Chapter 1

'Though she be but little, she is fierce.'

I think it needs to be said that I find this entire ordeal unbearably thrilling.

It all started back when maybe a mother (though I haven't quite decided whether she ought to qualify as that) squeezed me out of her body, slick with amniotic fluids and blood. The memories of that time are hazy, at best, but I remember us constantly moving from place to place.

The air smelled different, you see, and the itching varied.

Ah, yes, the itching. I suppose the best way to explain my life is to actually go back, isn't it?

"Deep breaths, Miho," he said, leaning his forehead against mine as we sat huddled at the far wall of the dark and damp cave, embers of the pit fire we'd started flickering out. "If you're going to do this correctly, you have to be calm."

I breathed in deeply, although I'll have you know that this had no effect – I think it's the psychological aspect of breathing in that makes you calm down more than the actual act itself. Deep breaths, we've told ourselves, have a causal relationship with regaining equanimity. It's never worked for me – I'm not a very calm person.

But he is right about that. To show you the story, the full story, I do have to calm down. And it gives me something to do, doesn't it? Until the snowstorm passes, at any rate.

I tugged at the end of my bright blonde plait (it was reaching my hips, and I've never been so pleased by this accomplishment than I am now – I don't have the patience for most things, but I had tried ever so hard to have long hair. The number of times I'd come close to lobbing it all off in a fit of pique…) and huddled closer to his warmth.

It was the middle of winter, in the middle of the Land of Lightning's canyon minefield, in the middle of the second shinobi war.

I say middle, but I mean semi-middle, like, maybe the beginning, though the warring has been going on since I was born nine years ago.

"I am calm," I snipped at my father, and he looked disapproving at my attitude.

I closed my eyes and leaned into him – a silent apology, if you will – and he drew me closer into the huddle.

We weren't the only ones in the cave, of course – our entire clan was on the move, migrating to probably the Land of Rain, though you'll forgive me for not being enthused. I miss the sun shining on the grass, and barring a few oases, I haven't seen grass since I regained awareness.

Ah, again, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Slowly, carefully, I smoothed out the itch in my gut and twisted it towards my brain. It's a slow process, though I'm trying to get better at it. Father says it's a miracle I'm even halfway decent at this, seeing as no one's attempted to master genjutsu in our family for more than five generations, and the last one didn't end well.

But the thing is, if I'm bad at something, it's the only thing I focus on. Ever since I found out that ninjutsu and taijutsu come fairly easily to me, I decided to become a genjutsu specialist.

Because I used to suck at it. There was nothing to do for it but to practise chakra control, manipulate the itch till it didn't bounce back like a rubber band, and—

Ah, got it. Okay, now I have to move it to that place, twist it a bit more, unblock the—

Tears streaked my face and I burped into hers, giving her a baby-glare as she tried to hold me.

"Miho, stay still," father said, though I didn't understand it then. "You have to be quiet, baby, or they'll find us."

I hiccupped, and the woman instantly jabbed her nipple into my mouth again, and I reflexively began drinking, even though I was full. Outside the rock outcrop my little family unit was hiding behind, a man cursed harshly.

"This is stupid!" his deep voice exclaimed. "Why'd we get the migrant control mission?! First the lizards, and now this?!"

A calmer voice responded. "Kenta, the migrant control missions are the duty of every Kumogakure chuunin squad. Your inability to accept that is an affront to Raikage-sama's perfectly trimmed moustache."

My father gently petted my head as his wife whimpered, presumably because they were so close. Their voices faded away soon, and then the sounds of a scuffle, slashing of steel and screams of the dead erupted just a few outcroppings away from us.

They had found some of us that day, and it was the one time father was grateful we'd hidden ourselves separately.

"Mamoru-kun," my aunt whispered through her chapped lips. "We're running out of food."

The snowstorm had forced us into the large cave, and we'd cramped ourselves in here for the last four days. Our water supply had run out yesterday, but it was easy enough to melt some ice to slake our thirst. Food was harder.

Father gave her an even gaze in response, trying to formulate something to say. He hadn't eaten anything yesterday, giving his portion to me instead. The parent looks after the child, who grows up to look after the parent.

My old life had forgotten that, along the way.

"It should pass soon, but if it doesn't," he said, licking his lips, "in case it doesn't, the children should have the last of the food rations."

Aunt nodded, grimacing. She shuffled to the other end of the cave to tell cousin Nao, who was in charge of the food supply, what father had said.

I went back into my mind, and this time the process was faster. I clasped onto another fluttering strand and—

"That's it, Miho," father said, beckoning with a wide grin. "Walk to me."

My knees knocked together even as aunt Momoko gasped in happiness. I'd stood up for the first time, and my body wasn't used to it – my equilibrium was thrown off, and it was dizzying. But this was hard, so I had to do it.

I clumsily toddled towards him, the bright fire we'd lit smoking some fish behind me. Cousin Nao was clapping her chubby fists as I first took one step and then the other, jumping up and down in her excitement. My gait was clumsy and wobbly, and the whole world was rocking, but I would do this.

I fell into father's waiting arms, and he was happily crying into my hair. "If only your mother were here to see this," he whispered, not wanting anyone to hear. "She loved you so much, Miho."

I didn't care about the woman who had nursed me. I'd already had a mother, and I didn't need a woman who wasn't her to pretend that she could ever come close to taking her place.

But I won't tell father that; he loves her still, even though she's been gone for months.

Years, actually. She died when we were crossing a wide river, the patrols having caught wind of us. Even though there was a raging storm going on, we had had to go across the bridge. We didn't have options.

We'd lost four of our family that day, two of them being father's wife, and uncle Mitsu, cousin Nao's father.

"Miho," father said quietly, "show me something pleasant."

I screwed my face up in concentration, moving the itch towards the happy tendrils of memory dancing just out of my reach.

The itch, I'd found out as you do, was when I melded my chakra with nature chakra. It was something that my body had been doing since day one. Half my clan could do it; the rest couldn't. All it really ensured was that we never ran out of chakra, and that we were gifted at manipulating it. In the grand scheme of kekkai genkai, it was nothing special. Exploitable, brilliantly exploitable, but nothing quite like what an Uchiha or Hyuuga or Nara could do.

As a consequence, of course, our clan had less chakra than your average chakra user (not shinobi – we didn't belong to an established governmental force, so we didn't really class as shinobi), and for the half that couldn't meld nature chakra with their own, it was kind of a bummer.

Wait, father wanted a happy memory. What to give him?

Maybe the time I lost my first tooth?

I burrowed my face into his lean chest (skin contact helped) and then slowly, like I was knitting (god, I remember knitting alright…) a scarf across his face, his eyes and ears and nose, sparing no details, cutting no corners (I'd been working on this part of genjutsu for a year now, and I still couldn't get it one hundred percent correct. Father was a willing test subject, but he wasn't as observant as I was, so it was a lot harder to get him to catch any flaws in my knitting) and unfurled the wool I'd tweaked onto his mind.

Father was standing near the river that had gouged a hole into the rocky crust of the earth, feeling tiny laps of the water on his feet as the smell of sun and humidity surrounded him, the low hum of our clan behind him bustling about in his ears. His clothes were heavy around his broken arm, which throbbed occasionally, and tiredness was creeping into his eyes as they itched.

"Father!" I exclaimed, hopping from one foot to the other, and he could hear my voice, more high-pitched than it is now, and he could see my blonde hair (then shoulder-length), glistening with the wetness I'd dunked my head into.

"What is it, Miho?" he asked, and his voice sounded different to him than it does to me, because we never hear our own voice the way it sounds to others. Must remember that detail.

"There are mini-fishes in here!" I said with wonder, my bright blue eyes glittering in happiness.

His chuckle had to sound more rumbling than it actually was to him, and then I pouted, scooping a little fish out of the water with my cupped hands, holding it out to him for inspection. "What kind is it?" I asked curiously.

He peered at it in amusement, and now his eyes had to crinkle so his vision at the edges had to get less-focused, and said, "No idea, but it looks tasty."

I, in my momentary idiocy, put the wriggling thing in my mouth and bit it. He saw the still-struggling-to-live-out-of-water fish disappear into my tiny mouth, and then he heard a tiny plip. He saw me open my mouth and – need to maintain his sense of smell, god! – quickly caught the little crooked white tooth that fell out.

"I lost a tooth!" I exclaimed, horrified.

Father tried to look stern, so he had to feel his facial muscles and skin tighten, and he had to feel the pressure – and the water on his toes, Miho! – and then he said, "That's what happens when you eat living things, Miho. They break your teeth."

I gasped in horror, and he laughed.

He blinked as I pulled away from his chest to see his expression, and a wistful, happy look had graced his face. "That is a nice memory. It was like I was right there, living it all. Well done, Miho."

I grinned at him, but I still wasn't satisfied. I'd slipped multiple times, and if I wanted to master genjutsu, those slips weren't allowed.

Father touched my forehead to remind me that I was wrinkling it in thought. I smoothed my face and said, "I wish I could show you a memory that you liked more. But I can't think of any really good ones."

He tugged the end of my plait gently. "Every moment I spend with you is a good memory. Never doubt that."

But I did, because he wasn't a part of every one of my good memories.

There was coming home from Edna's Emporium and finding out that my mother had not only met James, but she also approved of him. Even though he was from the Quegg's side, his family was dirt poor and he was black, mother thought he was a gentleman and wouldn't mind if he asked me to marry him.

There was holding my nephew in my arms for the first time and him cuddling into my lap and falling asleep immediately, even though he'd been screaming up a storm for the last three days.

There was crawling next to my mother and reading the second volume of Sense and Sensibility hot off the press, tracing the words with my eyes, feet next to the fire, as her needles clicked in the background.

There was Martha teaching me how to sew, giggling and guffawing as I crocheted my fingers into the flower design and caught my hair in the spools of thread.

There was sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night and jumping into James' strong steady arms, callused from working in the mills, watching his smooth dark chocolate fingers fill the spaces between my pale ones as his face lit up like the midsummer sky.

There was giggling at my broken foot with Elena as we spent ages preparing for her wedding with some schmuck from Parker Road.

There was –

There was so much, and maybe if I had enough time, I could relive it all, over and over again.

But there wasn't enough time, because the Kumo-nin could find us at any time, and nature was against us, and our world was in the middle of a war.

Somehow, though it doesn't make much sense, I could be both Lorna's Leanne and Mamoru's Miho, even though one was technically dead and the other one had barely lived her life.

"Love you, father," I said, snuggling closer to him, chasing the biting cold away with a genjutsu that made it feel warmer than it actually was.

He carded his long fingers through my tangled blonde hair, silently telling me he did too.

Leanne, or Miho, whichever one you prefer, lived in England from 1796 to 1811, 1811 being when Sense and Sensibility was published under an anonymous author (correct me if I'm wrong, please!)

I hope you enjoy this pre-Sandaime era story! I'm, er, trying something hopefully different?