiko.
They ended up in a clearing with ridiculously large trees. No, seriously. They were huge. Large, with thick, solid-looking trucks, and absolutely smooth bark. She has never seen trees like these before.
Or so she thought.
Reiko felt the blood chill in her veins, as she got a better look at the trees. At their composition. Personally, she has never created them as large as the ones before her, but they were unmistakable now that he was really looking at them.
The girl didn't even notice the Hokage fall behind her, or that he went completely quiet. Watching her. Watching her reactions and noting the exact moment realisation dawned on her.
"We call them Hashirama trees, after our first hokage. As he was the one to create them," short and sweet. But the hidden meaning behind him bringing her here, to this particular clearing, and telling her this information was clear.
They knew.
She tried to hide the shaking of her hands, allowing the slightly longer sleeves of her kimono to cover them. 'Deep breaths Reiko, deep breaths,' she instructed herself, attempting to calm her racing heart. She felt the sting of tears gathering at the corner of her eyes and Reiko send a silent prayer to her grandmother. Asking her forgiveness for failing her promise.
Reiko might have not personally told them. But she might as well have done so the moment she agreed with Tokuma to come to this village. 'What was I thinking?' she thought furiously. All her anger directed at herself. The answer, simple. She was scared.
She was scared of being alone once again, that bloody man's daily presence having affected her more than she realised.
Reiko was always a rather sociable child in her youth. The need to interact with others having never left her, but simply staying suppressed. Pushed to the side by Reiko herself.
And when they were forced to flee together Reiko panicked at the thought of being left alone in this situation.
She would never admit it out loud, but Tokuma's attempts of calming her on their journey were more effective than she let on. Reiko didn't want to deal with the situation she found herself in alone. So she unthinkingly tagged along. Never fully processing what the possible repercussions of her actions could be.
Now, she was in Konoha. And if they wanted to keep her here…well, Reiko had a snowflake's chance in burning hell at escaping.
'Damn it all,' she though bitterly. By now the tears falling freely down her face. Shoulders shaking badly with barely suppressed sobs.
When Hiruzen approached her, he felt like he was punched in the gut, the way she jumped at his touch. The terrified look that briefly showed on her face, was genuinely sad. He didn't want his sensei's legacy to fear him. Fear Konoha. She should never have a reason to. 'She shouldn't have even been born outside of it,' he thought, angry with himself once again.
This was all his fault after all.
"Reiko-kun, your grandmother, Lady Ume, she was someone I knew," he told the child gently. Watching the way her eyebrows furrowed in confusion when his words began registering in her mind.
"You knew obāsan?" Reiko asked incredulously, the image of her precious grandmother flashing through her mind.
"Yes," he confirmed, "your mother too…Shōrai-hime, she was a very sweet child. Your grandfather…he was my sensei," he admitted, watched as her shaking suppressed. Fear making space for wander, as curiosity filled her head full of questions with no answer.
"How could you have known them, okāsan said nobody knew about them. That they were nothing but a dirty secret…," she trailed off, looking at the ground and clenching her fists in anger.
Hiruzen for his part felt like screaming at the world. Something he hadn't in a very long time.
Shōrai should have never had to, think like that. Her childhood should have never been stripped away so brutally that it left her raw, and bleeding, even years down the line.
He should have been there for them as he promised his sensei.
Nevertheless, he swallowed the resentment all his failings produced. Forcing himself to look at the child who was made to endure all of them. 'She looks so much like sensei that if you are not looking properly, you'll miss the features inherited straight from Shōrai herself,' he thought.
'Her hair, while not as sleek as her mother's, are not the nidaime's spiky locks either. It is also thicker. The lips and shape of her eyebrows are also from Shōrai and Ume.'
Hiruzen looked at the child with mournful eyes, kneeling before her and making the child look him in the eyes.
"Shortly after your mother was born, sensei summoned my teammates and I to his office to tell us something. He told us, under a secrecy vow, about your mother and grandmother. Introducing us to them not too long after. He—he made us promise, that in the event of something happened to him, that it was our duty to protect them," Hiruzen confessed, watching as the child tried to process the given information and sort it out.
Finally, her eyes turned clod and Hiruzen prepared for the inevitable:
"So where were you when they needed that help?" Reiko asked coldly, ruby eyes narrowed in barely restrained anger.
"We couldn't find them after Uzushio's destruction. We failed," the man said, voice thick with sorrow.
Reiko didn't know what to believe anymore. She was furious. Anger practically replacing the natural content of her veins. It came in a flash of red-hot, flames, and cooled down just as quickly.
There was nothing she could do anymore. Her precious family had long since perished, and, even if she could somehow kill the man before her in anger…it wouldn't bring them back.
It wouldn't change the past and it would be selfish. She reckoned that he had family too. And if she killed him…how would she be any better than the ninjas that killed her family?
Simple. She wouldn't be.
And the emptiness left behind by the loss of her two most precious people wouldn't be filled.
Instead she went lax, the anger completely gone by now, leaving behind a bitter feeling born from a hopeless conundrum. There was no right solution. Noting she will do from now on will change what came to pass.
Ume always said it was more important to figure out how to move forward, because, like it or not, time will keep on going.
Instead Reiko looked Hiruzen in the eyes and asked in a tired voice:
"So what's going to happen to me now?"