DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the Naruto universe.
Thinking
Emphasis
Bijuu speaking
Bijuu, ETC. thinking
"GET HER OUT OF HERE, RIGHT NOW!" Minato ordered. Hiruzen and Enma jumped to his side and Minato was grateful because now he and Kushina would have more time to prepare Naruto. But Mito needed to GO!
Mito was too shocked to even hear what her father had said, or that Orochimaru had just cut off her armor and shirt, leaving her only in bandages. Obito! What the heck was Obito doing here and in that… She would have called it a stupid mask if she wasn't just so glad he was here and alive! Plus it was orange, and Gods love him: Obito loved orange. "Obito-kun, help us!"
The teen in the mask turned toward her, proving that Mito was right about him!
"GO WITH OROCHIMARU, MITO," Minato roared behind him at the same time his daughter had shouted as he prepared the altar for his son. Hair-brained scheme or not, he had come up with an idea at the last minute to put his chakra into Naruto's seal, and it looked like he might have a few moments before Kushina - sweet, strong Kushina: the woman he'd loved almost his entire life - perished so that she could do the same. Naruto had to have Mito remain with him at the very least: he was a completely helpless baby!
And he couldn't watch his daughter die, too.
"Please, Mito," Kushina said brokenly as she coughed up blood. A second of her mother's chains broke and Mito rushed toward her mother.
"Fuck, Mom! I'm sorry," she cried, trying not to completely freak out and ignoring the way her mother whimpered a broken scolding for using bad language. Unconsciously, Mito's chains had broken through part of her mother's barrier and had sucked away some of the little remaining chakra she was using to hold it up. "I didn't mean to," she cried before trying to infuse her mother with her healing chakra. The green glow of her iryo-ninjutsu seemed to be doing NOTHING!
"You'll learn to control them, honey," Kushina whispered. Time was running out for her. "Remember your training, and don't let your chains control you, ya know."
Mito was already searching for Obito again and trusting her grandfather to do the right thing. She could share the burden with her brother. She totally could! Just as she found the missing Uchiha - Obito's so small next to the Kyuubi: he's gotta get away from it - she saw him gesture toward them with Killing Intent. "NO!"
How could he?!
Hundreds of brilliant blue chains shout out of her, snapping against the force of the Kyuubi's claws. She lost control of many of them as a spectral figure came into view, hovering over her. Her entire torso burned. I'mOnFireI'mOnFireI'mOnFire! Falling to her knees, she realized that a good portion of the Kyuubi had been pulled into her. As her vision swam, she could only hear Orochimaru's voice and her mother's cries.
Her grandfather figure was face-down in the dirt as she fell down beside him.
"LET GO, KIT!" Orochimaru seemed to yell over her. Mito was more terrified of the giant-ass ghost that was behind him. She couldn't have let go of her chakra-absorbing chains if she had wanted to. They had activated on their own again, and she always had a terrible time retracting them when that happened.
"Too bad the monkey gave his life to me first. I would've loved fresh young blood, eh, Uzumaki?"
"Filthy human! How DARE you? I know who you are!"
"Stand down," Mito squealed, scared out of her wits and in appalling pain. "I mean, please stand down!" Mito wasn't sure where she even was; it was no wonder, considering that she felt like she was on fire. Her chains around the Kyuubi kept her from dropping to thrash even more.
"Plead all you want: plead for the rest of your short, appalling life!"
"Kyuubi-san, there's a spirit: you should really listen to me! I- I need to get back to my family!" she said before letting out a shriek of pain that made the Kyuubi wince.
"Shut up, you stupid girl! That was the Shinigami the damned old monkey summoned! And your mother is DEAD!"
"LIAR!" Mito screamed, the chains around the fox tightening as he continued to stare at her. Although it looked like her chains hurt him, he didn't look like he would ever admit it. She tried to let up on the ones around his neck only the slightest amount as tears poured down her cheeks, afraid that if she gave him more room, she'd lose control. "She's not dead," she said brokenly.
"You'll be with her soon enough."
Mito kept the Kyuubi reigned into what she later thought might be a dark room in her fairly poor excuse for a mind palace for what felt like weeks. Every move he made, every twitch of one of his tails woke her senses up in a panic, and although she might have slackened the chains a bit that bound the fox, she didn't like how small the bars of the cell wall between them looked. There was a lock, above which was a seal, but the Kyuubi no Kitsune seemed way too big and FAR too angry to ever be held back by such things.
While half-asleep or dazed, she dreamed of her family, of her grandparents, godparents, surrogate family, and Shizune-nee-chan... She dreamt of her village and uncle. Of Anko, Rin, Gai, and Kakashi. Of Itachi, baby Sasuke, and Mikoto-oba...
"Repulsive clan."
"Huh?" Mito asked, regaining some pathetic degree of alertness in front of the Kyuubi. "Sorry."
"Tch," the Kyuubi scoffed, a loud, ugly, wet sound to Mito's ears. When he began grumbling under his breath, Mito almost fell asleep, until she heard the word, "Uchiha."
Her heterochromatic eyes snapped open. "Obito. Did Obito survive? What was he doing so close to you? What did he do?"
"I have no idea what you're babbling about now. Sleep: you bore and sicken me."
"Obito was in an orange mask when..." Mito and the horror she remembered paled when the Kyuubi started making another bijuu bomb after staring at her with more disgust than she could've ever imagined. Most of her chains failed.
As if it was divine intervention, a new cage door fell down in front of her and she began to sob. She opened her eyes to see white. Shuddering, she tried to speak but the words didn't come out: "Am I dead?" She was grabbed and manhandled, being squeezed and poked before falling into a deep sleep. When she woke up, she saw Jiraiya sitting next to her. He looked terrible. "Did we die?" The last time she saw her godfather, he was in bad shape.
"Almost, kid. Almost."
"Mom and Dad? Naruto?" Mito's tears began anew at the pain that was all over her godfather's face. "No..."
He tried to comfort her but had never been good at that stuff. Seeing a brave little girl trying to be so strong was somehow worse than if she'd fallen apart. "I'm sorry, kiddo. Minato and Naruto are fine, but Kushina was taken off life-support a couple of days ago." Jiraiya put his face in his hands while his goddaughter buried hers in her pillow and began to wail.
If only he'd been more aware when approaching the cave Kushina was giving birth in!
An hour later, Mito was unnaturally quiet and still. "Sensei left us a note," he began. It was still difficult for him to mention the Third Hokage, the man who had been his Genin team's leader. "Told us that he hadn't informed you of the sacrifice that would be needed to seal the demon."
What he meant and couldn't say out loud was that his sensei had made it perfectly clear that Mito did not know that he would die by summoning the Shinigami. What he also wouldn't go into right now was Mito's punishment for disclosing S-ranked information about the jinchuuriki and a Hokage's-eyes-only ranked mission. "Our family and the Land of Fire are grateful, Mito-chan."
Mito's blank expression as she stared ahead made Jiraiya wonder if she'd even heard him.
Kakashi took Naruto from his sensei as the newborn continued to bawl. The sky was crying overhead alongside almost everyone else today, and he was anxious to get the baby somewhere safe and warm.
Too much had been lost on the day of the Kyuubi attack, rumors were flying, and more than anything, Kushina, the woman he was tasked with guarding was gone. He'd failed again.
Brave bratty Mito was supposedly alive, but he had no idea of where she was. He hoped that she was with Jiraiya-sama because, for the life of him, Kakashi couldn't imagine why the Toad Sage wasn't here at the mass otsuya to support Minato-sensei. He stared at the picture of the beautiful, smiling redhead that was next to the pictures of Lord Third and his family alongside sooo many others and swallowed the huge lump in his throat.
As quickly as he became aware of the tears that threatened to fall, he turned toward his very young and already widowed Hokage.
Honestly, Kakashi didn't know how his sensei even got through honoring Lord Third and his sacrifice. His sensei had been inspiring despite his own pain and few words, and fortunately, he had let Lord Third's devastated teammates handle the rest of the long ceremony. As he moved closer to the now visibly angry Yondaime, Kakashi channeled chakra into his ears, but it was too late. The only thing he heard was Minato-sensei seething as he argued with Tsunade-hime over something about Orochimaru not being allowed to come to today's wake.
Minato whipped around to face him, almost as if he would attack. He's so sleep-deprived, he just might, Kakashi thought.
"Ah, Kakashi. Oh no. We should get Naruto out of this weather, ne?" The Hokage took his bundled-up son back and flashed away.
Kakashi took a deep breath and looked up into the dark clouds above him. A soft hand on his shoulder brought him out of his thoughts. "It's not going to be easy for him, brat. Or for you, either," Tsunade said, looking older than he'd ever seen, as she patted him twice. "Look after yourself," she said, ruffling his hair. "I'll be around." The Slug Sannin took one last longing look at all of the pictures on the dais before she sunshinned away.
Kakashi slouched further and made his way toward the Hokage Tower in the rain.
Mito looked at her godfather, unwilling to mention that she had no idea of where she was. "Where are we going, Jiraiya?"
Jiraiya made a face, wishing that she'd go back to that horrible nickname she used to call him by. He reminded himself that she would get better; Mito had always been strong. The next ten years would be difficult, but he was positive that his goddaughter would find ways to help people, become stronger, and eventually deal with the Kyuubi.
"We're headed North to the Fire Temple." Mito only nodded her head and gazed down the road, her footsteps never faltering. "You know your father didn't have a choice, don't you?"
"We've been over it," she said neutrally. She noticed Jiraiya's annoyance, but what the hell did he want her to say? She had gotten her grandfather killed. She could almost see Ojii-san's concerned face the day he'd warned her -
"Mito-chan, there could be grave consequences for telling me what you have today... If I require your help, your father will not be pleased. He could potentially even court-martial you."
She'd probably despise herself for the rest of her life for getting the man killed - Kami: Asuma must hate me - and did that make her an even worse person for being so glad that her father was alive?
Mom...
She sniffled and scratched at her face, not allowing herself to shed any more tears in front of her worrywart of a godfather. He'd fixed her seal "after I temporarily fixed your seal when your chakra was out of control," and as long as she didn't let the Kyuubi kill anyone, (and didn't have to keep her chains wrapped around its neck 24/7,) it was good enough for her. Her coils burned and she hurt all over, but she was not riding on the man's back. "I'm fine. Stop looking at me."
The next day, they arrived at the huge, elaborate gates of the Fire Temple. Mito followed Jiraiya in, numbly glancing at the temple's beauty and vast open spaces. It was larger than she'd imagined. It also seemed to be populated by men. Only men. Mostly bald men. Monks, she reminded herself.
The Uzumaki Temple had been abandoned by everyone outside of her little family since shortly after the first Mito died. As Jiraiya and some of the higher-ranked monks whispered and then prattled on for who knows how long, she thought of how her mother taught her how to clean and care for it and wondered what it would look like in a decade. How was Naruto going to learn to care for it without her mother or her teaching him? It was fairly close to here, she thought.
She felt Jiraiya's hand pushing her forward again and looked around, but this time, it was just the two of them.
"Did you hear me, kiddo? This is your room."
"Ah. Is there a key?"
Jiraiya scratched his head and grimaced. "Not exactly, but you can put up a seal," he said, before opening the door that simply pushed open like a gate and putting down his large scroll on the mats. He searched through it for a while before finding some blank parchment and a scroll that Mito was to copy. "Privacy seal," he explained unnecessarily, "also keeps you in and others out. No one will hear you outside of it." He frowned at her. "Nod your head if you're listening, Mito."
Mito nodded her head once, just wanting to be alone. She watched Jiraiya search around the very spare room before pulling out several scrolls, then placing down all of his sealing paper and ink. He grabbed her shoulders, hugged her, then shook her to get a reaction.
"Your exile won't last as long as you think it will, or won't feel that way," Jiraiya said, bending down to her eye-level to say what he needed to say, although he doubted that was true. "I'll be back when things settle down and Tsunade will drop by once the hospital's in order. Use your summons to stay in touch with us. I don't think you were paying attention, but the facilities for women are in the housekeeping area behind us near the trees. Do what you're told and keep all of that hidden, preferably on your person at all times," he said, gesturing toward the scrolls and supplies he was leaving behind. "We all love you, and will see you soon."
With a kiss goodbye to the top of her two-toned head, Jiraiya was gone.
Collapsing on her futon, Mito retreated to her mind palace, reminding herself of every moment she'd spent with her mother, and longing for more time with her. She needed to talk to the Kyuubi about Obito, but for now, the fox was the last thing she wanted to see.