prologue

She was born in a haze of sinking relief and growing terror. A child of the whirlpool, with the wild current thrumming in her veins and a gunshot still ringing in her dreams. She remembers she turned to run. She remembers the blood, hers, and the hand she clung to, so tight, that squeezed and squeezed and said don't let go, don't go, stay with me. She remembers a mother's tears dripping down on her face like a warm rain.

She never let go, but death took her anyway.

There was an unending stillness, a numbness so utter and desolate she lost herself in it. The ghost of a woman screamed, haunted by a life that wouldn't let her fade to nothing, cold air stinging her brand new flesh.

A stranger to herself, she dreamed of home, lulled by the slow hum of a dark voice. Mito, it called her, holding her ever tight as they ran. They were always running, the woods warm and thick around them, casting endless shadows. Mito couldn't tell where they ran to. Perhaps there wasn't even a destination, and they simply ran from something.

She missed heated water and beds and electricity and everyone she ever loved and her phone and speech. Around her, campsites, with raised tents and roasting meat over a fire pit; endless woods, with birds felled from the trees by sharp kunai for dinner; cold rivers, where they bathed and drank and fished from freely. She longed to see a map, to pinpoint her predicament, and build her plans.

She was a few months in the world when she realized it wouldn't matter, that nothing would matter except surviving, and protecting them. Her family.

It was noon. They trudged through the brush towards the rushing stream. A small boy raced ahead of them, laughing, a sharp kunai glinting in his hand. ''Look, mom, berries!''

''These aren't fit to eat. You'll get sick.'' Their mother dragged him away by the ear, even as he whined and tossed his head in protest.

Mito liked her brother. He was a whirlwind of noise and childish energy, always smiling.

As soon as they spotted the river, he dashed ahead, splashing all over, balancing himself precariously on top of the water, and after him the woman knelt to drink and wash her arms. Mother eased her over to the bank.

Laying flat on her back, Mito stared up at clouds adrift and the sun burning over the treetops. The boy's smile was brighter, leaning over her. He sat by, tossing pebbles into the river, as their mother stripped her and washed her clean. Dunked bodily in the cold stream, Mito wailed.

''Is she hungry, Ma?''

''Might be,'' she said, like everyone was some type of hungry all the time and there was nothing to it.

''I wanna play with her.''

''She's too little.'' She laid Mito out on the grass again, all curled up, endless brown eyes staring. ''Think you can catch a fish, Hayato?''

''Watch me!'' He yelled, wading into the river. "I'll catch the biggest one, believe it!"

Their mother held Mito to her chest. "Hayato," she said suddenly, a hunted look coming over her face. She grabbed a hold of the boy's arm, wrenching him back, even as she shouldered Mito. Then they were leaping back through the air, into the trees, screaming.

A pair of kunai whistled through the air where the boy's head had been.

Slowly, in twisted bubbles, two dark shapes rose out of the water and stood, molding themselves into men. "Uzumaki stragglers," the taller man spat, the hiss of steel cutting the air as they unsheathed their blades. "You have some nerve, to walk right up to our territory."

Mother hitched a breath. "I can't—we should—" Then she stopped, suddenly, and pushed Mito off into Hayato's arms. The boy was barely big enough to hold her. She handed Hayato a kunai with a strip of paper wrapped around it. "If the worst happens, use it."

Then she dropped, landing in a heap of suspicious eyes and quivering hands on the river bank in front of the strangers, bowing deeply down to the ground. "Please, I… I only want to pass peacefully…"

They snarled in response. In a blur, they hefted heavy swords that glinted dangerously over their heads, charging so fast towards them they vanished. The river rose up after them, flooding the trees in a furious wave.

In a blink, Mother straightened, arms outstretched. From her open palms the wind burst forth in whirling bullets, spinning into the water with great splashes that rippled over the waves.

The shinobi dodged narrowly, dancing on top of the flooded river as they lunged on either side of her, throwing a flurry of spinning dark metal in their wake. Mother leapt over their shuriken, ducked under a fist, and jabbed her kunai with startling precision into the man's kneecap.

There was a deafening bang, and a wail, as his leg exploded, strips of flesh and shards of bone blown out into the air, and his body was sent careening over the water. His blood oozed into the waves in a cloud of red. Slowly he tipped under.

With a cry, Mother turned her attention to the other man, bearing down upon him in a flurry of quick strikes. The man dodged, and twisted, and punched her in the stomach. She doubled over, gasping, and he grabbed her by the hair and-

Hayato screamed, he screamed like the skies were crashing down, and let the kunai fly.

It landed two feet away in the water, exploding in a spray of waves, but for a split second, the man turned. In an instant, Mother swept his legs with her own, and jabbed her kunai into his throat as he fell, dissolving into water. "Hayato, watch out!"

Suddenly the presence of death was behind them, ghoulish and macabre, in a sickening wave of pure terror. Mito could taste his foul breath on her flesh. Her bones shivered beneath her skin, as she clung to Hayato's neck. They screamed together as the blade sang through the air.

There was a swirl of blue at their backs.

Then Mother was with them, her arms outstretched, pulling her children to her chest. The sword embedded itself deeply into her back, blood oozing down the front of her dress, warm and crimson.

A curse left the man as he wrenched the blade free, and swung, hitting only air.

They jumped, together, on the strength of Mother's shaking legs, and landed in a heap on the next branch.

Mother dipped a hand into her chest, her fingers coming away stained scarlet. She scrawled something on the tree bark with a shaking hand. Then she bent over it, pressing both hands over the seal, gasping.

A barrier of shimmering blue warped into existence, flickering. Mother seemed to sag. Hayato reached out, his fingers knocking against the seal barrier. He pressed his face to it, nose flattened against it like it were glass.

"Follow the river," she said.

"Mother, you—"

On the other side, Mother wept.

The shinobi was there, cutting into the barrier. It held, batting his sword away like a fly. Mother staggered to her feet, pushing herself up with a gasp. "Go. Follow the river."

Hayato didn't move.

"I'll catch up," she wheezed.

"P-promise?"

"Would I lie?"

He shook his head no, turned, and started running.

And that was how Uzumaki Mito escaped her first brush with death, safely ensconced in her five-year-old brother's arms. What world is this, she wondered, and she had never before felt so utterly and helplessly horrified.

She knew then, irrevocably, that there was no hope of ever escaping this world of violence, of attending school or driving a car, of finding a nine-to-five job or watching television or living in peace, of getting something of herself back, even if it was just the illusion of normalcy.

All she had was her life to cling to, and this boy, whose tears rained down on her, and his fluttering heartbeat against her ear.

The man found them, lost and starving, collapsed against a poplar tree. He came upon them quietly, timid as a doe, eyes darting around nervously under a shock of wavy red hair. His stare was a vivid blue, and kind, but his hands were dripping scarlet. He couldn't have been older than sixteen.

As his shadow fell over them, Mito stared in a paralyzed terror. For an instant, she didn't dare move. His dark armor was stained with blood that wasn't his, and on the front of it was emblazoned the scarlet whirlpool of the Uzumaki. She watched the man press two bloody fingers to the side of her brother's throat.

Mito wailed. Don't touch him, don't-

Hayato's eyes fluttered open slowly. His jaw went slack as he gasped, eyes wide with recognition and sorrow. "Kaito?"

He threw himself into the man's arms, sobbing. Mito was squeezed between them. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion, feeling something bitter curl in the back of her throat. She had never seen this man before. Why did Hayato trust him?

He lifted them off the ground suddenly, like it was nothing, and she screamed.

"Easy," he whispered. "You're home."

To the steady rhythm of his hurried footfalls, Mito fell asleep despite herself.

When she came to, they were at the Uzumaki compound, where the people looked at them like they were ghost children, with eyes full of pity and horror. They handed Mito off to a woman to nurse, and Hayato sat by, never letting her out of his sight.

"We're home," he choked out, smiling at her. "We're home. They've sent people out to look for Mother — we'll all be together soon. Stay strong, Mito-chan!"

The woman nursing Mito, with strong hands and tired eyes, looked at him like he was a wounded baby bird fallen from the nest. Gently, oh so gently, she put them to bed in the low mattresses, under the flickering candlelight.

She let the children sleep. They slept the dreamless sleep of those who had been stripped down to the bone.

Mother was buried in a grey morning in a backyard full of shallow graves. There was no body to dig for. Only a barren tombstone, with the words Uzumaki Asuka, mother, wife, kunoichi etched onto the granite, and a chain of pale white daisies woven around it. The mourners gathered around tearlessly, full of whispers.

"Asuka was a brave woman, one of our best seal masters. Her loss will be felt," murmured an elderly man.

Cousin Kaito, who'd found them, cleared his throat. "When we heard the eastern coumpound had been razed to the ground, we thought there'd been no survivors. To think she made it this far, with a baby and a - a very brave young man," he shot Hayato an encouraging smile.

A tall old woman spoke in a low hissing voice, leaning heavily on her cane. "She truly wanted to make it home. To alert us. To see her children safe. We must not let her sacrifice be in vain. In three days' time, we'll gather our forces and march upon our enemies—"

And then the speech wasn't about Mother at all, but about the war. Mito felt a wave of simmering disgust, of revulsion, that they'd dare use her name that way, as a rallying tool, with no proper mourning, no tears, no songs, no stop to grieve. They buried her, and marched on.

In a world where shinobi dropped like flies, grief was stunted and disconsolate. In the soft places between life and death, in the gaps between the will of the clan that pressed down on them, violent and desperate for fresh blood.

Every afternoon, Hayato would sit outside with Mito in his arms, waiting for her, until the stars gleamed in the sky.

"Mother said she'd catch up," he would whisper, rocking her. "She doesn't lie."

Mito could feel the sight of the tombstone etched on the back of his eyelids, every time he closed his eyes, just as she saw it. Yet he held on with a child's trust, and she held on to him.

On the third day, the day the shinobi marched for war, Kaito crouched beside them, and sighed. "We're going after them. I promise." He paused, as if he could see it wasn't enough. He ruffled the boy's hair, standing. "When you're older, you can too."

"I will." Hayato peered down at Mito's tiny face. "'m sorry. I'm sorry if I have to leave you."

You won't, she thought, clinging, you won't. Her fingers wrapping around his thumb, Mito swore she'd follow him anywhere.

They taught her to write before she could run.

Cradled gently in her Great-Aunt's lap, the woman's weathered hand guiding her own small one, Mito traced the characters to her family name on the parchment rolled out on the ground before them. The brush was clumsy in her hand, blotching the ink.

うずまき

Uzumaki. The whirlpool.

"This is us," Great-Aunt Sakae taught her, pointing at the paper. She drew a curved spiral next to Mito's childish scrawl. "This is the Clan."

Tugging her sleeve, Mito watched intently. "What is the Clan?" She knew what it meant, yet she didn't understand.

"The Clan is all we've got." There was a twist to the elder's lips, something not quite a smile. "The Clan is where we live and die."

Mito nodded, glancing at the shaky characters on the paper. As she raised her head, rows upon rows of shelves, scrolls of parchment stacked upon them in great dusty piles, stared back at her.

"The Uzumaki have a life force so stunning and powerful it lingers long after our bodies should fail us naturally. Long ago, our ancestors found a way to channel this life force into their messages. They carved out a piece of their strength, and filled their words with power. They would leave their messages to their children, to their brothers and sisters. Their words became an extension of their wills. They could protect. They could destroy. They could contain. They could summon. They could do anything they wanted them to do, if they put their heart into them."

Mito struggled to get up, to move away from the woman's lap. Sakae let her, setting her down on the ground.

"But why?" asked the girl.

"So that their words could help the ones that mattered the most to them." She reached out, brushing Mito's hair away from her face. "So they could help the Clan."

Mito thought of Mother, and the shimmering blue barrier she had trapped herself behind. She thought of Mother, watching her children walk away, leaving her to fight and die.

"Use your words to strengthen the Uzumaki, Mito. That is your birthright."

Uzumaki. Uzumaki. Uzumaki Naruto.

They were dead, she thought. They were all dead, bodies washed away by the whirlpool in a flood of red.

She thought of words. She thought of blood. She thought of Hayato's fluttering heart under her ear. She thought of her hand encircling his thumb. She thought of their mother's broken promise. She thought of their mother's love.

Perhaps it was a child's dream, but – Uzushiogakure. She wanted to save it. She wanted to change the course of history, and it was selfish and she didn't care, because they were living breathing people who loved her and she was tired of accepting sacrifices, and she wanted them to live.

Author's Note: So I was looking at some Mito fanart, and I wanted to read a Mito SI/OC and searched for one, and there weren't any that I could find. So I got in my feelings, and this popped out. I do have plans (very gruesome plans) for it. This is just the start to Mito's wild wild ride, so hop on, folks.

Question for reviewers: when the Senju show up, would you rather it be a lighthearted fluff scene or an adrenaline-filled action scene? I have plans for either :p