I could see Mayu and I being best friends in a world where I had never left the Fire Capital. I loved dancing, she loved singing. We both loved cats and parks and chocolate ice cream.
Behind her shy look, Mayu was as mischievous and trouble-making as I was. Before we knew it, we were having adventures across the district.
To get around, she liked to stand on this board with wheels. It was called a skateboard and let her easily match my speed as I ran around. She could do many cool tricks with the board.
After talking for a bit, we decided there was no reason we still couldn't be best friends. We just had a lot to catch up on. And I mean, a lot.
Good thing we were also both chatty.
I got to know all the drama at her school, the friends in her friend circle, the games they would play, the TV shows they would watch, the pop stars she idolized, the pets she adopted, all of her favorite hang out spots, and even her deep secrets, from the tattoo on her ankle to her music mixes for underground parties.
Mayu got to hear about my shenanigans too. I spilled everything. My story was a bit longer than hers, but I thought I did great. I even got the whole thing in before the sun rose.
"Ooh, he is cute," Mayu said, holding up Itachi's identification card to the street lamp.
"He's even cuter in person!" I agreed.
"Jonguku is cutest though," Mayu sighed warmly.
"Waah, you can't compare him against an idol!"
"Why not. Wasn't your last boyfriend one?"
I stammered. "Ex-idol."
Mayu had a catty grin.
"Don't ask," I squeaked.
"I'm going to ask."
"Nooo," I whined.
"Who's cuter?"
"NOOOOO."
"JII OR ITACHI. WHO'S CUTER!"
"YOU KNOW I CAN'T ANSWER THAT!"
"ANSWER MEEE."
"THEY BOTH HAVE GREAT PERSONALITIES."
"OH YEAH? THEN WHO TELLS THE BETTER JOKES."
I opened my mouth.
"Actually, they're both awful," I said, sweating.
Z's sense of humor was to be casual about very alarming things. I didn't know if Itachi knew how to make jokes. It's me. I'm the funny one.
Mayu collapsed.
"Okay, if I have to pick someone as the cutest," I said, "I'd pick… Mayu!"
"Coward!" Mayu accused. "And wrong! Jonguku is cutest!" She smugly crossed her arms. "But sweet-talk me some more. I like it."
I threw up my arms. "Mayu is the coolest!"
"Yes, yes?"
"Mayu is the funniest!"
"Go on…"
"Mayu is super duper fantastically awesome!"
Giggling, she grabbed my neck and messed up my hair.
She handed Itachi's identification card back to me. She got more serious again.
"Don't worry, Ayae. Your family is my family. If you can save him, we can hide him, no problem."
"Hide?"
"Yeah!" Mayu looked around before whispering in my ear. "Paperless people."
I learned from Mayu that the Fire Capital had a lot more people than the government counted. People snuck in all the time from all over. The Ibunshi district was a common place to go to blend in.
Many of the immigrants in Ibunshi were war refugees. These included ex-military.
"Rogue-nin? Here?!" I whispered.
"Rogue makes them sound like villains or something," Mayu scolded.
I blinked.
"Good point," I said. "What do you call them?"
"People."
I smiled. I liked that.
She skated ahead. I ran to catch up.
"So if your dad brought you to Konoha to be safe from the people who killed your mom, how come he let you come back?" Mayu asked me.
"Maybe because they can't hurt me anymore," I said, grinning. "I don't want to brag, but I did pretty well at ninja school. I can beat up a team of genin easily—genin are rookie ninja, by the way. Most ninjas are genin."
And if they were higher rank than that… well, I did have Tomoe's army watching over me. I doubt they'd let anything seriously bad happen to me.
"Wait, stop," I said.
Mayu did.
"Ayae?"
Mayu followed my gaze to a building I was staring at.
Drawn in, I walked closer to it.
There was a row of fortune cats behind one of the windows, their paws moving up and down. The window next to it was taped with many ad papers. I noticed the uneven stone steps and old wind chimes.
This was…
"No way, that's your old apartment!" Mayu said, remembering too.
I nodded.
"My mom passed away there," I said grimly.
Mayu and I exchanged a look.
"Wanna play murder mystery?" we excitedly asked at the same time.
"I'm the detective!" we said, pointing to ourselves.
"You're the assistant!" we said, pointing to each other.
We played rock-paper-scissors for it. No! I lost!
Cheering, Mayu kicked her skateboard and tucked it under her arm.
"Onward, Assistant Ayae!" Mayu pointed.
"As you say, Detective Mayu!" I saluted.
Giggling, we ran toward the building. The door was locked.
Mayu was disappointed until she saw me picking the lock.
"No way! You can lockpick?" She laughed when it unlocked.
"Hehe."
Together, we went up the stairs. I didn't have to think about where to go: my feet remembered the way home, every step to take and corner to turn.
And then, we saw it. The door to my old home.
I swung it open, almost expecting to see my mom inside, there to take us in a big hug and congratulate us on figuring it out.
And indeed, there was someone inside the apartment.
It was a lady in a bath towel and shower cap. She looked at us once before screaming and throwing her slipper.
.
"Sorry, sorry!" I cried as the door slammed shut.
Mayu sweated. "I guess your old apartment has been rented out to another family."
I deflated. "I guess so."
As much as we would have loved to play murder mystery, we didn't want to look for clues inside someone else's home. That would be too rude.
It was already dawn. Mayu and I had a great night chatting and exploring the district, but we should be heading back. We had both been naughty about our bedtime, having too much fun in each other's company. I wanted to grab a big breakfast and then go to sleep.
In the hallway, a door opened.
"Ayae?"
Hearing my name, I turned around.
It was a grandma, not much higher than I was. She was in a set of plain yellow pajamas. Around her neck were wooden bead necklaces.
"Little Ayae, is that you?"
I knew her.
"Nanny?" I whispered.
She was the neighbor who had taken care of me after my mom died.
.
Nanny Yumi fed both Mayu and me breakfast.
While we ate, we chatted. Nanny Yumi asked how my life had been, and I answered her honestly. Cheerfully, I told her I was a dancer now, and how I would love for her to see me dance.
Mayu was very surprised when I also casually told her about Konoha, my relation with the Uchiha clan, how I was stuck at the Fire Capital, and my suspicions about my mom's death.
"... and that's why we were in front of my old home—to look for clues!" I finished.
"Shouldn't you be a little more secretive about this kind of stuff?" Mayu said, sweating.
"It's Nanny!" I said, appalled. Nanny Yumi wasn't some stranger, just like Mayu wasn't some stranger.
And I was tired of secrets. When we went back, I planned on telling the whole story to Grandpa Sudi, Uncle Farusha, and Aunt Benadetta too.
Would that upset my clan? Yes. Did I care? Nope.
If they didn't want me telling the whole world, they should have let me back in the village. My past was mine. My identity was mine. Mine to remember and mine to tell. Like hell I'd just roll over and die and let myself be replaced by some anonymous nobody.
I was Muwana's daughter.
I was Uchiha Ayae.
Nanny Yumi did not look very surprised throughout the breakfast. She let me talk, smiling and nodding the whole time, just like she had always done whenever I chatted with her as a little kid.
After I was done, she said, "I think I can help you with those clues."
And with that, Nanny Yumi slowly stood up. She disappeared into the bedroom. When she came back out, she had a bundle of books ready for me. They were books that my dad could not take with him when we left for Konoha.
They were my mom's books.
"About a year after you left, I was visited by a boy about your age. A curious child. Dark hair. Clever eyes. I believe he was looking for information about you and your parents. I think these books would have been of great interest to him."
"Itachi?!"
Nanny Yumi smiled. "I did not let him find anything he would not have gathered from common rumors."
Nanny Yumi was a bit of a traditionalist. Respect was important to her. Snooping around her apartment while she was sleeping was very disrespectful.
If Itachi wanted to know something, the polite thing would have been to ask her over tea. He should have told her what he wanted to know and why it was important to him. He should have let Nanny Yumi decide if he was worth telling.
By trying to take away Nanny Yumi's choice, he had treated her as an enemy. He had lost the ability to clearly see friend from foe. He had lost the ability to trust.
"A person who cannot trust will inevitably end up alone. A person who is alone is easily defeated in this world."
"Nanny, you talk like a…!"
"... kunoichi?" Nanny Yumi smiled. "Who else could have protected you after your mom's assassination?"
Mayu spat out her drink.
"Ayae's mom actually was— you mean—!"
"Yes."
I had answered honestly, and so Nanny Yumi would too.
My mom was too well-liked by too many people. The people of Ibunshi practically worshipped her. A simple kill would have caused a riot. It could have ignited something far worse than a riot. They needed a way to get rid of her that seemed natural. Then the pandemic happened. It was the perfect cover, especially since my mom had no hesitation touching or feeding many of the people who had been sick or dying at the time.
My mom decided it served everyone's best interest to go along with it. In fact, knowing she was going to die anyway gave her the excuse to be even more reckless.
We had too many questions.
"Wait, wait, back up," Mayu said. "I know Ayae's mom pissed off a lot of people, but assassination is a little extreme?!"
"And expensive," I added.
Mayu gave me a bewildered look.
"What? It is!" I said. "You don't get a hit unless you threaten someone really powerful."
"And why would they be scared of your mom?!"
The answer was in front of us.
I unwrapped the bundle and picked up the top book.
"As an adult, your mother was very obsessed with writing. I assume your dad never told you what she wrote, did he?" Nanny Yumi asked me.
"Didn't she write children's stories?"
"The stories of children, yes. Their hopes. Their dreams."
I frowned at the book in my hands, very thin with colorful pictures of kitties and flowers on the cover. From the outside, it didn't look different from any other children's book. The inside however…
I closed the book back up and peeled off the cover.
On Continuation of Radical Revolution.
I peeled off the cover of all the other books to see all the titles had the same type of big words. Movement. Rebellion. Liberation. Manifesto.
Tracing my fingers across the books, I saw my mom's name was nowhere on any of them. Instead, the author was a person I had never heard of before.
I looked up.
"Who the hell is Akatsuki?"
