Hachi
Miho has no idea what Itachi is sick with.
She doesn’t want to know.
After getting Tsunade back to the village with no fight-because as much as she wants to test herself against the woman, Miho has priorities-Tsunade immediately took a look at Itachi.
(She’ll get a spar from the Sannin one day.)
Turns out yes, Itachi was suffering from something Tsunade had no clue how to cure in one swoop. But what she can do is make a plan to cure it over a period of time.
Miho made sure Yudai was there to listen to what he could do if Tsunade wasn’t there anymore. The woman was getting old after all.
Miho is curled up at the end of his hospital bed. Watching him through heavily hooded eyes. He is alive. As long as she can make sure he stays alive.. Everything will be fine.
(Her face is blank. There is no smile to be found. No youthfulness to help with someone so young losing their life to a sickness that didn’t have a cure. That wouldn’t have had a cure if Miho didn’t kidnap an old woman.)
A hand inches under the blanket and wraps around an ankle. She rests her hand there, curled into his pulse. Feels the bed shift with his breaths.
There is no child genius killer to be seen in his soft sleeping form.
(His relaxation in his trust in her to protect him.)
He is peaceful and there are people making sure he will stay alive.
She breathes out, but keeps her hand wrapped around his ankle.
When she isn’t doing missions she folds origami.
She does this rather often near someone she cares for.
It isn’t until she finds herself perched in a chair folding origami in an office she has more slowly gotten accustomed to, that she recognizes something.
The hospital smells sterile, and she is no longer here to visit a dying person.
Nine people is better than eight.
She nods to herself, and leaves the origami slug on the desk of Tsunade doing paperwork.
She tilts her head at the woman’s attention, her eyes angled away.
“Inu-chan needs to be dusted often because dust will gather in the creases.”
She looks up at the woman, the shy smile on her face much sweeter than the gleeful mask she uses.
She leaves the woman with a slug, and with the knowledge she is so happy to have kidnapped an old woman.
Missions keep her busy. And all of her people are talented enough that she doesn’t have any scares. So it isn’t surprising how quickly time passes when you don’t pay attention.
Miho is 17, Itachi’s younger brother is graduating and Hound-Taicho is still in charge of Team Ro. Nine is now eleven.
She feels like she should care more about this, but there was literally a prophecy about the Child of the Ramen God Lovers saving the world, so she always puts it out of mind.
It isn’t until she gets back from a mission and ends up in Tsunade's empty office that she gets any clue.
Miho tilts her head curiously, taking in the empty room. She closes her eyes and sags with a pout on her lips.
Tracking the old woman may be easy but she just wants to fold her papers.
She could find someone else?
She shakes her head and turns while placing her mask back on.
Nah, it's old person day. And as the eldest of her people Miho has to track Tsunade down and spend time with her.
Never know when the old woman will croak.
Miho pauses outside of a training ground contemplatively.
This is not Tsunade's usual. A hum leaves her throat as she goes completely blank.
There is no person here, no chakra to sense, no movement to be seen from disturbed scenery.
Butterfly is the scenery as she watches blankly.
Three children. Gold, Cherry Blossom and Onyx.
She relaxes into her mask and allows herself to be Miho.
The children do not realize she's there, but she watches Tsunade's acknowledgement of her.
How odd, the children are so similar to the Woman's memories. Almost like nothing had changed at all.
Miho falls into a crouch and then sits seiza under a tree.
She removes her Mochi and paper to get into it.
She is there for a while until the children collapse.
“Ahhh! Sensei there's a person!” Blossoms scream reminds her why the Woman hated watching this show.
Kami, they are so loud.
“Sakura, Miho has been here for 2 hours.”
The old woman is exasperated in her response and Miho can’t help her smile brightening.
“This Youthful Flowering Blossom Has Watched You Train And Got Bored. You Are Not Putting Nearly Enough Youthfulness Into Your Hard Work!”
She watches their expressions turn into Horror as Tsunade’s lips twitch.
“Miho comes to fold origami near me every once and a while when she isn’t on missions.”
“Your Youthfulness Shines Brightly Tsunade-Sama!”
The old woman’s brow twitches, she definitely heard the unspoken words.
“Baa-Chan! This weirdo is a ninja?!” The gold one has already recovered from his exhaustion and is flailing around dramatically.
“This Miho is 17 years old and has been a ninja for a decade.”
Her dramatically formal words catch the attention of all three brats.
“You were seven?” The pink one is incredulous.
Tsunade snorts, “It's always the ones that graduate early that are weird.” She said it under her breath, but everyone heard her.
Miho allows her smile to brighten and teeth to gleam.
“This Miho graduated at 7 and became a Chunin at 9. This Miho has refused to take the Jonin exam because she is sneaky! So sneaky that no-one will see her coming because they don’t know about her!”
“You and your team are flee on sight in bingo books for every nation.” The old woman states bluntly.
“And No one is afraid of this Youthful Miho, only her teammates…” The girl nods sagely like she has given the four immense wisdom despite knowing she's spouting nonsense.
They all have incredulous eyes focused on her, she notes amused.
“No-one knows how sneaky this Miho truly is. And thus this Miho will always have the advantage!”
Hopefully this will help those children understand to keep stuff to themselves.
Alas the pride of children.
The old woman shakes her head and sighs like the world has given her a great burden.
(Miho is a delight!)
“You brats are dismissed, Miho, come. One of your boys needs his checkup today and you'll sneak in anyways if I don’t invite you now.”
Sniff. It’s like this old woman isn’t fond of her. Miho knows better. She’s Tsunade’s person just like Tsunade is hers.
She eventually wanders off to visit numbers ten and eleven. Tomo-chan and Michi-chan were not important enough to be numbers. She simply isn't attached to them in the same way she is for her people.
Their children on the other hand?
Miho would destroy and build nations for her nieces and nephews.
Uchiha Hotaru and Aburame Naoki. The little miss is only a few months older than her honorary cousin, and Miho loves them dearly.
She knows the mothers have realized this too, and they are pleased. What mother wouldn’t be pleased that their child is so deeply loved?
Tomo-chan, as the one who retired, is often the one to watch the children while the others work.
The woman was unsurprisingly rather nonchalant about it all. She worked in the Aburame Library because as a civilian member it was something for her to do.
Now she is a clan mother, and co-parenting with her husband's teammate and said teammate's wife was much easier.
Miho comes around as often as she can, children grow so quickly after all. These children will join the academy by the age Miho graduated at.
She doesn’t mourn their future. She doesn’t mourn her own after all.
This world is violent and bloody. But it’s oh-so beautiful. With the power to destroy, she has the power to keep her precious people safe, in a way she never had in the ‘peace’ of her other life.
There is blood on her hands, but those hands also hold the children and she can’t hate herself for making sure they were possible.
Eleven people may not be many. But it's more than she ever thought she’d have.
Naturally with more people to protect she makes sure they are protected.
She spent a decade learning Fuinjutsu. She mostly uses it for small conveniences, it simply never felt right in the midst of battle the way her fists had.
(The way ANBU later made a tanto feel right in Butterfly's hands)
But she can use it to make sure those babies can never be hidden from her.
The moment Michi-chan revealed that she was pregnant, Miho had prepared this seal.
She personally believed nothing she ever did in this world would ever compare to the seal she made for her brother's children.
(The seal was activated the moment all six drops of blood touched it, and she didn’t apply them until the babies were a month old each.)
(A drop of blood from both mother and father. A drop of blood from both teammates and their sensei and a drop of blood from the baby.)
(Suzaku-Lightning, Takuma-Wind, Yudai-Fire, Miho-Water, Both Mothers have earth affinity which made everything much easier. Five drops. The babies natural and pure chakra is the base, the sixth drop.)
If Hotaru or Naoki is ever taken by the Pimp Daddy, or anyone else the team will know, and nothing will stop them from retrieving the youngest of the family.
Miho smiles. It’s been twelve years since her parents died.
She misses them sometimes, but knows she was young, forgives herself for forgetting them.
For only seeing them when she looks in the mirror and sees her mothers eyes and fathers brow.
Her mothers nose and fathers chin.
The hair she got from her fathers side, and the hands from her mother.
She sees the way she smiles and knows that it is the influence of Sensei that quirks it the way it does.
Knows the way she raises her brows is something she got from Takuma.
Knows that the upturn of her nose when she sees something confusing or disgusting is from Yudai.
She is an accumulation of every person she has ever loved. It makes it so much easier to love herself.