Mito
As the Shodai’s wife, she isn’t supposed to know what her brother-in-law’s successor is planning, but she does anyways, and what she hears angers her, makes a fury burn in her that she has to take the time to tamp down on, meditate away.
The war is straining Konohagakure’s resources and manpower.
Sarutobi Hiruzen is closing the academy, and all its students will become genin.
Tsunade is six, the only grandchild Hashirama lived long enough to know, and she will be thrust towards the battlefield even younger than the Uchiha or Senju ever did.
She cannot allow this.
Mito plans.
Mito and Hiruzen
It is easier than she expected to speak with Hiruzen, though it comes with company; the other members of Tobirama’s squad when he died are Hiruzen’s advisors, but in the short time since it has diminished. Uchiha Kagami is dead, Shimura Danzo currently in the hospital.
In the middle of careful conversation at the table Hashirama grew for her, she sets her lure.
“Have you given thought to taking on students of your own yet?” she asks them, eyes setting on Hiruzen. “Hashirama regretted never doing more than helping Tobirama with your team.”
“Really?”
They all take students, except Danzo.
Mito and Tsunade
Tsunade comes home from training with an explosion of feelings that she lets her grandmother know the moment she comes through the door, before she’s removed her sandals, and Mito makes sure that Tsunade has the opportunity to voice them, since her daughter and son-in-law are both gone, fighting on the northern front.
Orochimaru’s said this, and Jiraiya’s done that, and Sarutobi-sensei had them do this… (Mito notices that Hiruzen is Sarutobi-sensei. Distance.)
Finally, she asks. “Why don’t you invite them here so I may meet your teammates, Tsunade-chan?”
Tsunade does so out of reluctance, inviting them for next week.
Mito, Tsunade, Jiraiya, and Orochimaru
It ends up not being just the once; soon enough Tsunade’s teammates are coming home with Tsunade as often as not, because Mito is able to give them training and the bond that Hiruzen cannot, for some reason will not, and Mito watches that bond form, break, reform over and over.
Hiruzen’s mentorship is uneven. He spoils Tsunade and is harsh on Jiraiya. He nurtures Orochimaru’s talents but ignores the boy’s feelings.
Mito teaches them chado and calligraphy; they are too young for fuinjutsu but it creates a balance between the three shinobi. She treats them equally in these lessons.
Mito and Orochimaru
It is during a one-on-one tea ceremony practice that Mito discovers that Orochimaru’s parents have died, somewhere in the Land of Wind. He has not yet told his teammates or asked Hiruzen if he knows.
She holds the boy as he quietly sobs against her when he can no longer hold it in. Orochimaru is only eight. His family was already small when it moved to Konohagakure, and with these deaths he is the last one, left behind.
He leaves with no sign of tears on his face, eyes dry again.
The next day, Tsunade tells her Orochimaru’s parents died.
Mito, Jiraiya, and Orochimaru
The boys do not have quite the same knack for fuinjutsu as Tsunade does, not that that is much of a surprise to Mito after having taught them calligraphy for years.
Jiraiya’s flamboyance marks every brushstroke he makes, artistic and illegible. Every piece is different.
Orochimaru’s are careful, rigid. He copies with precision pieces ancient and new. Every piece is different.
Neither has realized yet that consistency is important, even as they bicker with each other in front of her, so sure that she will prefer one over the other.
She is able to smooth it over by offering tea.
Mito, Tsunade, and Jiraiya
It slowly becomes evident to Mito that Jiraiya is infatuated with Tsunade, made all the trickier by the facts that Tsunade inherited Hashirama’s ability for truly stormy moods and Jiraiya is a troublemaker unable to resist making comments.
Tsunade crashes into Mito’s study one afternoon, declaring she hates Jiraiya, cataloging every single woeful thing about him she has learned over the last five years.
The next day when Jiraiya and Orochimaru arrive, she takes the white-haired boy aside.
There are no more comments about Tsunade’s body and she sends a stern reprimand to Hiruzen, making it clear she expects better.
Mito, Tsunade, and Orochimaru
Mito is watching Nawaki so her daughter can get some sleep when Tsunade drags Orochimaru into the room by the hand, the usually stoic boy looking alarmed.
Hiruzen has already stopped by to congratulate the family on the birth, dressed in his robes of office, and Jiraiya has as well.
Orochimaru until now has been successful in dodging Tsunade’s invitations.
Tsunade’s team never had childcare missions, and Mito carefully places Nawaki in Orochimaru’s arms, adjusting his white arms against the cream blanket.
“If you drop him I’m killing you.” Tsunade is serious.
Orochimaru stares at the baby’s face. “I won’t.”
Mito
When she was young, she was taught the correct way to draw the Uzumaki crest in ink.
It is drawn starting from the outside going in, like the whirlpools they take their name from.
Maelstroms do not flow out, after all. They take everything in, gathering in the centre where they are the strongest.
It is why their seals are so powerful, focused as they are, a maelstrom of chakra.
Mito is in the market one day when she overhears a comment referring to her as Tsunade’s team’s jonin-sensei.
She does not correct it.
Later, Hiruzen cedes them to her.