Tender Sea

Chapter 26

When he first saw her, she was only a young girl, tattered and bathed in blood. To his surprise, despite her appalling condition she was alive, she had held on to that thin tether that kept her heart beating. His team had simply handed her off to the hospital and that was that. Intriguingly what should have taken months to heal occurred overnight.

It was a saddeningly suitable bloodline for a ninja. Why so? Because even if she healed faster, it didn't eliminate the pain of being injured. A quicker recovery equalled to more dangerous missions which meant more life-threatening damage. She could be beaten to half-to-death several times over and yet her body would heal. A blessing and a curse when looked at from different perspectives.

She cleaned up well, and after the doctors and nurses had finished mending her broken body, she was nothing more than an endearing little girl. She reminded him of his sensei, with the same sunny appearance, but there was more to it than that. She held herself the same way, and that in itself, was odd. After all, how could an eight year old child share the same presence as a twenty something veteran ninja?

Miyu had a lot of secrets, Kakashi had learnt that very early on. He wasn't completely convinced about her amnesiac life but at the same time there was no other option for him to choose. He wondered, if it was merely a forgotten habit that she would consistently reach up to touch the rings on her necklace.

Those same rings seemed to fascinate him, never mind the priceless jewel wedge between them, he was more interested in the familiar metallic sheen of the trinkets and the hidden inscription that had long worn away.

She smiled often. It wasn't like the ones Minato made, the wide grins that shared his happiness with those around him, no, it was more like Kushina's. The best word to describe it would be restrained. It was expression of happiness for sure, but it was one that remembered tragedy.

Kushina he could understand, having lost her village it was almost a miracle she was still the cheerful redhead they knew. But what did Miyu grieve for when her memories were supposedly blank?

She was an Uchiha, Namikaze and Uzumaki. Her blood tied to those who founded the village and protected it, making it invaluable and at the same time infamous. Her existence was kept as hidden as possible. With his sensei rising to take the position of Hokage, anyone connected to him would be in danger of being a target. The girl in question chose to reside within the Uchiha. Fugaku and his wife welcomed her much to his relief.

She trained a lot for someone so young. With the war dying out it was a reprieve for most, but she used every bit of her free time training. Whether it was within the Academy, among his team or in her own free time. The blonde practised with unseen shadows, each time she dodged a punch he could clearly see the length of the attacking arm, each time she struck a vital he could see the mysterious form of whoever she was sparing with.

Tall, that was the first thing he noticed, it was odd for such a small girl to always be aiming her attacks upwards... He hadn't realized it had become a habit to watch her until her fox of a nin-ken had started sitting beside him, both of their eyes intently watching her flowing form.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, he soon lost many important things. It was impossible to tell if he had cried with the rain that poured down his face but for sure he had lost more things than a friend on that day. He had felt it, as his hands pierced through her chest, the absence that was reflected in his own. There was no time for him to come to terms with it either, no time to grieve properly, as just a couple days after his sensei was seen rushing to Konoha's hospital with a corpse in his arms.

It was image engraved into his arms, the small girl whose company he enjoyed, was unconscious, unmoving in those strong arms...just like when she had first arrived. The smell of blood and burnt flesh assaulted him though he was a distance away, similarly the sound of a stray kunai hitting the floor as it dislodged from her brought him back to his senses. One by one he was losing his closest friends and now it seemed he would lose another. Kakashi had never felt so helpless in his entire life.