Warning: animal torture, mild child abuse, extreme panic, self-loathing, etc.

Disclaimer: The original characters and plot are mine.

AN: I realized that before I had a really set update schedule. As you can see, I'm not really following that as much. With all of the craziness around the world, I'm probably going to try to post every week or two, but it will be more along the lines of after I go through and edit. Hopefully, that means it will be a lot faster than usual :)

Thank you all for your encouraging reviews and all of the favorite and follows! It made me so happy to see that people were still reading and thinking about this story after so long :D

Enjoy!

This time there will be some translations/explanations at the bottom. This time I marked the words with an * so you know. Hopefully, that helps :)

Catching Lightning In A Bottle

Chapter 10

Noami, Shikishi, *Otousan, *Okaasan; you were supposed to look out for them. You were supposed to protect them, a voice hissed, dark and sharp and cold. It slithered over her skin, crushing down into her bones with the unbearable weight.

"Su~ki-neechan!"

It was all your fault, Mitsuki.

Searing pain woke Mitsuki, twisted into images of nightmares and memories. Somewhere in the background, she heard a warbling whistle, high and shriek, but Mitsuki couldn't place where she'd heard it before. Blood splattered on the ground, rich, red, dripping, pooling like water running over rocks, slime covering the ground in rotting life. The whistle grew louder. Closer. Clearer.

The face wouldn't look away. Tanned. Smooth and beautiful. Mitsuki stared, pinned to the floor, feeling the blood pressing around her, flowing in her mouth, choking and suffocating on the stench of failure.

A scream.

"Suki~!" the voice called again. A child.

Slowly Mitsuki cracked her eyes open to a world white and shifting. Her gut tumbled, twisting to find the gravity, but her brain swirled around around around.

"Where are you?"

That's not… Mitsuki thought slowly. Then a rushing force shoved her body backward, flipping and falling as a room appeared below—backward—upside down in front of her, as if she only blinked out of a daydream. All at once, Mitsuki realized she was hanging from a rafter in a sparsely decorated room and her gut recognized she was home. Men and women trained below. Katanas, taijutsu, grappling, target practice, and more; the flashes of metal and thuds of deadly weapons sinking into solid wood. Salt lingered in the air under the sweltering sweat. Behind it all came the distant sound of waves of the roaring ocean and Mitsuki knew that if she went over and looked out the window, she'd find the rocky abyss of the cliff face overlooking unforgiving waters. The room was filled with the sounds of exertion and sweat.

She was back in the dojo.

Reaching up, Mitsuki clutched her heart, as if expecting some deep gutting pain on top of the pounding in her brain. As she stared upside down, waiting and watching all of the familiar people she grew up with, trained with the pain never came.

You killed all of them.

The voice faded away into a dark recess of her mind. Not gone, but like walking into a new room and forgetting what she'd come for, like knowing something was missing but unable to figure out what. With it, the throbbing pain behind Mitsuki's eye grew.

Mitsuki's eyes snapped towards the door when the sound of rushing feet came closer. "Suki! Suki-neechan, where are you?"

The sliding screen slammed open and without bothering to remove his shoes, Yoshi ran in, grinning like he had gotten a new plant for his collection. It almost felt like Mitsuki knew exactly where he would stop before he did it, and the feeling only grew when she knew he wouldn't see her as he spun around in circles, calling her name despite the disruption of the work around him. Odd, she thought, mind-stretching far outside the limitations of her physical body. If she stayed like this, maybe she could remember something dreadfully important. For half a moment she stared upside down, lingering in between, but the feeling faded. The moment faded and she wondered if it ever really happened at all.

One of the men in the training room sheathed his blade, turning and going over to answer the boys' continuous shouts. Silently pulling herself up from where she'd been doing inverted sit-ups, Mitsuki lithely leaped down behind her baby brother before the man could reach him and in one fluid movement, cuffed Yoshi hard on the back of the head. "Ba-ka!"

Yoshi spun with a yelp, both hands coming up to nurse the welt on his head, but Mitsuki didn't let the roundness of his dumpling cheeks or fat pouty lips make her feel bad. A few others stared at the heirs of the clan acting brattish but most ignored the usual routine. Mitsuki watched with lidded eyes.

"What was that for?" Yoshi cried.

For good measure, Mitsuki smacked him again.

He yelped, ducking and covering his head protectively. "What's the matter with you?"

"This is a dojo, Yoshi," Mitsuki chided. Grabbing him by the collar, she drug him towards the door and threw him out onto the surrounding walkway. Ignoring the squawks of protest, Mitsuki turned her back on him to slip into her own shoes, tipped her head slightly to the men and women training, and gently slid the door shut. "If you're going to come in, take off your shoes. Respect the space." She turned with a hand of one hip, eyes barely opened as she stared.

Yoshi looked up from the ground, a slight tint to his cheeks that Mitsuki couldn't tell came from embarrassment or indignation. If he hadn't interrupted one of the few times she had to train she might have cared more to ask. As it was, she stepped over, grabbed him by the arm, and wrenched him up before he could do anything else.

She grinned. "Baka." Laughing, Mitsuki ruffled his shaggy dark velvet hair. "You know you can't do that in front of the captain."

The blush darkened, spreading down his neck. Yoshi rolled his eyes and turned sharply away to hide it. "I wasn't looking for you for no reason, you know Suki-neechan," he snapped moodily.

Mitsuki grinned fondly at her little brother. It'd been a while since she'd seen him this childish after their mother passed a few summers ago and the moment felt refreshing as the sun beaming down. Hard times had been crashing like waves, and Mitsuki barely could cherish the good before another tsunami seemed to shatter their carefully built sandcastle. Yoshi always took more after their stoic father, awkward and bumbling outside of his insatiable curiosity of the world. Too clever for his own good.

Glancing over his shoulder, Yoshi sobered, face stretching back into the weighted consciousness too old for his age. "There's something important I need to show you."

"Hmm." Mitsuki raised an eyebrow, tempted to lie about helping Tatsuya-kun, but couldn't find it in herself to tease him that way. Lies were bitter injustices anyway, and really Mitsuki hardly found the time to indulge in slacking off.

Times were too rare where she could see her younger brother with all of the responsibilities and obligations on her shoulders as a captain outside of meals. Despite only being twelve, their father already named her next Commanding Captain upon his retirement, regardless of her being second-born, and now she only had to work up the rank to claim the title. While her eldest sister would become Clan Head, the real strategic and military operations fell onto her shoulders until Shikishi married and gave away her power to a husband. Until that day, Yoshi knew Mitsuki hardly had a moment to herself between training, meetings, and the ever-pressing war at their doorsteps.

Raising an eyebrow, Mitsuki shrugged. "Well," Mitsuki prompted when Yoshi only studied her over his shoulder. He had a nasty habit of doing that. Watching. "What is it?"

"I can't tell you here."

Glancing around at the other people moving around the compound, Yoshi tried to stealthily check and see if anyone paid them more attention than usual. "What?" Mitsuki openly bent around, pretending to search for whatever he looked for and the action only made his blush come back brighter.

"Stop being so obvious," he hissed, puffing his cheeks out indignantly as he spun around towards her. "Just come on!" he cried. His small hand wrapped around her wrist and Mitsuki barely had time to fall into his tug before his feet were moving.

"Oi!" Mitsuki shouted, but she let herself be dragged around by her younger brother either way as if no one would notice the royal children running around the compound. She tumbled after him, needing to bend over to match his small stature, but he ran forward either way, too trusting and believing in her big sister's kindness to pull away. He tugged her back into the manor, around multiple turns, and eventually towards the upper levels that held their individual rooms, not bothering to stop or bow towards any of the advisors, servants, or clan members on the way. He finally dropped her wrist after dragging her into his room and slamming the door closed.

Mitsuki blinked, slowly adjusting to the change of light. Stepping into Yoshi's room felt like stepping into the off-limit laboratory in the lower levels. At some point, his windows were boarded up to block out too much light and instead all of the walls were converted to shelving. Each space held different tubes, beakers, and specimens ranging from plants to small animals, each with individual lamps and temperature gauges. Mitsuki stepped in carefully and scanned the room to take note of the various changes since she'd ventured here last time. For a nine-year-old, Hideyoshi was scary.

"Over here," he called, stepping past her towards a desk near the back corner where a rabbit leisurely hopped around its small cage.

A chill raced down Mitsuki's spine, the same unnerving sensation that spasmed through the pit of her stomach before a battle began on the field. Cages. Several different species of animals crawled and slithered behind the glass and metal, stirred by the sudden shift in artificial light filling the room when they entered. Trapped. Waiting. Maybe it was his scientific genius, but strange didn't begin to cover her baby brother.

Yoshi didn't realize he left her at the door in his excited flurry. At times like these, sometimes it felt as though she was staring at someone else. Mitsuki watched, willing away her apprehension at how easily he cleared off a space next to the table and reached into that cage.

"I finally did it!" he cried. Hearing the smile in his voice eased the tension in Mitsuki's body enough for her to step up behind Yoshi, passed the various jars and cages, and she watched as he carefully pulled the rabbit out of the cage. His grin blinded her and Yoshi exclaimed, "I found a way to stop the war!"

It took the burning in her chest to realize she'd stopped breathing. "What?" she whispered, but her voice was nearly lost in her shock.

Stop the war.

The war between her people and the surrounding clans had lasted for generations. Killed countless people. Before Mitsuki learned how to speak, she'd been trained and honed to battle in place of her important sister. Each day she remembered seeing the hollowed faces, feeling the gut-clenching fear, and tasting the haunted nightmares of the carnage. This war claimed the lives of her grandfather and her great-grandfather before that. Soon it might even claim the life of her father, her siblings, or even…

"How?" Mitsuki demanded. She wanted to be strong, to be happy, but her voice barely croaked past the sudden need. "Show me."

Yoshi flipped his shaggy bangs out of his face with a bright smile. The roundness of his cheeks dimpled and Mitsuki already felt the swelling pride in knowing someone as brilliant as her baby brother. "Watch," he ordered simply. Yoshi turned back towards the rabbit, took one deep breath and carefully moved through a complex series of hand signs to channel his chakra. Mitsuki memorized the pattern to heart, watching as a gentle green glow spread from his palms like the healing chakra the medics used.

The rabbit screamed.

Mitsuki flinched back, never hearing something so horrible as a green light engulfed the animal from Hideyoshi's hands. He didn't flinch, didn't stop smiling as it shrieked and wailed, withering desperately on the table.

Snapping out of her shock, Mitsuki grabbed Hideyoshi's shoulder, heart-pounding, wanting to rip him back but not sure what it would do to the suffering rabbit. The other animals hid. The room pulsed with energy, dangerous, dark. "Stop it!" she screamed. "What are you doing?"

Hideyoshi shook his head, never pulling his wide eyes off the screeching creature. "You can feel it can't you?" he asked, voice painfully rational. "Sense it, Neechan, and see."

Mitsuki hesitated only a second before reaching out with her senses, bumps racing across her flesh as she shuttered. Her blood ran cold. While her eyes stared at the rabbit shrieking and flailing, her senses only saw an empty void where the animal's natural energy should glow in her mind's eye.

Its chakra was gone. There was nothing life connecting it to its life source.

Mitsuki woke with a jerk, panicked, fighting, Yoshi-

She gasped, back arched and crying when her instinctual reach for chakra ripped something unrecognizable inside. Overused. Empty. Gone.

People were closer, her senses told her even as the pain blurred her sight and her teeth clenched. Quickly she flipped through the signs she knew, forcing the memory jutsu. It hit hard, twisting her stomach up. Nothing to give. Failing. Mitsuki collapsed back on the bed, hands already blurring through familiar signs she'd memorized before it was too late. She'd die. She'd die if she waited, shriveled, crying, empty. Chakra thrummed next to her and she reached, glowing hand connecting. Her body screamed.

The energy rushed into her body, water crashing through shriveled riverbeds and washing over the smoldering ashes left behind, cool and sweet. Mitsuki sighed, sucking greedy breaths through the tear trails down her cheeks and slumped back against something soft. It raced through her, soothing the frayed nerves and chakra networks inside like air pushing back into her lungs after holding her breath, like the warmth of sunlight touching her skin after months in the bitter cold. Mitsuki moaned, closing her eyes in euphoric bliss. Numbing. Tingling. Calm. Everything at once and beautiful.

Her brain slowly caught up, bogged down with the shifts and flashes of things fragmented in her soul.

Chakra was filling her body.

Mitsuki shot up, ripping her hand back. The forbidden jutsu faded in a pale green haze and every nerve in her body tingled in the aftermath. Her eyes opened to a foreign room and the horrifying face of the person she'd stolen from. Takeda hovered beside her, hands folded behind his bowed head next to her bed, not realizing her hand had gripped his arm and drained his life. She gagged, crunching over and heaving. There was nothing to come up, her stomach clenching painfully on the air and acid.

When her body slumped back, she nearly knocked into Yuko where she stood, hands outstretched towards Mitsuki's head and everything registered all at once. Yamaguri froze, hands holding his sandal straps where he sat slumped by the edge of the wall, completely unaware. Ryuuta seemed to have stopped midway to his feet, mouth open and head turned towards the door where Keiko and Isamu appeared to have just walked in, the door still open behind them. Everything slipped into place in an instant.

She stole chakra from Takeda. She used a forbidden jutsu on him, innocent, unknowing Takeda. She used the jutsu that started this impossible mess.

Monster.

Mitsuki did what she'd forbidden so long ago.

Lying back in bed, Mitsuki sucked in several deep breaths—kami, what have I done?—giving herself ten seconds before she had to deal with the situation. Her hands trembled uncontrollably as she stared at Takeda's frozen face, nearly the same face of the one person she'd cared more for than anything. Deplorable.

At least in her panic, she'd had the thought to cast her memory jutsu, stopping the world around her where they wouldn't have to see the despicable thing she committed. All around her, everyone was frozen, unaware and unsuspecting of what happened. They didn't realize she was awake yet by their faces.

Stop crying. Wipe off the tears and lock it away.

Fix this. Mitsuki had to fix this.

Another deep breath.

"Isamu," Mitsuki started as clearly as her choked voice allowed, "I..." Swallowing thickly, Mitsuki tried again, speaking through the hitches and cracks. "I caught a short-term sickness that causes fatigue and light-headedness. The kids rushed me to the hospital but everything will be ok." Carefully she planted the lie, weaving it through her memory jutsu that held everyone frozen in place. Glancing down towards herself, she wove the familiar signs to cast a henge, hiding her emaciated form underneath the hospital clothes she'd been changed into. With the newfound chakra, pulling on the energy came easier than breathing. "I will be released today," she finished, allowing the jutsu to set.

The chakra toll didn't hit hard with the stolen chakra cycling through her veins. She didn't feel the burn or ache deep in her soul anymore and the thought twisted her gut as she leaned back. Mitsuki willed herself not to think about it—later, in the dead of the sleepless nights when all of her regrets and failures rose up to eat her sanity she would remember—but there wasn't time now. As the jutsu set in place, there was a pregnant pause before everyone moved again, continuing their actions as if nothing had happened. Ryuuta stood up, finishing his exclamation that Isamu and Keiko were here, Yamaguri fiddled with his sandal straps, and Yuko's hands moved as if finishing a braid. Isamu closed the door behind Keiko with a soft click and Mitsuki's heart broke.

"How's she doing?" Keiko asked, stepping into the bare room. The words barely made it out before Keiko looked over to see Mitsuki staring back, and she jolted. "Oh!" A wide smile spread across her delicate face, highlighting the smooth proportionate beauty all Uchiha's held, and she looked painfully breathtaking, "Look who's awake. We were all so worried!"

"Mi-chan!" Ryuuta cried, jumping unknowingly into her spleen in his haste to crowd her. Mitsuki reached out on habit, catching his small cubby body and pulling him further onto the bed until he curled into her side. Running a hand through his shaggy red hair, she tried not to let the wet tears she felt break her heart. His body shuddered as he held her too tight.

Mitsuki tried composing her face into something similar to a smile with everyone watching, but couldn't find the strength. It took all of her power to stop the tears in her eyes and the choked hiccup rising in her chest.

"I'm happy you're awake, Mi-chan," Takeda smiled brightly and for a minute her mask cracked, unable to avoid staring into his brilliant grin. His radiance shot through her heart.

Like a coward, she clung to Ryuuta's small body instead of reaching out, instead of offering Takeda the comfort he deserved, and could only stare as she murmured reverently, "I'm sorry." The words weren't enough, but it was the only thing she had to give. She glanced around the room, taking in Yuko's subtle shaking, Yamaguri's hidden face, the pain and worry etched into them all and she knew. She'd never be able to say it enough. "I'm so sorry."

"Oh, Mitsuki-sama," Isamu cooed, tenderly chastising. "It's alright—"

"No." Yamaguri stood abruptly. Everyone's attention turned, seeing his white-knuckled fists and trembling body. Mitsuki couldn't make out his expression under his shaggy hair hanging in his face but his agitated chakra told her enough. "You're the one that's supposed to take care of us." His voice was barely a murmur. It carried across the whole room with a striking conviction, the tremor of the earth before an eruption. "Not the other way around."

"Yamaguri!" Keiko cried.

He bolted. Yamaguri shoved past Isamu and Keiko at the door and raced into the hallway. The door slammed shut behind, even as Keiko reached out for him, and Mitsuki flinched at the bang.

Mitsuki sighed, closing her eyes for a moment at the way his energy shook. She could feel it in his essence. Crying.

"I can't believe that boy! He has no right—"

"Let him go," Mitsuki ordered weakly. Keiko stopped, hand on the doorknob and turned back to stare, but Mitsuki couldn't meet her eyes either. "It's fine," she lied. Always sprouting more and more lies. "Just give him space."

Yamaguri's words were right after all. The comment rang right to the core. Mitsuki tilted her head back and smiled bitterly towards the ceiling. Even as Ryuuta settled back down against her like a caterpillar building a cocoon, Yuko sniffled between careful breaths, and Takeda placed his hand on her shoulder in comfort, she couldn't deny it.

She was a terrible excuse for a mother.

Treachery was one of the sweetest sins. Rolling slower than molasses on a cool summer day, it was easy to overlook in favor of the beating sun and blowing winds during an unsuspecting lapse in judgment. It crept out, bit by bit in an agonizing dance of temptation.

There was something seductive about the glowing amber. Offered at the perfect moment, the succulent gift was too much to ignore.

A friend stepped out in a time of need with an open hand and easy caring smile; the perfect lie.

Like the sap, he looked warm, inviting. Sweet.

It wasn't until the bug was trapped, smothered and suffocating in the thick syrupy tar it realized it had been betrayed.

Betrayed by a friend.

Betrayed by honey lies.

In the end, it was easy for the law to be uprooted and filled with cavities rotting in deceit and greed. And once that bug was trapped in the sap, there was nothing anyone could do to save it.

The next time Mitsuki woke up, she was alone. For a moment, it felt uncomfortable, like waking up thinking that she heard something only for there to be ringing silence.

Mitsuki moved to push herself up only to flinch at an unexpected pain in the joint of her elbow. Lifting the sleeve over her right arm, she noticed a needle stuck deep into her skin. It ran up to a clear bag of liquid she'd seen countless times in hospitals before, and Mitsuki couldn't help but wonder what happened while she was out.

Then, Mitsuki realized with a start, she hadn't felt this good in a long time.

Slowly shifting up to avoid the pull of the needle, Mitsuki carefully stretched and flexed her body. She wanted to laugh, a little, or maybe cry. For a moment, she rubbed against her eyes, pressed until streams of color danced in her sights because it'd taken near death to realize how horrible she'd felt and how desperate things were. It wasn't only the excess of chakra in her veins. It felt like forgiveness. The near-constant fatigue lingered a bit as she moved, in the deep part of her bones that wouldn't ever go away, but it had lessened somehow. It felt like she finally slept, and maybe it was a small thing, but Mitsuki couldn't remember the last time she woke up feeling this way.

A moment before the door opened, Mitsuki sensed the presence from the other side and had a brief second to compose herself. She barely finished adjusting her layers of clothes - gross and stiff with sweat as they were - to mask the bones underneath before the door opened up to reveal her favorite medic.

Mitsuki smiled softly, too bare and raw inside to throw up her usual gusto. "I see you finally woke up," Isamu mused, setting the tray filled with different bottles, cups, and small towels on a small wooden table next to the bed before turning and gently closing the door behind her. It was the only other article of furniture in the room and Mitsuki faintly remembered that this entire building hadn't been here before a few hours ago. "I sent all of your kids home to let you rest a few hours ago. You've been asleep most of the day, but I imagine that Keiko has already made them dinner. I also took the liberty of washing you up while you slept," Isamu continued to prattle, adjusting a few things on the tray. "I hope you don't mind."

"Thank you," Mitsuki murmured, only to cough, needing to clear her voice. As a reflex, her arm reached up, only to flinch back as it tugged at the needle in her flesh, the medical tape tugging painfully.

Isamu stepped up next to her, grabbing Mitsuki's arm before she could even finish the reflex and set it back down at her side. With a jolt, Mitsuki resisted the urge to flinch back. She hated touch, hated the revelation it brought, and it took a minute reminding herself that this was Isamu before she could relax back into her headboard. Isamu gingerly sat on the edge of the bed, observant eyes staring with a small smile Mitsuki swore could see into her soul.

"How long?" Isamu asked.

Mitsuki blinked. It took a painfully long second to piece together what she might be talking about and even after the pit fell into Mitsuki's gut at the realization, she still had to ask to be sure. "What?"

Isamu never looked away. Never blinked while she studied her.

Horror bled into Mitsuki's gut, wretched and gagging. She stole a glance down at her hands in her lap, seeing the bony knobs of her fingers and the harsh bone of her wrist peeking out from her long sleeves. The henge was gone, faded.

Isamu stared at the bony husk of a person, seeing the emaciation as plain as day.

"How long have you been starving?"

"I'm not starving," Mitsuki cut off. A defensive habit really, but the truth.

Mitsuki ate. Sometimes. Maybe not really, but it wasn't because she wanted to die like a stray mutt in a back alley. With the kids and all of the responsibilities and lies she had to live, there wasn't time; there wasn't money; there wasn't a reason.

Mitsuki stared down at her hands, unable to look up and face Isamu's watchful gaze. She waited until finally, Mitsuki couldn't stand the itch under her skin.

"I'm not starving," Mitsuki repeated, maybe to convince herself. Her voice sounded as pitiful as it felt, no more than a child reasoning for something wrong. "I just can't sleep."

The surprise is visible. After a beat, Isamu catches up and realizes what Mitsuki meant and while Mitsuki waited, she stared determinedly off to the side.

"Insomnia," Isamu breathed.

Mitsuki didn't respond. There weren't words to say. With no makeup and no jutsu, Mitsuki sat bare before her, even under layers of clothes to soften the harsh bones sticking out.

Isamu gently placed a hand on her leg and Mitsuki flinched at the contact. Mitsuki's gaze snapped over, expression hard to read, like an injured animal surveying the situation, and when Isamu's soft smile faded Mitsuki wondered what she saw in her eyes. "Why didn't you say anything?" Isamu asked instead. "Mitsuki-"

What? she wanted to demand. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to break something. Instead, Mitsuki did none of those things, stared carefully blank, painfully void of everything.

Isamu shifted, trying again.

"How long?"

"I haven't been able to sleep for years," Mitsuki started, thinking quickly through how she could explain everything. How she could explain that she was banished, cursed, dying, and it was all her fault for being blind. "Not since I left my village," she settled on instead, and it wasn't a lie. Not really.

That day haunted her deepest nightmares.

Isamu struggled to find the words to bridge the sudden chasm between them. "But how do you—"

"Cover the bags?" Mitsuki caught her gaze pointedly, knowing she was looking at her face. While her cheekbones were sharp under her slightly hollowed cheeks and her eyes were a little sunken, with the makeup she wore no one would ever be able to really tell. Normally, no one noticed the odd angles or peculiar hollowness. They would just assume she had sharper features. Without those layers of mud caked on, without the contouring, Mitsuki couldn't hide anything.

"Makeup," Isamu answered. Mitsuki could hear the unasked questions in the space between them. "And the headaches?"

Mitsuki shot her a level look.

"Oh," Isamu murmured, for once breaking eye contact and staring down towards her hands. "You've just never mentioned anything…"

Mitsuki sighed, closing her eyes and resting her head back on the wall.

She never wanted anyone to discover this secret. No one ever should have gotten this close. After messing up around Tobirama that day, everything had gotten too chaotic, unpredictable. As if Mitsuki could ever explain.

Her body was slowly decaying. Mitsuki felt it deep inside, and perhaps she'd known for a while now. Without sleep, she couldn't maintain a healthy weight. Then, once the nightmares devoured all the soft flesh, all of the muscles and strength in her bones, she slowly lost her appetite. If a person looked close, Mitsuki knew they could see the faint bruises, small smears of green and blue across her skin where her body wouldn't heal marks she'd gotten weeks ago from little bumps. It'd been like this for years. Mitsuki stared off into the distance, trying to think back to when her body betrayed her; when it became normal to be weak and helpless.

Isamu reached over to the tray, startling Mitsuki out of her morbid thoughts and she watched in a detached curiosity for what Isamu thought could fix her.

After all, nothing would fix her but a counter jutsu.

No chakra signature warned Mitsuki before the door swung open, silent and smooth on the brand new hinges. If Mitsuki hadn't been facing the door, she might not have even noticed two shinobi standing in the doorway, clad in gear maximized for stealth and battle. Masks stripped them of any identity, but death never cared about a person's name.

Mitsuki flinched back, trying hard to keep her face collected, but too many of her walls crumbled around her to convince anyone. She cringed towards the wall, barely managing the reflex to grab a weapon from her clothes, but the seconds it took to smooth her face into something confused and calm gave away the dread filling her stomach. No makeup. No henge for protection. Their eyes drilled into her haunted form, seeing everything and Mitsuki couldn't stop the pounding thud of panic seizing her heart.

Isamu noticed the two shinobi a second later, stopping where she bent over towards the tray. "Excuse me, gentlemen," Isamu stated, standing from the bed and taking a few quick strides towards the door, blocking them from Mitsuki's view. "This is a private room. You can't break doctor-patient confidentiality like-"

"Apologizes," one interrupted. They didn't bow or offer customary greetings.

"We have orders from the Hokage," the other stated, voice deep and distorted behind the mask.

One of them stepped into the room, forcing Isamu backward. The other followed close behind, and Mitsuki sucked in a deep breath.

They were here for her.

Translations and Explanations:

*Otousan: meaning father

*Okaasan: meaning mother