lawly

by footfungus

lawly

38. Chapter 38

Mary had always loved stories. She consumed them, be they western classics or eastern fairy tales or stories older than most counties. The form didn't matter, religious text or diary or novel, movie or podcast or television, animated or live acted or told in whispers between bus stops.

It was why she had always been so grateful to live in the age of the internet. She could eat and eat and always there would be something new, something rediscovered.

Mary's life was a happy one. A foster child with good parents, good foster siblings who never let her be anything less than a sister. It wasn't a perfect family, such a thing did not exist, but they were good. They gave her books and cried at her graduation and pushed her towards civil service because she had the skills to help and so she should.

A lovely story, Mary's life and the things she did in our world, but not the one being told today.

She was thirty-seven when she died.

The family lake house was on fire. The why didn't matter; a bird with an ill-placed nest, a wire sparking lose, a candle left aflame.

The why didn't matter. The family lake house was on fire, and Mary still had family left inside. Some rushed towards the lake with makeshift buckets while others dragged injured cousins and siblings and spouses away from the flames. Each and every member of the Branwen family knew it would take the fire department far too long to reach their little escapade.

Each and every one of them knew what it meant to enter again and again.

It was a bad way to go, flames lapping at the skin and smoke in the lungs, but not the worst. There was agency in Mary's death, there was choice, and that made the pain to come very much worth it. Even knowing how it would end she still pushed little Benjamin out of the way, out of the house, as the beams of her childhood refuge came crashing down.

Mary would never be sure what killed her. It could have been the flames, or the wooden shaft in her stomach, but it was probably the smoke in her lungs.

It was a hell of a way to go, or so the medical examiner would say later, drowning from carbon and ash. Mary wouldn't have wanted it any other way though, whittling down a death toll from twenty to twelve to seven to one. She would be mourned, missed, her legacy carried into tomorrow by bereaved siblings and cousins and one very lucky nephew.

A beautiful story, the things her family created in their grief, but still not the one being told today.

That story began as Mary's ended, in the dark.

It was warm, filled with muffled voices and distorted rumbles and the ever present thump of a heartbeat. Mary floated in the darkness, half-aware of herself, content in the shadows that held her. Thoughts flickered in her moments of awareness. She was tiny, and small, and that was wrong but in the end it didn't matter because Mary was safe.

She was safe, swaddled in warm water that churned softly, and every once in a while she was reminded of the vicious fact she should be dead. The thoughts never lingered long though, and Mary let herself dream in that cocoon of unintelligible murmurs and unknown liquids. She slept and slept and then-

Disruption. Something was pushing her out of the dark, away from her safe place, water rushing down into the unknown. She protested this, with lungs that were not used to the air, let alone the chill, and hands pressed into slick skin as something warm wiped at the cold.

Awareness came a little slower than Mary would have liked, but a baby's eyesight was very poor indeed, so for half a minute she simply assumed something had gone wrong with her reincarnation, quietly putting a lot more stock in buddhist and hindu mythologies. This misconception lasted right until the nurse, or perhaps midwife, put Mary into her new mother's arms.

Her mother cooed, holding her close, and all Mary could do was stare at the softly spinning sharingan of the Uchiha. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. The sight of it filled her dread, because Mary knew what it meant. Her new mother took a breath, her Japanese dipping in all the wrong places, pronounced her "Uchiha Mari."

Well shit.

Naruto hadn't been her favorite story. Too little woman and too many inconsistencies in the plot and the characters and the world building. Still, like all her imperfect pieces of literature, there were parts of it that held a special place in her heart.

A boy, abandoned and left to drown, making friends with almost every enemy he came across. A fox, trapped by his kin, beatiful and angry and willing to forgive. A snake who was who he was, curious and sharp and perhaps a little evil, but pretty, and with enough experiences found his way back onto the proper path. A shark who was loyal to the end and a shadow who tossed his shogi set in grief, a deer who held his son tight as he cried and a wolf who had lost everyone and everything and spat in the face of the things that took his loved ones away.

Mary- Mari, she was Mari now, even if the whole thing ended up being some sort of coma dream she was going to run with it- was on a time crunch. The Third Shinobi War was going on, judging from the words like front and Namikaze, but Mari wasn't certain.

She knew a little Japanese, a few Kanji with more than a few Hiragana and Kakakana, the kind of knowledge required to read the signs of subway stations and the fire escape plan on her hotel door. It had been a dabble, just like she had dabbled in Hebrew and Arabic and Swahili. It was enough to satisfy her own tastes, and enough that while she was still struggling to learn an entire new language, she wasn't starting from nowhere.

She was not starting from nothing. Mari had been on her city's council before she died. It had been her second term, a career in the making, though not anymore. She had helped her siblings with their own children, had her own experience as a foster child in a system that need so much work. She had helped build houses and plant gardens and marched for change. She was not starting from nothing, and luckily, being a baby meant that between eating and sleeping she could plan to her hearts content.

Mari cried too, wailed out her grief between her mothers soft and foreign songs, cried between her fathers gentle walking as he carried around her garden. She sobbed, mourning the life she had left behind, and then she moved on, because what else was there to do?

They were good people, her parents. Uchiha Kyo and Hikari were both career Genin, and while her mother cleaned the clan's houses her father tended to the gardens. They were good people, and loved her very much, even if Mari had been an accident. A happy one, half welcomed because it meant her mother could return to clan instead of staying on the front, and her father was given a reprieve to help with his daughter.

Those first few years were good, but all good things must come to an end, and the world she had been reborn into was a bloody thing indeed.

Mari was two when her father was sent back to the front.

She cried when he left, and everyone knew he probably wasn't coming back. Even if he did, the Uchiha clan had the Sword of Damocles hanging over it's head. She could not save them all. Mari wasn't even certain she could save herself, half plots and ideas all dependent on the year, and the age of Itachi.

Still she was going to try, for her mother, and for her father.

For Sasuke, who would not become the boy she felt so much pity and fury for.

For the babies, who had never deserved to die.

For Itachi, who deserved so much better than the life he got.

Kyo was perhaps a little desperate to keep what family had left close when her husband left. If Mari had not been such a quiet child, she was certain her mother would have left to her cousins, or a daycare, but Mari was a well behaved child, so off with her mother she went.

It was nice, to listen to her mother sing as she cooked and cleaned and gardened. Mari was finally able to stay awake for most of the day, and she used her time very, very wisely. She took all those plot points she had long since memorized, hoping they were enough, that she hadn't been born into some parallel world Kishimoto had envisioned, or connected with, or created. It didn't really matter how the processes worked, just that she was here, and she was operating on limited data.

Still she planned like a Nara. Her plots had backups and her backs up had contingencies and it was like one giant sliding jigsaw puzzle in her head. She would rest easier when she could start writing and messing with seals. Mari desperately needed a deadman's switch, that way if she died she could at least make a difference, she could at least whittle the death toll down.

From twenty to twelve to seven to one.

From twenty to twelve to seven to one.

Mari was three when her mother had her start helping around. Kyo had her wipe things down and put things back in their proper spot and memorized what houses belonged to which families. The Uchiha was a clan that had built it's hierarchy around the clan head linage and those with the potential for the Mangekyo. Privately, Mari thought this was dumb, because between the incest and encouragement of soul slicing trauma it was no wonder their clan was as toxic as it was, but Mari was the daughter of two nobodies, and wisely kept her mouth shut.

One day though. One day.

The elders would roll in their graves and she would laugh as she dragged her people into the light, she would laugh and smile and build something better, something beautiful.

It was on this learning stretch she met Itachi for the first time.

They were cleaning the clan head's house, though she hadn't realized that yet. Mari was wipping down the kitchen counters while her mother worked on the fire place, giving a curse when she realized something had made a nest in the chimney. Normally Mari used this time to plan her arguments about clan improvements and sharpen some of her contingencies, but this time the soft whimper of a baby had her moving before she could think better of it.

She blamed her past life for that, spending a whole month in the summer with a revolving door of siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles and everything in between. This meant there had always, always, been babies in need of care, and you were always expected to help out, related or not.

Her previous family had been unconventional in that regard. They had not demanded labels. They had not demand obedience or submission or the following of anything but one's own dreams.

They had not demand blood to be called family.

The Branwen's had been a conglomeration of all ages, of all bloodlines, and Mari had once likened them to that of a cat colony. The joke was on her though, because like all good cats the cry of little one was not something she could ignore.

Mari checked over the baby in the crib.

His diaper was good, he wasn't doing any mouth ticks, and his skin was warm. She frowned, glancing around the empty room, and her scowl deepened when the little-one stopped making noise. They were definitely not touching him enough, and even with all the advancements of the twenty first century, even her former people were still far more hands off with babies and children than they should be.

She could fix that though, and little-one's eyes were wide as she trailed her Uchiha blue ribbon across his line of vision, one chubby hand reaching out. He looked to be about six months old, or there about, and she smiled when he kicked his little feet. He was just too cute, and really where was his caregiver? It wasn't safe to leave a baby this young by themselves like this.

"Hello there Uchiha-chan," a voice that very much not her mother greeted, and Mari jumped, moving to place herself between the stranger and the baby.

Several things happened at once. The stranger smiled, one hand moving to hide her lips, and Mari was suddenly very aware she was standing between Mikoto and Itachi.

That was… something she was going to have to roll with, and think about later.

She bowed the proper amount of degrees and greeted the clan head with an Uchiha-Sama, refusing to cringe at the pronunciation.

"Mikoto, Uchiha-chan, we're family after all. Now what's your name?" she asked as she moved to kneel by the cradle. Her eyes were far too sharp Mari's liking. Had that response been too thought out? Mari was not going to be a baby genius, she refused.

Which, ugh, there was only one way to deal with that.

"Mari, Mikoto-Sama. Come to play?" Mari hated the way her lips mispronounced the words, twisting their meaning just so, but it was how a child her age would speak, so Mari put up with it. She wasn't going to be a child soldier, not for years to come, and only because it was something this world was going to force her to be.

"I'm afraid I can't right now." Mikoto replied, still smiling that amused cat smile. "Were you looking for a friend then?"

Mari shook her head. "No, Mikoto-Sama. Sad baby, lonely, so I fix."

"Oh?" the Uchiha Matriarch asked, head tilted, and Mari was absolutely certain the woman was laughing at her on the inside. Well, in for a penny in for a pound, and Mari would really like it if her parents didn't get in trouble for this. The more nuanced societal navigations and pitfalls of this culture still eluded her. Mari was learning, but this was an eastern world, and there was just too much of the west ground into her heart for it ever to fade away.

"Yes," she grinned, letting pride tug at her lips. "I am best helper, mama said."

Mikoto hummed in response. "And where is your mother now?"

"Roofs? Cleaned fire first, but bad birds. Told me to stay." Mari paused at this, brow furrowed like she was finally thinking it through. "In trouble?"

"You aren't in trouble Mari-chan." Well that was nice to know, though there was something about the woman's tone that made Mari nervous.

"And Mama?" she asked with wide eyes.

"She's not in trouble either." Mikoto replied, smile a touch softer now. It was the kind of expression meant to put Mari at ease, and it likely would have, had Mari not been an adult in a child's body who knew how adults lied. "Shall we find her?"

"With baby?" Mari dared, because Itachi really was a lonely baby, and that kind of thing messed with a kids development. Which, now that she thought about, explained a lot about the person he'd become.

She'd had time to think of the Itachi problem, and it reminded her of the hitler question. You couldn't just kill a tyrant and expect all the world to become magically better. You couldn't ignore the social and political and economical problems that created monsters, you couldn't pretend the systemic pressures didn't create the very things society claimed came from nowhere.

You couldn't ignore the responsibility of those in power, and their own culpably.

Besides, he really was a cute baby. Mari just wanted to hold him tight and never let go, but she'd never get away with that.

"Sure," Mikoto agreed, and Mari beamed at woman, because to hell with Uchiha stoicism, it was just an excuse to be emotionally constipated. That or it was just the centuries of incest and generational trauma, it was honestly a toss up.

Mari's mother was a little less excited than Mari about her new friends. Which was to say when Kyo saw Mikoto with Mari she paled, and then bowed the full ninety degrees. It was lowest one could go without kneeling. "Apologies Uchiha-Sama she normally doesn't wander. I am so sorry if she disturbed you."

"That's alright Kyo-chan, Mari-chan here was no bother." Mikoto replied, like there was nothing wrong with this. There wasn't, in their culture, but Mari was a daughter of the west. She bowed now only because she could not get away with such things. Not yet. "It is Kyo-chan, our mother's were second cousins I believe."

"They were Uchiha-Sama. Your Great-Aunt married below her station." Oh but did that sounded like a scandal. That made her and Itachi second cousins twice removed if she had her mental map right.

Mikoto hummed, though her face looked like a woman who was plotting something. "Shall we talk inside Kyo-chan?"

"Of course Uchiha-Sama," her mother murmured, "It would an honor."

This was how Mari was given the honor of keeping Itachi company until she went to the academy. She and Mikoto had an unspoken understanding, somehow. Mari would keep Itachi happy while Mikoto worked on clan things, and Mikoto would pretend that Mari was a regular child with nothing special about her, nothing at all.

It was a good deal, even if her mother shoved everything she knew about manners down Mari's throat the moment they got home. Even if this was an appalling grasp of child psychology, babysitting Itachi meant freetime, and the opportunity to read the books on the Uchiha clan head's bookshelf.

So for the next three years Mari read. She read and practiced her kanji in the dirt and carried Itachi around the house. People laughed at her seriousness, eyes crinkled when she called it training, but Mari wasn't laughing. She knew what lied on the horizon. Pein and Danzo and Obito and Madara and Zetsu and Kaguya.

She didn't tell them sunlight was good for little Itachi either.

They wouldn't get it, Mari's head full of studies that weren't available to her. People needed touch. They needed sunlight and plants and hobbies. They needed to belong, to feel safe and heard and to have purpose.

They didn't get it, but they would, even if Mari had to drag the rest of her family kicking and screaming out of the shadows, pun definitely intended.

She wouldn't trade those years for anything. She sang memorized lullabies and talked to Mikoto about the things she was learning as they taught Itachi his kanji. Mari helped him figure out how to read and how to speak and how to walk. He was so small, and she would stare at him sometimes, knowing that elders and the village would tear him in two.

Itachi was fated to kill his clan, and die by his beloved younger brother's hand. He was fated to die of an illness, lungs bleeding and bleeding as if his sins had crept into his heart. He was fated to have his eyes turned against the very village he gave his life for.

Mari hated that there wasn't anything she could do about that, hated that in the eyes of her clan she was just the daughter of a gardener and a maid Mikoto took pity on.

One day though, one day she was going to spit in the face of destiny.

-

Mari met her actual clan head when she was six. It was the day before her enrollment into the academy, and Fugaku, like an idiot, took his fucking four year old son onto a battlefield. Her second cousin twice removed was not enlightened by his little trip, he was fucking traumatized. She swallowed her fury, her rage, because while there was nothing she wanted more than to scream at her clan head, she knew her place.

He would never know it, but it was the walk back that awakened her sharingan. Mari was just, she felt so angry, so helpless, because her people were hurting, they were hurting and there was nothing she could do about it. Her mother startled, when she entered the house and started ranting, though her mother only let Mari get a few words.

Her mother's callused palms covered her lips as Kyo harshly told Mari never to say such things again. Which. Honestly was entirely fair, considering they were in a military dictatorship. Mari had just, she had forgotten, because they called each other family, because they called each other clan.

That didn't mean anything though. Mari knew that better than most. So she listened to her mother, and stared at the ceiling with softly spinning eyes.

She told no one about sharingan.

The Academy sucked. The historical propaganda was subpar, the education system was unfairly geared towards clan kids, male clan kids at that, and the teachers practically encouraged the fan-girling! Honestly, if they wanted more kids with bloodline-limits, why not adopt a harem policy? Or fund a way for designer babies? It was entirely unreasonable that Mari be subjected to girls encouraged to stalk and be loud and not think about what being a house-wife actually entailed.

They could all do with a dose of Izumi Curtis, but sadly the literature of this world was also lacking.

Konoha was a mishmash of different technology states, which was probably because the shinobi were hoarding all the good stuff, another thing to fix if she could, but they could make designer babies if they really wanted to. They didn't though, because they were sexist, and stupid, and clung to tradition far too tightly.

There was one bright spot in her years of torture, and that was one very lazy Nara named Roka, which was very creative on his parents part. She found it funny though, that if they didn't have the name that meant shadow, they had a name that meant deer, or shogi, or something related, with the occasional cloud name tossed in there.

They had a good partner ship, her and Roka. They would help each other answer questions when the teacher called on them for sleeping, or in Mari's case working on what she now called Project Vinegar. She had enough Fuinjutsu knowledge to make a binder, and was filling it with laws to be added, or addendums to the police, or arguments for and against certain things.

Still, Roka was fun. She would poke fun at his hair and he would call her troublesome and together they kept their scores exactly at eighty. He was really the only person she ever let her guard down with, because hiding from a Nara just increased their curiosity, and at the end of the day Roka was… Simple.

He didn't care, and she was very fond of him for that.

Over the break she turned seven, and her present from the universe was her father coming home in a body bag and her mother was sent to the front.

Kyo, thanks to all the housework she did, was good friends with all of the summoners of the clan. This meant, that while Mari had the occasional cousin come in to check on her, more often than not it was the cats and the corvids watching over her.

Now, Mari didn't exactly mind this, as it allowed her to study her stolen Fuinjutsu knowledge and secret away books and build a rudimentary deadman switch, but it was still not great leaving a seven year old all by themselves.

She added it to the list of things to that tackle later once she got enough political power to call it out without being murdered.

Still, Mari was productive. She trained with little Itachi, trying her best to be someone he could rely on, someone he would go to when shit hit the fan. She adopted a cat, who she named Kat, and on her collar Mari placed her deadman switch. It took the entire break, but she was able to make it so that if she died, Shikaku would get everything she remembered, and a run down between all the villains she could remember and their weakness.

Sasuke was born, and all Mari could feel was dread, even if he was a cutest little thing she ever did see.

The canon timeline had been all over the place, always changing as Kishimoto figured out his world with every chapter and arc, which meant every October since Itachi turned three was absolutely nerve raking, even without his baby brother. He was five now, and if Kurama didn't attack this year, he was definitely attacking in the next, the youngest son of her clan head a harbinger for the greatest tragedy yet to come.

Mari couldn't stop it, not enough power and not enough clout, and even if she could, how much of her knowledge would become useless with such a thing. It was a fine line to walk, Mari knew, decided who lived and who died and what events were worth changing.

She was going to try to save the Uchiha, but if she had to fake her death in order to survive, she would, no matter how much the thought of Itachi murdering babies and killing his parents and torturing Sasuke hurt her heart. Mari couldn't save everyone, no matter how much she wanted to try, a little blond boy blazing in her mind, about to be born.

The summons finally caved, and started teaching her things other than the political landscape of the world they all hailed from. She soaked all of it in, the Chakra lessons, and it was with these cats and crows and ravens she learned to sharpen her tongue even further, fighting for things they considered too dangerous to have.

Unfortunately none of them knew anything about sword fighting, which Mari desperately wanted to learn, because at some point she absolutely getting that glorious lightsaber that belonged to the Second Hokage. She didn't dare ask any of her peers though, just in case, which meant Mari had to wait, least she develop bad habits.

A road block, but not a serious one, as Mari had enough to take her death if she needed to, and for the first time since her birth felt secure enough to breath. She had her safety net, now she could truly start trying to save her clan.

Roka welcomed her back with a sigh, complaining that his mother had made work over the break, and Mari laughed at him. They settled back into their routine like nothing had changed, and then, well.

October came round.

The sky was on fire everyone else around her was panicking, or moving towards the civilians, trying to get them to safety. Another thing she couldn't change, another of Danzo's schemes she was helpless to prevent.

Mari wasn't really paying attention to that though, staring at the horizon with a full three tomoe sharingan. Kuruma was glowing, tails swatting against buildings as the chakra in the air grew thick like morning mist on a river.

It was beautiful.

It was the most horrific thing she'd ever seen.

The air was orange with chakra, and Mari stayed where she was, smoke rising all around her. She was a little afraid, her brain producing terror at the sight of something so big, but mostly Mari was just sad. People were dying and over yonder the Lord Fourth was fighting with his student, Kurama set loose and lost to his hate as Kushina died giving birth to her baby.

She felt for that sage crafted creature. They were cousins, kinda, and he was going to a prisoner for a little bit longer. It was unfair, and unkind, but Mari didn't look away, because every part of this tragedy deserved to be recorded for history.

Mikoto found her hours later, when the fires had cooled and the ash had settled and the dead had long lost their warmth. She was still staring at the spot where Kurama had disappeared, where she knew Naruto laid crying in a bloodied crib.

The Uchiha Matriarch stood before her, and Mari already knew what she was going to say. She wasn't a natural sensor, but she had boosted her own power with handmade seals and the tiniest hints of nature chakra. The war had ended, and her mother had been coming home, the last of the deployed boarder patrol finally returning home.

Her mother was dead, having died defending others.

Her mother was dead.

Mari cried. She hadn't been close to her second father, but she had been close to Kyo, who had taught her how to sow and how to garden and how to cook. Mikoto held her, and Mari wailed out her grief, her hurt and her shock and that almost foreign Uchiha fury that demanded she go bloody those responsible for her loss.

She could blame Obito, or Kurama, or even Naruto, and Mari did, a little, but she knew who the blame laid with. Kaguya, and her son Zetsu, who were hungry and greedy and brought death everywhere they went with their selfishness.

Mari wanted someone to blame, someone to hate, because anger was better than grief, rage was better than sorrow, and while Mary the long dead adult knew that things were not black in white; that things were not so simple and such thinking was unhealthy; Mari was in a child's body, with a child's brain, and logic was all that much harder for it.

At least she could pretend it was Kurama who had awakened her sharingan, rather than her clan head's idiocy.

It took Mari a bit longer to notice everything she owned had been relocated to the main linage house. Mikoto had told her it was temporary, and Mari had argued she could just continue living by herself, but here she was two months later still living in their house. She had the suspicion Mikoto wanted daughters, and with Mari freshly orphaned and known to her, Mikoto had likely decided just to adopt her.

This created problems.

Mostly because Itachi was a child, and already she could see the pressure, and there was little she could do before her clan head told her to stop talking or Mikoto gently told her that Itachi wasn't her concern anymore. She hated them for that, just like she hated Konoha for allowing her baby cousin to be fast tracked the way he was.

It took a year for things to truly bubble to a head. Itachi had graduated before her, at age six, with baby fat still on his cheeks and hands that were too small.

Mari had skipped school, because she didn't dare enter a class room this angry, afraid to say the wrong thing to the wrong person, and also because if the wrong person said something to her she would be throwing hands.

Still, there was really only one way to blow off steam, which was why she was hitting a training post with a tanto she had claimed as inheritance from the dead.

Her stolen weapon slammed against the wood like a heart beat as she repeated moves copied from Shinobi who hadn't minded her watching, provided she only do them with an adult. Well the joke was on them, because Mari was an adult, they just didn't know that.

Seriously though, if Mari hadn't awakened her sharingan at realizing just how much the clan had screwed over Itachi, or at the loss of her mother, or at Kurama's attack and Obito's betrayal, she definitely would have gained it after they let a six year old graduate.

She was just so angry, and she slammed her weapon again and again. Fuck Konoha. Fuck it. Fuck the education system and the counsel and the whole shinobi system. Fuck Fugaku, and Mikoto, and all of her fucking elders who put their greed above a child's well being. Fuck this world she had been born into, where child soldiers were the norm and no one thought anything wrong with that. Fuck her selfishness, her cowardice, because she could be doing something if she wasn't so afraid of disappearing, or being kicked out of the house she loved so much.

Fuck her for not wanting to be alone again.

"Mari." The voice startled her, and her tanto slipped from her palms.

She looked up to see Roka staring her. His expression was, distant. Not cold, just stoney, gaze the sharpest she'd ever seen it. Her hands hurt, and Mari looked down to see palms bloodied and chaffed. Huh, when had that happened?

"You weren't at school," her friend stated, and Mari grimaced. That meant talking to Mikoto, and she really, really, didn't want to got back to that house just yet.

Roka glanced at her sword, and Mari wondered where the rest of the day had gone. That was bad. She needed therapy, but she couldn't, it wasn't safe, not yet.

Mari also wasn't entirely certain the clan would let her. After all, in their eyes nothing bad had truly happened to her.

"You should see someone about that," Roka said, and Mari panicked before realizing he meant her hands, which, yeah she probably should.

"I don't want to go to the hospital," she muttered, suddenly aware of just how much her palms ached.

Sage she was tired, and before she could think better of it she cried, because they were killing her cousin. They were killing little Itachi and themselves and she couldn't save them because they didn't care. They didn't care and they couldn't see and Mari couldn't leave them, she loved them, she didn't want any of them to die, even the elders who gave her no end of grief.

Roka awkwardly patted her shoulder, and Mari choked on a laugh, because of course he would allergic to human emotion. Why worry about it when you could have a Yamanaka do it for you. Still, his chakra was steady, like shifting shadows on a forest floor, and Mari let him lead her away from the training field.

They walked in silence, and Mari noted with some interest he was taking her to the Nara compound. Which, on the one hand was a rather good thing, because Mari dreaded either going to the hospital or returning to the compound. One the other hand though, if anyone would figure out she was more than what she seemed, it would be Roka's kin.

The Nara clan compound was smaller than she expected. The Uchiha district practically sprawled across its owned land, here though, the houses were hidden in the trees, allowing the forest to seemingly go on to the edges of the village wall. Mari had yet to see any deer though, which was a shame. She liked deer.

Roka ended up taking her to a small cottage at the corner of the cluster of houses, who very awkwardly told her to stay there before heading inside. Mari turned her head, staring at the carving of the Lord Fourth. She wondered what the world would be like if she had tried to meet with him, had told him of Obito and Danzo and all that was to come. He probably would have thought she was crazy, still it was a nice thought.

The door opened, and standing at the arc was an old woman, hair white and skin wrinkled, eyes still Nara sharp. She clicked her tongue, and beckoned Mari inside. She followed, bowing at the door as she took off her shoes. She could have spoken, she just, didn't want to. She didn't want to risk opening her mouth and saying the wrong thing, so many thoughts bubbling in her chest.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair, but one day Mari was going to make it so.

She found herself with tightly wrapped hands sitting on Roka's back porch. Mari watched her friend nervously set up a Shogi board, and Mari couldn't help but melt at the sight. He didn't how to help, and was reaching out his hands in the only way he knew how.

Now, there were some people who considered Shogi and Chess to be easily interchangeable. Those people would be wrong, in so many ways, and her chess experience was honestly less help than she would have liked it to be. So Mari lost, and kept losing, but she didn't mind.

There was something soothing about the clicks of the pieces on the wood, the motions she and Roka did again and again. The elder made a sound of approval, before leaving to go inside.

Sometime before their eighth game a stick cracked, and Roka tensed. He seemed more nervous than she was about the massive and entirely glorious buck that stepped out of the shadows. Mari stood, bowing the full ninety degrees, and then sat back down like nothing had happened. Roka watched her for a minute before muttering troublesome woman and moving his piece. Which, shit, he was blocking her in again.

Mari moved a pawn, trying to stop his cornering, but honestly it was too late. Still, she was going to give him a fight. Roka didn't seem that much into the game though, eyes flickering back towards where the deer were. Mari ignored them, Roka would let her know if they were dangerous, or if she was doing something wrong.

A huff of hot breath pooled along her neck, and Mari turned to see that beautiful buck standing before her. She held up a hand, asking for permission, and the deer lowed his head, fur so, so soft. She ran her fingers down his neck, resisting the urge to cry again.

The sharingan sprang to life, capturing the weaving of fur between her skin and the veins of his horns and the way the light bounced off the trees as it sparkled on the ivory, the barest hint of misting rising in the air. Shadows danced between shifting branches as the deer gave another massive breath, his heartbeat just tangible on her fingers.

There was such longing her heart to wrap her hands around the deer's massive neck and sob, which. Hm. Mari needed to get herself some summons.

She needed skin contact, and the Uchiha couldn't provide that.

"Uh, Mari?" Roka called, but Mari wasn't paying attention to him anymore, softly scratching the deer around the ears as something called to her, tugged her deep.

Mari closed her eyes, taking a breath. She was angry, furious, but there was nothing she could do about the injustice this world was so steeped in. Anger wasn't helpful here, rage did not nothing but put her in danger.

Passion, she thought, thinking of a conversation between a wizard and a fallen angel about the worth of fury, and things it created.

Fear, Mari remembered, thinking of a boy and a man and the things they had done for their families, the things they had done to and for each other.

Heart, she resolved, the story of a monk refusing to bend the last living principles of his people ringing in her head like a bell; a child who looked fate in the eye and said, not today, not ever.

She took a breath, taking all that terror and hate and inner Uchiha desire to set those who hurt her loved ones on fire, and then she let it go. Mari let it go with her exhale, because there was no point in hurting about in the things she could not change. If she couldn't save Itachi right away, if she couldn't save the babies, she could at least save Sasuke.

She could at least ensure that what happened to her family, what happened to so many, would never happen again.

No more child soldiers.

No more children taken in the dead of night.

No more orphans left to fend for themselves.

It was a promise that resonated down to her core, the crisp morning of Yin Chakra slithering down her gates, which was not a nice feeling in the slightest.

Mari opened her eyes, blinking in confusion because that was a lot more deer than she remembered. There were fawns and does and bucks of various ages, over a dozen all spread out across the yard. A hand touched her cheek, but Mari couldn't startle away, couldn't even control her breathing, the callused fingers forcing her to meet the gaze of one Nara Shikaku.

Something in her relaxed, even as the rest her body wanted to panic. Roka was standing beside a tight lipped elder, looking scared. Why was he scared? Her body breathed for her, and shadows pooled at her feet as Shikaku used his Chakra to gently coax her back into her body.

Wait.

When had she left her body? What had happened? Had Mari, what had she done, where had the sun gone?

Her body suddenly felt so small within her own skin, like there were bugs crawling around her flesh, chest expanding and closing against her will. Slowly Shikaku gave her back control, and her breath was shaky as she inhaled.

There was Yin still slathered all over her Chakra, which was probably bad.

"Nara-sama," she greeted, or tried to, throat suddenly dry as she wheezed. Why did she feel so awful, what had she done?

"Breathe Mari-chan, you're alright. Here, drink." Shikaku handed her a cup, and Mari sipped at the water, because gulping was bad. She would not be throwing up in front or on the Nara clan head. She would not be doing that. "Good, do you know what you did?"

Mari shook her head. Chakra was weird with her, sometimes. Probably because of her unnaturally large Yin reserves. Uchiha already leaned towards Yin, but Mari definitely blamed her past life for why it caused so much trouble. It didn't help that as much those precious memories were a stable and a guide line, they did also hamper her in some areas. She was too used to the rules of the universe, which this land seemed to ignore fairly frequently.

She had done something with her Yin though, or maybe something had been done to her? She didn't know, and Sage how long had it been since Mari hadn't known something? Her body shuddered, and not just from the Yin.

There wasn't much to afraid of, these days, but that little thought was perhaps the spookiest thing she had felt in a good, long while.

Shikaku was still staring at her, eyes sharp like his son's would one day be.

"Sorry," Mari murmured, suddenly feeling terribly small. There was a huff, and Mari glanced at the deer. "The deer, I didn't mean, did I hurt them?"

She hoped not. Animals were better than people, and that stag had set her steady, had stopped her spiral in despair. He deserved better than her stumbling.

"No," Shikaku told her gently, "you didn't hurt any of them. The Deer aren't used to outsiders, and assumed from your large pool of Yin you were one of ours. They invited you into their shadows."

"Oh," she said, frowning, because that sounded, not great. "That was bad, wasn't it?"

The Nara clan head nodded. "You nearly walked out of your own body."

Which. Yeah. That was defiantly not good. No wonder she felt so awful. "Sorry."

"Don't be Mari-chan. You got very lucky, most outsiders who get dragged into the Shadows don't come out again," he said, and Mari shuddered again. Spooky. Very Spooky. She still liked the deer though, even if they had almost eaten her. Mari blinked. Wait a minute.

"Was that a clan secret?" she asked, once again feeling small, though this time for a very different reason. Behind his clan head Roka paled, and Mari felt the blood rush from her own face. Oh no. Oh not good. Shikaku gave a half smile, lips tight and eyes sharp, and Mari did the only thing she could think of, bowing as low as she could in the chair. "I am grateful for Nara-Sama's assistance, as well as his trust in me. Both will be honored."

Shikaku hummed, and Mari didn't look up, praying her meekness could at least get Roka out of trouble. "No need for that Mari-chan. Roka-Kun is not in trouble, and neither are you. I'm going to need to talk to your clan head, and your guardian, but that's it. This sort of thing has happened before, as troublesome as it is."

A clean secret, but maybe an open one, like the Uchiha second stage or the Aburame bugs. Well that was a relief. She still felt awful, both too steady and entirely off key, body giving another involuntary shiver, but at least Roka was safe.

Shikaku held out his hand, and Mari took it. She let Roka give her a hug, taking in the scent of him, cedar leaves and wood polish, before promising to see him at school tomorrow. The Nara Clan head was quiet as they walked out of the house, shadows flickering in lamp light, and with every step she felt a little more steady.

It did not go unnoticed how Shikaku was making his steps smaller.

They didn't talk as they walked. Mari was fine with that, she liked the silence, even if she still felt a little raw before the Nara clan head. She kept her gaze on the Nanako river, walking the outer path that led to the newly built Uchiha compound.

She didn't think about the implications of that.

She didn't want to.

Shikaku slowed when they were about halfway there, the Akimichi clan housing visible across the water where the river slowed, slopes giving to deeper waters as orange flickered on the black.

"Nara-sama?" She asked, not sure if he was slowing to talk politics or if he sensed something. Mari was getting pretty good at the whole sensing thing, but she knew full well how little that meant anything.

Was it odd that she felt so safe with him? He had been a favorite, that scene between him and Shikamaru burned into her brain, Shogi pieces thrown like blood, vengeance rising like a wild fire in the dead of night.

"Roka-kun speaks highly of you," Shikaku started, eyes sharp like daggers in the dark, and Mari braced herself to have one hell of a conversation.

"He's fun," Mari said with a shrug, and found there was more truth in that statement than she intended. Roka was simple, and had a similar level of maturity and intelligence without any of the trauma so often associated with it. "I didn't mean to worry him."

Mari knew herself well enough to know she was traumatized, between her death and her parents and the Sword of Damocles that constantly hung over her shoulders it really wasn't surprising she had lapsed the way she had. The scrapes of remembered therapy helped, but not by much. What Mari needed the real thing, but that wasn't available to her yet.

Another thing to change, when she had the power, and the time.

"What happened?" He asked gently, without pressure or judgment and Mari stopped walking, staring into black eyes that seemed to swallow the light. No, not black, just a deep brown.

"Itachi graduated yesterday." Mari had started walking again, hands in her pockets. The anger she had felt this morning wasn't gone, but whatever she'd done with the deer had mellowed it, or at least allowed it to become more manageable.

"He's done well then," Shikaku mused, and Mari whorled on him. He was friends with the Yamanaka for sage's sake, he should know better.

"No," she corrected harshly, "not well. He's six, baby fat still on his checks and everything, and no one seems to see that. It doesn't matter how smart he is, he's a baby, and everyone involved is just patting themselves on the back like they aren't about bloody their hands with his life. Worse, Itachi's happy about it! They're killing him and he's happy about it, because he thinks he's doing his duty as a perfect son by becoming the perfect soldier. He's just a boy, and no one in power will save him, now or when he fails and is forced to-"

Mari shut her mouth. That was too close. She looked down, because she really shouldn't have done that. She didn't have the safety net to say such things, not yet. Shikaku hummed in response.

"Your care for your cousin is admirable," he said calmly and without care. He didn't say but. He didn't need to. It wasn't a reprimand, but it was a warning, and Mari nodded to let him to know she had heard that. "Roka-kun mentioned you had used the sharingan, just before your little trip."

Well, that was just awkward for an entirely different reason, and Mari tried to smother a grimace.

She kicked a rock, because clan politics were stupid, stupid things to have to deal with. "I would appreciate if we didn't mention that to my clan head. The Uchiha believe the sharingan should be reserved for battle or training, and that using it to take snapshots is wasteful."

"Snapshots?" Shikaku asked, head tilted, and Mari realized a little late the underneath of that question. Which, considering the history of her clan, wasn't entirely unjustified.

"You know, like pictures," Mari explained with a wave of her hand, letting her frustration and excitement fill the gesture. It grated sometimes, acting like a child, but needs must. "We remember, in perfect clarity, the things we see. And so much of it is scenes of violence, or shinobi skills used for training, because there's no allowance for anything else. I just, it was a pretty scene Nara-Sama, and I was in the safety of a very good friend, who was doing his best to make me feel better. I wanted to remember it in the clarity it deserved."

"You've been censured before," he noted, and Mari kicked the next pebble a little harder.

"It is what it is. Most of the elders were born and spent their formative years where using the sharingan anywhere but with the clan or on the battlefield wasn't safe, and letting others know of your bloodline was even less so. I don't blame them, such thinking is understandable, knowing their history, it's just dumb to keep a tradition that hurts everybody."

She could feel the gaze of Shikaku on her. That might have been too put together but Mari couldn't find the fear to care. She was tired. All those Isekai novels and fanfics never talked about the exhaustion of living in a world that didn't accept you, whose values were so incompatible with your own. They never talked about the loss and the grief and the hurt knowledge granted you, because no one wanted to listen, especially ninjas.

Mari took a breath, thinking of a boy crowned in gold, and an army bathed in orange flames, like the dawn of a new day. It would get better, with or without her intervention. She knew that. She knew that, it was just, heavy.

Sage Mari really needed some summons.

Shikaku exhaled, "well, your secret is safe with me Mari-chan."

She grinned at him for that. He really was a good man, a good dad, and an ever better clan head. Just a little tainted by the world he was raised in, but so was everyone else.

Her own clan head was less than happy. Mikoto fretted over her hands, sharingan eyes whorling as she looked Mari over. Not for the first time she wondered if the Uchiha matriarch had wanted daughters, but had been given sons. It would explain some of her behavior, a longing Mari could respect, even if her mother needed no replacing.

Fugaku was still scowling when he allowed the Nara clan head into his home, and Shikaku placed a comforting hand on Mari's shoulder. He explained what had happened, though with less details, and her Uchiha guardians listened with pursed lips.

"Will there be any side effects?" Mikoto asked as soon as Shikaku finished, which wow that had not been a question Mari had even remembered to ask. Thankfully the Nara clan head just shook his head.

"She might a little tired," he explained, "but there won't be any problems physically."

Mikoto narrowed her eyes at that. "And mentally?"

"That depends on Mari-chan," Shikaku explained, turning his gaze towards Mari as her Uchiha guardians did the same. She tried not to shrink under their gazes as she shrugged.

"It didn't hurt, and only after did it feel… spooky." She didn't mention her Yin. It didn't feel safe, for some reason.

"Good," Fugaku said, and Mari didn't need to be told it was time for her to leave. Standing, she bowed to the Nara clan head, and retreated to the realize safety of her room.

Kat was waiting for her, the black feline chirping as Mari pick her up and held her close.

She really needed some summons.

Chapter 2: Swift as a deer. Quiet as a shadow. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Chapter Text

Mari was twelve and just finished her graduation. This would normally be something to be excited about, but she wasn't the only one who had been promoted.

Itachi was a chunin. At ten.

She sat with him when she could, but any attempt to get him to slow down, to think and ponder and question their fucking elders were shrugged off. Mari was too Western, thinking honor was earned, loyalty given to those had proven steadfast. That tradition should not always be set in stone. People were people and age did not make wisdom.

Itachi didn't agree though, and so they clashed. Itachi believed in his parents, he believed in his village and his Hokage. Things were black and white, to her genius second cousin twice removed, and Mari knew full well the damage that world view would inflict.

They didn't argue in front of Sasuke.

He was an unspoken neutral ground, where they pretend to be friends, and taught him how to throw kuni and the like. Mari didn't let him get away with his next time bullshit though. Commitments were important, and she was not aiding in giving Sasuke a complex… well a second complex, because no matter how many times she told Fugaku and anyone else who said it in her hearing, they would not stop comparing the two brothers.

Sage, was it any wonder canon Sasuke was the way he was. Not that Mari trusted Kishimoto with any kind of child psychology, but still.

At least she had Roka on her Genin team. Between Mari, her Nara, and an Aburame, they were probably going to be an intelligence team. Her new teammate was named Muta, and Mari stared long and hard at the small child who was staring right back.

Muta, Muta, where did she know that name?

Oh. The fourth war arc.

Her new teammate was not going to die at twenty four this time around. He was going to be old with grandkids if he wanted them and grand neblings if he didn't.

Their Jonin Sensei was someone named Kohaku Mitsu. His family sigil was familiar, two black tomoe shaped like the yin and yang symbol. Mari was pretty sure his entire family would get murdered during that Daimyo plot involving the Kurama arm kid. Maybe. She took in his tanned face and short curly hair and the way he held himself.

Nope, she had nothing. Either he was an unnamed or from one of those light novels Mary never had gotten around to reading.

Her new sensei held out to bells, and Mari squinted at her new teacher. She'd only really seen Team Seven's test, but weren't other teams suppose to do different things? Mitsu was shaking the bells, doing the typical team seven spiel, only two of you will pass and all that jazz, but really only Muta was giving their sensei any kind of attention.

Roka could probably sense her… not annoyance, but he knew the look she was wearing, and knew it well. It was the face she wore when she had been given a puzzle, and found it's answer entirely stupid.

"You don't seem very serious," Mitsu noted, and Mari wondered if the bell test was also to show genin superiors couldn't always be trusted, that even sensei's lied. "You'll have to come at me with the intent if you really want to pass."

"No," Mari said, and ignored Roka's hand slapping against his face.

"No?" Her sensei repeated in a tone that was far too amused, that was alright for now though, he'd learn.

"No." She met his eyes, and resisted the urge to have her sharingan activate. "I will not participate in a test that turns my teammates against me. It's stupid for many reasons. First it could breed resentment, second it plants the undertone that our comrades can be anything other than comrades, third every genin team, except in special circumstances, is a four man, that is our standard."

"Now Mari-Chan" Mitsu tried, probably cursing whoever had done her evaluation because she had very much been a teachers pet, but Mari refused to give an inch.

"I wasn't done. Even if we ignore all those things, and even if all three of us work together, we can not beat you. So, instead of being annoyed that I am not encouraging my fellow Shinobi to fight against impossible odds when the option of negation is on the table, you should be proud, because this is my team, take it or leave it."

Mitsu sighed. "And everyone else?"

"Mari's troublesome," Roka grumbled, and Mari beamed at him, because that was a compliment from a Nara, they just liked to pretend it wasn't. "But she's not wrong. So sure, either all of us pass, or none of us pass."

Everyone on the training field looked to Muta, who in typical Aburame fashion, was both unreadable and seemingly unflappable. Mari smiled under his gaze. Like all of his clan, he seemed a little lonely.

"I agree with my teammates, why? Because they have called me comrade, and I shall support them." Muta proclaimed with as much passion as she'd ever heard from an Aburame.

Mari let her joy shimmer in her chakra, blinding as vindictiveness bubbled just below that. She was still an Uchiha after all, and her smile had perhaps too many teeth for the persona she was aiming for, but it was what it was.

Mitsu sighed again, deeper this time, like he was already exhausted by them. Mari took in amber eyes filled with defeat, and damn if the sight of didn't nibble at the back of her brain. "I do believe that's the first time anyone's ever tried it like that, but congratulations, you all pass. Take today to get to know each other. I'm going to report to the Hokage."

He disappeared in a flutter of leaves, green floating softly to the ground. Mari stared at them before turning to Roka. "How much you wanna bet he's getting drunk."

Roka clicked his teeth. "Suckers bet. I thought we were gonna go easy on him."

Mari rolled her eyes. "We did, unless you actually wanted to fight him."

Her Nara grimaced, because exercise really was the bane of his existence, and Mari turned towards Muta. He was small, and seemed to fidget under her gaze.

"How do you feel about raman?" She asked, and behind her Roka groaned.

"We had that last week," he muttered, but Mari gracefully ignored him.

So far her plan to run into Naruto and make his life easier was not panning out, but she knew she'd run into him eventually. He was… five? Sasuke was five, and completely ignorant to four way war going on in his household. Mari was technically an adult now, she could get her own apartment if she wanted. Money would be tight, but she could do it, the only problem was again, Sasuke was five, and didn't understand wanting to be his brother was a bad thing.

"I have no complaints." Muta said, dragging away Mari away from her problems. "Eating lunch will be an adequate bonding activity."

Mari moved to his side, only to pause before she could slap an arm around his shoulders. Roka was used to that, but Muta most likely wasn't.

"How do you feel about touch?" She asked, and did not cringe at how that sounded because asking was important, even if Roka turned a laugh into a cough.

She'd get back at him later, and then he would be sorry.

"It is not disliked," Muta answered somewhat hesitantly, so Mari clapped her arm around his shoulder, taking note of the tension.

She led him away, and with every step he slowly relaxed against her arm. Sure, his skin was moving in the tiniest amount, but Mari was rising above it. Konoha was full of ingrained prejudices, and she was determined to spit in the face every single one. Muta was hers now, there was nothing he could do or be that she would not accept.

"Great, tell me about yourself. I know Roka like the back of my hand, but if we're going to be a team I need to know the very important things, like how you feel abouts cats and who the best Hokage is."

"The Lord First," Roka said, and Mari shifted so she could meet his gaze as she stuck her tongue out at him.

"The Lord Second is the best, obviously," she corrected, and Muta turned to squint at her. At least, Mari was assuming he was squinting at her, damn sunglasses made so hard to tell. Did they have weird eyes, or maybe bugs in the eyes? Didn't matter, she was not thinking about it any more, nope.

"Wasn't the Lord Second known for his dislike of the Uchiha?" Muta asked, and Mari let out an offended gasp.

"Lies and Slander," she hissed, "he taught an Uchiha student, and entrusted us with the police force, and beyond his own genius on the field and creating jutsu, he was a bureaucratic wet dream, he created the mission levels and the budget and all three councils. He could drown his enemies with water dragons on the battlefield and with paperwork in the village."

Plus, mentioning how cool the Lord Second was to Sasuke caused Fugaku to make the best faces.

"I see," Muta said slowly, like it was just dawning on him his new teammates were absolutely crazy. "I am partial to the Lord Fourth."

Mari grinned. "Good choice."

Minato was a good pick after all, he made a couple failures, but he wouldn't have turned a blind eye to all the shit Danzo got up to. Probably. Mari had the slightest suspicion Danzo had used both Kagami's and Shisui's eyes to get away with a lot of shit, but the reason didn't really change the reality of things.

History would not be kind to the Lord Third's legacy.

Mari led her team towards downtown, and on the way poked and prodded her new teammate. She was very determined to learn all the little things that Muta, well, Muta.

Now, there were a few things overrated in fandom.

Sensing. Sensing sucked, sensory overload wrapped in all the best and words of human emotions. How Tobirama could stretch his field of awareness over hundreds of miles was behind her. Mari tried to do more than three houses and got overwhelmed to the point of a panic attack. She was getting better, even if she was using seals to cheat.

Being a clan kid. Sure, you got a cool bloodline limit and large support system, but you also got stupid traditions and the worst elders. That wasn't even getting into the discrimination and bloodline hunters and a heaping pile of generation trauma.

Though, that was kinda a given even if you weren't a clan kid.

Konoha itself. At least Land of Lightning was open about what it was, at least Land of Water didn't deny its bloody history. Land of Wind…. was still pretty shitty, but at least genius orphans didn't get kidnapped and indoctrinated into the secret black op cult being run by a corrupt village elder.

At least Mari hoped they weren't.

Now, all of that said and done, there were some things that weren't overrated, and at the very top of that list was Ichiraku Ramen.

Mari missed western food. She missed hamburgers and steaks and the mishmash that was american food culture, but Ichiraku Ramen eased that pain, just a little.

Muta seemed a little hesitant to enter a food station run by a civilian for civilians, but old man Teuchi was literally the best. He was kind, and he was good, and he was all the things Mari wanted to be, with none of the sharpness.

The raman chief smiled, beckoning them in with a smile.

"Back so soon Mari-chan?" he asked, and Mari nodded.

"These are my teammates, Teuchi-San. Nara Roka and Aburame Muta. Muta-san had never had Ramen Ichiraku before, which was a tragedy that needed to be fixed immediately," she explained, and Teuchi laughed, genuine and chakra full of amusement.

"Teuchi, Mari-Chan, Teuchi," the cook corrected like always, because Mari found honorifics stupid except when she was using them to annoy people. "The San makes me feel old, you know this. Now, what are the three of you thinking?"

Mari got the Shio raman, which was both traditional and salter than most. She missed salt, she was allowed to have her guilty pleasure. Muta got tonkotsu, which had more calories than the average bowl, and Roka got the fan favorite Miso, which had too many conflicting flavors and texture for Mari, but whatever.

Things Mari learned about Muta.

He liked sweet things, but only after a proper meal. He preferred a book to a girl, and didn't understand the appeal for romance, especially at their age. Muta was apparently learning some of the more varied bugs of his clan, though those were secrets for now. She almost laughed when he said he favorite color was green, with brown a close second, because of course they were.

She didn't though, because green was the color of ivy on brick and the growing herbs on her window and the vines Sasuke picked tomatos from. She smiled, because brown was the color of mud on Itachi's face and Roka's eyes and deer whose shadows still gave her shivers, from time to time.

Muta was a sweetheart, and he was hers. He was not allowed to die, Mari wouldn't allow it.

She'd have to see how easily he could be converted to Project Vinegar.

Mari was about half way through her plotting of using Muta as an opening to the rest of the Aburame clan, Roka using her silence to explain Shogi terms to Muta, when Umazaki Naruto, after four years of trying to run into him, finally burst into the raman stand. Roka and Muta turned to stare at him, and tiny Naruto seemed to freeze under their collective gazes. It broke her heart, the way he was so braced for a negative reaction.

Fuck Konoha. Fuck it.

"You seemed like you were going to proclaim something Blondie-San," Mari drawled, ignoring the stares of her teammates. They'd get with the program, even if she had to blackmail them. "Don't leave poor old man Teuchi-San in suspense like that."

"I am not old," Teuchi complained, seemingly pretending not to notice the tension, though he was probably thankful for her uncaring attitude.

Honestly, bless him. Bless him and his kindness and his refusal to turn anyone away. Naruto blinked at the interaction, before puffing up his chest like a puppy, and oh she was valiantly resisting the urge to pinch his whisker cheeks, they were just too cute!

"I'm attending the academy to be the best ninja, believe it!" he crowed, just a little too loud, though considering he'd been left to his own devices, it was a wonder he had any manners at all. Gremlin baby. Not her baby yet though, she had to remember that.

"Volume," she corrected out of habit. "None of us have summons or sensitive hearing, but you never know." Naruto stared at her with wide blue eyes. "Ahh, sorry, habit. I'm like, the clan babysitter for some reason."

"Momma hen," Roka coughed into his arm, and Mari turned to him, smiling without teeth.

"How do you feel about training with Maito Guy, he was nice enough to recommend weights to me after all," she threatened, and Roka paled.

"Don't you dare," he breathed.

"Whose Maito Guy?" Naruto asked, at a much better volume.

"A monster," Roka muttered, while Muta explained "a fellow shinobi of the Leaf."

Mari adopted a look of hurt. "Why Roka, it's almost as if you don't like our resident green breast, Taijutsu master of Konoha, and Rival of the famed Copy-Nin Kakashi."

"Quit saying those names," Roka hissed, "you're going to summon him."

"I do not think that is possible," Muta mused as Mari laughed. In the corner of her eye, she watched as Teuchi handed Naruto what she assumed was his usual.

"It is," Roka defended, "I don't know how she does it, but she does!"

Mari shrugged, "I simply tap into the innate desire of the universe that enjoys watching you suffer."

She actually quite liked Guy. They had only met twice, but she was planning on seeking him out again. He was bright and joyous and was going to be her in to Kakashi, once she could do so without drawing suspicion.

"Why are you like this," Roka complained, and Mari grinned at him.

"I was raised by cats at an impressionable age. Obviously." It wasn't even a lie, which was the greatest thing of all.

"Cats?" Naruto asked curiously, already halfway through his bowl. Which. How? Where was he putting all of that?

"Talking with food in your mouth is rude," she corrected, "but yes. Cats. My clan has the Cats summon and my mother was close to many of the summoners, so when she was sent to the front lines, the cats filled in when my cousins couldn't."

"It's funny, any time she hears a baby cry or a fight she immediately stops what she's doing to investigate," Roka snitched to Muta. Why was she friends with him again? Oh well, time for a lesson in mutually assured destruction.

"Of course," Mari continued serenely, "it's better than the Nara, who yelp and then scatter when spooked. Or when someone sneezes.

Muta choked on his ramen while Roka mock glared. "We agreed never to speak of that."

"I agreed never to shame you. I never said I wouldn't find it hilarious." Mari had never seen Shikaku or his mini-me heir do it, but she would one day, and it would be captured with her sharingan in all its glory.

Was it bad she liked the Nara better than own clan? Mari knew the grass was always greener on the other side, and that the Nara likely had their own issues, but the Uchiha were imploding, slowly, painfully, and honestly if the massacre hadn't happened in canon, the clan probably would have split in civil war at the least.

"Seconds?" Teuchi asked, and Naruto hesitated, and she wondered just how much money he had, and for the second time today her heart broke. Her wallet would suffer, but Mari had been hoarding money separate from the clan since she was two. Besides, this was a part of Operation Fishcake, and she'd set aside a budget for that.

"Second round is on me," Mari said, and Naruto's eyes were so wide. Really, Konoha got lucky no one saw Naruto starving in more ways than one, and took advantage. Seriously, what had they been thinking, isolating him like this.

Well. Mari could think of one thing, a boy so desperate for love he flocked towards the first who offered him a hand.

"Hey," Roka asked Muta as Mari debated if she could get away with murdering Danzo in his sleep, "want to see something funny?"

Mari turned to him with narrowed eyes. What was he planning?

Roka smirked, and oh was than an ill-omen indeed. "Blondie-Kun looks a little skinny, don't you think?

Mari immediately turned back to Naruto. Was he skinny? He seemed to be his proper weight, but who knew if he was getting the proper level of nutritions. Could Kurama heal scurvy? Was Naruto up to date on his vaccinations, did he even need vaccinations, would vaccinations even work? And, and why was Naruto shrinking under her gaze?

Oh. Sharingan was out.

Oops?

"Sorry Blondie-kun, didn't mean to scare you," Mari said, pretending like nothing embarrassing had happened, while Roka snickered into his bowl. She smiled at him. "I hear Gai-San likes to wake up at five. We should join him, don't you think?"

Roka choked on his ramen at the threat. He knew she didn't bluff.

"No," he said once his windpipe was clear. "No I do not. That's torture, why do you love to torture meeeee?"

"Because you deserve it," she jabbed, before tuning towards her favorite cook. "Seriously though Teuchi-San, let him have as many bowls as he wants. It's not everyday you get into the academy."

"Really?" Naruto beamed, bright sunshine child, precious little gremlin bean. He was not close enough for a hair ruffle, why must the world be so cruel.

"Oh no," Roka breathed, because he knew her as well as she knew him. "Mari, Mari he's not a kitten you can take him home because he's cute."

Mari tilted her head, like she didn't understand. Naruto once more seemed to freeze under the positive attention. Seriously, fuck Konoha. Fuck it. She was going to tear it down and build it anew.

"Why not?" Seriously, why Lord Third? Why not raise him in your own household like A did with Bee.

"You know why," Roka stressed. Which. Did he know about about Kurama or was this just their normal bantering?

"I don't know," Mari drawled, debating if she really could just take him home. The ANBU wouldn't let her, but she'd try dammit. "He's got orphan vibes. Hey blondie-san, are you an orphan?"

"Mari, you can't just ask someone if they're an orphan, you know this, I know that you know this, why are you doing this to me?" Roka dropped his head on the bar. She turned to Muta as he gave Roka a pat on the shoulder.

"The key to defeating Roka? Social embarrassment. Gets him every time." Mari turned back to Naruto. "But seriously Blonde-San, are you an orphan, cause if not I'm talking to your parents about letting you just wander around in the middle of the day, who does that? Actually even if you are an orphan let me at your matron, I've done it before and I'll do it again."

Seriously, he was fucking five years old, he couldn't be trusted to have a budget or do his own laundry or keep his apartment clean or stay safe from fire hazards. Honestly, what was wrong with Shinobi. Well, aside from the trauma and consecutive head wounds and inbreeding and lack of sunlight/plants/hobbies and general necessities.

Ugh. Ninjas.

Naruto stared at her. Oh no. There was a shitty canon answer to this, wasn't there.

"You don't have to answer that," Roka cut in, because Mari was going to find his orphanage and scream until she couldn't anymore. "She just likes to fight people."

"Well there's no one to fight. Don't live in the orphanage anymore," Naruto mumbled into his bowl. Damn them. Damn every single person in power. He was just a little boy, he was a baby, and no one was helping him.

"Ok, so who takes care of you?" Mari asked, knowing the answer.

"No one, I'm good enough to live on my own, believe it!" Mari stared at him. She knew the answer of course, but damn if that Uchiha rage didn't sink its teeth into her vaguely cat shaped hide-brain. Naruto shifted around some of his noodles, not knowing he was condemning his orphanage to die a slow and painful death. "Sides, the matron kicked me out, said I couldn't stay anymore."

Mari didn't hiss. She didn't.

"O-kay," Roka said, manhandling her out of the chair as he left money on the counter. "We're leaving before Mari hears anymore on Umazaki-san's behalf and decides to murder his former matron. Eat your vegetables kid, or else Mari will find you and make you while lecturing you on proper nutrition."
Mari pretended to blink in confusion, faking a look of connection the dots as she looked Naruto over, then let her eyes widen as she acted like she had just now notice Roka was holding her by the back of her shirt, the tall bastard.

Roka then clucked at her, which was as good as a declaration of war, which he very well knew. She snarled, sprinting after him, because all Nara's knew how to strategically retreat from a fight. It wouldn't save him though. She was angry and he knew it, which was why he was giving her such an obvious out.

They never talked about her fears, but she loved him in this moment, because he was giving her what she needed, no matter how troublesome it was.

Roka managed to make to a training ground before twisting and lunging at her with his Shadow full of Chakra. Mari dodged, leaping out of the way, and they grinned as they launched themselves at each other. Fighting Roka was just like playing Shogi with him. She was going to lose, but it be a hell of a fight.

By the time Muta meandered to their training ground she and Roka were sweat soaked and laying in the mud. Sage she loved wrestling, and how it put her head back at straight. Plus, she'd get to make Fugaku glare when she came all dirty.

Really he lucked out, she could have been a fan-girl.

"So that was our Jinchuuriki," she said, breathing heavily in the dirt.

"You didn't notice?" Roka asked in concern, and Mari shrugged.

"Didn't matter to me," she replied, because it didn't, and never would. "He was a skinny little kid who seemed way too skittish."

"The villagers are unkind," Muta noted, crouching a few feet away from them. That was silly, he should join them in the mud. "Why? Because their ignorance breeds fear."

A hiss escaped her teeth. "He's five. Why not have the Hokage take him into his household, that's what Kumo does, and it works. An apartment all by himself, that's so dumb, it's a miracle he hasn't burned down the building yet."

Roka sighed, like he could already see where this conversation was going. "It is, but there's little we can do about it."

"Yet," she vowed, turning to look at him, and his deer colored eyes.

"Yet," her Nara agreed as easy as breathing, something sharp in his gaze, and she activated her sharingan. He was beautiful, covered in mud and a promise in his eyes. Muta's confusion only added to the image.

Mari deactivated her eyes. "How close are you guys to your clan heads?"

"Why?" Muta asked, not seeing the relevance.

"You already know the answer to that." Roka replied, head tilted as if to say go on.

"Well, both Aburame-sama and Nara-sama have children his age, so if we want to help him, it's going be through them," she explained, then asked, "how does Operation Fishcake sound?"

"Terrible," Roka muttered while Muta furrowed his brows.

"This is important to you," he said, but she heard the question underneath.

"There are so many ways to drown," she started, and Muta frowned, as Roka wove his fingers into hers. "Water, ash, earth, chakra, blood, your own cells turning against you as they rot from the inside out. The worst though, is loneliness." She turned her head toward her new teammate. "Cousins are cousins, and the summons ensured I didn't drown, but I remember those first few years when my mother was on the front. And after, when she died, and none could fill the hole she left behind. He's drowning too, he's just got too much energy to sink. Jinchuuriki or not, he's only a boy, and he deserves better than our turned gaze."

Muta stared at her, and Mari stared back. She meant what she said, Muta was hers now, but if he was going to be small minded they were going to have talks.

"Very well. Why? Because the will of fire burns strongly in you." Muta declared, and the smile she gave him was small, but real, she beckoned him into the dirt.

Muta just raised a brow though, and Mari laughed, and another block of tension seemed to fall away. Little victories, she reminded her self. Little joys and tiny moments and the smallest of gestures.

She was changing things, she was bringing good into the world. Mari just had to wait for the butterflies wings to build to a hurricane.

Old man Teuchi was actually quite agreeable to her setting up a tab for Naruto, so he could have at least one full meal a day. He seemed a little concerned by the amount of cash she had on her, which Mari explained away. One day, she told him, one day she was going to tell all those elders where they could shove the stick already up their asses and nope out to her own apartment.

It wasn't even a lie. If she could save the clan, she was most definitely getting out of that house as soon as Sasuke was Genin and she could take him with her.

Teuchi had a look in his eye, but he didn't say anything about it, just shaking his head. She wanted to pat him on the shoulder, because one day when either Itachi or Sasuke were clan heads she'd get them to pay her back.

Overall it was a good day, and it was made even better by the long suffering face Fugaku made when she returned. He needed someone to keep him humble, and Mari was toeing that line as best she could.

"My wife as something to give you," her clan head said, "clean up and meet her by the koi pond."

Mari took one look at his face and the tension on his shoulders and gave a nod. There were days to poke at him, and days when she knew the world was pressing in.

Fugaku wasn't a bad man, not really. He wasn't malicious, and he did love his sons, he loved his wife and his family and his clan. It was just, the cards had been stacked against him from the moment of his birth. How could he show healthy love when it had never been shown to him? Fugaku was just a product of the elders, and at the end of the day, pride had led better men than her clan head astray.

It was what made the Uchiha massacre a tragedy, it's blame stained the hands of so many. Everyone was to blame, and no one was.

Except Danzo. Fuck that man.

Mikoto was dressed up in her jonin gear. She looked every inch the warrior she had set aside to focus on raising her sons and helping her husband run the clan. In her hands was a scroll, and on her shoulders was a white cat with swirling dark blue markings that ran along her back like strips.

Oh.

Mikoto was giving her the cat summoning contract.

Officially at least. After the Nara Shogi incident Mari may or may not have broken into the clan storage and used the scroll to reverse summon herself to the Land of Cats. Not to be mistaken for any of the various big cat clans. They operated in the same region, and technically all bowed down to the right of Matatobi as their Queen.

"So this is your foundling," the cat drawled, drawing an unimpressed gaze upon Mari, one eye yellow, and the other green. "She'll do."

Mari did not sweat under the gaze of the cat clan head. She kept her mask of surprise, bowing as she said, "this one will not disappoint you."

Byakko, queen of the cats, hummed. "Approach."

Mari did so, and for just for a second saw a flash of amusement in the queen's eyes. That was good right? She hoped so.

She was legitimately surprised by the fact her name wasn't on the scroll. Looked like the cats would be covering for her. That was nice. Finally, an Operation that worked out. Byakko was definitely amused as Mari hesitantly signed her name in blood.

"I'm proud of you Mari, you've earned this," Mikoto told her, and Mari felt tears build at the praise.

She loved this woman, who had tried to step into the role of mother, and upon failing, became an older sister of sorts. Mari had never known how hard it was to love someone who you were constantly mourning. She still couldn't see any way to save Mikoto. She had come to terms with the clan she had been born into a while ago, but it still hurt, she still wanted to try.

It was going to break her heart, but better to hurt and cry than become uncaring.

Byakko moved from Mikoto's shoulder to Mari's, and the weight was a welcome one, even if she knew to be weary of that look in Byakko's eyes.

"Let's take a walk Kitten-Chan, I want fish." And answers, but that was something they couldn't discuss with Mikoto right there.

"Be back before seven. Byakko-Sama, watch over her, and don't go over her allowance please," Mikoto asked, waiting for the white cat's nod before rolling up the scroll and taking it inside. Mari watched her go.

"You smell of grief kitten," Byakko noted, and Mari reached up to scratch the good spot behind the ears. It took her a second to start walking. Byakko would probably like Buzz Cut Sushi, in the Mohawk Fish Market. Muta had pointed it out this afternoon.

"I always smell of grief," Mari replied, because she did, and likely always would.

Mari grieved for the should have beens, and the could have beens, and for a world she could never return to. For songs she would never hear again and movies she would never see. For the family she had left behind.

"That you do. I take it you haven't told Mikoto-Chan about your other summons," Byakko asked, and Mari shook her head.

What most didn't know was that only some summons required single contract users, while others didn't care how many summons you had, so long as you did all the things they required of you. It really depended on the summoners ability to negotiate, and how willing they were to involve themselves with the politics of the summoning world.

And there were a lot of politics.

She currently in talks with the foxes, raccoons, and the tanuki. Mari's path through the Rodentia region had stalled slightly, because most of them had feuds with cats, and so were testing her resolving and seeing if she resorted to violence, something Byakko found highly amusing. Still, Mari was grateful, it was only thanks to the queens permission she could even have these talks.

Luckily, Mari had a few things going for her. One, she was willing to learn their language before joining a contract. Two, she was willing to serve as a negotiator between clans without expecting them to always be at her beck and call. Three was the fact she wanted most of them for either spies or companionship.

Summons trained in the skills as a warrior or as a sage teacher might carry more honor and glory, but they had higher rates of death. For some of the smaller summons that were caught between feuding clans, that sort of loss spelled extinction.

Plus, Mari was seeking out animals people considered lesser than, the average and everyday that were overlooked because of prejudice and snobbery and general distaste.

Mari was currently thinking of maybe venturing into the non-mammal regions, once she figured where they were and how she could get to them without causing suspicion. Worms, flies, and ants would likely excellent additions to her gossip chain.

Spiders though, Mari was on the fence about. They would be great spies yes, but also spiders, at a minimum, larger than her palm. Huge, probably man-eating spiders, that Mari would have to interact with.

She shuddered at the thought, and picked up the pace before Byakko could ask her what she was thinking.

Buzz Cut Sushi was a restaurant built by shinobi, for shinobi, and a section entirely for Nin-Animals and Summons. She ordered Byakko's usual, and waited.

"I take it you have not told Useless-Mate off then?" Byakko asked in cat when she was finished with her meal, and Mari withheld a snort at the nickname.

"No," Mari told her, and Byakko's narrowed eyes continued before the feline could start offering tips. "I would, but the Littlest-One is only five, and Drowning-Queen either doesn't notice the toxic atmosphere in her den because she thinks it's normal, or bows to her Mate, and does not stop it."

Byakko hummed. "It's not on you to save a broken den kitten."

"I know," she replied, tension releasing in her shoulders. Byakko never hesitated to remind Mari it wasn't her job to fix the world. "And I'm not trying to anymore. This is just, support, until the Littlest-One is old enough to stand on his own."

Between the reality check of the Shogi incident and Byakko's cold cut advice, Mari had shifted priories a little. She was picking her little corner of the world and pouring all her focus into it.

The Uchiha clan had forced her to choose who she going to save, and Mari had picked Sasuke.

"Always grief with you, kitten," Byakko murmured, rubbing her head against Mari's cheek. "What makes you sad now?"

"I think First-Born is going to break soon, and when he does, the clan will break with him," she told the Queen of the cats, who practically melted into the warmth of Mari's arms, fur so soft.

"Oh little kitten. We know. The raven and crows do too. Indra's blood was always volatile, so easily turned against its own. When it does, it will have been a long time coming. Do not wear the weight of the world on your shoulders Sighted-One, no one can hold it for long."

Mari nodded.

She wouldn't be holding it forever. She knew she just a placeholder to two boys who shined like the moon and sun and the girl they revolved around, who was a promise for a better future.

Mari could wait for them. She would have to.

Mari was thirteen and missed D-ranks.

Contrary to popular belief, it was actually fun doing the work, so long as you had a good team, a good sensei, and even a semblance of a work ethic.

She'd give anything to have those few short months back. There was something soothing about gardening, about babysitting and painting and making deliveries. It was nice, she bantered with Roka and coaxed Muta out of his shell and charmed everyone she interacted with.

Some she added to her spy network, and others were just there so no one could make her disappear without it being talked about. She was building her third safety net, and with that in place she was going to start trying to change some of the bigger things.

Training days were even better! Mitsu apparently knew some Fuinjutsu, from his teacher apparently, who he still refused to name. Mari would pry, but there was a look in his eye when he said it, so Mari wasn't touching it until she could break into the Jonin lounge and get the information herself.

Still. Fuinjutsu! With a teacher! Apparently there were a lot of different forms and methods which was probably why Kishimoto never got into too much detail. Some people used numbers and others used Kanji and few used pictograms, it really depended on how a person saw the world, because seals boiled down to two things. Power source, and intent. It's why most botched seals tented to explode, too much chakra in the ink, which reacted with the carbon.

Her sensei was impressed with her skills, and ever so slowly she was growing fonder of him. She didn't think he'd ever be one of hers, but he was nice to Roka and Muta, and helped them all work together, so she figured he could stick around.

Mitsu made her think of Kakashi. He was patient, and gentle, and on time. He explained things like they were adults, was honest and thoughtful and maybe a little too loyal to the village, but the was true for everyone.

Kakashi though. She'd have to fix him before he got to Sasuke. He hadn't been a bad teacher, but he hadn't been a good one either. She was cutting him some slack though. Teaching was probably hard when you were socially awkward and all three of your Genin were trauma points for a multitude of reasons.

It really was a wonder he hadn't had a break down.

She then wondered when she was going to have her own?

Back to her point though. Mari was thirteen, over twenty D-ranks under her belt, and some fucker decided to let Itachi in ANBU at eleven.

She knew these things. Mari knew his achievements and crimes and records like the back of her hand, but it was different living it, seeing it, when she knew there was nothing she could do to stop it.

They didn't talk anymore, and she could feel the world slipping from her fingers. So Mari marched right up to Mitsu and told him to get her a C-rank or she was going to murder someone. She couldn't get to Danzo, but his cronies on the council would do, and Mari knew whenever those treasonous thoughts started creeping into her head it was time to get out.

Her Sensei had delivered, but Mari quietly came to regret it.

See, she hadn't really been paying attention during team assignments, so she hadn't realized Team Mitsu was the current holder for Team Seven, for some reason. This meant that like every Team Seven before her, they got to experience the utter hell that was the C-rank curse. Other teams got things like a carriage breaks a wheel and they get covered in mud or the boat their on gets lost.

Team Seven did not covered in mud, nor did they get lost. They didn't run into bandits, like normal Genin, or find that a storm had completely destroyed the road which forced them to go the long way round. No, what Team Seven got were a pair of Chunin from the Land of Rain.

They had been hired to escort an married couple to the Land of Tea for their honeymoon. The pair of Chunin had been hired to kill Takata, the client, and kidnap his wife Sora, so that Takata's long term love rival, Komaru, could have her instead.

The older Chunin had used a Water Genjutsu to sneak past the battle between the younger Chunin and Mitsu. The younger Chunin was going to lose, and everyone knew it. Had they been a different team the client would have been lost, and maybe the Genin too.

He was beautiful, that Older Chunin from rain. Blond hair and brown eyes like amber and a scar that ran down his chin. His Genjutsu was even good enough to fool a sharingan, just not one enhanced with Nature Chakra. It was a risk, one that would give her sensory overload in a few minutes, but it allowed her to watch him as he walked past her sensei and towards her teammates, towards a woman he was going to drag into a life of misery.

It was Mari's first kill. Mary's too.

She waited until he dismissed them, tanto aimed her clients head, having forgotten the most important lesson of all. Overconfidence gets you killed, no matter what rank your enemy holds.

The Kuni was slammed into his femoral artery. Most Ninja forgot about that one, but the thigh was so, so vulnerable. The Chunin fell, Genjutsu vanishing, and she met his gaze as she dragged the Kuni across his throat.

He died, for such stupid reasons, so far away from.

The younger Chunin screamed, and his anguish only served to be his doom, Mitsu killing him faster that Mari could raise her voice to stop him.

Neither of them could have been older than twenty.

She collected the bodies. Mitsu opened his mouth to say something, but Mari glared at him. They didn't deserve being left to rot. Mari didn't care how many enemies it would make her. She would let everyone go home.

They got the clients to their vacation house, and a letter sent for another team to kill Komaru.

It was a successful mission.

It didn't feel like one.

She slunk away to send the bodies back to Amegakure, their bounties given to their families, if they had any. The postal service didn't realize what was in the two scrolls, and Mari gave a small postal note, telling how they fought bravely and made their village proud.

She walked out into the rain, letting the weather disguise her own tears.

Roka found her sometime later. He always did, sighing troublesome, and Mari choked on a laugh. She didn't fight when he led her back to their hotel, or when he shoved her into a hot a shower. He was worried, so Mari washed off the blood and peeled off her clothes and let the heat soak in to her bones.

Muta had made raman. He seemed distressed by her bursting into tears again, but she couldn't help it. This was a child's body, with a child's brain.

"You didn't collect any bounties," Muta asked, after raman and mochi and Mari was bundled under a dozen blankets. "Why?"

Roka didn't say anything, just wove his fingers in hers.

"Because," Mari started, then paused, putting her words together, her thoughts. "Because all lives should be precious. They were no older than we were, and they deserved better than to be killed before age crept into their bones. They deserved better than to die for a country that will not mourn them, for reasons that were so entirely stupid. Their families deserve their loved ones coming home, and I can't grant them that, so I will give them bodies to bury. Because we should respect each other, even if we must kill each other, because otherwise we are no better than murderers for hire."

Muta was silent for a moment, two. "We are murderers for hire."

"It's how the world sees us sure, but if we have the potential to be better, to be more, don't you think we should?" The Aburame could help crops without the use of pesticides. The Lord First could have ended famines. The Uchiha could help with wild fires and the Hyuuga with mining and medicine and police work.

"Our enemies will seek to take advantage of such a mentality" Mura countered, like a proper shinobi of the old guard.

Roka didn't say anything.

They've had this argument before.

Mari shrugged, resisting the urge to snarl so what. "Probably, but that says something about them, doesn't it? There is nothing wasted in kindness. Even if our enemies throw it back in our faces, even if it amounts to nothing, so long as one life is helped, so long as one enemy lowers his blade, that will be enough."

"You truly believe that?" Muta asked, not judging, just curious.

"I do," she replied with her entire heart, because how could such an answer be anything less. "I would rather do good recklessly than spend my life mourning the might have beens, or forever looking over my shoulder for those claiming vengeance in the name of the dead."

"You would have made a good Samurai." Muta said, after a minute or two. It was a compliment in a way, even with the disdain the two ways of life shared for each other. She was too honorable, too passionate, too idealist. Either she would move the Shinobi world to fit her standards, or she would break under the strain, just like her cousin.

Still, it was nice to know her teammates would follow her, even with their doubts. She loved them for that, her shadow and her firefly.

It didn't help them though, when the second curse of Team Seven reared it's ugly head.

Mari was fourteen when Roka lost his leg to the Chunin exams. Her and Muta were promoted, but at a terrible cost, and with it Team Seven fractured.

Her plans to move into the Nara compound were put on hold. Muta got tapped for ANBU, though he didn't tell her that, he just became more unavailable. Roka took all his grief at his lost career and snapped at Mari. She nodded, and walked away. He'd get his head out of his ass after some therapy, and he realized they loved him no matter what rank he held.

Still, this meant she was back where she started, in the middle of rising tensions with no place to escape. Shisui was dead. She had interacted with the Jonin only a couple of times, and there had been no time to add a seal to protect his eyes. Itachi had one, though she doubted he knew it. She was slowly adding them to the entire clan, there would be no creepy sharingan arm, not if Mari could help it.

Shisui was dead, and that meant Mari was running out of time.

Her cousins best friend had committed suicide, and three Uchiha officers ask if Itachi did it, right in front of Sasuke too. She could see the hurt Itachi hid at the accusation, Sasuke's wide eyes as what that meant connected in his brain.

Shisui was gone, and so was her hope for the Uchiha clan.

Mari stepped between them, sharingan flickering life in her fury, because for all of Itachi's sins, he had been Atlas to the wishes of the clan, and how dare they?

"How dare you," she hissed, itching to set them on fire, because her cousin's face broke her heart. He hadn't expected anyone to come to his aid, and oh she could screamed at the resignation in the teenagers eyes. "How dare you even breathe such a thing into being. Your future clan head has given nothing but his all for us, and this is how you repay him? Accusing him of murdering his best friend?

Honestly, how could you stoop so low, Itachi has been nothing but loyal, and instead of helping him with his grief, aiding him with the pressures we have been putting on since he was a child, you allow your pride and hurt and your own insecurities to lash out against a fellow Uchiha. For shame, all of you, have you forgotten we are blood, family? Do those words mean nothing to you? Go to therapy if you've become that bitter and paranoid you'd accuse an Uchiha of murdering his heart."

She was panting by the end of her rant, but Mari didn't care. She wanted them to start something, wanting to beat something into the ground until her knuckles stung and she felt something other than grief.

These were her kits, they were hers, and Mari was failing to keep them safe.

"Well said." They all startled at the sight of their clan head, and Mari twitched, because she hadn't felt him approach. "I understand the need to seek answers, that a murder sits better than a suicide in the heart, but Mari-san is right. This should be a time of unity."

"But-" the lead accuser tried, Daichi or something like that.

"He was with me during the time of death." Mari blurted, ignoring the looks both Fugaku and Itachi gave her. "Are you going to accuse me of murdering Shisui as well?"

"He has an alibi?" another asked, Maru, she thought. He seemed shocked, because as far as they knew, she had never told a lie.

If only they knew.

"He does. A prejudiced investigation is a poor investigation, or was this because of rumors regarding Itachi's rank?" she asked, tongue sharp like Mikoto had taught her be. No one answered her, all three grown fucking men looking away. Good, she hoped they felt nothing but shame, and she scoffed and herded her little ones away before more damage could be done. "Come on, I need to pack for my mission, I'm sure Fugaku-Sama will wish to have word with your supervisor."

"Indeed," her clan head drawled, and she took great vindictive joy at their paling faces. "Be sure to say goodbye to my wife, and good luck."

"Thank you," Mari dipped her head, because this was probably the closest they would get to respecting each other. "And I will."

Sage she was running out of time.

"I thought you were moving in with Roka-San?" Sasuke asked, once they were away from the crowd. Itachi looked surprised by this, and Mari gave the younger brother a sad smile.

"He isn't ready anymore. He said something very rude, so I left, before I could say something unkind too. I'll visit him after my mission."

He was grieving, she knew, and lashed out at the first person he saw. It didn't make it ok, just a fact of life. He'd learn from it, and she'd forgive him, and the relationship they rebuilt would be stronger. It just, hurt. Her clan was damned and she had needed a friend and he couldn't deliver.

"Why did you lie?" Itachi asked quietly so Sasuke couldn't hear, and Mari met his gaze. He looked so young, and there was a part of Mari that wished she had tried harder, had talked to him more.

"Because I know you didn't do it, and they weren't going to stop unless they either found something to confirm their theories, or someone else shut them down. We may have drifted these past few years cousin mine, and I still disagree with many of the things you do and believe, but I love you." He startled at the confession, but Mari kept talking. "You're family Wide-Eyes, and because of that I will always support you."

"Oh. I'm sorry Mari-San that I haven't, been the best cousin," Itachi told her, and she knew he was apologizing for being angry at her, for dismissing her concerns.

He was twelve. He was twelve, and held the sword of his clan's survival in his hands.
"Mari, Itachi," she offered, speaking a little louder now that Sasuke had finally noticed their whispering. "You don't need to be formal with me. And don't be sorry, we'll fix it, and be better than before. Are you ok?"

Itachi blinked, confusion shinning in his eyes, and she grieved.

"I am fine," he lied, glancing at Sasuke. "You said you have a mission?"

"Yes, a town near of Land of Waterfalls has had a few kidnappings. My sensei and I are going to investigate, and hopefully find the women taken."

"Woah!" Sasuke breathed, "a rescue mission."

"Hopefully Little-One," she said, ruffling his hair, duck butt and all. "But not all stories have a happy ending."

"Why?" he asked, eyes wide, but not alarmed. This Sasuke was the same as before, but a little stronger, a little more settled in who he was and what he wanted. She hoped that made a difference, if all followed her memories, if she died, and her deadman switch never found it's way into the light.

"Just the way the world is, sometimes." She explained. "Nothing in life is guaranteed, the dawn is promised to no one. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and we must pick up the pieces, best we can."

There were no heroes in the Ninja world, not yet. For now there were just monsters, who protected or slayed, depending on who told the story.

"Oh," Sasuke said, and Mari softened, he was only six. She kneeled, so that they were eye to eye.

"Chin up Little-One," she commanded with a smile. "You have the greatest weapon of all" and she poked his heart. "As long as you have love, you will never be defeated."

"Love?" he asked with a wrinkled nose, and she grinned.

"Indeed. Love has defeated feuds centuries long, and topled kingdoms of ancient history. It empowers us, emboldens us, allows us to reach heights long thought unattainable. And with love comes faith, comes hope, followed by empathy and forgiveness and passion. With love comes immortality, as we carry the dreams of our precious people into the future, and when we die, so shall our own loved ones see that torch carried as far as it may go."

Sasuke's eyes were brimming with awe. Itachi, though, held a weight in his gaze no twelve year old should have to bear.

"Now," Mari said, "why don't you fetch Kat for me, so I can let her know who will be babysitting her."

"Me?" Sasuke breathed, and at her nod, sprinted out toward the gardens, where Kat liked to watch the koi. She turned to Itachi.

"How are you, really?" she asked, and Itachi shifted, looking so tired.

"I have been better. These last few months have been… difficult. Mari, could I ask you something?"

"Of course," she told him as she put everything she needed into a storage scroll.

"If you were asked to pick the village, or the clan, which one would you choose?"

Mari stopped packing. Damn this mission, they were closer to the endgame than she thought. How to fix this? Could she fix this, worse, should she? No, fuck canon, fuck nihilism and the idea she couldn't fix anything.

Mari would try. For Mikoto, for Sasuke and Itachi and for all the clan who had no idea what was coming.

For the babies, who had done nothing wrong, and did not deserve to die.

"I think that's a false dichotomy," she answered, picking her words so carefully, to help her cousin without leading him astray. "The village is clan, and the clan is the village, the two bleed too much into each other to ever be truly separate. I have no love for the elders, and would choose the academy students over them any day, but I would place Sasuke over most Jonin, if not all of them. I would pick both, and if I could not, would reach out to those who could help." She moved, standing before Itachi. "Do not bear the weight of the world alone, Wide-Eyes. You have friends, not just in the Uchiha, but among the village as well, and many of them in high places."

He still looked uncertain, so she reached out and pulled him close, hating how tense he was, how thin, how small.

He was only twelve.

"This will pass Itachi, I promise. Don't lose yourself, or what you stand for, alright?" She whispered in his ear. "When I come back, I'll help fix it, what ever it is, just wait for me before you do anything rash, ok?"

She could do this. She had enough missing children and first hand accounts to at least force a clan head meeting. She could pull Operation Corvid early. It would mess with her knowledge, but fuck Kishimoto's vision, she had the power to make this work, she could do it.

Mari said goodbye to Mikoto with a hug, told Kat to behave for Sasuke, and hugged the little Uchiha tight. Kat still had her deadman switch, set to activate the moment her Chakra faded from the matrix, which would be a week or so after death. Kat would go to Shikaku, who would see to her last request, she knew he would.

He was kind like that.

With nothing left to do, she headed towards the entrance, unable to shake the feeling of dread in her chest.

Mitsu, in full Jonin gear, was waiting for her at the gate.

She'd fix this, when she got back, she still had time.

Mari still had time.

Didn't she?

Chapter 3: You cannot pick the destination, only the path Chapter Text

Mari was fifteen when she finally returned to the village, many months later, aching down her soul.

She shed the Genjutsu she was wearing, plopping the semi-preserved head of the man who had tried to break her, Iwi head band clinking against the wood. She grinned at the startled Kamizuki Izumo and Kotetsu Hagane.

"I lived bitches," she blithely informed them, slapping down her back up identification card since the last one got… left behind. "Don't tell my clan head I said that. Snitches get stitches and all that jazz."

"U-u-uchiha?" Izumo stuttered, and Mari sighed, hating how dirty she looked, how bloodied. Fucking bandits, and that fucking mission.

"Yes. Obviously. I'm tired, I'm like, almost Chakra Exhausted. I'm fairly certain I've got an infected burn wound. Can I have my card and my head so I can go to the hospital and avoid my clan head for as long as my mouth to brain filter is sho-" she yelped at the sudden presence of an Inuzuka Jounin.

His name was Gaku, maybe, and her reserves protested the sudden use of chakra going into her eyes. She deactivated them, ignoring how the world was dull and her body felt so stretched thin.

"Sage don't do that, I could have- why are you sniffing me?" Mari demanded, taking a step back. She just wanted to rest, why couldn't they let her do that.

"She's an Uchiha," he stated, and Mari blinked.

Sage, she was too late wasn't she? Damn it. Damn it all. She couldn't even grieve, not yet, using everything left in her soul to keep up that mask of confusion.

Oh Itachi, guess it was too much to ask for a dead girl to come home.

"Of course I'm an Uchiha," she grumbled, not having to fake the annoyance in her voice. "Why would I lie about that? We suck and the sharingan makes having a cover that much more difficult."

"I need to report this to the Hokage, stay here" Gaku ordered, shunshinning off towards the Hokage's office.

"What is even going… on. Where is everyone?" she asked, already knowing the answer. "Where's Naka-san, she likes to people watch at this time, and Hazuki-san, she and Izumi-chan always meet the gossi- kunoichi club, and, and where is everyone else? There's no one on the patrol routes, no one is manning the walls, where's my clan, where's my family?" her voice cracked, and Izumo's and Hagane's eyes, full of pity and fear, told her what she already knew.

She shushined, ignoring the dizziness and their cries, sprinting towards the compound. It hurt, she was already running on fumes, and the burn on her chest wasn't helping. Civilians moved out of the way with a cry, Ninja turning to stare.

Every sensor with even a mild range would feel her fear, her grief. She did nothing to hide who she was, she didn't make herself small and unnoticeable like she normally did. Danzo would be hearing about her soon, if not already, and Mari did not have time to waste.

She burst into the Uchiha compound with chakra crackling around her, taking in the blood on the walls and feeling of fear and confusion and horror still in the air. The massacre was recent then, and a part of her wondered if she had hurried home, would she had been able to stop it?

Mari collapsed to her knees, ignoring the ANBU on the roof, fingers digging into the dirt as she screamed. She swallowed her anger, the Uchiha rage that wanted to set Danzo on fire, to burn the village to the fucking ground in vengeance, but Mari leashed it tight. She sat up, gulping as she steadied herself, stretching her senses out wide and not caring about the consequences.

There, in the hospital, was Sasuke's spark of a lighter Chakra.

Her Little-One, her kit.

Mari's feet dug into the ground as she moved again, almost tripping on the roof with her lack of Chakra, and she used Nature Chakra to fill her empty reserves. That would come back to bite her, but Mari didn't care.

There were tears streaming down her face when she slammed open the hospital doors. She walk right past the receptionist, a civilian who very wisely took one look at her and then sat back down. The Med-Nin was braver. She was beautiful, tall with Hashirama style dark brown hair and eyes that were Uchiha black, and Mari almost laughed at the circular eye brows. Almost, because the woman was in her way.

"Ma'am," she said like they weren't fifteen feet from her cousin, from her Little-One. Mari was so close- "Ma'am this is a restricted area. Please turn around or you will be removed with force."

Mari would like to see her try. Her sharingan blazed to life, and this close she could feel the damage Itachi had left behind. That was her kit in there all alone. Mari was the queen now, everyone else was dead.

"The next person to get between me and mine is getting set on fire," she warned, a part of her desperately trying to claw back to reason, too much Nature Chakra and not enough sleep. Sage she was tired, she wanted to scream, to cry.

She was drowning again, why was she always drowning?

Another Ninja entered her line of sight. This one was wearing bird mask, hand reaching to move the Med-Nin out of the way and take her place of standing between her and her cousin. Mari's grip on her temper snapped like a poor man's tanto, Chakra building so she could set him ablaze-

"Maa maa, why so hostile?" a voice sliced through her fury, and Mari choked on her surprise, ashes in her lunges and embers on her throat. She took a breath, gulping for air as she shoved down that Uchiha rage, watching as ANBU Hound, as Kakashi, turned his full attention on Bird. "Family gets visitation."

"But-" the Med-Nin tried.

"This is not a debate," Hound said, Chakra like lightning across the sky, ozone thick in the air.

Mari moved towards her cousin. She didn't get very far, a hand on her shoulder, and suddenly all she could think about was someone was touching her without her permission again, Sage not again, kuni in her hand with the intent to remove that foreign skin with force.

She froze under Kakashi's gaze, gifted sharingan eye spinning softly behind the ANBU mask. Obito. Madara. Zetsu and Kaguya.

Tears burned her eyes as Mari stumbled back, releasing as much Nature Chakra as she could without collapsing from exhaustion. She needed to center herself. She had almost hurt Kakashi, her cousin's teacher, her cousin's last living heart. Mari took a breath, and shoved everything down that wasn't cold Nara logic.

Roka. Sage she wanted to her shadow and her firefly and her summons, but Sasuke came first.

Oh Itachi why? Why not go to Hound? To kakashi? He would have helped save the Uchiha, all the Jounin would have.

"Sorry," she rasped, not entirely sure to who, keeping her focus on Hound. "You startled me, my last unsolicited touch left an impression. I'd like to see my cousin now."

Hound dismissed the other two, to their annoyance.

"He's not in the best of states," Kakashi- Hound, she needed to call him Hound - told her. Mari could not be more than she seemed. Not yet, not until Danzo was dead.

"What happened?" she asked, and Hound faltered.

"You don't know?" he breathed, and she would have laughed at his clear dreading of emotion, but she could not find a spark of joy in her heart, empty down to her bones.

"I got here about ten minutes ago," she said. "mission went… went fubar. It's been a, it's been a bad year." Sage was that an understatement, blood pooling down her shirt and- focus. Nara logic. "What happened? And don't soften the truth, please."

Hound stared at her. "Itachi murdered the clan. Killed everyone but Sasuke, nearly put him into a coma."

Mari stopped walking, closing her eyes as grief welled up in her throat, shoving down that Uchiha heart that demanded she go find Root and set it on fire. Not yet, she promised to herself, we don't have the power now, not with the Lord Third at the helm, but one day, there would be justice.

She took a breath.

Itachi, brother of her heart, her Wide-Eyes, were some things just meant to be? Were some tragedies unavoidable?

Had that man not taken her away could she have saved them?

Maybe. But that was life wasn't it? When fate kicked you in the teeth you stood up and kicked it right back.

Mari opened her eyes, and started walking, Hound by her side. "Will he come back?"

"Don't think so, but he does, you'll be protected," he promised, and she softened, placing a hand upon his ANBU greys. He stiffened at the touch, or perhaps it was her gaze, because Kakashi was one of hers, he just didn't know it yet.

"Thank you, for everything," she said before the door that held her cousin. "Don't be a stranger Hound-San," and at that, walked into the hospital room.

Sasuke was smaller than she had ever seen him before, sitting up on his bed. He was staring at nothing, not even bothering to look up as she entered.

"Hey Little-One," she murmured, and her cousin jolted, staring up at her with wide eyes. "Sorry I'm late."

Mari had to lunge forward to prevent Sasuke from ripping out his IV. He was so tiny in her arms, hands clinging to her shirt as his ragged breaths brushed against her chest. The pressure he had put on her burn caused her vision to go grey, but Mari ignored it. This moment was worth the pain.

She maneuvered the both of them onto to bed.

"Don't be afraid to cry, cousin mine" she whispered, voice cracking as Sasuke shook his head. "Tears are not a weakness. They are how we express emotion. Let it out, before it features. You are safe, I promise, I am here and I am not leaving."

Sasuke sobbed, and Mari closed her eyes.

She mourned for Mikoto, who was only human, and did the best she could. For Fugaku, who only ever wanted the best for his sons. For all who were not the elders, and simply got caught in the crossfire. Itachi, she mourned as much as she hated, because he nearly broke his little brother.

Itachi took away Sasuke's choices, and that was entirely unacceptable, no matter what he had been thinking. Worse, Itachi planned to use Sasuke to commit suicide, and that was an even greater sin.

"Hello darkness my old friend." It had been a while since she sang, but she couldn't help it now. Singing was how she had mourned, in a previous life, and there was something soothing about it now, something that calmed her down. "I've come to talk with you again. Because a vision softly creeping, left it's seeds while I was sleeping."

She went through the Sound of Silence, and then onto the next she went. Wish That You Were Here was followed by Breathe and then Hallelujah. She sang The Night We Met and Things We Lost In The Fire and Various Storms And Saints. Mari went through the Beatles, though Blackbird and Let It Be and Hey Jude.

She sang until she couldn't, voice hoarse and cracking, Sasuke asleep in her arms.

Mari wasn't sure how much time had passed, and she looked over Sasuke for a second time. She could feel the damage Itachi had done, scarring all along his Yin.

It wasn't with in her power to heal that wound, only time could do such a thing, but Mari could smoother the bits Itachi had left behind, like the hate, and the fear, and the things that would help twist Sasuke even further. She dug out the bits that had left him vulnerable to the curse seal, and to the bullshit that was the curse of hatred that both Danzo and Obito had capitalized on.

She flared her Chakra, and suddenly there Hound was.

"Do you need something, Uchiha-san?" he asked.

"Mari's fine. Could I, could I get a Med-Nin? I think my burn wound is infected, but I don't want to leave Sasuke, in case he wakes up." Hound nodded, and Mari took a breath. She needed to do this. For Sasuke. For Project Vinegar. For all the babies she couldn't save. "Could, if it's not too much trouble, could you schedule a meeting with Nara-Sama and someone from T and I? I need to debrief, and I need to be verified, and I'd rather not have to tell it twice."

Hound looked at her, and she wondered what he saw, who he saw.

"I verified you," he stated, like that was all that mattered.

"I know, but we might not always be available, should bloodline hunters or fortune thieves come hunting. I need," Sage why was this so hard? "I need to set a precedent, for Sasuke. Full verification, nothing less. Please."

She hoped it would be a Yamanaka, but if not, she could work with that. It would just be a little harder.

Hound stared for a moment before he nodded. "I'll see it done."

The Med-Nin turned out to be the Senju looking lady from before, and she was not happy about Mari's state.

To be fair, Mari wasn't happy about her state either, but it wasn't like she could have done anything about it. The burn on her chest was infected, and would scar. Her eight improperly healed ribs, five on one side, three on the other, all needed to be rebroken and set right. The bruising from the fucking bandits had mostly faded, and since they had come from the hike back, rather than from… the mission they were an easy fix.

There was damage to her eyes. Only a little though, and Mari said it was from over using the sharingan, which wasn't a lie.

Mari really needed to learn healing, so she could fix the cellular degeneration as it was happening. She had a theory that the Second Level was like taking all the limits out of her eyes, but like with people who did incredible feats of strength while under adrenaline, there was a cost. Just like repeated over use of a muscle broke that muscle, so did over using the Mangekyo.

She wondered if Sasuke would get the Mangekyo this time around. She hoped not, for his sake.

Mari slept, realizing a little too late the Med-Nin had drugged her tea.

It was a poor sleep, filled with dreams of Mitsu and Takumi and that man. Then there was Mikoto, throwing her out of the house for being a traitor, the streets weeping with blood as Kurma's Chakra burned on the horizon, Nara shadows creeping and creeping, wanting to eat her whole.

There was Sasuke turning his back to her, walking towards Orochimaru, towards Obito and vengeance. She dreamt of roots dragging her down, burying her alive, and she was choking from all the dirt in her lungs, drowning, drowning from earth, from ash and carbon and embers in the throat.

She awoke suddenly, sharingan blazing at an empty room- wait, no, there was Hound in the shadows, silver hair like a beacon.

Mari relaxed, Sasuke curled by her side. He wasn't alone, but she wasn't afraid. She knew the man behind that cat mask, even without the spring grass green of his Chakra. Tenzo was safe, just like Kakashi, and she released the sharingan as she wove her fingers through Sasuke's hair.

"Time to wake up Little-One," she whispered, and her cousin stared up at her, bleary eyed. "I have to go report my mission, but I'll be back soon, I promise, in the mean time" she paused, turning to the ANBU pair.

"Cat will watch over Sasuke," Hound said, and Mari turned back to Sasuke.

"Cat-san will stand in my stead, ok?"

Her little cousin looked scared, and Mari gave him a smile, promising with her eyes. Sasuke looked down. "Ok."

Mari took a breath, and bit her thumb. For Sasuke, always for Sasuke.

Byakko appeared in a puff of smoke, duel colored eyes wide.

"Kitten," she breathed, and hurt tugged at Mari's throat.

"I'll tell you everything later, for now I," she choked, before shoving it down. Nara logic. "Please watch over Sasuke while I am gone."

Byakko's tail twitched, but the queen obeyed, jumping up to Sasuke's bed and letting out out a rumbling purr.

Mari turned toward Hound. "I'm ready to go now Hound-san."

Kakashi ended taking her to the nicest interrogation cell ever. It looked like a sitting room, with two chairs and a leather couch and a white wall that looked like a wall but was most definitely a two way mirror. She couldn't sense who was on the other side of it, but she would guess the council at the very least.

Joy.

At least she knew the two men in the room. She had never met Inoichi before, but Shikaku was here, and with him Mari was as safe in Konoha as one could get.

"Nara-Sama, Yamanaka-Sama," she greeted with a bow, "thank you for making time to meet with me. I- how is Roka, Nara-Sama, we did not part on the best of terms, I hope he didn't blame himself too much. "

Shikaku hummed. "The first few weeks were rough, but Muta-kun kept him from self-destructing. He'll be happy to see, when the security lifts. You sure you want to do this right away?"

"I need to, for Sasuke," she explained, "this way we not only set a precedence, but there will be no doubts over me, or how the village handled my return. No special treatment, not for me."

"Very well. Have a seat, Hound will return at the end of the session." Shikaku dismissed, and Kakashi disappeared, and Mari found herself slightly disappointed at the lack of leaves.

Mari sat, back straight and hands clasped before her, not entirely sure how to start.

"Why don't we start at the beginning?" Inoichi asked pleasantly, and Mari was unsure how she felt about him.

A good dad, a little indulgent of his daughter, but Mari recognized the danger of that tone. She had, after all, worn that very same of pleasantness and manners since she was two. It was kindness weaponized, and Mari glanced at Shikaku, who nodded.

"Mitsu-sensei, wait, did you find him? I wasn't able, he'd-" Grief welled up, and she hated the thought of his body just rotting in the ground somewhere. Sage, he deserved better than that, and she took a breath, shoving it back down.

Cold Nara logic.

What happened happened.

There was no changing it, no turning back time. There was only acceptance, and healing, however long it took.

"We found him," Shikaku told her gently, and she wanted nothing more than to cry. "His family got his body. Let's start at the gates, you meet up with him, what was your travel time like"

"We moved fast, Tonika village is far, even for Ninja, so we pushed ourselves, and made it there in three weeks. We met with Shozo Sasaki, the head man, and a militia man showed us where the woman had been taken. I managed to find a trail with the sharingan, and from there Mit-Mitsu-sensei tracked them towards the border, the one we share with Land of Grass. We, we thought it was either bandits, or a new trafficking ring trying to set itself up, it looked that way, at first, because of how sloppy they were."

"Sloppy?" Shikaku asked, eyes sharp because he heard the underneath of that question, she knew he did.

Mari took a breath. "They left trash behind, fire pits, they'd. We thought the woman would get away, tracks would diverge, before getting caught again."

"You thought?" Inoichi noted, and Mari tightened the grip on her hands. Cold Nara logic. There was nothing here that could hurt her now.

"Not sloppy. Just arrogant. And Malicious. They'd, let the woman run, or man, depending. Let them think they'd gotten away, only to follow, slow, and steady, and just when you thought you got away, there they were, waiting."

Mankind mastered persistence hunting.

It was in the blood, the bones, walking mammoths and giants and gods to their deaths, and recreating it brought a special kind of joy, a connection to eons passed. She wasn't sure she could ever hunt like that again. Not after having known that terror. Mary had known fear, Mari too, but not like that. Never like that.

"Mari." She looked up. Shikaku's eyes were sharp. So sharp, like daggers in the dark and shadows on moonless nights. But he was safe in all the ways that mattered. "They weren't bandits, were they?"

"No." Sage her voice sounded small. Nara logic. Facts. "We ran into one of their hunting parties. We engaged. We still thought they were bandits. They weren't. Not sure what their rankings were, but B, or A, some were missing Nin, others, others were on "sabbatical" or "training trips" or something similar. I think. Never got confirmation for it, but that ma- the Iwa Nin, he was planning to take me back to Earth." Mari took a breath. She had killed him. Too late for it to matter, but she had done it. She had his head to prove it. Which, now that she thought about it. "I left the head at the gate station, is it still there?"

Inoichi focused on her, something turning in his gaze. "Do you still want it?"

Mari shrugged, wincing at the pain of her brand. "Maybe. I wanted to make Earth and Iwagakure sweat. He had worn his headband proudly, and it seemed a good vengeance to have them disavow him, to use his body like he had wanted to use mine to get concessions, if we got them."

"If?" the Yamanaka clan head head asked, going through the motions for the listeners who likely hadn't grasped all of what she was saying, and implying.

"They'd claim he was missing Nin. Getting a bounty was the likely outcome. I knew that. I just, I wanted to make them nervous, to wonder what I knew, and if we'd go to war over it. I remember the devastation of the last war, the lives lost, the families torn about. I'd forgive him before I led my country into that."

Mari would too. There would be no children on the field of war, not for her, not in her name. She wondered what Inoichi saw, in her gaze, in her expression. She could not read him.

"The hunting party," Shikaku reminded softly.

"Seven Nin. Ranks unknown. One from Earth, one from Lighting, two from Rain, one from Mist, one from Grass, and the last from Waterfall. The ones from Earth and Grass went after me, those from Lightning, Rain, and Mist went after Mitsu-Sensei, while the one from Waterfall went after the woman they were chasing. Once it became clear we were outclassed, Mitsu told me to get the woman and run, and if I couldn't do that, to at least get away. I attempted to Reverse-Summon myself. This failed. The Iwa-nin had a seal, likely stolen from Whirlpool, maybe, that severed the connection a summoner had to the summoning world."

The burn on her chest ached, and she resisted the urge to rub at it. Maybe she should have gotten painkillers.

"Which is why the cats though you died," Shikaku noted, and Mari nodded. She needed to meet with all her summons, see what she missed, and begin negotiations for the ones she had been in talks with again.

Sage she had so much to do.

"Mitsu went down. I killed the woman they were hunting, thinking it was the kinder option, and then attempted to kill myself. I was stopped, and my head band given to the dead woman, whom they burned. Then came the Chakra suppression seals."

Dying wasn't scary, not really, not when she'd finally get to rest. But having her eyes stolen? Having her choices taken away, mind churning with the fear of not knowing what was going to happen, that had been terrifying. Mari knew herself well enough to know she'd carry the scars of that fear for the rest of her life.

Was it bad that her Sensei dying hadn't activated her Mangekyo?

Mari wasn't sure how much of the Second Form came from grief, or guilt, or simply the right amount of hormones mixing with Chakra. Hard to say. Hard to know.

She hadn't loved Mitsu, not in the way she did Roka and Muta, or Sasuke and Itachi. Her Sensei had been too eastern, too much a man willing to look away for the so called greater good, but he had been her teacher, and she had fond memories of him.

He had died trying to keep her safe. That counted for something. No matter his faults, she'd carry him into tomorrow, just like all the others.

"Mari?" Shikaku spoke, and Mari took a breath.

"I was hunted three times during my time with them. It took the caravan twenty nine days to reach their camp, which was placed along the Grass and Earth border, along the unnamed mountain range. They met up with ten others, three from Jungle, two more from Grass and Mist respectively, a pair of twins from Bear, and additional shinobi from Rock, Jungle, Wind, and Rivers.

There were forty-three of us in total. Thirty-nine held a bloodline limit of some kind. Thirteen of that portion were men, while the other thirty were women. We had a weeks grace period, where the missing Nin debated about the best match ups, and who would go where, after, well, after. During this period a woman named Takumi took charge, as best she could. She was thirty-seven, and the oldest out of all of us. She." Mari took a breath. In and out. There was leather on her skin, the floral scent of a Yamanaka flower-shop in the air, mixing with wood and dirt of the Nara clan head.

What happened happened.

Her monsters were dead, and all they could do now was haunt her.

"She did what?" Inoichi asked, voice gentle and calm and pleasant. A good dad. She had to remember that. He died for his daughter. He did not tell her to stay away from Naruto. He was safe. She was safe.

"She bore the brunt of it. Sometimes the missing Nin would come, and they would be angry, wanting a release, and she would volunteer. Every time, no matter how often they had to drag her back, after. I was, a target, more often than not, because of my eyes, and she protected me, for no other reason than I needed to be."

The love Mari felt for her was like a molotov cocktail, violent and explosive and short lived. It was so very different from the love she felt for Roka, a slow burning campfire, or Muta, like fireflies in the heat of July, or even Sasuke, who was the moon.

Takumi had been good, so good, selfless down to her core.

She did not deserve her end.

"I got lucky, my period started the moment breeding began, so I only engaged in the cock fights." They had been so angry, about the blood on her thighs, and only Takumi's comments about infection had saved her.

"Cock fights?" Shikaku questioned, and Mari grimaced. She really needed to watch her terminology.

"When farmers are bored, they'll put two cocks, roosters, in a pen, and let them at each other. I believe they hoped all the fighting would tire us out, so we'd be more compliant, which worked to an extent. I fought seven times, and won each time. At the end of the week, my period had ended, and I was stupidly matched up the next day with who I believe was an Uzumaki survivor, because of his red hair and purple eyes, but I was unable to confirm that."

"Stupidly" Inoichi asked with a raised eyebrow. Mari's smile was vicious.

"I won't bore you with womanly reproductive knowledge, just know that at that time no matter how much seed they pumped into my womb, it would have remained as barren as the moon." Mari wasn't going to tell them about her Fuinjutsu knowledge, not yet, not with Danzo potentially listening in. "I wasn't about to tell them that though. The Uzumaki was… broken, and did not listen to my attempts at trying to fool the missing Nin, or work together to escape, so I was forced to kill him in the end. The missing Nin were not happy about this."

Unhappy was an understatement. She took a breath. Nara logic. One day this story would be easy to tell, it would not haunt her as it left her lips.

"I got lucky again. The Iwa Nin wanted to leave, and take me with him, since it didn't really matter when I had uchiha babies, or with who. Takumi, she, she did as she always did, and stepped in the way, attempting to calm him. She was, trying to protect me, if she could. We thought, for a moment there I thought, it seemed like she had succeeded, for a second."

Her eyes had burned, and Mari hated that the clearest memory she had of that beautiful and selfless woman was the moments of her death. She understood now, just a little, how the curse of hatred came to be.

"And then?" Inoichi prompted, and Mari felt so numb.

"He killed her, violently, and while he focused I managed to disrupt my chakra suppression seals, and upon breaking free, killed him, and then everyone else."

A little out of order. She had disrupted the seals a moment before Takumi had died, and activated her Sharingan.

The Mangekyo had followed.

"You killed everyone?" Inoichi asked, voice blank. Was he doubting her? She didn't know. She looked at Shikaku, eyes still so, so sharp. He didn't doubt her.

"How?" the Nara clan head asked, calmly and without judgment. He would have made a good Hokage. Better than the Lord Third. That was a thought, a treasonous one, a likely to get her killed thought, but it was there all the same.

Unless Danzo really was being trigger happy with his stolen eye, then it didn't really matter who wore the hat.

"I don't, really know" she lied, but they wouldn't accept that, so Mari played the only card she could. "It just sort of… happened. Like that time with the deer."

Shikaku's eyes narrowed, and Inoichi glanced at his teammate. Mari wondered if he knew that story, the weight of what she had just hinted at.

The trust he had just been given.

"I see. Continue," Shikaku said, voice hard. Not at her though, and all she could think of was that scene, Shogi pieces tossed like broken bones, placed upon the wooden board with a click and click and a click as shadows loomed, orange creeping in the shadows like a promise yet to come. "Mari?"

"When I came back to myself, three days had passed, and those following Takumi's disappearance had finally caught up with her." She wasn't thinking of the smell, of the way she had wanted to lie down and never get up again. "Yoshi, Takumi's brother, managed to bring me back into focus, before I collapsed from Chakra exhaustion.

It took two weeks to recover from that enough to walk, and at that point I waited another week so I could attend Takumi's funeral. Yoshi was heading to Fire's Capital, to attend a spiritual conference, and asked me to travel with him, so I said yes. That took three months, because he was civilian, and I was healing from, a lot of things really, and it was, good. Yoshi, Yoshi was like his sister, selfless to the bone, and he gave what little he had without asking for anything in return."

Mari held onto those quiet months like a lifeline. She had forgotten the kindness of good people. Mari had forgotten Mary, and the core tenets the Branwen family had lived their lives by.

The Uchiha, as much as Mari loved them, had been drowning her in ways she hadn't even realized. There was no helping just to help, there was no giving just to give. You looked down, and turned your head, and waited.

Well not anymore.

Now there was only Mari, and Sasuke, and maybe Itachi, if she could save him. It didn't matter how many of them were left though, Mari was going to mold the Uchiha for the better. She was going to carve away all the rot trauma and pain and hunger had created, and then she was going to keep carving, carving and carving until the entire world felt her blade of peace.

She didn't have to live on her knees any longer.

"Why didn't you summon the cats, to let someone know you were alive?" Inoichi asked, and Mari flinched at his words.

"I honestly wasn't sure burning off the seal had even worked. I know I should have tried, I do, but…" How to explain? How to put something into words that wouldn't give her away?

"But?" the Yamanaka clan head repeated, giving her precious time to think.

"They'd asked what happened, and they wouldn't have stopped until they got an answer. I wasn't ready for that, not at the time." It wasn't even a lie, but Mari couldn't exactly say she had been worried about how in her injured state she was a target for both Danzo and Obito.

"What happened after you got the Capitol?" Shikaku questioned, a slight tick in his brow. Something had happened at court probably.

"I said goodbye, and disguised myself for travel. A lone Uchiha is a target, so I cast a Genjutsu over myself. I slimmed some of the bandit population, which is higher than I remember, we should look into that. Between reopening some of my wounds, getting an infection, and the cost of maintaining said cover meant by the time I got to Konoha, two weeks had passed."

"You didn't seem shocked by Itachi's betrayal," Inoichi said bluntly, and Shikaku sighed, though the blonde didn't seem chastised, quietly meeting Mari's gaze. She wondered if that was his own question, or Danzo's.

"You don't need to be disloyal to break," Mari replied, because they had broken her cousin long before they had gotten to this mess. "And between pressures the clan and the village put on him, I'm surprised it took this long. Though, if I'm being honest, I expected the Uchiha clan to split into its respective factions like a ripe melon. I suppose these things tend to happen when your clan head brings your four year old cousin to a battlefield and your village lets a near preteen into the fucking special forces."

"Mari" Shikaku warned, and she turned towards the Nara clan head, resisting the urge to snarl.

"Do not misunderstand, should Itachi return to hurt Sasuke, he will die, and if I ever see him again I'm going to beat the ever living shit out of him, but I am allowed to be angry at the social isolation everyone's pride and hunger for power created. We broke him Nara-Sama, exactly like I predicted we would all those years ago, remember? This is just, fallout."

"You don't seem that upset by the loss of your clan," Inoichi mused, and Mari smiled at him, eyes uncrinkled and lips thin.

"Oh don't worry that particular break down is on hold until I can have it where Sasuke can't see," Mari said with false cheer, and honestly, there was really no way to explain she had been mourning her clan for years now. "Also, I think I'm still in shock, I'll get around to it at some point. One thing at a time, or so they like to say."

"You don't seem to like the village," Inoichi mused softly, probing without apparent judgment, and she respected the skill of his words. She let her smile turn sharp.

"I love Konoha," Mari answered, because she did. She loved it with her whole heart, loved her batshit Jounin and her spooky Nara forests and the precious few souls scattered about who didn't care about Naruto's house guest. She loved the dream two boys had created when they were young, loved the dream two different boys promised to each other. "I would not put so much time and effort into something I did not care for. I loved my family, but as Nara-Sama can vouch for, I have disagreed with many of their ideas, and policies, for quite some time. I won't ask for perfection, such a thing does not exist in this world, but if there is improvement to be had, I will always seek it, and encourage others to do the same."

Shikaku sighed, leaning back into his chair. "Troublesome as always Mari-chan. You've been missed at the compound, preaching aside."

Mari beamed at him, tears brimming in her eyes, because it had been so long since she had been called that, and it really was such a lovely word, when coming from a Nara.

"Shikaku," Inoichi groaned. "We haven't finished yet."

"Don't need to. No spy could ever replicate that tone of disappointed idealism, and I've heard enough of Mari's rants about other villages to know she'd never work for them willingly. I'm satisfied with her report. All that's left is the compulsion glace over, speaking of which. Mari, you are aware the extent Inoichi will be in your head, and the repressed memories that might awaken?"

She nodded, resisting the urge to run. "I am aware, yes."

Inoichi shook his head at his old friend, then stood up, and Mari couldn't help but tense when he approached. She glanced at Shikaku, and he shifted his head, gaze gentle for the harshness of his face. Mari took a breath, loosening the tension in her shoulders.

She was safe, and there was nothing he would see that she didn't want him to.

"I am going to enter now Uchiha-san," Inoichi said, and Mari closed her eyes. His hand was warm against her forehead, callused and scared, and instantly darkness was dragging her down into the deep.

Mary watched the Yamanaka clan head stare the burning building that was Mari's mind. He did not notice the light of the flames that danced upon the lake, nor the stars that encompassed it's waters. He was not meant to.

Mari was Mary, and Mary was Mari, but this little trick was learned during the mission from hell, where Mary held all the fear and terror while Mari became the cold Shinobi who could not be broken.

The idea had come from Sakura, though in the months it had taken her to get back, Mari's mental landscape had only grown in strength.

Mary, after all, could bring the flames to bite.

She flicked her tail, quite fond of this cat form, enjoying the way the frozen flames still shifted their colors. It was like looking at the plastic candles put around during the holidays, warm shades of yellows and reds and oranges breathing out into the night.

Yamanaka was still staring, possibly unsure of his welcome, so Mary moved towards him, purring as she butted her head against his leg. He started, staring down at her with pupil-less eyes. He was sharp, but not Nara sharp, and Mary moved towards the house.

She sat in the middle of the door frame, turning back to see if he would follow. There was something in his gaze as he watched her be unbothered by the flames, and with a breath started walking towards her.

Mary moved into the house she had died in, and the house she had been born in. It was both, and neither, a house not yet built and not yet set aflame, all three burning because that's what all her houses seemed to fated to suffer.

Inoichi reached out, fingers hesitantly touching one the flames, and a memory bloomed where his skin touched red.

Kyo was teaching her how to sow, fingers gentle but sure. It was important Mari learned how, her mother said, even if she never took up their family's mantle. There was incense in the air, mixing with herbs and fresh cut plants, her mother's eyes red, red, red. Fixing things was it's own kind of reward, she'd said, and there's no shame in good work, no matter what anyone else may think.

His hands withdrew, and Inoichi glanced around the house, mouth set in a line. She could tell he was trying to find a linear thread, and Mary made a mental note to give the Yamanaka notes on Uchiha brains. Once the sharingan awakened, an Uchiha's mind stopped working in a linear fashion, which was probably why even with help so many of them went mad.

Well, that and the inherent instability of minds born from incest.

Inoichi poked another memory, this one of Mitsu. She was watching him teach Muta how to do a Taijutsu move, the light upon his head like a crown. She burned with curiosity, where was he from, how did she know him and why did he never speak of his genin teammates? Damn him for locking down the records, oh well, she and Roka would figure it out eventually.

The Yamanaka clan head raised a brow, and Mary narrowed her eyes. Something to poke at later, and her ears fell flat when Inoichi touched a less liked memory.

Fear thick in her throat as pain blinded her, foreign hands burning and burning and Mari thought she was dying but she wasn't, she wasn't, and that man's face was grinning, teeth sharp and malicious and-

Inoichi took a step back. His eyes glanced around, looking for something, and Mary watched him, head tilting to the side.

Any compulsions would have been found by now, so what was he trying to-

Oh. He was looking for that memory.

Inoichi narrowed his eyes at her, and she flicked her tail again. He'd figure it out.

He moved slowly, hesitant as he crouched before, fingers prying at the edge of the rug she was sitting on. His lips downturned, and Mary's ears flicked back. He took a breath, and carefully dragged the rug away from the cellar it concealed, a circular pinwheel carved on top in the image of Kakashi's Mangekyo.

It wasn't a repressed memory. What happened happened, to deny it would be to deny the sacrifices that went into saving her life, but this was for safety, just like how all of Mary's memories were pressed deep into the lake outside.

The Yamanaka clan opened the door, hinges scraping against rust, and he stared down at the dark with no small amount of trepidation. It wasn't a great shock, after all, every culture had more than their far share of spooky things whose hunting grounds were in the night stained earth.

Then again, he was friends with the Nara, he likely knew better than most that Shadows were hungry things.

He gave her one last look before they both went into the dark.

That man beat her.

"You stupid bitch" he snarled, breath like rotting meat, and Mari floated.

She just needed a little more Nature Chakra, and then she would break free, just a little more, just a little more.

His hand was on her throat, pressure tight as he pressed down and down and she was choking, drowning. Why was she always drowning? At least this time there were no embers in the lungs, though there was the sound of a buckle being removed, and Mari floated a little more.

She knew what that meant.

"She is of no use to you dead Shinobi-Sama" Takumi stated, and her voice did not waver. She had little to fear after this long, what was another night of pain. "It would be better to impregnate her in Earth, where you will have access to prenatal care, out here she could miscarry, and damage her womb."

Takumi was tall, willowy with tan skin and brown hair and hazel eyes. Her expression hid her pain, but there was no hiding the blood trail around her ankles that likely went all the way up to her thighs.

The lamplight crowned her dark hair like a halo, and she was the most beautiful thing Mari had ever seen.

Just a little bit more Nature Chakra, just a little more, and then everyone would die.

"I understand your frustrations, here, have a real woman," Takumi purred, creeping closer, "she'll just disappoint you."

The hand lessened, Mari could breathe, though she stayed still. Better to play dead, just a little more time, she was so close.

"You got a surprising amount of balls for a whore," that man mused, violence crinkling in the air. Takumi plastered a small smile on her face, hands reaching up to meet him, her fingers like a bruise against the paleness of his skin.

The seal on her chakra broke, Nature Chakra flooding her bones as the sharingan sprung to life, the world sharpening to clear cut edges. She watched as everything seemed to slow, that man's kuni coming down Takumi's breast, both their eyes wide as blood splashed against the older woman's chin.

She fell, but that man kept stabbing, blood droplets bouncing on the dirt, a perfect circle of red going up, and then falling as the blade entered Takumi's chest cavity for the fifth time. The sound thundered against Mari's ears, wet like cracking limbs.

Her eyes burned.

It was a little known fact that if you hit someone hard enough in the chest, at exactly the right moment, you could cause a heart palpitation, and kill someone. With Mangekyo enhanced by Nature Chakra, the world slowed even further, and Mari could count the beats of that man's heart.

Her chains snapped as that man stopped stabbing Takumi, the red stained steel reflecting her face on the slowly moving blade, Takumi's blood almost floating in a flying arc as his eyes started to turned her way, inching like a hand spun movie reel.

Her eyes were spinning, a black triskele on a red background.

Mari knew what meant, but she couldn't find herself to care, blood hot as it trailed down her cheeks, that man's chest caving to her foot as she sent him flying of the tent. The cloth around Mari burst into flames, the force of her Chakra sending it outwards like an explosion. It was barely tangible, but Mari could see the smallest trace of Susanno, Chakra cells flashing silve- no. grey, lined with swirling black.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

She moved so fast. That man's eyes were wide, blood dripping from his lips as she decapitated him, head tumbling to the ground.

He was dead by the same blade he had used to murder Takumi.

One down, sixteen to go, the next closet Nin being the one from Suna. He had a weak knee, and he crumbled as she broke it, slashing at his eyes. Perhaps it was bad she rejoiced in his screams, and there was a part of her whimpering somewhere in the back of her mind, but Mari didn't care. They hadn't, they would have hurt her and laughed, it was time to repay the favor.

Some tried to attack her, Kumo and Ame and Kiri, but she was too fast. Nature Chakra burning in her bones as her eyes saw all that made them strong, and all that made them weak. Mari was breaking bodies with an ease that should frighten her, but did not, because these were evil people, and they deserved this kind of death.

There was blood on her tongue she ripped out throats, teeth bared as her feet spun on dirt, stolen blade cutting through armor and skin and bones like butter.

Eleven down, five more to go, three attempting to run.

Attempting, because Mari had sliced the tendons in their legs, the best they could do was crawl. Fourteen down, three to go, all begging, all crying, and Mari's heart was ice. Fuck these Nin. Fuck this world she had been into. Fuck the meek child she had been pretending to be for years and years now.

Seventeen down, zero to go, eyes weeping with blood and tears and was that rain? Thunder finally reached her ears, and it was like the heavens were weeping.

Mari knelt before Takumi, hating herself. She'd been too late, too weak, and Takumi, just barely alive, whimpered. The sharingan glowed in the dark, and she could see her own reflection in Tamuki's dying eyes, triskele pinwheel spinning round and round. The older woman stared up in wonder, and awe, and Mari felt a sob shake her chest.

"Don't cry Bright-Eyes," she slurred, blood pooling at her lips. "Pretty things, those eyes, what are they called?"

"Omoikane" she whispered, the name known by her bones, god of wisdom, god of sight. Takumi smiled up, hands so cold upon Mari's cheek, wiping away the blood and tears and rain.

"Tokoyo's a good god. I gave you those eyes, didnt I" she asked, and Mari nodded. "Huh. Well, guess that means you'll carry me until the day you die, won't you? Do me a favor, see the world Bright-Eyes. Let me see you married, let me see your children, and your children's children. Let me feel the age in your bones, and the bittersweet aftertaste of a life well lived."

"You want me to" and Mari choked on her grief, but she loved the words upon her lips, "live long, and prosper."

"Indeed," Takumi smiled, though she did not get the reference. That was ok, no one else would either.

Takumi took one last choking breath, and then Takumi died.

Mari stared. The rain petered off, light came and gone, but Mari did not move.

"Leaf-San? My name is Yoshi, I am a monk, and I mean you no harm. You are in Waterfall, near the Earth and Grass boarder. The day is the seventeenth, of April, it will be noon soon. Leaf-San?" Mari looked up to see a man wearing a dead woman's face, bald and in white. He smiled at her, soft and sweet. "Ah, there you are, Leaf-San. My name is Yoshi, I am a monk, and I mean you no harm. You are in Waterfall, near the Earth and Grass boarder. The day is the seventeenth, of April, it will be noon soon." He was kneeling a few feet away, and she could feel his grief, for all it did not show on his face. "I would like to bury my sister, Leaf-San. May I?"

Mari looked down at Takumi's face. It was already starting to rot.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Carbon in the lungs as embers burn the throat. Was she drowning? No, just tired, and the mud was cool upon her neck. Her vision returned to normal, every so very dull. She looked up and the sky was so blue, blue, blue; color of a cat and a collar and the dead. Yoshi was there, whispering sweet nothings, and Mari closed her eyes.

She'd finally get to sleep.

Mary watched Inoichi stumble out of the cellar. He was gasping, on his knees, and as a treat Mary let a kinder memory shine through.

Yoshi was sitting by a camp fire, tending to the embers with a stick.

"An interesting question. Truthfully, I think it's a little arrogant, to think one person alone can save the world through enlightenment. Knowledge on its own does not make a master, and even masters rarely work alone. Consider the Sage, who required his brothers help to seal his mother away."

Mari squinted at him, laying on the ground. Yoshi tilted his head, lips pursing as he poked at the embers.

"There's also the matter of consent to consider, and agency" he continued, and Mari sucked in a breath. "You can tell a man he will die if he continues to drink, but is it not his choice to do so? Do we not have a right to choose when we die, and how? What does it mean to save someone?"

Yoshi turned to look at her then, and Mari's breath caught in throat. He really did look like Takumi, smile a little twisted, a little bitter.

"Love means letting go," he proclaimed, "even when it hurts. I love my sister, I always will, and if I had the choice, I would let her die again, because she would be furious if I undid her sacrifice. She saved your life Bright-Eyes, don't take away that choice by claiming it was fate, or destiny, or because you were not strong enough. You want to honor her? Then live like she did, without hesitation or fear, with kindness and grace and humility."

Mari stared, and then laughed. She laughed so hard she cried, and then sobbed. "I told my cousin not to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders, and yet here I am, doing the same."

Yoshi hummed. "It is different, I have found, when it is someone else's problem. We can be so very blind when it comes to ourselves. Be a little kinder to yourself, Leaf-san, for you are only human. It is not failing to be wrong, or hypocritical, or mistaken."

Mari took a breath, the barest hint of smoke stinging her nose. "You are very forgiving for a monk."

Yoshi adopted a look of enlightenment. "A monk cannot let go of his earthly ties if he does not know what they are, or how they tie him to the world, and the best knowledge is gained first hand."

Mari choked on a laugh. "That seems a little… unorthodox of you."

He grinned at her, hazel eyes reflecting the fire he tended. "I have a dash of heretic pride, as my old Sensei used to say.

"Heretic pride," she tasted the words on her tongue, "I think I like that."

"I have no doubt about that, Bright-Eyes," he laughed, the sound echoing out into the trees. His grin was exactly like his sister's. "None at all."

Mary flicked her tail. She liked that memory. Inoichi took a moment to look at her, to really look at her, eyebrows slightly furrowed. Sharp, but not Nara sharp, they would have figured it out by now.

"Oh," he said, finally comprehending her, "oh Mari I'm so sorry."

Mary flicked her ears. Time for a less liked memory.

The warmth of the deer, light reflecting off that beautiful buck's horns. Losing at Shogi, always losing, because Roka was a Nara that was just how things were. Then the dark, because Mari was drowning. She was always drowning, a promise burning bright like sparklers in July. She had things to do, and Shikaku slowly returning her shadow to her body. Bowing, because clan secrets were dangerous things, and Roka could be in trouble. He wasn't, and Shikaku stopped in the middle of the road, good, so good, a better father and clan head than the Uchiha had produced in generations.

Mary swished her tail, sitting on top of the rug that hid that once more hid the second stage, watching the darker colors of the fire reflect in Inoichi's hair. He was pretty, and his daughter was going to be beautiful.

"I understand," Inoichi murmured, and Mary tilted her head, wondering if he did. She supposed she would see, watching as he withdrew himself, tight lipped. Mary stayed, for a minute, letting the fires lap at her sides.

They were a comfort, in a way, before she too withdrew, dissolving into the lake full of flames and stars and ash falling from the sky.

Mari sucked in a breath, shuddering as she came back to herself.

Too much Yin, always too much Yin. Inoichi was kneeling beside her, expression tight. She wanted to reach out, to touch his face.

"I'm okay," she murmured when Shikaku stood up. "I'm okay."

"You're going into mandatory therapy," Inoichi said, and Mari relaxed, unable to stop the smile on her face, thinking of Hound, of Kakashi, and how he probably expected her to disagree.

"I figured," she said, and it was a relief really, because Mari needed help, and she knew it. Plus the face he made was hilarious, suspicion clear in teal colored eyes. "Do you need anything else from me?"

"No," Shikaku sighed, "That'll be all. You're welcome back any time into the Nara compound."

"Thank you Shikaku-sama, it has been missed." It really had. Mari missed the click clack of tiles on a Shogi board and their weird deer with their creepy shadows and their lazy, lazy geniuses. "Please tell Roka he is free to visit us in the hospital."

Shikaku gave a nod, and Mari gave a bow, and when she left the room Hound was by her side.

She eyed him. "How much of that did you hear?"

"Debriefs are private," he said, and Mari rolled her eyes. So, all of it. She didn't mind really, this was Kakashi, but she didn't like the idea that he wasn't the only one listening in.

Like Root.

She didn't sigh though, moving towards the exit with Hound at her side like a shadow. Mari paused before they got to the exit, angry voices filtering down the hallways.

"Uchiha-san?" Kakashi said, but Mari wasn't listening. She was moving, only to be stopped by a hand on her shoulder, though it was quickly removed, Kakashi's hand floating in her peripheral. She took it, and ignored the tension in his frame as she led him towards the sound of an argument taking place.

She knew those voices, knew them as well she as knew herself, as well as she knew her cousins sins and a time line surrounding a boy with a fox in his belly.

"For the last time, you do not have the required clearance," the receptionist spat, clearly fed up with the whole thing.

"I do," Muta replied, and Mari closed her eyes, feeling the warm summer heat and fluttering wings of his Chakra.

"You really, really don't." The receptionist snarled, and Mari wondered how many times they had that conversation.

"Which is bullshit." Oh Roka. Mari opened her eyes, taking in her friend's shadows on a lazy river and fire reflected on pond water. He had grown, in the past four months. Not a lot, but he stood taller now, his left leg in a very poorly made prosthesis.

Hm. She'd need to start talks with Suna, get him something better.

"Boys," she called, and they both turn to stare her, eyes wide. "What have I said about bothering staff when they are just doing their jobs."

"Mari," her precious people breathed at the same time, and Mari moved.

They were warm when she crashed into them, Roka's fresh cut pine and Muta's honey rose tea scents cloying in her nose. Her fingers curled in to Roka's pineapple shaped hair, and Muta's skin shifted beneath her palm, beetles reaching out.

She held them tight, and then she screamed.

Mari didn't care who heard, or what they thought. She wailed in her teammates arms, grieving for the babies, for Mikoto and Itachi and Sasuke. Mari cried for Takumi, for her brother Yoshi and all the women Mari had been too late to save.

She sobbed until her body had no more tears left to give.

Mari took a breath, feeling calmer than she had in weeks. The sword of Damocles had finally fallen, and Mari had escaped by the skin of her teeth. She looked up, eyes finding Hound, who had moved to stand between her and door.

She couldn't see his sharingan, but Mari knew it was spinning softly in his eye, a herald of the enemies yet to come.

The sharingan spun, and Mari knew that she had work to do.