Chapter 2

'To unpath'd waters, undream'd shores, most certain to miseries enough. But as you shake off one to take another: nothing so certain as your anchors.'

The snowstorm passed and we left the cave, Cousin Nao still shivering from the frostbite she'd endured. Father said that her left pinky had fallen off, and I'm just glad I'm too young to be on ration duty.

We lost eight more on the way to Kannabi Bridge, trudging through sheets of snow and slippery frozen lakes.

"Miho," father said as I balanced on a windblown, snow-covered log, "get down from there. You could hurt yourself."

I stuck my tongue out at him, but complied.

The ice was so cold it was hot, and even as we'd made our way across Onika River, an icicle had speared Cousin Natsume, her red blood blistering the pure whiteness.

Cousin Ito had cried softly, too wrung out to mourn for his sister.

"I hope we get to Kibo soon," Cousin Nao muttered with a shiver. "This winter is awful."

"On the bright side," I pointed out, "we haven't lost anyone in four days."

Cousin Nao nodded. "There is that."

Our lips were cracked, our tanned faces pale, our blue-or-green-or-grey eyes dull with hunger and, in three cases, disease.

Father ploughed on, eyes still crinkled in kindness, propping Aunt Momoko up. Cousin Nao walked beside me, and in pairs of two, our clan (of over fifty, nine years ago; now, just fourteen) continued on.

Nine years of evading Kumo-nin, braving the storms, doubling back and going round and round in circles, getting waylaid by shinobi skirmishes, taking detours to avoid no-man's-lands, halting our migration in little hamlets interspersed across the craggy, mountainous lands of the Land of Lightning, and finally, we'd reached the second river.

There were, according to baba Minoru, three rivers to cross before we reached the Land of Rain, where we would hopefully gain refuge on a more permanent basis. First, Onika River, then, Kibo River, and lastly, Midori River.

Of course, baba Minoru had only come about this information from the Song of Three Rivers (original, I'm aware), but most of our information comes from these songs.

"A storm's coming," Aunt Momoko croaked.

With grim faces, all fourteen of us looked systematically for some shelter.

All I could see was white to my left, white to my right, white to my front, and white to my back. There were a few trees in the distance, but it would be a potential full day trek to get there, and the Kibo River was in the opposite direction.

Cousin Nao mumbled under her breath. "If the tree stands tall, crawl. If the river sounds gun, run."

It was an edict we'd lived by for generations; the Namikaze Clan had migrated first from the oceans to the Land of Lightning, and there we had lived for the last nine generations. Until the second shinobi war, of course.

Father wasn't clear on why we were leaving, or who we were running from, just that it was necessary.

"Mamoru-kun," Aunt Momoko whispered, "we will not survive the storm if we move to Kibo."

Uncle Ikuto and Great-aunt Nana, who were close enough to hear, stiffened.

Father touched a hand to his forehead and smoothed out his wrinkles. His angular eyes squinted at the trees, and though there was trepidation in his eyes, I knew that he knew we had no other choice.

To the Land of Fire it was.

The storm hit just as we found shelter in a copse of trees.

We huddled underneath brambles and large leaves, mud squelching underneath us. The wetness was nothing new; at one of the geography lessons I'd managed to attend in Shiroyama (somewhere in eastern Lightning where we'd parked for more than a month), I'd learned that constant storms were a sure sign that we were at the borders of Lightning – at every border, there were storms, be it the border to the Lands of Glaciers, Fire or Water.

"It smells funny," Cousin Ito said, the rain pattering making it harder to hear. Lightning crashed in the distance, and I startled.

Father placed a soothing hand on my head. "It'll pass soon."

Aunt Momoko winced. "We're too far out. It'll take days for this storm to pass. We have to go in deeper."

I peered into the darkening forest behind us. It seemed ominous in the crashing storm, lighting up for seconds with every thunder strike. The leaves looked like darkened spinach, the grass like bleached moss.

"Father," I said quietly, hungry, "why does it itch more?"

Father waited till the crash of thunder abated before answering. "The forest, Miho. Trees naturally store more nature chakra."

I scratched my inner arm, frowning. The itching was ignorable usually, and I would get used to this upgraded level of itching too. Till then, however, it felt like I was getting bitten by tiny mosquitoes every few minutes.

It wasn't a pleasant feeling.

In the end, we did go deeper into the forest, hoping to find food and escape the storm in the process. Aunt Momoko had a way of knowing storms like the back of her hand, and if she said it would last more than five days, she was probably right.

"It's warmer here," Cousin Ito said in wonder. "I might get used to it."

Great-aunt Nana snorted. "The forest is dangerous, Ito-chan. Our ancestors were a great deal wiser than us, and if they knew to keep our backs to the trees, we should do the same."

She was not happy with father's decision. I mapped the veins of the trunk of a large tree and hit it just so, making the water dislodge from the canopy-boughs and drench her. She sputtered in annoyance.

"Miho-chan!" she exclaimed.

I gave her an innocent look. "Yes, great-aunt?"

She fumed, unable to prove I'd done it on purpose. Serves her right for talking badly about father where I could hear her.

Cousin Nao snickered. "Vindictive, Miho."

I snorted, leaping over some squidgy moss. The rain was still battering down, but at least the dense bowers sheltered us from the worst of it. "Don't know what you mean, Nao-nee."

We went deeper into the forest, until baby Mikio started whining. "My legs hurt!" he wailed, prompting Uncle Ikuto to thwack him upside the head.

"If you have energy to complain, you have energy to keep moving!" he exclaimed.

Father laughed. "It's time to rest, regardless. Miho, come help me look for some kindling."

"Okay!" I said, happy to continue moving. There was something indelibly freeing about being able to go wherever, being trusted to be just as good as men, having no distinction in skills –

And having a father was nice too.

I walked alongside him, my hand in his, and a bright smile on my face. "Don't step in that, Miho," said father, pushing me away from a patch of – oh, I remember these! – nettles. "It'll sting."

We picked our way through the trail, memorising landmarks to find our way back, looking for any dry wood to use as kindling. The itching was persistent, and at times it made me feel irritable, but if I concentrated hard (a feat, considering I had to pay attention to where I was walking), I could turn the itch into a mild sting, which was infinitely more bearable.

"It's quiet," I remarked.

Father stiffened. "Is it not supposed to be?"

I don't know. Not even as Leanne had I been anywhere near a forest, least of all of this size, but being Miho sometimes meant that I just…knew certain things.

Our entire clan had something of the sort. Aunt Momoko could predict storms, Cousin Nao somehow knew where there would be an abundance of food, father seemed to have an uncanny sense of direction…and I knew when something would go wrong.

Like, I suppose, intuition. Maybe it came with being so attuned to nature chakra. Who knows for sure?

"It doesn't feel right," I replied, not one hundred percent sure whether this was a bad omen, or just feeling out of my element.

Father immediately bent down, a silent command to get me to climb up (it took some getting used to, but it was lovely), and as soon as I had wrapped my rather skinny arms around his neck, he headed back without missing a single step, walking with a fervour that I had come to know acutely. He always got like this at a sign of danger.

The forest was silent, I thought as father hurried through the trees. Though I don't know what sounds ought to be, so maybe –

"Nao-nee! Look out!" screamed Cousin Ito, and she ducked just in time for a kunai to whizz by and imbed itself into the tree behind her.

I stared wide-eyed at the metal projectile that had sunk into the tough bark till the hilt. The strength required for that is…

"What do we have here?" a surprisingly childish voice said tauntingly. "Filthy daydreamers crossing the border?"

Father's shoulders straightened underneath me, and his hands loosened around my legs, a silent request to get off.

"State your business, foreigners!" another childish voice spat out. I couldn't pinpoint where the voices were coming from, but I had a vague idea that they were in the trees. Father must have noticed that we couldn't outrun them; this wasn't our turf, and there were no rocks to shield us.

Father calmly, humbly, said, "We are refugees just passing through. We mean you no harm."

We could hear a whispered conversation among the trees, and then one of them must have slipped up because I could now tell that they were hiding in the tree two lunges diagonal of where Great-aunt Nana was wearily huddled.

"Sensei!" the second voice yelped.

Our eyes were wide and alert, all except father, who seemed content in quietly waiting for the shinobi to attack us.

Not a sound stirred, and maybe the reason was because this was a no-man's-land we had accidentally stumbled upon. Already, it felt like the trees were watching us; we didn't know how many of them there were, and either way, we were too tired to fight back.

The canyons had drained our resources, and coming across Onika River in winter wasn't the best thing that could have happened to us. Baby Mikio, as a three year old, was too young to fight or run; Aunt Momoko had injured her leg on a lancing icicle and wouldn't get far; Great-aunt Nana was already too frail, ever since the turning of the season three years ago when she'd fallen ill; baba Minoru would be lucky to see spring.

With ten of us able-bodied, and four of us younger than thirteen, we didn't have a chance.

"What is your destination?" said a deep voice, and a man stepped out of a swirl of leaves two steps away from father.

He had tanned skin, spiky brown hair, deep-set dark eyes that had a thin black line crawling down to each of his cheeks, a goatee, and a broad face. He was a head shorter than father, who was only a few inches above average to begin with, but he seemed to tower over everyone in the clearing.

Baby Mikio burst into tears. No one had the courage to move, let alone console him.

Father calmly replied, "We were blown off course by the storm a few days' walk from here, but we were heading towards the Land of Rain to seek permanent refuge."

"Who's we?" the first voice said in a vague approximation of menacing, the thick Fire accent sounding strange to my ears, attuned as they were to the Lightning drawl.

From a tree jumped a little girl, holding a kunai to Cousin Michi's neck. He was knocked out, and it was only then that I realised we hadn't arrived at the start of the confrontation, merely the second barrage.

Father held out a placating hand. "My family and I have no bad intentions. We will leave peaceably if you point us in the right direction."

The short man's eyes narrowed in contemplation, but his forehead was smooth. "A nomadic tribe, or a clan?" he asked father.

"The Namikaze Clan," father replied, a hint of pride in his voice as he said our name. It had a perceptible effect of making all of us stir with dignity.

That name was all we had, and that name was what we would fight for till the bitter end. We would stare death in the eye, because if we'd come this far, we wouldn't cower at the last jump. Even baby Mikio stopped crying.

Cousin Nao grasped Cousin Ito's hand and glared at the little blonde girl (and if she wasn't an enemy, she would have been uncommonly pretty, with her honey eyes, smooth milk-rose skin and soft blonde hair tied back in a ponytail), silently challenging her to return Cousin Michi to us.

She held her ground, glaring right back.

"I see," said the man. "You are the clan head."

Father nodded; he'd taken over that position after baba Naburo had died in his sleep five years ago. "Namikaze Mamoru, shinobi-san."

The short man replied, "Sarutobi Hiruzen. If your clan is as peaceable as you say, you might do well to answer a few of my questions."

Uncle Itsuko tensed in anger; the last time we had shared information with shinobi (Yu-nin, from Yugakure no Sato, over two years ago), it had led to an almost complete annihilation of the clan.

But father didn't really have a choice. If this shinobi was confident enough to allow a barely-out-of-her-diapers child to reveal herself, we weren't going to get very far. And he was definitely a shinobi; we had heard of the hitai-ate that marked them as such, though they were a new invention. They hadn't existed until as late as six years ago. And shinobi fought in packs.

Who knew how many of them were hiding in the trees?

"Very well," father agreed, though a shade of wariness had crept into his stance as well. "What would you like to know, Sarutobi-san?"

I contemplated casting a genjutsu on the girl to get her to release Cousin Michi, but I had a feeling that would be seen as an aggressive thing to do, so I decided against it, although it made my blood boil to see him treated like this.

"Where in the Land of Lightning are you from?" he asked.

Father answered, "From a northern coastal town on Ishi-ka Bay."

"And why did you flee, Namikaze-san?"

"Several reasons, Sarutobi-san," father said diplomatically.

Sarutobi Hiruzen tensed imperceptibly, but the shift had brought back the feeling of being prey. I manoeuvred the itch and stared wide-eyed at him in concentration. A few twists later, the choking feeling left, and I touched a hand to father's leg and did the same for him.

I was smugly pleased – it had taken less than a minute to manage all of this. Progress!

"And what might those reasons be?" Sarutobi Hiruzen asked, still polite.

"Our safety was at the forefront," father replied, as though he had been the one to make the decision. "The shinobi from Earth were landing on our shores, and many of us lost our lives. It was the only way we knew to survive."

"I see," Sarutobi Hiruzen replied, as though he did see, far better than we ever could. "And how many of you perished in the migration?"

Father clenched his fists, and this time, it had nothing to do with the question itself. As a clan head, he blamed himself for all the lives lost. Some were due to his decisions; others due to nature's unswerving ire.

"We did not keep track," baba Minoru said quietly, like a whisper of the grass. "But we numbered at nearly a hundred."

Sarutobi Hiruzen's eyes widened. Our numbers were surprising, but we'd been down to a half by the time I was born, and most of that was because of resettlement. Some, of course, were casualties in the war, but most losses were of a more benign nature.

"And now, only fourteen," he asked for confirmation, as though he thought we were going to ambush them.

"Yes," father said stolidly. "Now, only fourteen, if you haven't killed your hostage."

He seemed to be arguing with himself, before continuing the questioning. "And what of your kekkai genkai?"

Father didn't give anything away – none of us gave anything away. No matter how pathetic your kekkai genkai was, it was your kekkai genkai.

Why did he want to know, except to exploit us like the Kumo-nin wanted to?

"Nothing in particular," father said, blasé. "A predisposition to chakra manipulation, but nothing to remark upon."

He wasn't lying, and Sarutobi Hiruzen must have noticed that, because he seemed to accept that answer.

"And where," he asked ominously, "do your loyalties lie, Clan Namikaze?"

It wasn't a question for father, or for the elders.

I answered, "With our family, Sarutobi-san, but we wouldn't mind setting down roots."

Father brushed a hand against my cheek lightly, Great-aunt Nana gasped irritably, but no one contradicted me.

Cousin Ito chimed in, "But only if you return Michi to us."

Sarutobi Hiruzen contemplated me silently for what felt like an eternity, but I didn't waver.

We had travelled and fled, roughed it out and bled. Now, I just wanted a home and a bed.

I wasn't the only one. Cousin Ito, Nao, Natsume, Michi and I had sat around many a fires wistfully discussing settling down. Except Cousin Natsume and Michi, none of us had been born in Arawa, and even their memories of our clan's original home were shaky.

We'd never known a home, but we imagined sunshine and grass, water in plentiful supply, and I chimed in that I'd like indoor plumbing. Only the aristocracy had had anything like that back when I was Leanne, but we'd stayed at a rather large town only half a year ago, and they had had a watercloset.

Only the Queen had a watercloset!

I want one, very badly.

Home was a pipedream for us until we got to the Land of Rain, but to live in the Land of Fire? We'd never had much of a loyalty to Lightning, and the more they disparaged Fire, the more Cousin Nao and Ito advocated it.

And here was our chance.

"Do you speak for all your clan, Namikaze-chan?" he asked.

The condescension was deliberate, but I forced myself not to bristle in irritation. I knitted a genjutsu that made my voice sound extra sincere and my eyes more longing than they actually were, and said, "Yes, Sarutobi-san. If you'll have us, the Namikaze Clan will happily settle down in the Land of Fire, and int-inte-integrate with your people."

Big words are hard.

A boy burst out of the leaves, twigs stuck in his blindingly white spiky hair, his black eyes wide with cheer. "So we're gonna be comrades? Awesome! Hey, do you punch a lot? 'Cause Tsu-chan just keeps whacking me into trees, and let me tell ya, the bruises—"

"Jiraiya, are you insane!?" screeched the blonde girl. "Nothing's even been decided yet! You can't just—"

Sarutobi Hiruzen face-palmed. "Well, at least he managed to hold his idiocy in until after you'd agreed to pledge your allegiance."

"Hey, you're just bummed out 'cause she's prettier than you!" jeered Jiraiya.

Father's lips twitched into a smile.

Great-aunt Nana muttered, "Heathens…"

"I'll show you bummed out, you stupid, perverted, donkey!" she yelled, dropping her kunai and punching Jiraiya so hard he actually bent a tree backwards.

I couldn't stop smiling, even if I wanted to.

So yay! Another chapter to set the scene! Lots of death! Er…right, so the Namikaze Clan began their migration at the tail end of the first shinobi war, though they didn't know it at the time because the towns and villages dotting the Lands weren't really all that involved with the fighting. Team Sarutobi was doing reconnaissance during a four month stalemate (though, having been cut off from the rest of humanity, the Namikaze Clan didn't know this), and happened upon yet another clan of refugees. There are many families like the Namikaze, but not many actually make it out of Lightning, because of the migrant control.

(Orochimaru, doing his job like his sensei told him to do, was hiding in the trees, ready to provide back-up if things got hairy. Jiraiya is just too excitable as a six year old.)

Er…yeah…review please?