AN: Sorry for being gone so long! My cat passed away painlessly and surrounded by everyone that loved her. Though it broke my heart, I know she isn't in pain anymore and she has a nice sunny place for her to rest in.

After that things went a bit downhill for a while, but my family has a new home now and things are looking up! I finally have the time to get back to writing.

It's not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get back up

-Vince Lombardi

Kiyomi was living the good life at age 6.

She had travelled all over the continent and had gotten enough blackmail on everyone in the high courts to last several lifetimes. Many bills had been passed and many plans had come to fruition. Hospitals and schools were built. Trade increased and so did job opportunities. Technological advancements began to boom.

So, life at age six was brilliant.

Life at age seven however…

Was absolute shit.

Apparently, half of her Otou-sama's Twelve guardian ninja decided to be assholes that wanted to take over the world and so there was a huge fight and they disbanded.

Yeah whatever that was all fine and dandy, they were assholes and needed to be stopped.

The bad news?

Asuma was going back to Konoha because A) The Twelve Guardian Ninja disbanded, and B) he didn't have a job as an excuse to not go back to Konoha and be regular on-duty jonin.

Life at seven sucked Death's dusty balls.

Kiyomi was close to tears because this was completely not fair.

She understood that Asuma didn't have a job in the capital anymore, she did, but that didn't mean she understood why he had to leave. Surely, they could hire him for something. They were filthy rich for goodness sake! She has seen the family treasury and knew for a fact that they would never EVER need that many solid gold vases or tiaras.

But of course, none of that mattered. No sirree. Some nutjob apparently went ape shit a year ago and fucked off their whole clan. So, now Konohagakure needs all the on-duty shinobi they can get and that includes Asuma because he doesn't have a big official position in the capital to make the big bucks anymore.

To be fair, Asuma probably has more money than he could ever spend in a lifetime because he got payed so damn much more than everyone else in the Twelve Ninja whatevs'. Apparently because he was the one stuck "babysitting" her that meant he got a huge bonus and not a single other one in the group complained about said fact because they were too busy thanking the lords it wasn't them… Assholes.

It just wasn't fair.

Asuma didn't even want to go back there. He had more fun with her than he did his whole life in Konoha (apparently living by the whims of a child who was too clever for their own good was actually a lot more fun in comparison to living the life of a glorified mercenary. Who knew?).

Asuma wasn't particularly happy about the situation either. He'd built a great life for himself in the capitol with new friends and family and now he was going to be stuck back in Konoha with a bunch of stilted conversation over lost time and what ifs.

Not to mention that the old croons on the counsel will have him in T&I within moments to try and pry every new thought and feeling from his brain to study and exploit because he was so close to the princess. They must've heard about at least some of what Kiyomi could do by now. Kiyomi could build miracles from nothing and found diamonds in dust (and those were the exact sort of abilities those old prunes would want to milk until there was nothing left to give).

Daughter of the Daimyo or not, Kiyomi wouldn't live a very peaceful life if Danzo got his beady eye on her. Asuma still didn't understand why his father didn't dig up the rotten bastard and get rid of him before he was in so deep it was impossible to remove the disgusting leech without everything coming down with him. His father always had been too good at turning a blind eye to old attachments.

Asuma didn't even want to think of all the 'what ifs' concerning Danzo and Orochimaru.

Asuma especially didn't want to think of all the 'what ifs' concerning those bastards ever finding out the true extent of what his little princess could do.

The thought alone sent shivers of dread down his spine.

He wasn't sure he could ever forgive his father if anything happened to Kiyomi just because the old man let those monsters lose on the world.

But that didn't really matter right now. Not really.

He was more worried about whether the world would survive the fuss Kiyomi would get into over his departure.

"This isn't fair!"

"I know."

"Not fair."

I know."

"It's not."

"…I know."

Life at seven sucked.

AN: There's gonna be a time skip because i want plot and it's been so long that I have no idea where i was really going with this so i'm just going to make it up as i go along. It's mainly for my own fun and enjoyment because i haven't been in a good place and my therapist says it's a good idea to focus on happy things.

Sorry the chapter was so short. the next one will be longer once i figure out what the heck i'm doing.

Have a good day/night/incredibly early morning (i know for a fact i'm not the only one up at 3am rotting my brain away when i should be studying. yay procrastination)!