Various Storms & Saints.

by apollovixen

Summary:

Misora was born in the holy waters of Uzushio, with five midwives and a raft of sea lions circling around her. The water washed the blood of her mother’s womb away from her, and Misora was baptised as a daughter of the sea.

But it wasn’t until war bathed her in it’s blood that Misora truly felt like she was living.

Notes:

please check tags, but again, a serious tw for child death & miscarriages.

The sea washes over you, your worries are gone. The sea washes over you, your hardships are forgotten. The sea washes over you, you are reborn.

 

…

 

Misora was born in the holy waters of Uzushio, with five midwives and a raft of sea lions circling around her. The water washed the blood of her mother’s womb away from her, and Misora was baptised as a daughter of the sea.

She was raised as a noble daughter of one of the civilian houses of Uzushio. Her father was one of the richest traders on the island, with a half of the sea salt traded off the island being ferried by him and his raised horses. He turned his face away from the violence of the shinobi he had been raised with. Her mother was a priestess, born and raised to praise the goddess who protected their home, and trusted by the leader of Uzushio.

Princess Mito Uzumaki was born five years before Misora, and she was named one of her ladies in waiting. An honour her father accepted bowed on his knees, for all his hard work.

Misora’s two younger brothers were born after her, one who lived until five and another who lived only until two. She was seven when she watched the whirlpool take them under, reuniting their souls with the sea they’d been born in.

It was a somber affair, the water burials she had been to before were a celebration of life, but there was so little life to celebrate. They’d both been too young so their shrouds were barely large enough to wrap around their bodies.

 

…

 

When Misora was ten, she became aware that a war was raging outside their shores. Princess Mito and her mother told her that it wouldn’t touch them, nothing could with Lady Uzushio protecting them, but Misora did not believe them.

The war was already inside them, with their shinobis and their seal masters.

Misora was too young to fight, and her father had forbidden her from even learning. She was his last and only child, and though she was allowed to learn sealing, Misora was forbidden from training in fighting.

When Princess Mito and the rest of her ladies went off to their lessons, Misora spent her hours on horseback. Her father could not forbid her from the thing she stood to inherit from him, even if he’d rather her have two feet on the ground.

Her horse was not her summon, but they’d been bonded ever since Misora watched him be born five years ago. She had fed him by hand, brushed him herself and spent every day before he could be ridden building the trust between them.

Her father expected him to one day carry the trades of Uzushio, but Misora wanted more.

The beaches of Uzushio were her favourite growing up, and she spent long days running around, chasing after Princess Mito and her fellow ladies in waiting.

Misora was quick, and though her parents would reprimand her for it whenever she came home, she was unafraid of getting dirty and slamming the other girls into the water and into the sand.

They were yet too young to dive, but Misora still watched as her fellow islanders pulled pearls from the depths of the oceans, and made the most gorgeous of jewellery with them.

Once a young fisherman saw Misora watching him open a large clam, and when he pulled a shining orb out, he handed it over to her instead of pocketing it.

The polite thing for a lady to do would have been to refuse, but Misora had wanted it so very much, and the man hadn’t even seemed upset when she’d taken it. Instead, he’d seemed quite glad and he’d taught her how to roll the pearls against her teeth and feel the realness of a gem from the sea.

It was the first ever in her collection, and despite the passing of years, Misora always held that lesson close to her heart.

The world had many beautiful things, but you had to adventure out to find them.

 

…

 

Her plan didn’t fully form until Princess Mito was to travel to the Land of Iron. They were twelve and sixteen years old respectively, and Mito had been sent personally alongside Misora, to meet the boy her father wished to promise her to.

The Senju clan and the Uzumaki had always been close, but their Prince believed the bond needed to be solidified. The Senju had the healers the children of Uzushio didn’t, and the Senju needed the Uzumaki sealers to win the war against the Uchiha.

The Land of Iron was a neutral meeting place, and even the Uchiha would not dare to attack the Senju there.

Hashirama Senju was pretty, with his long hair, tan skin and large smile, but Misora knew there was already another in Mito’s heart, in the desolate land of the wind where none of Uzushio’s water reached. She couldn’t help but feel sorry for both of them.

Hashirama did not come alone, as a man almost his complete opposite stood beside him. Hair as white as snow, with eyes as red as blood and rose red markings on his cheeks and chin. His face was pulled into a deep frown, and despite the fact that he must have been the same age as Misora, he seemed almost older.

Misora walked beside him, behind Princess Mito and Lord Hashirama in silence.

She knew what her job was, to follow Princess Mito and report to her father if he did anything unkind, but as they walked they passed by the Samurai training, Misora couldn’t help herself, she stopped.

Men and women were training with swords, lined up in rows of tens, moving through sets of moves she’d seen a hundred times before. But, a little bit away from them were archers on horseback.

Misora watched as one of the archers brought her horse to the beginning of a marked off area. Then the archer began galloping down the marked off area at high speed. The archer lifted her hands from the reins of her horse, controlling the animal with her knees as she gripped her bow with both hands. As she approached a target, she brought her bow up and drew the arrow past her ear before letting the arrow fly with a deep shout. The arrow made a loud crack when it struck the board.

The archer did it twice more before pulling up to a stop. A thunderous applause echoed from her fellow samurai.

Misora raised her eyebrows.

“Yabusame,” The boy said, coming to stand beside her.

Misora startled in surprise, in her awe she’d forgotten he was there.

He turned his face towards her and her honey eyes meet his. “Yabusame was designed as a way to please and entertain the spirits of this land, thus encouraging their blessings for the prosperity of the land, the people, and the harvest. But then two decades ago, their Daimyo became alarmed at the lack of archery skills his samurai possessed so instead of a ritual, Yabusame became standard practice.”

“Do you fight?” she asked him. A foolish question from a foolish girl, Misora realised almost immediately.

“Yes,” he said. “Through with a sword, and not a bow. I became a shinobi when I was five years old.”

One of her brothers had died at five, and Misora had thought he’d been too young to know death. She thought the same of this boy now.

He must have seen it in her face, because he smiled very softly. “Young, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Misora agreed. “What is your name?” She asked. She didn’t know many people from the Land of Fire, and she’d never met anyone who looked like him.

“I’m Tobirama Senju, my lady.” He bowed his head to her, and then straightened himself up before Misora could express her shock, looking over to where Princess Mito and Hashirama had continued walking without them. “We shouldn’t let them get so far.”

“Of course,” Misora agreed, shaking herself out of her shock.

It was surprisingly easy over the two months they stayed in the Land of Iron for Misora to find a teacher.

The Samurai did not teach outsiders, at least not openly, but the archer from a few days ago was happy to show Misora how to use a bow after she complimented her horse.

Misora was not a fighter, or at least she has never been trained to be, but she had been trained to have impeccable aim.

Every child of Uzushio went diving, for pearls, for fish, for fun, and for adventure, and not even her father with his tight hands on her shoulders could stop Misora. It wasn’t dangerous, after all, with their lady protecting them.

Misora knew how to hit a fish from two waves away, and a bow may not have been a spear, but an arrow might as well be.

She learned, and she trained.

Princess Mito found her one day, and despite their easy friendship over their life, Misora was afraid. Her father was important to Uzushio, and her mother was Mito’s father’s most trusted advisor. Their path for Misora was the one she would be expected to walk down.

But Princess Mito smiled at her, and Misora should have expected that. “You’re important to me too,” her friend said.

And Misora grinned back.

 

…

 

GI (Intergrity), REI (respect), YU (heroic courage), MEIYO (honour), JIN (compassion), MAKATO (honesty and sincerity), CHU (duty and loyalty)

 

…

 

Four years later, Misora had just turned sixteen and the Senju clan were coming to Uzushio for the first part of Princess Mito’s wedding to their clan head.

Not all of them of course, Lord Tobirama, as he said in his letters to Misora, would stay behind to act as the clan head in his stead.

She was not sad about that, of course. She’d see him when she went with Mito to the land of fire, for the second part of the wedding, the tournament.

Many from all over the lands were invited, lords of both high and low came to attend the wedding of a princess and the great Hashirama Senju.

One who came was a young man from the Mindori family, who’d allied themselves with the Uchiha a long time ago, before they’d decided war was not for them and became Uzushio fishermen.

The young man was walking across the field, enjoying the warm spring day and harming none, when he was set upon by three shinobi. They couldn’t have been older than fifteen, but even so they were bigger than him, as all three had been training since they were children. As they saw it, a friend of the Uchiha had no right to be attending a Senju wedding, they snatched away his fishing spear and knocked him to the ground, cursing him.

They shoved him down every time he tried to rise, and kicked him when he curled up on the ground.

It was then that Misora came upon them, she’d never seen the three boys before, but she knew the man they were assaulting. “That’s my father’s man you’re kicking,” she yelled.

She had her fishing spear on her, as she’d come to the beach to find the perfect pearl to gift to Mito for her wedding, so she turned it to the blunt side and hit the boys over the head.

The fisherman, Takeshi, was bruised and bloodied, so Misora took him back to her house to clean his cuts and bind them up with linen.

That evening there was to be a feast in Uzushio, to mark the beginning of the wedding, and Misora insisted that Takeshi attend, he had just as much right to a place on the bench as any other man.

He tried to refuse, but Misora insisted, so finally he agreed and Misora found clothing suitable to wear to the Princess’ wedding, and they went to the tower together.

It was there that Takeshi recognised the boys as the second cousins of Lord Hashirama, and pointed them out to Misora.

“You could best them in the tournament,” Misora suggested. “Come with me as my guest to the Land of Fire.”

“I’m not sure,” Takeshi replied. “I’m no shinobi, though I wish I was. I would only make a fool of myself and shame my family.”

Misora looked at the downtrodden expression on his face. Yes, he was no shinobi, and nor was she.

But perhaps she didn’t need to be.

That night Misora went down to the holy pools of the temple, and gave her best pearls to lady Uzushio, asking for her help to right the wrongs that were done.

After the first part of the wedding, where the traditions of Uzushio were followed, they travelled to the Land of Fire, where the second part of the wedding would take place.

Misora dragged Takeshi along, because since he was not comfortable taking his vengeance, she would have to be the one to do it.

It was a five day tournament, with the main competition being mounted archery, Yabusame. But Misora wouldn’t be able to shame the men by defeating them in archery, she would have to join the jousting tournament.

Now she’d really have to dedicate the spoils of her next ten dives to Lady Uzushio.

The end of the first day saw one of the Senju boys as victor, and the second morning saw the other two victorious as well. Late that afternoon, as evening began, Misora donned samurai armour and took a horse that wasn’t her own, but was still one she’d helped raise, pledging herself to the tournament. She’d brought a mask dedicated to the husband of Uzushio, their great dragon of the sea, and placed it on to conceal herself.

It wasn’t unusual, mystery samurai or shinobi had appeared at tournaments all throughout history, with face coverings or genjutsus that hid their features. Sometimes they were famous champions in disguise, and sometimes they were daughters who would shame their fathers if they joined.

Even as young as they were, Misora was shorter and thinner than the others and her armour was mismatched, stolen from spare pieces the samurai had brought along with them.

Misora dipped her spear before the newly married couple and challenged the three Senju shinobi.

Lady Uzushio must have liked her mask because she gave great strength to Misora’s arm, and all her training with her spear paid off.

First fell the one who’d kicked Takeshi, then the one who’d stomped on him and finally the one who’d broken his nose. The crowd cheered for her, and Misora had never felt greater.

Not when she was diving, or when she was riding, or drawing seals. Nothing felt like the thrill of fighting.

When the father of fallen foes sought to ransom horse and armor, Misora quickly placed her hand on a seal she’d drawn to conceal her voice and spoke. “Teach your sons honour, and that will be enough.”

Misora watched as Lord Hashirama’s cousin chastised his sons sharply, and then returned their horses and armour to them.

Later, she rode out of the tournament, to where Takeshi was waiting for her.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “You’ll get into trouble.”

“It’s fine,” Misora had replied. She’d placed a hand on Takeshi’s shoulder and smiled at him.

He still looked nervous, but he smiled very softly back at her. “Thank you.”

“It was nothing at all.”

Later that night, many shinobi of the tourney swore they would unmask the mystery samurai, and even her Prince himself urged the shinobi to challenge him. The three Senju brothers she defeated claimed he must be Uchiha, and that was why he covered his face.

So, Misora knew she could not continue in the tournament, no matter how much she might have wished to. The next morning, the mystery Samurai did not show, and only the other two champions appeared.

Instead Misora who knew that she had to hide and bury the dragon mask she’d chosen, had alongside Takeshi, went into the nearby Forest.

Little did she know, the Senju clan was furious, and partitioned Tobirama himself to go search for her.

She’d heard footsteps behind them later than she should have, and it wasn’t until Tobirama caught her arm and pulled her against him that she even realised he was there.

“Who are you?” Tobirama asked. He placed his sword to Takeshi’s neck, and Misora’s breathing stuttered.

This was her friend, who sent her letters and talked to her about how much he loved sealing. This was the boy who hadn’t criticised her for stopping to stare at the samurai whenever she passed them. He’d pulled her close to him, not to hurt her, but to protect her from this man he didn’t know.

Still, this was the second son of the Senju clan, who’d killed hundreds in war, when Misora had killed none.

Takeshi closed his eyes. “I’m the mystery samurai,” he said. “If you must punish one of us, then punish me only. My lady didn’t know.”

“No,” Misora said. “That’s not true.”

Tobirama stared at Takeshi for a long moment, then he drew his sword away. “It’s a noble lie,” Tobirama said. “But it is a lie all the same.”

He let Misora go and looked her in the face. She should have gotten on her knees and begged, but instead she lifted her chin and looked Tobirama in the eyes.

“It was a noble fight too,” she said. “Your cousins are unkind, and were deserving of what I gave them. If you must drag me back, then I will accept my dues.”

“No, my lady,” Takeshi begged.

“It is your mother who speaks to Mito's father about capturing this mystery samurai, she believes it was sacrilege to wear the mask of the sea serpent and perform such a task.”

Misora shook her head. “If it was sacrilege, then my lady will drown the boat I take home.”

“Yes,” Tobirama said. “I suppose she will.”

He looked down to the mask Takeshi was holding in his hands, and took it from the other boy.

“It is a shame then,” Tobirama began. “That all that was ever found of the mystery samurai was the mask that he wore, hanging on a tree.”

Tobirama’s features were handsome now, in a way they hadn’t been those few years ago. Misora felt like she was seeing him for the first time.

“Thank you,” Misora said.

Tobirama looked at her for a little while longer, and then turned away from her, as he began the walk back to the tournament.

When Misora arrived back later that day, her mother was in a frenzy. And when the third evening began, a new challenger had joined the lists.

It almost seemed as if no spear at all could touch Tobirama Senju. He bested the final two champions, first a Nara and then a Hatake, and when the fifth day of the tournament came to an end, he was victorious.

When he rode his horse over to the stands, it was not his new sister in law who he laid the winning favour on. No, it was Misora he gifted it to.

Her father stiffened, but when Tobirama bowed to her, she knew that he was not declaring his undying love for her, simply his respect.

Somehow, that was better.

When Misora returned home, she was relieved to find her vessel did not sink or get caught in a whirlpool.

 

…

 

Sea, take me with open arms, deft sleeves, frothy collar.
Let thinned weeds flag shell-cowled mysteries. Bilge-crested hulls of sea are luring me.
Dawn breeds dusk, horizon's the same.
Next tide's reprise is when I leave.
To sing's to pray, Island. Sing of me no more.

 

…

 

When she turned eighteen, Misora’s mother was given back to the sea.

It was a true celebration of her life, but part of Misora could not enjoy it like she’d seen the other children.

Her mother wasn’t killed by the war raging outside their lands, but instead by the sickness that had taken both of her, the baby that had been growing in her womb, and the sons she’d born years ago.

She was too old, the priestess had said, and the sickness was too vicious, but her mother had only been born twenty years before Misora, and many on the island lived until their hundredth year. It felt like a robbery.

Her mother had been another chain tying her down, but she’d also been the woman who had given her life. She’d cared for her, loved her and then used that love to tie a noose around Misora’s throat.

Maybe that was all duty was.

After the ritual, Misora sat on a cliff overlooking the beach and watched as the waves danced their apologies to her, and she wondered.

Uzushio was her home, she loved it, and she was willing to die for it, but she did not know if she was willing to let herself be hollowed out for it.

Her father would want her home soon, and with her mother gone he was becoming stricter. She’d get married soon, and the life she wanted would be so out of reach that she could never touch it.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and the warmth of Mito’s chakra sunk into Misora’s skin. She turned her head, pressing a kiss to the palm of her friend’s hand.

Mito pressed a kiss to her forehead and sat beside her. “Come with me,” she said.

Misora shook her head. “My father will never allow it.”

“Your father may be powerful,” Mito conceded. “But he is not an Uzumaku princess.”

“No,” Misora said, laughing softly. “He is not as beautiful.”

“I will come with you,” Misora agreed. “Is it nice there, your home?”

“It is,” Mito said. “But it is dangerous too, you will have to be prepared to fight.”

For most of her life, Mito has been Misora’s north star, she could follow her anywhere, even into death and be certain there would be someone who believed in her, who loved her.

“I am prepared as long as I am by your side,” Misora said.

Mito smiled. It was then that her friend rose from her position, tagged Misora’s on the shoulder and got a running jump off of the cliff, into the waters below.

Misora laughed loudly, and followed after her the way she had when they were teenagers. The wind as she fell was exhilarating, but it barely compared to having to fight off the choppy waters that were trying to take her under.

Her father had not been happy to send her away, but Mito outranked him, and with her mother gone, the Prince had no one to whisper in his ear, so he’d quickly been forced to concede.

Though, Misora would not be able to stay away forever. She was still a citizen of Uzushio and not even her friendship with his daughter would mean the Prince would simply allow her to leave permanently without an explanation.

Misora, her horse and her various goods were transported to the Land of Fire, where the Senju clan compound was bustling, full of people and fauna everywhere.

She spotted the three brothers she’d bested in the fight, she’d attended Takeshi’s wedding the year before, to a beautiful woman who collected pearls and dyed clothes for the Uzumaki. It was a good match, for a good friend.

It was Hashirama Senju who greeted her, not his younger brother.

He had the same brightness as before, half carried by his personality and half by the sheer power he carried inside of him.

It didn’t matter who you were, shinobi, samurai or civilian, it was impossible to not feel the blazing heat of his chakra. It was similar to Mito, who was blessed with a well of power no one else she knew had.

They’d be a formidable couple, but still Misora hoped it would be love that one day fueled them.

By the smile Mito gave her husband when she saw him again, Misora believed that was truer than she ever could have imagined.

“It is good to see you again,” she said, bowing to a man a hundred leagues more important than herself.

Hashirama placed his hands on her shoulders and brought her up to a stand. “None of that,” he said, as he pulled her into a crushing hug. “Welcome, Misora of Uzushio, we are happy to have you here.”

“Thank you,” Misora said, hugging him back. “Your home is beautiful.”

“Ah yes, I made the carvings myself.”

“Truly?” Misora asked, as she gazed at the ones above the door. “It almost reminds me of the pottery around Uzushio, I wish I had brought a piece with me.”

“We can make some here,” Mito said.

Yes, Misora thought. I could do anything I want here.

“Brother!” Hashirama exclaimed, brightening up tenfold. “There you are, Tobirama. Come greet our guest.”

Tobirama Senju was just as striking as he was sharp at twenty. He was wearing his armour, a deep blue colour with a distinctive white fur collar over a simple black suit.

His armour consisted of numerous metal plates, formed into multiple protective guards along his body. Beneath his shoulder armour he wore two extra shoulder guards on each arm. Sandals adorned his feet and instead of wearing a forehead protector like any other shinobi she knew, he was wearing a happuri with the Senju clan emblem.

“Hello, Misora,” he said.

“Hello, Tobirama,” she replied.

Tobirama was sizing her up, a gleam in his eye that Misora could only interpret as a warrior finding himself faced with a new, interesting opponent.

Hashirama was swinging his head between them like he was watching a play. Misora was suddenly reminded that he’d been only one seat away from her when Tobirama had laid the favour in her lap, and she couldn’t help the blush that bloomed on her cheeks.

She pushed her dark hair back behind her ears, and looked to the side, where Hashirama’s carvings stood, and close by Tobirama’s sword was hung.

She looked back towards Tobirama. “I have a request to ask of you,” she said.

Tobirama raised a white eyebrow. “Ask away.”

She bowed deeply. “Please train me to fight like a shinobi.”

Mito raised a hand over her mouth, and Hashirama’s eyebrows shot up to his forehead.

“Tobirama won’t mean any offence,” Hashirama began. “But he’s quite busy with being the strategic leader, so he may not have the time.”

He was bracing her for rejection, Misora knew that but she also knew that she wasn’t a fawning girl asking to be trained simply to spend more time in the presence of a powerful shinobi. No, Misora was something else and she knew Tobirama knew that as well.

“Very well,” Tobirama said and Misora shot up from her bow, almost as surprised as Hashirama must have been from the look on his face. “I will teach you.”

“And in return?” Misora asked.

“There is a seal I need help with, that is all I ask.”

Misora nodded, a smile growing on her face. “Thank you.”

Tobirama looked at her, and Misora was reminded that this man was a killer, and perhaps he would make her into one as well.

 

…

 

Misora spent the next year learning under Tobirama.

He wasn’t a patient or a kind teacher, but he was a good one. She was hopeless with a sword, but her spear work was good and she was impeccable with a bow and arrow.

Tobirama was leagues ahead of her, and even holding back his power in the way he was, he was constantly able to beat Misora over and over again. Her samurai training kept her afloat, but fighting Tobirama felt like constantly being hit by wave after wave of power.

One time, when she was pinned under him against the grass of the forest and her face was bloody from her own stray elbow, he asked her a question.

“Why do you want to fight?”

Misora thought about it as the blood trickled down from her nose, and as she tasted the copper on her tongue. “I want to be free,” she replied. “I want to protect the people I love, and I want to be more than a civilian.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a civilian,” Tobirama said. “Innocent children die as shinobi, I was five when I became one, I didn’t have a choice.”

“I’m sorry,” Misora said. “I truly am, but I never had a choice either. Is it so wrong to want something outside of my cage?”

“Being a shinobi is also a cage,” he continued. “You are bound by duty, just as much as any samurai or a priestess is. There’s no guarantee you’ll survive.”

“Death is the only guarantee in life,” she said. “I don’t fear it, the only thing I fear is being trapped.”

Tobirama looked at her, his hands were still holding herself down, and maybe she should have been frightened, if it was anyone else she would have been, but she knew he was a good man and he’d never harm her. “I think I would have been a bad civilian.”

“No way,” Misora said. “I could really see you as a fisherman, or maybe even a farmer.”

Tobirama’s brows furrowed, until his face smoothed out and he smiled. “You’re making fun of me.”

“No, no. I’d be much too frightened to tease a fearsome shinobi such as yourself.” She said, laughing as she did so.

They should have spent the rest of the day training, but instead they chased each other around the fields and tumbled around in the grass.

She felt like a child again, back when the world had seen so large and her future had seemed so open and hopeful.

Months into the training, she found out that the connection she had to water was deeper than she originally had believed.

When Tobirama had pointed it out to her, Misora hadn’t believed him at first. “Everyone can do that,” she’d said, shaking her head at him in disagreement.

“Not everyone,” Tobirama replied, amused. “Perhaps you had more power than you thought, child of Uzushio.”

Misora turned towards Mito, wanting her to back her up. “Can’t every diver do that? We all spend hours underwater.”

Mito shook her head. “You were always better than any of us underwater, even if I needed to come up, you could spend hours without needing to take a single breath.”

That couldn’t be true, could it? Misora would have noticed if Mito was failing where she was succeeding.

She’d been trained to propel Mito forward, had she been worse at that than she originally imagined?

“You can use this to your advantage,” Tobirama said, pulling her away from her thoughts. “If you don’t have to inhale, many poisons will fail to kill you, and maybe even some jutsus too.”

Misora could see the benefits, but just to be annoying, she said, “but I thought breathing helped with controlling your movements.”

Tobirama sighed deeply, and Misora couldn’t help herself, she laughed.

The first time Misora went into battle it was coming up to the end of the year and she knew she would have to leave soon. Her father’s letters were becoming more desperate, and she could almost hear the clock ticking down in her head.

She knew that if the Uchiha clan found out that a child of Uzushio not married into the clan was fighting with the Senju, they’d turn their fiery wrath to the shores of her beloved country, and she could never allow that. So, she donned a new mask; there was no use trying to trick an Uchiha with a genjutsu, but they weren’t the Hyuga’s who could see through solid objects.

Hashirama had been against it at first, but Tobirama had insisted that she was ready, so she donned her armour and prepared herself for her first bloodshed.

Her first kill was an arrow to a throat.

She’d stayed towards the back of the fight for most of it, but when she’d seen Tobirama in a fearsome battle with an Uchiha, she’d moved closer almost without realising it.

Her second kill was a spear to the stomach, when a Uchiha tried to burn her alive. She was a daughter of the sea, to burn her would really be sacrilege.

When she turned her head away from the gurgling of her kill, Misora watched as the man raised his hand to slit Tobirama’s throat, and without even thinking, she shot an arrow straight into his arm.

When it hit, and the man staggered backwards, Tobirama took the advantage and drove his sword straight through the man’s side.

Facing Hashirama Senju, a man who could only be Madara Uchiha, saw his clansmen go down and screamed bloody murder.

He turned his back to Hashirama, who should have taken advantage of the weakness but didn’t, and ran towards his fallen clansmen.

They retreated quickly after, and Misora helped Hashirama round up the wounded, dressing their wounds until he could heal them properly.

She was half way through cleaning the burn wound of a younger Senju when Tobirama put his hand on her shoulder and guided her off to the side.

Blood was slathered across his face, and he was the most gorgeous thing she had ever seen.

“Do you feel guilty?” He asked.

Misora thought for a moment, running through the thoughts in her mind. Eventually, she just shook her head. “No. Does that make me a monster?”

Tobirama leaned back against a tree, scanning her from her shoes to the top of her head. “Whether you kill with guilt in your heart or not, it’s all the same. It’s murder both ways.”

She nodded, looking down at her hands stained with blood. She had wanted this for so long, and in the face of finally being allowed something she had never had before, Misora was almost stumped.

Her mare trotted back over to her, and she ran her hand down the dark brown of his hair, pressing her face into the softness of his neck. He’d survived his first battle too, and he’d been just as brave as she’d known he’d be.

Hashirama came over to Tobirama then, and checked his brother over for injuries. There was blood pooling out a gash on his leg, and his arm but he was mostly unhurt.

“It’s time,” Hashirama said and the hope in his voice made him sound human, instead of the god she’d seen in battle. “I think it’s finally time for peace.”

Misora looked at Tobirama, and the grim realism on his face told her that he didn’t agree.

Part of her hoped for it, and a part of her wondered if she would even be around to see it.

The seal, she found, was an abomination to the circle of life and death. Tobirama wanted the ability to resurrect his dead enemies to use them as bombs against their own comrades.

Misora should have ran, told someone what he was planning to do, or maybe even burned the paper herself. The unliving were supposed to stay dead, at peace with their ancestors before them, and not twisted into weapons they would have never wanted to be.

But she didn’t, and instead she picked up her brush and combed through the lines of the seals, changing a slight tweak.

She understood why he hadn’t gone to Mito with this, but Tobirama had been underestimating what her Princess would have been willing to do to win the war that had taken so many lives.

It was easy to fix the broken part of the seal, and it was even easier to explain to Tobirama how to recreate what she had done, and how to use it for the next thing he made.

She was a monster, they both were.

 

…

 

Misora was not there for the battle that ended it all. Not because she was dead, of course, but she had already been back in Uzushio for a full year, and more, by the time Madara Uchiha finally put down his sword. Later, Misora would find out that it had taken long, painful months for his brother to succumb to the wounds Tobirama had given him.

Tobirama was twenty-two years old, to Misora’s twenty years when the Village Hidden In The Leaves, Konohagakure or Konoha was formed.

It was a completely unheard of concept, and the fact that clans other than the Uchiha and the Senju were flocking to join shocked the entire continent.

Months after the founding, Mito’s husband, Hashirama Senju was named the leader of the village, the Hokage, after a diplomatic vote. Misora and her father had both been extended an invitation to his inauguration, as friends of her princess, but also as traders who could have thriving business in the land.

There were other traders, of course, who were attempting to plant their seeds before Konoha fully bloomed, like the Suzuki family who’d quickly arranged a marriage between their heir and a Nohara branch family son. They’d decided they’d settled down in Konoha, and were already attempting to monopolise their power.

Her father, who’d for a long time been resentful of her close relationship with Tobirama, Mito and Hashirama was suddenly aware of just how much of an advantage that gave them.

Misora almost wanted to burn the bridge between them, simply so he could not step foot on it.

She found that she was more vengeful now than she’d ever been before, as the chains of her cage wrapped tighter around her, Misora thrashed harder and harder against them. Largely in the ugliest of ways.

Sometimes when she looked in the mirror she couldn’t see the young child, full of hope, that she’d used to be.

She still had the same features, the dark hair, the honey coloured eyes, the full lips and the sharp nose, but there was something else inside of her, that soaked into every pore of her face as she grew up and changed her forever.

She’d grown into a beautiful woman, but sometimes she wondered if she lived a different life, if she would have grown into a kind one. When had that girl finally gotten tired of diving every day? Why had she?

It was not a long ceremony, but she’d spent most of it watching Madara Uchiha’s face. There seemed to be an attempt by him to make a content expression, but the anger in his eyes burned too brightly to be doused with a soft smile.

When it was over, it was Hashirama that her father dragged her too first.

She congratulated him, and was unsurprised when the hug he gave her almost crushed her ribs.

“I hear other villages are following your lead,” Misora said.

Hashirama grinned. “Yes, they are. Hopefully this means peace is finally here, and we can make a safer place for all the children of the world, not just our own.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” her father said. “Though, you will need lots of supplies to be able to do so. I’m sure you’ll need more than just one merchant family at your side.”

“Yes,” Tobirama said, coming up behind Misora. “We’d humbly like to extend our invitation to your family to trade here.” He stopped next to her, close enough that the fur of his armour was brushing against her shoulder.

“It is good to see you,” Misora said. “My Lord.”

Tobirama bowed his head to her. “I’m glad to see you as well.”

They looked at each other for a moment, before her father coughed into her hand. Misora made eye contact with Hashirama, who wiggled his eyebrows up and down when he saw her looking, and had to quickly look away to stop herself from laughing.

“I would be happy to trade with you,” her father insisted. “Though I’m uncertain how quick trading would be with us so far away from each other.”

“That’s an easy fix,” Tobirama said. “Misora could build an office, or a home here, to make sure the trades between our nations run smoothly.”

“Well I’m not sure,” her father began, looking towards her. “My daughter would have to leave for months at times, and though you’ve done marvellous things with the place, she would be unprotected-”

“Are you trying to insinuate we would allow something bad to happen to Misora, under our watch?” Tobirama asked. He looked down his nose at her father, and for the first time in her life, Misora thought of the man who’d raised her as small.

He had fled from war despite his brothers and his father having been fighters, he turned his back on the art of sealing the moment he could, and although he hid it from his Prince, after the deaths of her brothers greed had infected and shrivelled her father’s heart.

“I’m sure he’s not,” Hashirama said, placing a hand on Tobirama’s shoulders. “It’s just a misunderstanding.”

“Yes,” her father agreed. “My daughter would be happy to, wouldn’t you?”

She would have been, but now this was more an order than it was an escape.

“It is your choice,” Tobirama said. “No one will be offended if you say no.” He raised his hand to stop her father from interjecting. “And, the trades will still continue with your father.”

Misora looked at him. How had he known exactly what she needed to hear?

“I do not know how to build a house,” were the words she eventually settled on saying.

Hashirama smiled, and clapped his hand on her shoulder. “That’s fine, I’m pretty great at it.” He turned to her still sputtering father, and inclined his head. “Thank you for coming.”

“Of course,” her father said, recovering himself. “I look forward to our work together.”

When he walked away, likely to squabble with the newly formed Nohara clan, Tobirama inclined his head to Hashirama. “You played that one well, elder brother.”

“Yes,” Hashirama said, tears welling up in his eyes. “It’s not everyday I'm the one to save you, it’s almost beautiful enough to bring tears to my eyes.”

“And now you lost it,” Tobirama said. “Oh look, elder brother. Mito and Madara are coming this way, together.”

When Hashirama spun around, to the empty area Tobirama had pointed towards, he guided her away from his elder brother and towards a quieter corner of the room. People turned towards him, but his withdrawn nature always made it hard for people to approach, and no one really wanted to break up a conversation.

“Thank you,” Misora said.

“Do not thank me yet,” Tobirama dismissed. “You will have to do a lot of paperwork, and a lot of clan negotiating.”

“Yes,” Misora conceded, sighing. “I’ve never liked that part very much.”

“Really?” Tobirama asked. “I had no clue at all.”

Misora pushed his shoulder, and he smiled softly at her. His teeth were sharp, like a wolf’s, and Misora wondered if they had ever torn skin.

“Still, thank you,” Misora repeated. “I’m glad to have a choice.”

“You always do with me,” Tobirama said, then he looked away, scratching at one of the markings on his cheeks. “Here, I mean. You always have a choice here, in Konoha.”

Misora grinned at him. “Are you blushing?”

“Of course not,” Tobirama insisted.

She was sure that her laughter then had been too loud for an occasion such as this, but even with her father in the room and eyes that were surely on her, for once, she didn’t care.

 

…

 

The Village prospered over the first three years, and it even saw the first birth of a child into the nation, an Akimichi boy.

Trading had been going well, but the village was still in a precarious position. Four other great countries had slowly formed over the years: Sunagakura in the Land of Wind, Kumogakure in the Land of Lightning, Iwagakure in the Land of Earth and finally Kirigakure in the Land of Water.

There were other nations too who had begun the plans to create their own shinobi villages, but they were smaller than the great five in various ways.

Konoha, of all, were the strongest, with Hashirama at the head and many of the other villages beginning to form, reaching out to Konoha for help.

One such was Yukigakure in the Land of Snow. Misora’s father had been there before, as he’d been a key player in beginning the sea salt trade from Uzushio to the Land of Snow.

Though the nation's technological advancements were decades faster than any other village, their climate was constantly in Winter which left the land covered in snow and ice year round. They were unable to grow and sustain the agriculture they needed to be a prospering nation, especially since their access to the ocean was restricted due to the tall glaciers making part of the coastline inaccessible to the sea.

Tobirama had been asked to attend the meeting, and since there was a shipment of sea salt from Uzushio to be delivered, Misora had practically invited herself along.

But when she’d been prepared to leave with him, she’d gotten a letter from her father, telling her to immediately come home as urgent business and instead of starting the trek to the coldest nation, she went to the warmth of the island she’d been raised in.

When her father greeted her at the shore, he wasn’t alone. A man, with the red hair of the Uzumaki and a familiar stare was looking back at her. Mito’s half-brother, who was two years older than her and set to inherit the country when his family died.

“Kaito, father,” she said, bowing low to the both of them. “It’s nice to see you.”

“Daughter,” her father acknowledged.

“Misora.” Kaito inclined his head to her. “Welcome home.”

“Thank you,” she replied. “What has graced me with your presence?”

When her father had finished explaining the issue, Misora almost wanted to laugh in his face. He was losing favour with their Prince, who had finally seen the greed her father harboured inside himself, but because of the influence his father had, he was able to cling on with both hands to the little scraps of affection they had once shared.

So, and this is the part he actually said out loud, to regain the favour their family needed, he wished for her to become Kaito’s personal priestess, the way her mother had once been to the Prince.

“I haven’t had any training,” Misora said.

“I was unaware of that,” Kaito pointed out. He sent her father a sideways look, his sharp features pulling into an even sharper frown.

“Yes,” her father amended. “That is true, my daughter is untrained, but she is a true religious spirit and very devoted to both this nation and her training.”

Kaito looked at her face, and Misora ran through what she knew about him. He was powerful, and Mito had always considered him as her closest brother, but she had no clue if the heart inside his chest was tainted yet or not.

“Leave us,” Kaito said to her father. He looked reluctant at first, but eventually he bowed his head to Kaito and left back towards their family home.

When he’d gone, Kaito turned towards her and smiled. “I’m sure you can understand that I was simply placating your father, I have my own priestess in mind. Though, we are always happy to have more join the order.”

“I pray for my Lady’s favour, but I have no interest in becoming a priestess.” Misora told him truthfully.

“No,” Kaito agreed. “I thought you would not. My sister speaks of you fondly, and I would not wish to take a friend of hers away, especially since she is so far from home now.” Then he placed his hand on Misora’s shoulder, and his smile was as bright as the midday sun. “Come, we can talk about another option to keep our family’s good favour, after all the work you’re doing in Konoha has been very helpful.”

“Thank you,” Misora said. “Mito always spoke fondly of you as well.”

“I’m not sure how true that is, I always pulled her hair.”

“Oh yes, she told me that too.” Kaito laughed, and though Misora had been so happy in Konoha, she had forgotten that Uzushio once made her just as happy.

She had let her father take that away from her, and for that she could never forgive him.

By the end of the night, they had come to an agreement that her father would no longer be the one to open trades with the new, establishing hidden villages but his horses would still be used for transportation so he wouldn’t feel the true bite of losing their Prince’s favour, and Kaito would help smooth his father’s anger over so no more love was lost between them.

A large part of Misora wanted to burn everything he had down, but the larger part of her knew that it wasn’t her father who would suffer if their businesses went under, it was the people who worked for them.

Like Takeshi, his wife and their child that was on the way.

When they’d finished finalising their agreement, Misora headed back towards the beach.

She stared at the water for a long moment, before she waded into the icy cold ocean and dunked her head underneath.

There was a sea otter a little ways away from her, floating on its back as the moon blessed it with her attention. She spotted a smack of jellyfish swimming near her feet, and crabs were running across the rocks near the shore, trying to grab each other’s attention.

It was so beautiful, and Misora stayed long, until the moon had said goodbye, and the sun had woken up again to greet her. When she emerged from the water, she was unsurprised to find her mare had made its way towards her.

“Hi boy,” Misora said, running a hand down his hair. “Thanks for coming to find me, how did you know I would be cold?

He snorted into her hand, and Misora pulled the towel he had kindly brought down along with him off his back and wrapped it around herself.

Her father would be angry with her for not coming sooner, but Misora couldn’t bring herself to care at that moment. He had taken so much from her, she could keep a moment of her own time.

When she arrived at their home, her father was waiting with his hands on his hips and though he wasn’t happy to hear he’d have to take a step back from being the face of trading, he barely scorned Misora for her lateness.

She could kill him.

Misora had never thought of it before but her father was a civilian who had never fought one battle, but she had. She could shoot an arrow into his chest, and it’d been done, his hold over her would be gone.

She could do anything.

“You did well, my daughter,” he said.

What? Misora thought. Her father had never been proud of her, he had never been kind to her and he’d never told her such a thing. It was strange, and it was too late.

He pulled her into a hug, and Misora didn’t know what to do. “When you go back to Konoha, do so knowing you have made me proud.” Then he put his hands on Misora’s cheeks, and looked straight into her eyes. “My daughter.”

A week passed before she took her father’s boat back to the hidden leaf village, with the regular shipment alongside her.

When she passed through the outer gates, Misora wasn’t greeted by Mito like she normally was. No, it wasn’t until she made her way to the Hokage Tower that she saw her friend.

Mito’s usual serene expression was gone, and instead replaced with a frown that only became more severe when her eyes were looking into Misora’s.

Misora rushed over to her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. “What is it?” She asked, running her eyes over Mito’s body. “What’s happened?”

“Come with me,” Mito said. “You need to see Hashirama.”

The Hokage’s office was usually quiet when she walked in, and even Hashirama who was only cheerful and bright had been dulled.

“What is it?” She asked. “Did the Land of Snow turn down the agreement?”

“No,” Tobirama said. “They did not.”

“That’s good then,” Misora hesitated.

“That’s not all,” Hashirama warned. “There was an offer put on the table, of an arrangement to bind our families together permanently. A marriage agreement.”

Hashirama wasn’t looking at her as he spoke, and somehow Misora knew.

“And you accepted?” She asked.

“Yes,” Tobirama said. Misora felt her heart shatter in her chest, and the shards stabbed her ribs. “It is my duty.”

Misora had to go back home. She couldn’t be here for this, she couldn’t be in this room. It didn’t matter how rude it was, or how disrespectful she was being. She turned to leave, but Tobirama grasped her wrist and turned her back towards him.

“I didn’t have a choice,” he said. “The betterment of two villages relies on this deal, it wasn’t an agreement I could turn down.”

She paused, as his fingers gripped her bare arm. “Did you know what they would ask before you left?”

Tobirama stared at her, and his poppy red eyes begged for her to understand. “I suspected.”

Maybe if she’d been a kinder person she would have understood, maybe she would have bowed her head and wished him well, but Misora wasn’t that kind of girl.

She ripped her arm from his hold, and stared him down. “You never should have sold me that dream.”

She wanted to say, You never should have told me I’d always have a choice with you, you never should have let me hope. But instead she walked away from him, and every step she took felt like she was sinking into the earth, never to be seen again.

Mito followed after her. “Misora, it’s an arranged marriage, they’re never personal. It’s just politics.”

Misora turned to her, fury in her heart. “I’m tired of politics!” Mito was looking at her with such pity in her eyes, that the fire inside her was doused with the waters of the country they loved. “I will be gone by the next fortnight, once I make the arrangements so my father can take over the business here.”

“You do not have to leave,” Mito said. “There is still a place for you here, as a shinobi and as my friend.

“I do,” Misora despaired. “I can’t watch him with someone else, and I can’t hurt him by standing in the way.” Then, quite meanly she said, “I’m not you.”

Mito didn’t follow her when she left, and Misora’s heart broke the second time.

 

…

 

Love is the bane of honour, the death of duty. What is honour compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of your newborn son in your arms…
or the memory of a brother’s smile? Wind and words.

 

…

 

Tobirama did not come to see her before she left, it wasn’t until the year came to an end and Misora turned twenty four that she saw him again.

She’d almost thought he was a spirit when she’d seen him sitting in the doorway of her home in Uzushio. The hanging beads drifted around his head, and he wasn’t wearing his armour, just a blue yukata and he was carrying his fur coat of armour in his hands.

He stood when he saw her, and Misora stopped in her tracks.

She smelled like the salt of the sea, and her hair was still tied up from her dive. She must have looked like a mess, but if Tobirama thought so, he gave no indication of it at all.

“Hello, Mystery Samurai,” he said.

How long ago had that been? He’d given up his duty that day, when he’d let her go. Why couldn’t he do it now?

No, she knew why and she couldn’t hate him for it. He wanted a better life for the children of the world, and Misora could never blame him for that.

“Hello, Lord Senju,” she replied.

Well, she never said she couldn’t resent him.

“Forgive me for intruding,” Tobirama said. “But I have a present I wished to give you, may I?”

Misora looked at him for a long moment, the only thing he was carrying was the fur from his armour, but she nodded anyway. It was likely a gift for the village too then, if he’d come all the way out to Uzushio after the long silence between them.

He hadn’t even sent her any letters.

“You may,” she accepted.

He walked towards her, and when he was close enough that she could feel his breath on her face, he lifted his fur from his hands and wrapped it around her shoulders.

No, it wasn’t his fur, his shoulders were far broader than hers and it would have slipped off her, instead of fitting perfectly.

She looked up at him in surprise. “What is this?” She asked.

He ran his hand across the softness of the fur, and looked at her. “It’s a wolf pelt, from the Land of Snow. My father, after his first wife had died, gave a similar thing to my mother to ask for her hand in marriage, and when she died, he gave it to me.”

From the little Misora knew of Tobirama’s father, he’d been a harsh man who tried to raise even harsher sons, but despite his teachings of only war, both Hashirama and Tobirama saw something more in the world. They saw the prospect of peace.

“Why are you giving me this?” Misora asked. “You should save it for your bride.” The words were knives.

“No,” Tobirama said, still rubbing his thumb along the pelt, and her collarbone that was under it. “It’s for you, I made it for you.”

This is wrong, Misora thought. He shouldn’t give this to me, I shouldn’t accept it.

No, this was right. This was how it should be.

What did this Princess of Snow know about Tobirama? Misora was the one he joined the tourney to gift his favour, Misora was the one who knew the warmth in his heart behind his icy exterior. Misora was the one he was giving the pelt too, the same way his father had gifted it to his mother.

The girl was the one who could bring tech to the leaf, and the Senju would give them agriculture, but would she be able to give Tobirama love?

Misora didn’t know. Maybe she could, but she didn’t want her to, and Misora had wanted so many things in her life.

She had never been allowed any of it, unless someone else gave it to her; Mito, her father, Tobirama or Hashirama. She was so tired of never taking anything she wanted on her own.

Tobirama’s hands were still on the fur he’d given her, and his face was still a breath’s width away from her own, so Misora barely had to lean in before they were kissing.

Tobirama stilled, and Misora began to pull away, regretful and ashamed of what she had done.

But instead of pushing her away, Tobirama grasped her face and pulled her towards him, slanting his head to kiss her better.

She had kissed before, with boys who didn’t matter and girls who wanted to try it out, but no kiss had ever been like this.

She tasted the desperation in his mouth, and the hunger on his tongue. There was something inside of him that was dark and twisted, and Misora knew that same thing lived inside of her.

He was kissing her like he was in love with her, and Misora could not get enough of it.

Misora knew she should have felt bad for what they were doing. After all, a thousand leagues away there was a girl who had been promised to Tobirama, but she was a faceless woman Misora didn’t know, and Tobirama was the man she loved, standing right in front of her.

It wasn’t until Tobirama needed to breathe that he pulled away from her, and Misora followed after him as if gravity compelled her to.

“Misora,” he said, swiping his fingers down the apple of her cheeks. “I have bled for duty, and I would bleed for it still, but I will always resent it, for it has cost me you.”

“You’re wrong,” she begged. “It doesn’t have to cost you anything.”

“You deserve better,” Tobirama told her. He shook his head, pulling his eyes away from her swollen mouth, and instead pressed his own to her forehead.

He made to leave, but Misora caught his arm. He turned towards her, and suddenly she understood that the strange gravity surrounding them wasn’t just affecting her, it was affecting him too.

“Don’t go,” she said. “Stay, just this once.”

Tobirama closed his eyes, conflicted. Misora let his arm go, defeated, but the moment she did, his own were wrapping around her and pulling her into him.

When their first and last night together was over, she wrapped her arms around his neck and for a long moment, she held tightly.

She held him as if he were hers and she was his, and there was nothing else between them: no duty, no engagements, no past wounds or mistakes.

She held him as if there was only now, as if nothing else mattered but this fleeting moment.

That morning when the sun rose up in the sky, she let him go.

She felt very lonely all of a sudden, in a house where no one truly loved her.

 

…

 

When Misora received a letter from Mito a week later, she was prepared for it to be her friend breaking the news that the preparations for Tobirama’s wedding had begun. Perhaps even a special request for shipment of Uzushio dyed clothing for the bride and groom to wear.

Instead Mito told her that Tobirama had arrived in the Land of Snow three days prior, broken off his engagement and then made the journey home. He had done so before even informing his brother of the decision he had made.

He’d done it respectfully, Mito told her, but he’d explained to the leader of the nation that his heart would never belong to his daughter and he could not in good conscience go along with the marriage, when he was already in love with another.

Misora had not realised she was crying until her tears smudged the ink and ruined the paper.

Her mare came to her without prompting, and Misora thought that if he hadn’t, she may have attempted to swim all the way to Konoha herself.

She did not wait to say goodbye to her father, or Takeshi or Kaito, she began the journey to Tobirama the moment she folded the letter into her pocket.

The next boat off the island was not supposed to come for another two hours, but Misora had grown up with the sailors, and when she pleaded for them to take her to Konoha, they quickly agreed.

She was off the moment they docked onto land, and her mare carried her all the way to the gates of the Senju compound where Tobirama was already waiting.

She had thought he was lost to her, but now he was found and she was not sure she could ever let go.

“The Land of Snow will never trade with Konoha again,” Misora said as she pulled her mare to a stop, breathing heavily.

“Probably not,” Tobirama agreed, looking up at her.

“You would have been a prince,” she pointed out as she pulled her legs out of the reins and dropped from her horse.

“I have never cared for that,” Tobirama dismissed.

“I hear the princess was beautiful,” she finally said when she was close enough to touch him.

“Was she? I barely even noticed.”

Then her mouth was on his, and Misora was happier than she had ever been in her life.

He tasted sweet, like the strawberries they grew in the gardens, and she could taste the bitterness of the goddess her own feuded with inside of him.

Here she was, diving in the depths of the ocean for another pearl to add to her collection, and as she wrapped her arms around Tobirama, Misora knew this was the greatest treasure she would ever find.

“Marry me,” he breathed against her lips.

“What?” Misora sputtered.

“Marry me,” Tobirama repeated. “I’ll make sure you always have a choice in your life, we can build a house together wherever you want, you can dive everyday if you want to or never again if you want that instead. I’ll spend the rest of my life making you happy, and I will never tell you what to do.”’

“Other than now, you mean?”

“No,” Tobirama said. “You’ve got it wrong, I’m not telling you, I’m begging. Misora, mystery samurai.” Misora laughed into his mouth. “My lady, pearl of Uzushio and my heart, please?”

“Yes,” Misora agreed, smiling brighter than she ever had. Her cheeks felt as if they would split open from the might of it. “Yes, alright. I will marry you.”

Tobirama Senju, who was the most serious man she had ever met, laughed like he finally knew joy.

When they embraced, Misora held him so tightly that later that night she saw she’d bruised him, and when she saw her own back had matching bruises, something in her settled.

 

…

 

You love him, you do,
and here’s the miracle:
he loves you too.
You are allowed
to lick the colour from his lips
to listen to the hymns in his pulse
to bask in the sunlight of his voice

You are allowed to have him.

 

…

 

Their engagement was not the only good news that came that year.

Mito and Hashirama were to welcome a child into the world, the first of The Prince of Uzushio’s grandchildren and the proof of an unbreaking alliance between Uzushio and Konohagakure.

It was a joyous few months in Konoha, as the city prepared for the birth. Mito was to have the child here, but then she and Misora would head back to Uzushio for the baptism in the holy waters of their home.

Tobirama and Misora had agreed between themselves to keep their engagement on the quieter side, as to not allow the information to get back to the Land of Snow and offend the Princess that Tobirama had left behind.

No one outside of Mito, Hashirama, Tobirama and herself had known of the failed engagement, so there was no scandal but it was better to be safe than sorry.

However, there was something else brewing in the resentful shadows of the village, and five years after Konoha’s establishment, Madara Uchiha defected from the village.

Hashirama had been beside himself with grief, but Tobirama had been expecting the treason for years now, and did not cower in telling his elder brother so, even when he snapped back at him in anger.

Hashirama and Mito were tracking Madara through the mountains when he attacked, with a tailed beast of legend under his control.

Hashirama almost lost his life to the beast, but he was able to drive Madara off after Mito turned the tides in his favour.

Her friend had always been the best seal master she had ever known, so Mito trapped the spirit into her stomach, slaving the beast to her will.

It reminded Misora of the sealing justu Tobirama had asked her to help him perfect all those years ago, and she wondered how long it would be until they were able to control humans and strip them of their wills with sealing.

It would have been an abomination to their ways, but wasn’t this as well?

When Misora saw her princess for the first time, the well of power inside of Mito forced Misora to take a step back. It was like looking straight at the blazing sun.

“What have you done?” Misora asked.

Mito looked to Tobirama, and a deep understanding passed between them. “What I had to do.”

Tobirama pressed a kiss to the side of Misora’s head, and nodded at his sister in law. “Then we’ll do what we have to as well.”

Misora nodded. She was unsure what would happen to the baby in Mito’s stomach now, her mother had lost two daughters and one son on the childbed, and now Mito would have a spirit inside of her, screaming and clawing it’s way out.

But Misora had been raised to follow Mito, to love her and to protect her and to be her most loyal companion. That was the only part of how she’d been raised that she’d never resent. “My hands are yours,” she said.

And she meant that, when six months later, her and Hashirama’s hands were covered in the blood of Mito’s daughter and Tobirama was holding Mito’s hands steady as she restrengthened the seal the Kyūbi was trying to break out from.

She was twenty five years old when her niece was born, Mito was thirty when the four of them stopped the Kyubi from ripping her apart, stomach first.

 

…

 

Two weeks after her twenty seventh birthday, Misora Mizuike became Misora Senju.

She spoke her vows to Tobirama as the water lapped at their feet, and they held the pottery bowl for the ritual between them in their hands. A bowl containing water with a bed of sea shells in the bottom and two glasses; one containing yellow coloured water and the other blue.

The priestess overseeing their union spoke, “the children of Mother Earth and Lady Uzushio will now create a new colour together from the mixing of two other colours, symbolising their new union.”

Misora held a glass of yellow water.

“Yellow is the colour of the sun in the sky, representing the joy and happiness you will both carry into the marriage. It also stands for wisdom.”

Tobirama held a glass of blue water.

“The blue water represents confidence, faithfulness and trust. This bowl you created together, held between you represents your marriage. It is a new beginning in your relationship with each other.”

Misora poured her glass into the bowl.

“As you pour the yellow water into the bowl you bring sunshine and wisdom to your marriage.”

Then Tobirama did the same.

“As you pour the blue water into your marriage vessel, you bring confidence, loyalty and trust into your marriage together.

First the Priestess looked to Misora. “The blending of the yellow and blue water creates green, the colour of the ocean.” Then she looked at Tobirama. “As well as the forests, representing the blending of your lives together as one. The colour green represents stability, endurance, growth and harmony. May your marriage reflect these qualities. May your energies in this marriage blend just as equally as you give freely of yourself, whilst honouring the greatness of the other.”

Then, the Priestess took the bowl from their hands, and poured it over the both of them, sealing them together.

A day later, on the second night of their wedding they planted a tree in the garden of the Senju compound, that would grow and blossom as long as their love continued to do the same.

There was no one to say words to them here, but it felt just as holy and as beautiful to Misora as the night before had. The dirt under her fingernails and the feeling of the grass under her skin stayed with her throughout the night.

With her head resting on his bed pillow, she spoke. “We could become gods.”

“What do you mean?” Tobirama had asked, but he’d known what she meant. He always did.

“Mito chained the spirit of a tailed beast inside of her, Hashirama is already worshiped as a godlike man. We could do so much more, the four of us.”

She had been fed already, but she was still so hungry.

Tobirama looked at her, and brushed her dark hair behind her ear. “Go to sleep.”

“I’m not tired,” Misora said. “Not yet.”

So Tobirama pulled her towards him instead. In the morning, he washed the dirt and the blood out from under her fingernails.

She kissed his hands, stained with the blood of a thousand shinobi and loved him completely.

Throughout the next eleven months, the four of them searched the lands for the rest of the tailed beasts, slowly collecting information about their locations and setting traps that would allow the quick taming of the great animals.

When they were finally ready, Hashirama held a never before seen meeting in the Land of Iron, where he called the leaders of the five great shinobi villages.

“The fact that we were able to convene this Five Kage Summit with the first Kage of each of the Five Nations, truly fills me…” Hashirama bowed, letting his head hit the wood of the table. “With gratitude.”

Tobirama’s face twisted in disgust, and Misora had to look away in shame.

“Elder brother!” Tobirama admonished. “You are the Hokage, representing Konohagakure of the Land of Fire! A person like you, need not bow to the other Kage!”

“But I’m just so happy,” Hashirama said.

This was the most feared man she had ever met. He could topple mountains, cities and perhaps even a nation, but still he was still crying at the thought of friendship.

“Lord Hokage,” the Raikage admonished. “Raise your head, that’s not becoming of a village leader.”

Then the first Tsuchikage. “I did indeed come here to endorse the gist of Lord Hokage’s pact, but I’m not just signing anything for free.”

“If you behave too humbly, you’ll make us suspicious,” the Mizukage said.

“Distributing the tailed beasts that Lord Hokage has collected to the other villages is the condition of signing the treaty,” finally the Kazekage pointed out. “This is a transaction, not something to get emotional over.”

“Exactly,” Tobirama agreed. “And we’ll allocate the Tailed Beasts based on power, but you will be acquiring them for a price.”

“Not for free?” Hashirama asked, stricken.

“Shut up!” Tobirama admonished.

It was then that Misora slipped away from the doors of the meeting, as her invisibility jutsu began to show signs of failing her. The water was no longer bending the light correctly, and was falling off her skin in ways it shouldn’t have been. It was better to leave now, than to be caught snooping around in a place she wasn’t allowed to be in.

The Tailed Beasts were then divided.

Sunagakure, who already had a tailed beast, instead got a sizable amount of land from Konoha and a cut of the profit from the other three nations.

Kumogakure was given the two-tails spirit and the eight-tails demon.

The three-tailed beast, alongside the six-tails, was given over to Kirigakure.

Iwagakure was given the four-tailed, as well as the five-tailed beast.

Whilst Konoha kept the fox, sealed inside of Mito and would be passed down to an Uzumaki upon her death, tying Uzushio to Konoha once more.

The final remaining demon was given to the Hidden Village of the Waterfall, a nation who despite their size had amassed a great army, instead of Suna like originally planned.

It was not what Misora had wanted, if it was up to her all nine of the beasts would have been split between Uzushio and Konoha, with Uzumaki’s with deep wells of chakra to contain the spirits.

But, Misora knew that it would never be up to her. And she was glad for it, because there was already a monster inside of her, and she didn’t need another.

 

…

 

At thirty years old, ten years after the founding of Konoha, Misora’s first child died in her womb.

The same sickness that had ripped her mother from this life had attempted to take her life too, and it was only with Hashirama’s expert healing that she survived.

When it was over, and the child was laid to rest in the dirt under her and Tobirama’s growing tree, Misora laid in her bed and cried like a child into Mito’s arms.

She had wanted it, so badly, and even now she could almost see a vision of the child she could have had.

A little girl, with Tobirama’s white hair and red eyes. Maybe she could have both their smarts, hopefully she would not have the hunger that burned inside Misora and she could live a good life.

Misora would have made sure she got to choose the path of life she wanted to walk down. She wouldn’t have grown up like she and Tobirama did.

Tobirama placed his hand on her head, and Misora closed her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he soothed.

Mito moved away, and Tobirama took over for her. He was covered in Misora’s blood, and she ran her thumb over his cheekbone, accidentally smearing it instead of wiping it away.

She lost two other children by the time she turned fourty years old. A son at thirty three who didn’t make it out of her womb, and a daughter at thirty seven who was stillborn.

They buried their son under the tree, but Misora travelled all the way to Uzushio to send her daughter into the waves.

They danced for her again, so Misora waded into the water and let it wash over her.

Her father found her there late into the night, and for the first time since she was a child, he swam next to her.

It was hard for her to remember sometimes, that he had grown up on this island just the same as her. Her grandfather had been a fisherman, and it was with her father’s hard work that he gained the influence he had now. He’d fallen in love with her mother when he’d first seen her praying in the holy pools and he’d been giving a tribute to their great serpent.

He brushed her hair away from her face, and they didn’t come back until the sun rose in the sky, and Misora had found two pearls to bury in the graves of her children.

 

…

 

Like a bad omen, the blood of her childbed spread onto the battlefield as the first shinobi world war raged.

Iwagakure spies had been caught stealing from Sunagakure, who in turn had been caught sneaking through the Kirigakure boarders, whilst they stole intel from Kumogakure, who were attempting to take land belonging to Konohagakure.

All five nations turned on each other, and Misora once again donned her armour.

In one battle a boy not older than twenty had sped past the shinobi around her and pressed his blade to her throat.

When Misora pulled the water from his body, he screamed bloody murder, and begged on his knees.

“Mother, have mercy, no.”

“I am not your mother,” Misora said. She watched him shrivel up, and then used the water no longer inside of him to drown her next opponent.

Two years into the war, Hashirama stepped down as Hokage and named Tobirama, who was fourty four, his successor.

When Misora had asked him why he’d done so, he simply told her that Tobirama had always been the better war general, and Hashirama no longer wanted paperwork to get in the way of the time he could spend with his remaining family.

It was slightly infuriating that he was stealing her husband away to do the paperwork, but Misora supposed it was an equal sacrifice so Tobirama could be the most politically powerful man in the village.

For three more years, she killed and killed and killed until her hands were as stained as any other shinobi, and in the middle of a battle between Konoha and Kiri, her loyal mare passed away.

It was a sweet death, old age was catching up to him and death had taken him kindly in the night. Misora had stroked his hair until his eyes had closed, and pressed a kiss to his forehead in thanks for the years of service, and of friendship.

In the sixth year of the battle, Mito and Hashirama’s daughter, a woman now grown, announced that she was pregnant with a child and then subsequently gave birth the same year.

“I am happy for you,” Misora said, she wasn’t completely lying, but she wasn’t being completely truthful either.

Mito was a grandmother before Misora had even successfully carried her first child to term. It was a painful thought, one that dulled the joy she should have been feeling for her sister in law, and her niece.

The Senju clan was small now, and getting smaller as the war raged on and on. Those three boys she’d known all those years ago had died, and so had so many others. It was a good thing that the family line continued.

Still, she smiled and hugged the new parents when it was expected of her. She smoothed her hand over the young child, Tsunade’s face, and wished her well.

Mito, Misora and her daughter left the war behind for a few weeks to travel to Uzushio. The island was untouched, as it always was when war raged outside.

They baptised the child in the holy pools of Uzushio, but when it was done and Mito left, Misora stayed there.

She waded into the pool, slammed her knees down to the bottom, allowing the water to pool over her head and prayed. She prayed for what must have been days, until even she could no longer live without taking a breath.

Just one child, she prayed. Let him grow tall, let him know five, sixteen, twenty and fifty. Let him grow as tall as his father, and hold his own child in his arms. Please, please, please. I beg of you.

Her mother had only been allowed three, but Misora could live with one. She had lived a good long life, and she would give up anything to have a child who lived as long as she did.

 

…

 

Knights die in battle, as ladies die in childbed.
No one sings songs about them.

 

…

 

A year later, at fourty-nine years old, Misora fell pregnant again. She left the battle behind, and came to Uzushio where her mother had given birth to her. When the nine months were up, she gave birth to a son.

Ryuuma Senju was born in the holy waters of Uzushio, with Mito Uzumaki by her side and a raft of sea otters circling around her. The water washed the blood of his mother’s womb away from him, and Ryuuma was baptised as a son of the sea.

When he cried for the first time, Misora felt the air expel from her own lungs. He had lived, and he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

To celebrate Ryuuma’s birth, twenty eight years after the founding of Konoha, Tobirama created the first ninja academy. Meaning now shinobi children’s education would be formal, and controlled by the Village, instead of being in the hands by the clans.

Some didn’t like it, but when Tobirama explained that clan secrets would of course still stay clan secrets, everyone began to band together and send their students to their classes.

Tsunade, who was only two years old at the time, was the youngest enrolled.

The first two years of Ryuuma’s life were beautiful, he ate well and toddled around the battlefields that he was raised in. Tobirama spent hours reading scrolls with him, and kept Ryuuma on his lap when he read through paperwork. Though Ryuuma could barely understand yet, he had a vast well of chakra inside of him that burned brightly and he’d be a strong shinobi if Tobirama had anything to say about it.

Misora wanted him to have a choice; her son could be a civilian, or a killer, or perhaps he could go back to Uzushio and be a diver.

But he would never escape the water in his body, and the blood in his veins.

It was in Ryuuma’s second year of life that Hashirama and Mito’s daughter became pregnant with her second child, and this time, Misora was happy for her without any reservations.

However, the happiness could not last forever. And a few months later, thirty years after the establishment of the village, Madara Uchiha returned to attack Konoha and Hashirama went out to face him.

In what would later be called the Valley of the End, Hashirama Senju ended Madara Uchiha’s life after a destructive life-or-death battle, by stabbing his old friend in the back.

Years before, when they’d been young, Hashirama was unable to press the opportunity and take the advantage but now he had much more to live for, and much more than Madara to protect.

He returned home victorious, but in a pit of despair and pain that seemed almost impossible for him to crawl out of.

Tobirama took Madara’s body from his elder brother when he returned home with it, and together he and Misora attempted to study the sharingan.

“Killing your oldest friend,” Misora said to her brother in law, watching as he sulked like a child instead of the god he was. “I never knew you were that cold, Hashirama.”

“I did what I had to do,” Hashirama lamented. “Even if I didn't want to.”

“Yes,” Misora agreed. “You did. So stand up and stop crying, because I heard Tsunade is trying to gamble away her inheritance right now.”

“What?” Hashirama asked, head shooting up from between his knees as he stood. “She’s four!”

“Yes, exactly.” Misora goaded. “Honestly, I wonder who taught her that.”

Hashirama coughed into his hand, and Misora tried to ignore the blood as he walked out of the room to find his mischievous grandchild.

At fifty five years old, the greatest shinobi of any age died slowly in the weeks that followed. The battle between him and Madara had taken too much from even someone as powerful as he was.

Misora, Tobirama, Mito and his daughter were by his side in his last moments and when he took his last breath, Misora turned Tobirama’s sobbing frame into her own.

She bowed her head, and spoke the words she knew all too well at this point: “Come to the forest to visit me, down by the roots of a tree, waste not your tears on cold stone graves, water a flower for me.”

“Come to the forest to visit me, down by the roots of a tree, live everyday that is given to you, water a new flower for me,” Tobirama continued. He closed Hashirama’s eyes, and then the public funeral began.

In the next few months that followed, the war came to a momentary lull as grief took over the world.

In the wake of his brother’s death, Tobirama spearheaded the founding of other formal institutions and buried Madara’s body in an unmarked grave, hopeful that he and his legacy would be lost to time.

First the Chunin testing system came after the academy which was a way to test the children of the village as they grew, and then the ANBU was founded.

Masked shinobi who would train to become assassins, and would dedicate their lives to living in the shadows. Every mask would be tied to a different animal, and it was at that point of the explanation that Misora turned to Tobirama.

He looked back at her, his white eyebrows raising. Misora had to turn her mouth into her shoulder to hide her smile. Ryuuma had inspired him to create the academy, and the fact that he was looking out for their son’s future was beautiful. But it was the fact that she’d inspired him to make a league of assassins that brought true joy into her heart.

Later, Tobirama founded the Uchiha Police Force, as he hoped the clan he largely distrusted would focus their energies to become a positive force for the village, instead of a negative one.

Six months after her father’s death, Hashirama’s daughter gave birth to her son. Nawaki, she named him.

When Misora had heard, she’d smiled at this girl she’d watched grow up. “I wish you had told me we were breaking the tradition of names ending in ‘ma’, it took so long to pick out Ryuuma’s name.”

She had laughed, but then she was choking.

It was all so fast, but ten minutes later that little girl she’d helped be born, that teenager she’d taught to hold a bow, that woman she’d loved so deeply was gone.

Mito was screaming by the time Misora came back to herself, and her friend clawed at her when she held her tightly.

How cruel was Mother Earth to take two of Mito’s loved ones from her and only give her one in return?

Misora carried Ryuuma in her lap when they travelled back to Uzushio, Tsunade was holding her little brother in her small hands whilst Mito laid her daughter to rest in the water.

Kaito stood to the side, with his father’s hand on his shoulder. When she was done, Mito stepped into his arms and he wrapped himself around her.

Misora held tightly to her two year old.

Don’t you dare, she thought. Not yet, he is not yours yet.

Then Tsunade, on her little legs, brought littler Nawaki forward, and the sea that dragged their mother under the waves blessed Nawaki with its waters.

 

…

 

It was not Ryuuma that her great goddess stole next. No, it was Mother Earth who recalled her husband back into the ground. Thirty three years after the establishment of Konoha.

The first shinobi between the five nations was still raging, but early in the year Kumokagure had sent a peace treaty to Konoha, so Tobirama alongside Misora headed to meet the Raikage.

Whilst the ceremony that would once again bind their countries together as allies was happening, they were attacked by two traitors from Kumogakure.

The Gold and Silver brothers sprung out at them, and at first Misora had believed the Raikage had set them up, but when one of the brothers drove their sword into his back, she knew that it could not have been true.

She and Tobirama fought back to back as the brothers attacked them.

Misora made an almost fatal mistake when she was drowning both the brothers in nearby lake water. She watched as they choked, and then walked herself forward into the water to make her final strike. It wasn’t until Tobirama was pulling her away, and swapping places with her that she realised what the brothers had done.

They’d channeled lightning release between their two weapons, and had then let it go. The water of the lake combined with the lightning, and all three of the shinobi that were submerged in it were electrocuted.

Misora pulled the water away from Tobirama as quickly as possible, but still he was half burnt and on his knees, dry heaving into the ground.

The brothers moved forward towards him despite the fact that they were injured worse, but Misora focused the water on them again and they made the choice to flee instead.

She dropped to her knees beside Tobirama, and rummaged through his pockets for the ink she knew he carried. When she found it, she began to draw a seal on him, one that would freeze him in time so his injuries would not progress but he’d also be suspended between life and death.

Misora had never used this seal on a human being before, but Mito had never sealed a tailed beast before the moment she’d done it and Tobirama had brought a human back from the dead on his first try.

She pressed her mouth to the burnt side of his face when she finished the seal, and had to look away from the deadness of his eyes.

She pulled him up, and looked towards the Raikage who was choking on his own blood. Then, she left him there.

Misora called over the horse that she’d ridden here, a strong mare that had never quite felt like her own, but was still good enough for travelling, and laid his body over its back.

Then she climbed up behind him, and the horse ran faster than the wind, back to Konoha’s hospital and one of the last Senju who could heal him.

It was only when everybody was absolutely prepared to help save him that Misora took off the seal. She held her breath, afraid that she’d killed him herself.

When Tobirama groaned in pain, Misora closed her eyes in relief.

It took weeks for him to heal, but eventually he looked like himself again. Misora knew though, that like his elder brother, Tobirama had been terribly weakened by the battle.

The moment he was out of the hospital, he pulled Ryuuma with him to train. Ryuuma was five now, and he’d been old enough the year before to start training, so he did. But after his near death experience, Tobirama was a far harsher teacher, one who didn’t stop even when Ryuuma was tired and wanted to sleep.

Misora let it go on for a month, sure that Tobirama would eventually see that he was taking his choice from his son, but when he didn’t, she stepped in.

“It’s late,” she said, watching as Tobirama had Ryuuma run through his sword moves over and over again.

“We’ll be done soon,” Tobirama told her. He didn’t look at her, but Misora could see the shake in his hands.

She walked towards him, and put her hand on his chest, where she could hear the beating of his heart. Strong and powerful, just like he was.

“Enough,” she decided.

Tobirama looked at her then. As he took in her face, he let out a deep sigh and pressed his lips to her forehead. “All right,” he agreed.

“Ryuuma,” she called.

Her little boy, with his golden hair and his honey eyes, turned towards her. He smiled brightly, and stepped forward before stopping and looking at his father.

When Tobirama nodded, Ryuuma came rushing over to her and she lifted him up into her arms. He barely had any of Tobirama’s features, instead he was almost his cousin Tsunade’s twin.

Tobirama pressed a kiss to Ryuuma’s cheek, who laughed loudly when his father then turned it into blowing raspberries.

Misora smiled, happy beyond belief.

 

…

 

Almost eleven months later, Misora and Tobirama alongside sixth other shinobi were carrying out a mission near Kumo when Tobirama sensed something nearby.

“We’ve been surrounded,” Tobirama said as placed his hand to the grass, feeling around him. “There are twenty enemy shinobi. Judging from their tracking abilities.” Tobirama paused. “They’re Kumogakure ninja, the highly skilled Kinkaku Unit.

Misora bristled. The peace treaty with Kumogakure had fallen though the moment she’d left the First Raikage to die, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret it.

“That’s too much of a disadvantage,” one of his students said. “We are only eight, including you, Lord Second.”

“The enemy has not yet pinpointed our exact location,” another pointed out. “We should lie in wait, ambush them and then break through to escape.”

“It won’t work,” Uchiha Kagami said. “Unless at least one person shows themselves to draw their attention and misdirect them. We’ll have to leave a decoy.”

He was right, but Misora didn’t want that to be the plan they chose, because deep down she knew the choice Tobirama would make.

“A decoy? That’s suicide.” The Akimichi boy looked between the seven shinobi, then nodded. “Who is it going to be?”

Tobirama furrowed his brows and Misora shook her head at him. She’d get on her knees in front of these people and beg if she had to.

“I’ll do it,” Hiruzen Sarutobi decided. He clapped his hand on Danzo Shimura’s shoulder, and cheerfully told him, “I’m leaving everyone to you now, Danzo. I’m sure you can-”

“Shut up!” Danzo interrupted, swatting Hiruzen’s arm away from his shoulder. “I wanted to raise my hand! Stop acting all cool by yourself! I’ll be the decoy!”

“Danzo,” Tobirama said. “You’re always competing with Sarutobi about something, aren’t you?” Both the boys cowed at his words, rubbing the back of their necks in shame. “But what we need right now is to unite as comrades in order to work together. Don’t mix personal affairs into this!”

Misora turned her head away, as the words settled in her like Tobirama had directed them her way.

“The truth is,” Tobirama continued. “Your decision was too slow. You must first take a calm look within yourself to find out who you really are. Right now, you’ll just put everyone at risk.”

Then he spoke, and he damned Misora to grieve for the rest of her life. “I’m going to be the decoy, obviously.”

No, Misora thought. Tobirama, no.

“You are the young flames that will continue to protect the village with your Will of Fire.”

“You can’t!” Danzo exclaimed, and Misora felt as if he had ripped the words out from her throat. “You’re the Hokage! There’s no greater shinobi in the village than you!”

Tobirama stood then, and Misora followed as the rest of the group stayed kneeling on the ground. “Sarutobi, protect those who love the village and those who believe in you,” he began. “And take care of who you entrust the next generation to. Starting tomorrow, you will become the Hokage.”

Misora closed her eyes as the shocked faces of Danzo and Hiruzen stared back at her.

“Hiruzen, I’m leaving Konoha to you.” He placed his hand on Hirzuen’s shoulder. “Please, make it a place my son will live happily in.”

Sarutobi bowed his head. “Yes, sir!”

Tobirama turned to look at her then, and Misora shook her head at him. “I won’t go,” she said.

“You have to,” Tobirama told her. “I can not die peacefully knowing you will follow me.”

“We’ll fight together.” Misora insisted. “Don’t throw your life away for me.”

“You are my life,” Tobirama said. “You and Ryuuma.”

Misora shook her head. Tobirama ran his hands over the apple of her cheeks and pressed his forehead to hers.

“I love you, I have loved you long before we first kissed, and I will love you long after I am gone.”

“No,” Misora repeated.

“Water a flower for me,” Tobirama quoted. He pressed his lips to her mouth one last time, and Misora kissed him fiercely. “And raise our son well.”

She could die here happily, but Ryuuma was only five. He needed her more than she needed to be buried with her husband.

“I will,” she said.

When it was time to leave, Misora gave him a tracking seal, so they’d be able to retrieve his body. When the shinobi swarmed him, and the ambush began, he smiled.

And with his last breath, Tobirama Senju murmured a woman’s name. He would die with Misora Mizuike’s name on his lips.

 

…

 

At fifty-four years of age, Misora Senju stood in front of almost the entirety of the village and buried Tobirama Senju.

She’d already said the Senju words privately, but now she’d have to face the public with all their sympathy and their underserved grief.

Her hands were still, and part of Misora was numb. She needed to be, to get herself and Ryuuma through this day. She stood close to him, whilst Mito stood a little ways away, holding Nawaki by the hand.

Tsunade was somewhere nearby, but Misora didn’t have the energy to search for her.

Many people walked up to Tobirama to pay respects, and one of them was a grown woman that Misora recognised almost immediately.

She was a beautiful woman with a muscled frame, plate skin and silky black hair, but it was the purple markings on her cheeks that gave her away, she was the heir that married the Nohara boy, who was a man now too, to strengthen her family's ties to the village. She held a baby in her arms, as she walked over to Misora.

Fuyuka Nohara bowed deeply.

Ryuuma looked up from the ground when she did so, making eye contact with the little baby, who in response began to cry loudly. She’d painted the red markings on her son’s face for the first time today, and Misora had almost cried as loud as the child when she’d done so.

Misora blinked against the sound, and pursed her lips. Ryuuma looked away from the baby.

The baby turned its eyes away from her son and instead looked at Misora. Her long black hair was pulled away from her face into an elaborate hairstyle, and the same honey brown eyes that Ryuuma had were surrounded by red rings around her eyes.

The child stopped crying when they made eye contact.

“Misora-sama, Ryuuma-sama, I’m so very sorry for your loss.” Fuyuka Nohara paused for a moment, “You as well, Mito-hime, I’m very sorry. Tobirama-sama was truly a great man,” she said.

Misora blinked for a long moment. How many times had she heard those words? Meaningless, that’s all they were.

Still, she smiled. “Thank you for your kind words, child.” The words that came out of her mouth were barely her own, her voice was soft, and so steady that Misora was sure it couldn’t have been her speaking.

Ryuuma said nothing at all, and didn’t even look at the Nohara woman until Misora put her hands on his shoulders. Then he turned his eyes up, nodded, and looked to the side, away from the pity on Fuyuka Nohara’s face, towards where Mito Uzumaki was standing.

Fuyuka smiled sadly and walked back to her seat at the funeral.

Misora smoothed her hands over Ryuuma’s hair, and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

There was a loud crash from the seats, and Misora turned her head to see Tsunade staring down a woman as she held a cracked seat in her hands.

“Tsuna,” Mito called.

Tsunade came over to them and in a low whisper Misora heard her explain how a woman in the crowd was saying something unkind about Ryuuma.

Misora closed her eyes tightly, and took a deep breath.

Sarutobi Hiruzen came to the front to say a few words, and Misora tuned him out as he droned on and on about what a great man her husband had been.

It was the worst funeral she had ever attended, but at least her father hadn’t been there.

 

…

 

In the months following Tobirama’s death, a peace treaty between the nations was written up. Thirty three years had passed since the village was founded, and thirteen years after the First Shinobi War begun, was when it finally ended.

Misora was relieved, as two years after his father’s death Ryuuma graduated from the academy. If the war had still been raging, her son likely would have been sent out to fight.

Hiruzen Sarutobi would have put him in a safe position, but there would have still been a risk to his life. It was easier now that tenantive peace was held.

Ryuuma is placed on a team with Sakumo Hatake, a distant relative of his from Tobirama’s mother’s side, and Might Dai, a young clanless boy with large dreams.

Her son was seven now, he’d made it past the ages any of her brothers had, but Misora wished for him to grow taller and brighter.

He had to grow as tall as the tree she and Tobirama had planted together on their wedding night. Misora was older now, old enough that the life expectancy on Konoha was younger than her, but she wished to live as long as the Uzushio citizens did, just so she could see Ryuuma grow.

A year after Ryuuma’s graduation, Misora was given the news that her father passed away, and all his land belonged to her now.

She travelled to Uzushio with Ryuuma for his funeral, and watched as the sea that had taken so much of her family, took him as well.

Ryuuma had always loved Uzushio. He didn’t associate it with a father or a mother who trapped him, but instead it was an island full of love for him.

Misora and Tobirama had visited with him less than she would have liked, but whenever they did Ryuuma and her swam in the ocean, whilst Tobirama sat on the side and watched.

Her chest ached with his absence.

She had loved him since she was eighteen years old, and now at fifty-six her heart was still beating beneath his ribs. She would love him until she was dead, and then when they reunited in the afterlife.

She heard Ryuuma’s footsteps as he ran behind her, and Misora swept him up into her arms. He laughed loudly, as Misora swung him around and threw him into the freezing water.

She waded in after him, and Ryuuma got his hands over her shoulders, bringing her under until the water ran over her head.

 

…

 

Three years after his graduation from the academy, and two years after her father’s death, Misora watched Ryuuma go through the chunin exams and pass with flying colours.

“He really is Lord Tobirama’s son, through and through,” Hiruzen Sarutobi said from beside her.

Yes, Misora thought. But he mostly acts like Hashirama.

Because Misora had no interest in chaining Ryuuma to any one path of life, he seemed to have decided to switch directions every single day.

He was a happy child, and like Hashirama, he was aware of the well of power and potential inside of himself. So when he graduated, Misora was happy to ask Mito to take him on as her sealing apprentice.

There was no finer sealmaster than her friend, so she was unsurprised by the request, but when Ryuuma asked her to teach him her water jutsus, Misora had been surprised, and a little reluctant.

The way she killed with her water wasn’t kind, or humane. Her mind had been twisted since her birth, but Ryuuma was a good child, and she didn’t want to twist him even slightly.

But Misora had promised her goddess when she prayed to her for a child that she wouldn’t take any of Ryuuma’s choices from him, so she agreed.

Misora and Mito came up with a schedule between them to teach Ryuuma everything they knew, and by the time he was thirteen, he was a deadly force.

He submitted himself to the jonin exams that year, and Misora watched with bated breath and he took down shinobi after shinobi.

It was only when he was facing Tsunade that Ryuuma was knocked down.

Ryuuma had been born two years after Tsunade, but they looked so alike people had often mistaken them for twins. It would have been difficult to differentiate between the two of them, if their techniques weren’t completely different.

Where Tsunade was pure strength, Ryuuma was cunning.

When it was over, and Tsunade stood victorious, she pulled her cousin up to her feet. Ryuuma sent a wink over to one of the girls Tsunade was friends with.

Misora raised both her eyebrows.

When he was named jonin by Sarutobi Hiruzen despite the loss, Misora inclined her head to her son. It wasn’t until they got home that she kissed both of his cheeks, and told him that she was so proud of him.

Another tragedy struck the Senju family, when Ryuuma was fourteen and Nawaki was twelve.

A battle between Kirigakure and Konoha shinobi resulted in Nawaki accidentally stepping on an enemy explosive tag. It ended his short life, and devastated the remaining Senju clan.

He was a good child, kind and bright with a dream to be the Hokage like his grandfather before him. It was peacetime, and children were supposed to be safe from the cruel sting of death.

Misora had held tightly onto Ryuuma throughout the whole funeral, and even though her son was a jonin now, he gripped her back just as tightly.

“Come to the forest to visit me, down by the roots of a tree. Waste not your tears on cold stone graves, water a flower for me,” Misora began.

“Give me to the earth when my winter comes, bury me deep in the ground, mark not my place with statues or caves, find me where life can be found,” Ryuuma continued.

“Come to the woods when autumn leaves turn golden and copper and red, rustle up memories, seeds of joy stored. Kick up the leaves in my stead, visit a garden on warm, summer days, keep company with blossoms and bees,” Mito said.

“Remember my heart blooms forever in yours, take comfort from shushing shade trees. Let springtime surround you with life and the living, birdsong and budding green leaves. Look up at the sky, give thanks for sun and rain,” Misora continued when Tsunade couldn’t.

Finally, Tsunade spoke: “When you think of me, smile more than grieve. Come to the forest to visit me, down by the roots of a tree, live every day that is given to you. Water a new flower for me.”

Nawaki was laid to rest beside his mother, and his grandfather, nearby to where Tobirama and her children who never lived were buried.

 

…

 

the water is tender, green, curls
softly innocent, a lazy noose in the sunlight
i loved you, i know
now, water swells
wood, lungs, i loved you, i go

 

…

 

When she was sixty-eight years of age, Misora went back to Uzushio for the last time.

Mito, like her, was getting older and Konoha needed a replacement vessel for when her friend took her final journey back into the ocean.

Misora was sent to find the child that would come to Konoha shortly, and when she saw Kushina Uzumaki, Misora knew she had found the person she was looking for.

The girl carried the sun inside of her, the same way Mito had the first day they’d met, the same way Ryuuma still did.

She left her Island behind, and as Misora was unaware it would be the last time she would ever see her nation, she thought nothing of it when she accidentally left behind the fur Tobirama had gifted to her all those years ago.

Misora reported her to Sarutobi Hiruzen, and it took two years for the preparations to bring Kushina Uzumaki to begin.

Though Konoha was unaware, Kirigakure had begun a plot to destroy Uzushio to weaken Konohagakure, and on the day Kushina Uzumaki first stepped foot off the island, they launched their attack.

Uzushio was devastated, Kaito and his father were killed, Takeshi, his wife and daughter were slaughtered and the home Misora had once loved was taken from her.

Misora greeted Kushina with a kind smile, and showed her around the home she’d be staying in, before Misora went up to bed, suddenly feeling very very tired.

The next morning, when the news broke, Ryuuma Senju, a man grown at twenty-two years of age, went to his mother’s bedroom to break the news and instead found that death had finally come for her.

There were no Uzushio priestesses to help lay his mother to rest, but Ryuuma carried her all the way to the beach of the Land of Fire, and watched as a Whirlpool formed off the coast, to reunite her with her lost land.

 

…

 

No child of the sea would want to rot under the ground.

Notes:

shout out misora who was originally a plot device because i needed a grandmother for my dnd character who is tobirama’s granddaughter, and then my dm made me care about her and this was born!!