DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the Naruto universe. This is my Mito, though.

Thinking (+ flashbacks, "Mito speaking to Kurama in her mindscape," etc.)

Emphasis

Bijuu, etc. speaking

Bijuu, etc. thinking

"I don't like that one," a young Mito pouted as she pointed to the mask of the death god.

"Which one?" her mother asked but sucked in a slow breath before giving her daughter a pained smile and winked. "Who would?!" Her next words may have been under her breath but Mito still heard them: "As if it weren't bad enough to make these in the first place, the bakas had to make one for Shinigami-sama, himself."

It was also the only mask her mother made one of her clones clean.
Mito continued on in that tradition.

Worried beyond belief about that missing mask, Mito's hands sailed through the necessary hand seals, hoping that she could summon her allies from here. "Kuchiyose no jutsu."

A clouded and a snow leopard appeared in a poof of smoke and Mito had to put her arm out to hold a very excited, gawking Naruto back. "Hey, Fuyu and Shin! We're at the Uzumaki Temple - and this is my brother, Uzumaki Naruto, and this is my clansman and mentor, Senju Tsunade. I call her grandma."

"Tch."

"He's not Asuma," Fuyu said (incredibly obviously) with a tilt of his head as he looked Naruto up and down. "They don't look alike, and Asuma smells like cigarettes and monkeys while this kid smells like soup, sweat, and… toads." Mito couldn't help the soft snort that escaped her.

"Cool," Naruto had breathed as he drank in these two LEOPARDS - WOW - before realizing what the really big, fluffy thing said. "I'm not a kid; I'm a ninja! Believe it!" He became frustrated when neither leopard looked like he believed it at all! One thing was undeniable, though: "You two sure are pretty." They were pretty and each had fuzzies that were enough to make him forget that they said he smelled like toads and other stuff. They got awfully big teeth and claws, though. "Can I pet you, please?"

"No," both leopards replied in annoyance. Mito snorted.

"Maybe later, huh?" she grinned before bending down to speak with them but gave her brother a wink. "You're right about them being pretty, Naruto. Or you two would probably prefer the word 'handsome,' though, ne?" She pressed down a silencing seal, noticing how smug both cats looked now as they relaxed in front of her. –She'd need to watch it on the compliments or they would get really big heads.

"I need your help. An extremely valuable and powerful mask has gone missing from here. Only an Uzumaki should be able to get into this temple. I only know of one other probable Uzumaki that is distantly related to us anywhere and I seriously doubt it was her. Do you recognize any scents here?" Both began sniffing around.

"Who all's been in here?" Shin asked. He continued scenting, trying to force himself to remain professional and not check out the fish that were DEFINITELY here and undoubtedly tasty.

He'd either get one on his way out or when he came back.

"That I'm aware of? Just the three of us - and my mother came here with me more than a decade ago. Decades before that, there were others."

Shin's nose wrinkled when he smelled the wall behind where they were setting up a fish tank.

"Aside from you three, there's a really old scent - and a newer one that's not any of you… A female."

"A female from around a week or more ago, right?" Fuyu asked his partner for this job when he caught another scent. Shin shrugged and nodded, wiggling, at the same time.

Mito didn't know what that body language meant and suspected that with fox-enhanced senses or not, she wouldn't be able to make out her mother's perfume, although the last time she was here alone, she thought she imagined it for a few seconds. Being that the cats smelled an older scent, Mito bet they could smell her mom - and that made her chest tighten. "You should concentrate on the newer scent," she told them reluctantly. "The thing is, I can't accompany you to track right now. I've got my Genins with me and we're on a mission."

"You shoulda summoned Ana." Ana was a lioness and also had a good nose.

"Meh… There's no blood," the other leopard countered.

"I didn't want her to take a bite out of whomever you're tracking," Mito explained. The lionesses were said to be able to track down anything bleeding, (especially,) but whoever had been HERE wasn't an enemy, she hoped. "The person you're tracking: she - or he - is family but I need to find them and get the mask back. It's dangerous for it to be out there. Plus, if you two track the scent together, one of you can bring me word back of where this Uzumaki is, ne? And the other can perhaps stay and watch her? –I don't want either of you to retrieve that item, though. I don't know what would happen to you if you touched it."

"Anything else?" Fuyu asked at the same time Shin spoke up: "How 'bout a treat?"

Mito dug through her vest to find some snacks for them although she knew she didn't have any ice cream on her. She shrieked, scaring everyone when she looked up again and realized Shin had jumped into the koi pond. "NO!" She couldn't believe he'd done that! And now she was wet from picking his heavy ass up and lifting him out of it. "That's a display tank -er, pond thingy! Honestly, you!"

"I thought ninjas are supposed to be quiet, Ane?!" Naruto snarked, remembering what Mito had (scarily) said to him only the day before.

Mito half-grinned at him but sucked in a deep breath as Shin shook the water off himself and onto her. Naruto was a brat and she'd get him for laughing at her but she needed to focus on the naughty leopards. "Ugh. –I was just going to say that I don't want you guys to put yourselves in danger - and this mission is top secret, okay? I'll get you some other fish later!"

Shin was not pleased with being picked up or especially being forced to let go of his prize. "How long's the mission?"

Mito winced; she wasn't sure. "I guess I'll leave it up to you but umm… I'd like to see you again before the three-month mark, ne? Or whenever you've gone as far as you can safely. Remember that you're wearing Konoha jackets, alright?! I don't want some other country telling my father you guys have caused a diplomatic incident."

"Three months… to track?" Both leopards paused but seemed to find that hilarious if their outright cackling afterward was anything to go by.

"I DON'T KNOW!" How was Mito supposed to know? As far as she'd seen, the cats only tracked for any long distances or drawn-out "missions" in their summoning realm and these two had wanted complete responsibility for training her in "how to do it right."

"Miii-i-to! Rain or snow will stop us long before then," Fuyu said as he finally settled down.

"Rain, yes? But snow won't stop me," Shin said because of course he did. He was a snow leopard.

"Yeah, but it's not like you can properly track in the snow," Fuyu mouthed off, "unless you're following blood or footprints!"

"Can't I?" Shin drawled arrogantly.

"I see how it is," the clouded leopard replied as he circled around his fellow before looking at his summoner. "Shin is hoping your clansman is somewhere, bleeding out!"

Shin shook his head. "I am not! –Alright, maybe I am hoping that a little."

"Me, too!" They both fell into fits of laughter again before sobering at the look Scary Mito was giving them. "Just kidding. We'll be back as soon as we can, I guess."

Off the two lumbered or trotted, their noses close to the ground. Mito let up the silencing seal and watched to ensure they got through the vortex safely. Just when she thought they were gone, she gasped when each leopard somehow transported back and grabbed a fish. "Goddammit!" Here Mito had been worried about them getting stuck in that genjutsu!

Considering that they were bound by not only chakra but blood, too, she realized that she shouldn't have bothered.

Maybe that will make this other Uzumaki easier for them to track?

God, now that she felt a little better about finding that damnable mask, she allowed herself to imagine really finding more family.

That mask, though.
Someone with ill intent and the proper knowledge could potentially do a LOT of damage with that thing.

After eventually getting over the loss of two of their pond's fish, Naruto was determined to add a cute and moving toy pirate skeleton and treasure chest into the corner of the tank. They had a long night ahead of them to make the aquarium work so that what happened to the last one wouldn't happen to the creatures eventually placed in the new one.

Naruto continued with his boring but necessary assigned tasks in the temple but was more excited about a possible Uzumaki being out there than his sister and the Old Hag, Tsunade-baa-chan, seemed to be. He wondered why. He HAD to be misunderstanding something so he kept listening as much as he could while he worked on hooking up all the heaters and crap to the aquarium. Mito explained that everything they bought was super important and he deeply wanted to see some cool ocean fish in there one day.

There was SO much to do here, though, (especially since they were only staying one night,) and aside from one measly clone, his sister was making him do his work, himself! Mito lit some incense and began moving around the shrine (making a bit of a mess, he thought.) She was humming and chanting something that sounded like nonsense and seemed really flustered - especially about that missing mask.

Looking at that wall, he wrinkled his nose in distaste. –Hopefully, that wasn't sacrilege. "Oi, Ane. Do the Uzumakis worship those masks - or death or somethin'?"

Mito's head whipped around to her brother - almost as if she had forgotten he was there although she definitely had not - before flopping down on the hardwood floor. She had a headache building about that mask but fortunately, she had seen her mother do this enough times before to feel that it was okay.

It was their temple, their shrine: Uzumakis weren't normally formal people, so plopping down had to be okay, right? "No," she answered.

Really, Mito felt that the Uzumakis might have worshiped death and some of the others portrayed in masks here at some point in history considering all of the lore and strange, missing pages from certain tomes she'd recovered from here and in Uzushio. "It's more like respect: we respect Death, or… Shinigami-sama," Mito gulped, remembering that terrible night when she'd faced not just his (missing: god how could I not foresee something like this happening?) mask but the real deal, himself. "Uzumakis protect and revere life, Naruto, but our clan, especially, knows that death is a large, inevitable part of it."

"But it's just a part. We believe in reincarnation, ne?" Naruto wondered if maybe that was just him. He thought it might be possible: lots of things were.

"I can see it," Mito began but felt almost intimidated at the hard look Tsunade gave her. Really, Mito had heard more about reincarnation being possible from Kurama than she'd ever believed herself. The cycle of life and/or the cycle of the tides? She picked up a mask to show her brother.

"Suijin, or Mizi no kami is commonly thought to be the primary deity the early Uzumakis worshiped. But from what I've gathered, there's just as much evidence to say it may have been someone else. If you're interested, we could look for that - for either another child of Izanami and Izanagi or possibly one of their siblings." Here she pointed to two more masks, noting that there was another one between them, that DID have something very similar to the Uzumaki spiral engraved into its back, from what she remembered. She pulled it down, and there it was. The mask was cool to the touch but had the slightest hint of something running through it.

She turned to Tsunade as a conversation with Momo she'd recently had popped into her mind. "As a side note and speaking of Izanagi, did you know that the Izanagi tectonic plate that created our continent was supposedly subducted by what's today called the Pacific Plate? –Honestly, what do those westerners think happened to our part of that plate?" Well, Mito knew what they thought but oftentimes she believed those from outside of the Elemental Nations were idiots for not realizing there was an entire fucking continent out there hidden from them that they somehow traded with!

How does that trade occur?

"I did know that," Tsunade said as she went back to help Naruto. She'd have to cut Mito off if she really got on a roll &/or sidetracked like this again. She was a little afraid that Naruto's brain might start smoking, she thought to herself. Funny. Naruto was a good kid - a bright kid - but it was as if the kid refused to be book-smart. On the other hand, his sister was like a living sponge that could never be fully saturated. "And people over there think lots of sh- crap."

"What's a tectonic plate?" Naruto asked.

Mito's jaw dropped but then she reminded herself that she was a woman of science. At this point in Naruto's life/career, there might be little reason for him to have learned about that kind of thing. Or was there?! Mito couldn't remember NOT knowing about tectonic plates! This is why all kids should be sent to a secondary school system or something like it. –Or keep learning at home or on the road as I did.

"Tectonic plates, Naruto, is a theory I suppose you could say, that the outer shell of the Earth is made up of several plates which have been slowly moving for three to four million years."

"Is that… continental drift?" Naruto asked. He remembered his dad going over something like that when he started going off track while helping him with his geography homework once. Mito was like their dad that way: always going off on tangents.

"Yeah - or that's what it used to be called, I think," Mito said with a tilted head, feeling a bit relieved about Naruto's knowledge base and wondering about what he'd said now. "While I'm sure you've heard what caused the plates' movement, here in the Elemental Nations it's believed that the tailed beasts did it - or caused most of it."

"I know nobody knows about the demons outside here," Naruto said grumpily, meaning outside of the Elemental Nations. He didn't like housing the fox - or part of it. He thought he'd gotten used to the idea of it and then the grumpy, hateful, long-eared bastard woke up.

"That's true - and it's good that they don't know."

"Why do you say that?" Naruto asked.

"Because westerners might want to steal them or even us for power." They'd like to get their hands on any shinobi. Naruto slowly nodded and carefully placed a plant in the aquarium, looking worried. Mito hadn't meant to scare him. "Back to the masks, I guess…." She went to the masks in the open case and began wiping them down, too. That obnoxious leopard had gotten water everywhere. She found another one that had the same swirl on the back and Mito always wondered about this guy and why he was portrayed this way.

Uzumaki masks weren't your average variety of masks. Some of them supposedly held powers.

"Susanoo no Mikoto," she said with another lump in her throat, holding his likeness up to her brother. "He was said to have been expelled to the Netherworld by his father for causing destruction with his constant wailing for his deceased mother." What the hell's wrong with crying after losing your mother?

Oh like you're a good one to talk, Mito: you beast. You stopped crying, for the most part, the day after you found out Mom was gone. Fuck - now she wished she could cry! Mito tried to plaster on a smile, grim as it was, instead. "I guess on the way out he wanted to say goodbye to the rest of his family or something and offered up his sword to prove his word?" she asked Tsunade who clearly wasn't paying attention. "Other stories say that Susanoo stole it. That sword is called the Totsuka. The real Totsuka."

Considering it more, THIS mask she was taking home with her. No one needed a potential link to that sword on top of the Shinigami's mask going missing. –Just in case.

Shit: was it okay for her to take all the masks with that swirl on them home?
Or any of them?

"I want to learn how to properly use a sword," Naruto muttered to himself. He liked his sister's melodious but slightly raspy voice although her "stories" were kinda terrible and all over the place. This one wasn't too bad, he guessed, especially considering some of the other ones she'd told him since she came home to Konoha.

Mito leaned against the koi pond's ridge as she thought about all that mythology and such although her gaze didn't leave where the missing mask was until she got more off-track. "If real, the Totsuka is an Uzumaki relic; I'm almost sure of it. It's said to now be an ethereal weapon whose blade can SEAL the target it pierces." She caught Naruto's eye and gave a meaningful glance toward Tsunade. "And get this: those who are stabbed by the Totsuka are drawn into a sake jar and trapped in a 'world of drunken dreams' for all eternity!" She frowned as she considered that and mumbled, "sounds like a genjutsu to me."

Naruto snickered. "So then we need to pickle Tsunade-baa-chan in that jar, right?" Tsunade gave him a look that screamed danger, although her lips were twitching so Naruto knew he was okay.

"Maa, who's to say Tsunade hasn't masterminded the theft of that sword and jar, already, Naruto? I mean, baa-chan's appearance is falsely preserved and I bet her body's sake content - even without drinking today - is…"

"THAT's it, Brat! You've gone one step too far again!"

"Alright, alright," Mito relented with a soft smile and her arms up in surrender. When everyone agreed the tank was ready, she used a modified Suiton jutsu to begin filling the huge thing from a seal full of salt water. After that, they began putting together the sealing arrays that would keep it going.

When they were finally done (and with Tsunade's approval,) Mito sealed the temple up, tighter. No one else would be able to get to it without Mito knowing about it.

.

"Maa, I saw the cats leaving earlier." Kakashi tilted his head when the kunoichi didn't reply to him. Mito seemed very distracted. "Everything all right?"

"No, not really." She blew out the breath she felt she'd been holding since she saw that the mask was missing and turned around to see some of her clones talking to her students - who were all looking at her. She gave them a thumbs up and turned back, staring into the darkness of the forest, not looking the slightest bit happy. Mito thought she could smell them but since Kakashi was just standing there, she asked anyway. "Which direction did the leopards head?"

"North-Northwest."

Mito ground her teeth. So that was one more strike against Terumi Mei being the person to infiltrate the temple. It's not that Mito would've considered her a serious suspect to do such a thing, considering that Mei was conceivably still contending for the Mizukage's position. Whether she was now a kage or not, Mito figured that Mei wouldn't be looking forward to taking Konoha on in a fight. She squatted down, feeling sick as she considered what might happen without that mask being secure.

I was always so creeped out by it yet someone clearly wasn't.

Can that mask really bring people back from the dead?

Mom would never want that to happen to her. –Don't even think about such a thing, Mito.

It's gone for now anyway.

"So… I hear you have trouble opening your gates."

Mito looked at Kakashi blankly, wondering where that came from. "Says who?"

"Maa, Gai-kun." Good call: throwing him under the bus, Kakashi told himself as he saw the chakra beginning to whip through and lift Mito's incredibly long hair. In the firelight, it seemed to glow.

"Why's he talking about me?" Mito asked no one furiously. She let out an irritated sound, knowing that she'd have to make a mental note to show Gai a few of the gates she could open when she was back. Except that would be stupid and I'm not sure I can go above Gate 4. "I can open the gates just fine. I don't prefer to DO such a reckless thing if I can help it but can admit that I was surprised when he pulled out his green ostrich maneuver - or whatever it was he called it - while we were sparring."

Unable to control himself, Kakashi began snickering about what she called Gai's technique. "The Morning Peacock? Or the Elephant From Hell - something like that?"

"I think so," Mito shrugged. "Anyway, I can open as many of my gates as I've cared to but I'm already fast, and then there's the Hiraishin. If anything gets in my way while I'm zoomin' around, I just give that thing a little *punch* and then: boom. –It's all good." She fully sat down, cross-legged on the ground, and reached out her senses.

Kakashi had seen his sensei and Jiraiya-sama sitting incredibly still, like Mito was now, when they wanted to go into sage mode. He waited a couple of minutes to see if anything changed about her appearance.

"Maa, are you a sage?" Why am I still talking? –Right, aside from Mito's clones, Kakashi had been the only adult around children all day long. They'd been driving him crazy and he kept having to remind himself that as a shinobi, he must endure.

Mito looked up at him, wondering why he was bothering her. "A sage of what?"

"Aha! Nothing!"

She collapsed on her back when she ensured that their two teams, plus Tsunade, were all alone out here. "It's just us out here for quite some distance. We're safe."

Kakashi figured that she must have been doing something of a deep dive into her sensory abilities and sat down beside her, avoiding her hair which was haloed around her. He'd been thinking a lot about this so kept his voice very low. "How do you feel about guiding us to a few bandits on the way home? –Or my ninken and I can do it. That way, the kids could have their first kills under more controlled conditions."

Whatever Mito had expected him to say - and considering that this was Hatake Kakashi, she really hadn't expected him to say anything at all - that was not it! "I don't think so." Kakashi better have a damn good reason for bringing such a thing up! The words came out before she could take them back, "They're too young."

No, they're not, Mito…

"No offense." She knew that Kakashi had killed far younger than she had. "Isn't that one reason my father has held the kids off from even graduating until they're this age? So they wouldn't have to do something like that?"

Kakashi let out a sigh, knowing that was one reason. An advanced minimum graduation age was fine for the extended peace they'd been living in but it couldn't last forever. The greatest problem with "allowing children to be children," was that the children acted and thought more like children in their everyday lives than they used to.

That naivety was dangerous.

Just take Naruto for example: the boy blew off so much that he was capable of learning, making ridiculous excuses for wanting to prank and joke around. Kakashi knew it wasn't fair to compare Naruto to himself but sometimes he couldn't help it.

Kakashi felt that Minato-sensei allowed his son to flake out because Naruto so reminded him of his late wife.

"Kushina was an experiential learner, too, Kakashi-kun. Many didn't think that she was smart but let me tell you, Kushina was brilliant in many ways. No one wanted to mess with her! And no one can deny that I like the flashier jutsus, too."

I know that, sensei.
I remember Kushina.

Naruto wanted to learn, alright, but aside from seals, the things he wanted to learn were indeed flashy techniques. Kakashi softly cleared his throat. He only wanted Naruto to be safe. "You killed before you were their age, though, didn't you?"

"No." For some reason, Mito found it hard to even look at him. That fact shouldn't be embarrassing! "I'm a healer, Kakashi. When I was little, I always moved to incapacitate although… I'm sure that some of the damage I did may have led to some of my opponents' deaths - not that I meant for that to happen. I didn't intentionally kill anyone until I was what? Almost 17?"

Kakashi almost scoffed but his mind raced to when that would've been. "The capitol? –You're kidding." Once again, he realized that he'd said the wrong thing to her.

"'Fraid not," she said icily. You kill hundreds of people (especially shinobis wearing the Konoha hitai-ate no matter who they worked under) in one night and see how you feel about it! "As a child, I had remarkable chakra control, precision, and… It doesn't matter," she sniffed.

Even as a small child, Mito aimed low when targeting any enemy that got close to her, cutting tendons - and using powerful strikes to cause internal organ, tenketsu, or nerve damage. "So, no. My squad will not be participating in their first kills on this, their very first mission outside of the village. You make a good point, one that I'd already considered, about a controlled environment, though."

Mito let out a large, noisy sigh. "I'd heard about how Genins have to do this, and that's why I've asked Anko-chan to save me some real assholes who deserve it. –I know the kids will have to do it sometime in the future but I'd like for it to be in the village. I'll take the next watch."

She dismissed half of her clones and left to go talk to her team. Hinata and Sakura had volunteered to take charge of a middle-of-the-night stew and from what Mito could smell, the girls knew what they were doing. Almost everyone was awake and hungry.

She tried to hide her grin when she saw Kiba facepalming over Hinata shyly giving Naruto a bowl of stew.

Once safely back in Konoha, the teams reported back to the mission desk. Shino had to work with Naruto on the mission report which was pretty hilarious and overly time-consuming: the two were friends but opposites in so many ways.

Minato, too, was very concerned about that missing mask. Kushina had told him about it once and she had resorted to going to Lord Third for more information on it. He would have to go through his predecessor's archives to find out more.

.

"Kiba! Did I hear you order Akamaru to PEE ON ME?!"
And in FRONT OF PEOPLE?

You are so getting pranked, you little brat.

"Gah! Sensei! It's called Dynamic Marking and it's an important Inuzuka technique. Akamaru's whizz is used for tracking!"

Mito glared at the kid so hard she was surprised he didn't explode into flames. Now she smelled like dog piss! –Who the hell would expect a dog piss attack?! She supposed that as long as the puppy wasn't doing that to her again, that could be a good thing. "Let's find someone else for Akamaru to mark, ne? – And Kiba. I'd better never see YOU peeing on anyone."

Kiba's eyes popped out of his head. "N-never! Th-that's just gross!"

.

After a day off, Mito found Team 8 stretching in their training ground. As always, she snuck up on them but Urine-san/Akamaru wasn't having it this time, yipping excitedly around the tree she had flashed to. "Look at you: such a good boy! Nice job, Akamaru!" She laughed: the puppy was so excited, he fell over and had trouble getting back up because his butt and tail were wiggling around so much.

"Sensei," Kiba greeted her, smiling widely and righting his puppy with a few rough pats. "We were just talkin' about how fun it was to get out of the village! Can we do more missions like that pleeeease?!"

He sent a little growl at Shino who began muttering about missions not being given for "fun." Missions can be fun! Being out of the village and seeing new stuff HAD been fun.

Mito hummed as she thought about that before asking them to sit down. "We still need a few more D-ranks before we take higher-ranked missions," she began and saw all the kids pout - well, she couldn't be sure with Shino-kun but she definitely saw his shoulders drop a little. "BUT you all did very well and a C-rank is in our near future!" Kiba cheered, Hinata smiled and Shino bobbed his head.

"There are some serious things we need to discuss regarding going out of the village, though. –Some things I should've spoken with you about before we even went to the shrine." She swallowed thickly and gestured for them to huddle up with her.

Best to rip the band-aid off, I guess. "When I was a kid, I was kidnapped a couple of times, ya see."

"A COUPLE of times?!" Kiba yelled before apologizing. Akamaru's yips scolded him.

"Yeah. The first time, I was very young and fooled by a couple of clowns who led me right out of the compound I was living in. –They were two rogues from Kumo - but my abductors got taken down by giant animals when they tried to get out of Konoha through the Forest of Death. The other time, I WENT to the Forest of Death to hide as soon as I could get away! That wasn't exactly a good idea, by the way: it's hell in there. It DID prepare me for the Chunin Exams a little, I guess," she mentioned as she scratched her chin. She wiggled her eyebrows at them, too, hoping they'd ask about Training Ground 44 and the Chunin Exams - just in case they'd be held in Konoha.

They seemed to be too shocked to notice, however.

"How could that," Kiba stammered, "how could that happen here? I mean, in the village? You got taken out of the village?"

"Well, I was taken from within the village but wasn't dragged out of it back then." And then I left with mainly Tsunade, where it was, almost unbelievably, safer.

"Why are you telling us this?" Shino asked, already knowing the answer. "It is because you are concerned with Hinata-sama being taken."

"EEP!"

"Shino! No - well… Yes," Mito reluctantly agreed, "but I'm saying ANY one of us could be targeted. –You're all heirs or potential heirs to very important and known Konoha clans. I'm a clan head and am… more well-known than I'd like. It makes us all targets." Mito could feel a heavy cloud of anxiety overtake them. "So that's yet another reason we train, right?! We get stronger to protect our home and our comrades - and to also protect ourselves, ne?"

"Hai!"

"Good! And I'll say it again: you three did great in our last mission. Oh, and one more thing: I won't EVER let someone take you."

Kiba was already talking as soon as she mentioned their previous mission, missing what she'd promised, though. –Or so she thought.

"We kicked Team 7's ass!"

"Kiba-kun," Hinata scolded with a squeak and a blush. Shino was going to complain but the corners of his lips pulled up when his sensei smiled wickedly.

We did show "the great Team 7" up, the Aburame thought to himself. The previous Team 7s were the strongest teams in each generation, but Shino was confident that Team 8 could beat them. The smile on his sensei's face told him that he wasn't being overconfident in his estimation.

"You're right, Kiba: you three did kick Team 7's ass! More importantly, though, you worked with them very effectively." Mito thought more about that. "The problem now, I guess, is that they know how awesome you three are and I bet they'll start training a lot more seriously. REALLY."

Mito had seen the way those kids were looking at her students (and the way they'd been glaring at their own extremely laid-back lazy ass but deadly sensei.) Her clones had also listened to Team 7 complain to Kakashi about what they'd learned her team had been working on, wanting to do the same.

"Sasuke's a greedy bastard," Kiba said knowingly, "and Naruto's a baka!" He should've known that he'd get a half-assed glare for that. "And Hina-chan's ten times the kunoichi Sakura is!"

Hinata blushed furiously but didn't seem to be wobbly and close to passing out at least.

Mito couldn't disagree with his words. Sasuke, it seemed, had some issues before the Uchiha Incident, even. He was OPEN about wanting power for himself.

Geez, had Kurama ranted about that while I was trying to sleep!

"Let's not forget that it hasn't been long since Sasuke-kun lost so much of his family," Mito mentioned solemnly, "and let's also hope that he wants strength to protect Konoha." Or that he will in time. "Anyway - since we're on the subject of leaving the village and higher-ranked missions, well…

"I'll keep my promise to you and say something else again and again: if we're on a mission and I order you to leave me behind and here's the fact guys. …If I order you to leave me behind, you will haul ass to get out of there and you WILL do exactly as I say."

God. I am HORRIBLE at easing into the waters before I go crashing in.
Mito! You dumbass!

Aside from the chirping of birds, silence followed her words.

Kiba's mouth had fallen open. "No way! I'd NEVER leave you behind! You're pack!"

Maybe she shouldn't have been but Mito was blown away by such a wonderfully inclusive, passionate statement. What Kiba said meant a lot to her - and it meant a lot for an Inuzuka to say that in the first place. "Thank you, Kiba. I consider you three my pack, too: my kawaii cubs," she grinned (especially when Kiba groaned) - saying all of that honestly. She'd only been a Jonin-sensei for a few months now but already realized how her father could love his team so much - despite what had happened. Although I'll never forgive Obito.

A huge argument followed her orders to be left behind and Mito knew this would be an ongoing discussion. Hopefully, she could make the cubs strong enough to fight beside her asap but Mito could handle herself. This is a hard thing…

Working with Team 7 had been much more of a drag than if she'd worked with Asuma's or Kurenai's team - but Team 7 had gotten the mission she'd requested and things were as they were. There's no changing the past. Kakashi's thing about "scum" and how leaving a comrade behind being unforgivable was commendable but Mito wanted to save her kiddos. Surely he would do the same?

I'm sure he would order the kids to leave him behind if he was targeted.

Naruto would never leave Kakashi to fight alone, though. Mito was sure of that - and that was something to keep in mind for her own Genins.

Crap.

"Here's something to consider. I'm a medic and medics aren't normally hurt by those who take them." Kiri should have never hurt Rin-chan as they did: they were such fools.

How could you have aided any of them, Mito, after everything they did?
Really?

Mito blocked those thoughts, knowing that they'd probably be giving her nightmares later. "Just keep that in mind. NOW," she continued, ending the argument for today with a clap of her hands, "Hinata, tell me what you can see and how many meters out. Boys, see if you can find what I hid for you before she sees it!"

"Hai," they all chorused back sourly. Oops. –She'd put them all in a really foul mood, it seemed.

She felt bad when she began laughing at the increasingly furious, shaking 12-year-olds but they were just so cute when they were mad at her. "I'm going to attack you so you'd better hurry up!"

.

"A-a-and he s-said it's my f-fate to be a f-failure!"

Mito hopped out of the tree she was hiding in, cracking the earth below her as her chakra unrolled. Hinata's bodyguard/confidant/(basically her guardian) Hyuuga Ko nearly jumped out of his skin, his hand clenched over his heart.

Mito looked back and forth between them, in disbelief at what she'd just heard. "Neji-kun said WHAT NOW?"

Hinata wiped her teary eyes but wouldn't tell on her cousin. She also desperately shook her head, silently begging Ko not to repeat what she'd just said, either.

Mito bit the curses back that she wanted to let fly. "Alright, fine. So Dear Neji thinks he's the be-all, end-all, huh? That he's a god or something that knows Fate?"

"N-no, s-sensei! Neji-nii-san is tr-truly a great prodigy! And he's suffered…"

"Is he now? Well we don't want our child prodigy's Flames of Youth to burn out early, do we? I think Neji-nii-san needs to be taught some humility."

"Excellent," Ko breathed. Hinata turned to him, gasping and with wide eyes, looking betrayed.

"Hinata," Mito called to her. "Think of it this way: Neji needs to grow if he wants to survive and thrive. I'll teach you something to surprise him with - but you're not allowed to show him until I say it's time."

"Wh-what is i-it?"

Mito grinned. "Just something to 'upset the balance.' You'll have to work hard on it in order to pull it off but I know you can do it! –You trust me, dontcha? Aww: don't leave a girl hanging, Hinata-chaaaan!"

"H-hai! Yes, sensei!"

Less than a month later, the kids finally got notice that they'd be taking their first C-rank. The Hokage made them promise not to tell the other fresh teams he was allowing it - and Mito was sure her kids would be fine.

They'd better be because the idea of taking a C-rank had been a huge argument between Mito and her Hokage father.

And his concerns about her leaving the village again were completely over the top!

The first C-rank was to be a simple mission. Team 8 would be working as couriers and the kiddies probably wouldn't be impressed even though they'd be delivering (somewhat low) classified information.

The C-ranked after that was guarding a group of merchants.

.

Mito tried not to either groan out loud or pull her hair out. "Shino-kun, don't you want to protect your comrades and allies more?"

Shino pushed his glasses back up. Even though she was holding back, Mito-sensei hit hard. Thank goodness she healed him as often as she did. "Naturally."

"Well as much as your taijutsu is improving, don't forget to use those Doton jutsus. They can really protect you!"

Gah; Mito didn't get it. Shino had already mastered the leaf exercises and had a really strong earth affinity. His hand seals were fast... "Is there um, a reason you don't want to?" Her quietest student only tilted his head, as if he were calculating something in that bug-filled noggin of his before he answered her.

"No."

Mito face-faulted.

"Shall we try again, sensei?"

"Sure. –Of course! See if you can stop me this time!" A wall went up when she tried to slam him with a water jutsu. "Better!"

.

After the required 50 D-ranks and providing what amounted to as much community service as they could imagine in Konoha, Team 8 finally got ready to leave the village again.

The mission was to escort Madam Shijimi back to the capital along with her guards - some of the older ninja monks Mito used to work with. The woman's demonic ninneko tried to send pairs of the kids (and their sensei or her clone) on wild goose chases several times but they made it back without incident. Once at the palace, Mito got to hang out with Chiriku again which was normally a great thing, but now their discussions were tense.

Chiriku knew a lot of people thanks to his position at the temple. He had put a few feelers out and Asuma had already approved of him being wrapped into his ROOT/missing persons investigation. When the team left the capital to head back, Chiriku gave her a coded message.

Reading through it, Mito wanted to hurl. Human trafficking: she was almost sure of it. It seemed like the whole thing would've been a lot easier if ROOT was at it again versus THIS. How were they going to find those kids?! And Tou!

They finally returned to the big Konoha gates and found Anko there, waiting for them. Ah, shit.

GOD. Mito thought the required sex talk had been awkward and terrible with the way Hinata kept passing out (not to mention that Hyuuga Ko guy scolding her for "being much too descriptive and bold." –Bastard. That's why Mito had flicked him into the Hokage Mountain again.)

This was going to be SO much worse.

"Welcome back," Anko said, nodding toward the kids. "I've got some scum right up your alley, Mi-chan."

Mito took a deep breath and thanked her before formally introducing everyone. Looking at her three Genins, they still had lots of life left in them and seemed ready for anything. Almost anything - but not this. "I… need you three to come with me, please."

Hinata had seen the two Jonin kunoichis together in the village and they usually seemed so lighthearted. Not today. "Sh- shouldn't we r-report in?" she asked. Something suspicious was going on here.

"I can wait for you to do that boring stuff," Anko said with a fake smile. "You know where to find me."

Mito nodded. "Right. Thanks, Anko-chan."

After reporting in and leaving an obnoxiously brief brief, Mito walked the kids toward T&I after hugging her brother goodbye. Team 7 was going on their first C-rank and he was SO excited. Kiba bragged to Naruto that they'd been going on C-ranks for a while, making Mito groan and feel like throttling him.

Naruto, of course, thought that was totally unfair. And Kiba, of course, had been ordered not to say anything about their C-ranks! A serious discussion and thorough scolding followed as soon as they were alone.

After that - and as soon as Team 8 realized which building they were headed to - their paces slowed. "This is where your friend works?" Hinata asked in a trembling voice.

"Yes." No one was around so Mito continued as she turned and leaned on the building. "There are a lot of excellent shinobis who work here and Jonin Mitarashi, like the others, works hard to protect Konoha." Looking into their cute little faces, Mito felt grief and hesitation wash over her. All three kids had been somewhat expecting something like this, here, it seemed. Probably not today, though.

"First kills," Shino said, unusually emotive.

Mito nodded. "I would rather you get your… first out of the way by facing truly guilty people in a controlled environment." All three kids nodded at her. "Your parents have told you about this?"

Three more nods.

Mito felt sick. She was probably handling this all wrong. Maybe Kakashi had been right: he probably was! But she'd arranged it and now had to follow through. "Let's go in and see what she's got for us, ne?"

Mito signed her kids in and aside from the brief flashes of pity here and there, no one said a word about bringing a young team in like this. Mito hoped that she wasn't simply hurting her kids. Anko was waiting for them in a conference room when the team arrived.

"Welcome, Team 8." Anko threw down a picture of an ugly guy with a scar running down his face. "Adeki Shu, 38-year-old former Chunin and rogue Iwa nin. Pedophile."

"He's mine," Shino said in a quiet but even voice. Kiba and Hinata's eyes widened for a split second before they nodded at him in solidarity. Kiba clapped him on the shoulder to show support while Hinata smiled at him as warmly as she could. "May I see the evidence?" He turned toward his sensei because she'd let out a little gasp.

Mito knew that this was the stuff they'd see someday but wanted to put a little of their job's horrors off a little longer. Wasn't ending a life enough? "R-rated at MOST, Anko. Maybe um…"

"How 'bout just the written-up, declassified summary, kid?" Anko asked the Aburame - although she was watching Mito's reaction. Mito looked only somewhat relieved at her idea. The purple-haired kunoichi handed over the report and Shino sat down and began reading with his fingers repeatedly twitching.

Anko thumbed through more files and pulled out another picture. A couple was photographed: an unremarkable but tall man with short white hair was holding hands, pulling a slightly younger woman with gray streaks through her brunette chin-length hair. They were both smiling and looked quite happy and normal. "43-year-old civilians turned gun and drug-runners: Fugawaka Ao and Chichi. We've milked them for all the information we can get."

"D-do they regret what they did?" Hinata asked softly and then wished that she hadn't.

"I get your question, kid, but you have to understand," Anko said as she threw down the file, opened it, and gestured for them to begin reading it. "These fuckers put a litany of drugs on the streets - and started giving the crap away, free, to get KIDS YOUR AGE hooked on it. Then in their 'grand scheme', they put lethal pressure on those kids to introduce the shit to their friends and sell it to 'em. We've got kids at the capitol and elsewhere dying from this shit."

Kiba read through the file, feeling disgusted. He realized that his stomach was somehow much less queasy the more he read. Then what he knew he was here to do flashed in his mind again and it lurched almost violently. "Wh-who's in charge and where were the weapons going to?" These morons were running weapons, too. That probably led to more innocent people's deaths.

"That's classified," Anko said. She smiled bitterly at the kids when they looked up at her. She liked kids, too, and Mito talked about her Genins all the time.

The very intelligent and relatively stubborn Aburame whom Mito was pushing to be more social. Mito was very proud of him for not fighting with his male teammate much anymore the last she heard. His taijutsu and ninjutsu were also getting better, from what she'd heard.

The shy and timid Hyuuga heiress Mito AND Kurenai fretted over. To end the worrying, Mito had decided to push the poor kid to become some kind of Water Wonder/Hyuuga-Tsunade type. –Wouldn't that be terrifying to face, though?

And the Inuzuka whom Anko thought was secretly Mito's favorite. Loud, stubborn, and brash but devoted and loyal. Plus he's got a puppy!

After the Aburame kid finished reading, he nodded at her and Anko said the words he'd anxiously been waiting to hear. "All three of these scumbags have been sentenced to death."

"I am ready," Shino said simply. Mito left a couple of clones with the others and walked with him to a room and wound up wanting to carve up the pedophile herself. He had begun taunting and leering at Shino when he walked in. His eyes greedily raked Mito up and down when she entered behind him seconds later.

The scumbag screamed when he was immediately covered with kikaichu.

"Shino-kun," Mito breathed in surprise horror. She had been about to step in or hand him another kunai to deliver a fatal strike to the secured man but Shino was clearly pissed. His allies completely drained the fucker of his chakra.

Shino walked over to feel for a pulse. "Is there anything else?" he asked blankly. Mito could see that he was trembling.

"No, honey. You did really well. Let's wait for your teammates, ne?" Mito draped her arm around his shoulders and walked him into another interrogation room across from the conference room they'd been in. Kiba and Hinata soon joined them, looking pale and just as shaky. Mito grabbed the wastebasket just in time when Kiba puked into it. "You guys did well - and what you've done is going to save others the pain of what their victims went through, 'ttebane. I'm so sorry to have asked you to do this today but I don't want you freezing up in a deadly battle one day. I have faith that YOU three won't but supposedly, this is the best way to prevent that."

Fuck me: I wonder how true that is?

From what Mito saw through her clone's memories, Kiba had used the kunai she gave him, sunshinning behind his target and slitting the man's throat, but Hinata had hesitated. She was supposed to move WITH Kiba and do the same thing to her target. Her hesitation meant that the criminal's equally guilty wife had begun screaming and trying to claw at a trembling Kiba. In shock, Hinata delivered a juken strike to the woman's heart.

"I'm sorry," Kiba said as he took the water she offered him. Akamaru was whimpering beside them.

"There is no need. Why?" Shino asked in something just above a whisper. "Because this is what being a shinobi is about."

"I don't believe that, Shino," Mito said honestly. "Shinobis protect - and we do much more than that, right? You can make what you want out of your shinobi career in most ways - but this is a part of it. Just… promise me you'll never take pleasure in killing, alright?" Hinata was sniffling and Mito swallowed the lump in her throat. She knew that she was terrible with this stuff, so (not knowing what else to do) she ran her fingers through Hinata's unbelievably soft, straight hair.

Who knew that their deceased mothers used to do the same thing?

"You guys want to stay with me tonight?" Mito asked. She seriously had no idea how to deal with this! The Genins' reactions were far more important but all of the emotion and anxiety was choking her. "We can go somewhere and talk or just sit if you'd like. Maybe watch a movie or something? Or train?"

"If it's okay, I just want to go home."

The other kids agreed.

They walked from one compound to the next. Mito quietly explained in as few words as possible how well each boy did and what he'd had to do to their clan heads and gave them soft hugs before heading to the next stop.

It was rough!

The Hyuuga compound was last on the list. She groaned when she saw Hinata's bodyguard - the Hyuuga that Mito had run off so many times, she'd lost track - and felt a little relief when she heard her student's soft little snort. "Oh, man. That guy really hates me, huh?"

Hinata shook her head. "Ko-san is… a-afraid of you." Mito started snickering and then so did she - before she assured her sensei that she would be fine. Hinata got a long hug and held back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. Mito-sensei had always been so nice to her and yet was SO different from Kurenai-sensei. "See you tomorrow morning, sensei."

"You got it, Hina-chan but hang on! KO-KUN! Come here, I need to talk to you!" Mito winked at her student who covered her open mouth with her hand, wondering what her sensei was going to do now.

When Hinata was finally alone in her room, she felt tears running down her face but didn't feel like she was crying at all. A knock on her bedroom door left her trying to get herself together.

She had never been so glad as when she saw that the person who came to see and comfort her was her little sister, Hanabi. And she brought with her the warm cinnamon rolls that Ko had made.

Maybe everything would be okay. …She had moved in to protect Kiba-kun today, after all. Maybe she, Hyuuga Hinata, really could be a good teammate and ninja.

.

After reporting in and writing up reports about all of that, Mito knocked on a window at T&I. "ANKO-CHAN!" Anko scowled, cursing at the seals that went off, blaring, as Mito just stood there and stared at her, trying to get her shit together. "I just fucked my kids up. How about we go get fucked up, too?"

Anko bobbed her head. "You got it! Let me go tell Ibiki."

Getting wasted would have to wait, however.

Well into the night, Asuma, Ibiki, Mito, and Anko were hard at work adding Jiriaya's latest intel to Asuma's investigation.

Soon, very soon, that case was going to break open; they could all feel it. –Or maybe that was simply hoping that these disappearances would finally be stopped, and those missing could be found.