“So, that was a success.”

  Miyu stares, uncomprehendingly, at Kakashi’s suddenly empty plate. Gods, does he even need to chew? She knows that she saw it full only seconds earlier.

  “Sano-san told me every single copy sold,” she says in lieu of expressing her concern for his digestion aloud, “and there’s two-thousand-five-hundred on back order.”

  “Mah, really?” the grey-haired man seems delighted, “What a debut!”

  Miyu sighs, and eats another mouthful of rice. She hadn’t done much except smile as she stood to the side with Sano-san, watching the chaos in stunned silence as the masses queued for Kakashi’s signature.

  “This celebratory dinner is definitely well deserved, I think,” Kakashi continues, propping an elbow atop the table to rest his chin atop his fist.

  “Congratulations on becoming a published author,” Miyu presses her lips together in an attempt to hide her smile. She doesn’t think she does a very good job, if the way Kakashi is eye-smiling at her is any indication.

  “Thank you,” he sounds pleased, “I think it also warrants dessert.”

  Miyu sighs, watching as he cheerfully orders from the waiter.

  “So, Katashi Hakate,” she says as solemnly as she can, “when can I get your autograph?”

  He chuckles, cocking his head to the side. She gets the distinct impression that he’s smirking beneath his mask.

  “Anytime you like, Miyu. Tell me where you want it.”

  He just can’t help the innuendos, can he?

  Swallowing her last mouthful of miso soup, Miyu ignores the heat rising to her cheeks and the amused spark in his visible eye. The henohenomoheji on his eyepatch is smiling too, annoyingly.

  Dessert is set between them, and Miyu reaches for her tea. She shuts her eyes as she takes a sip, hoping to give Kakashi more time to eat. Though, she wonders if he deserves whatever indigestion he gets by cramming food down way too fast.

  “Miyu,” his voice prompts her to reopen her eyes, waiting for him to go on.

  “I… I do have something to ask of you.”

  She sits a little straighter, sets her tea on the table between them, and gives him her full attention. His shoulders are slouched a little, and he raises his hand to rub at the back of his neck, seeming apprehensive.

  “My clan…” he trails off. Miyu waits.

  “I want it to be re-established.”

  She nods, setting her elbows on the table top, twining her hands.

  “Talk to me,” she leaves no room for argument, “I’m more than willing to help.”

  “It’s… sort of a big undertaking. I’ve been ignoring it since, well…” he trails off again, and Miyu finds herself a little at a loss. Kakashi has, in her experience, always been steady, calm – as though he’s seen worse, been worse – and he deals with most situations with either dry humour or outright jovial piss-takery.

  “Kakashi,” she keeps her voice soft, seeking out his gaze. “You literally saved my life. Whatever it is you want – tell me. I’ll make it happen.”

  They sit for a moment, eyes locked, the curl of steam from their teacups rising between them in soft-scented drifts.

  “The Hatake were never a large clan,” his voice is low, and he averts his eyes to the table top between them. “But – the village remembers a time when they were prosperous, well-respected, present in everyday life. It’s why, even now, years after my father-”

  Miyu sits, and waits, as he halts himself. Watches as he takes a few deep breaths.

  “After all this time, the village remembers. I want –” he looks up again, meets her gaze, “- Miyu… I want to make it worthy of that respect.”

  She gives him another ten seconds to add something. When he doesn’t, she takes a deep breath.

  “Okay,” she begins, “I can’t promise I’m going to be good at this. I’ve managed an Okiya, and my own investments, but I can learn how to do… whatever it is a matriarch does, I think.”

  His shoulders ease out of the tense line she hadn’t realised they’d been in.

  “I can go through the clan records,” she says, pursing her lips consideringly, “and we can keep things you like. It’d also be a good idea to jot down your primary goals.”

  She lifts her cup, tapping the rim with her fingers as she thinks.

  “For now, that’s probably what we should aim for,” she hums after taking a sip, “we can go from there. Do the Hatake have a clan compound?”

  Kakashi is silent for a moment, just staring at her.

  “Uh, yes. It’s been neglected for a while, though. Probably needs a lot of work.”

  “That’s good to know,” she gives him a small smile, and then sets her cup down again. “I know you’re busy becoming a famous author-”

  He huffs out a laugh at that.

  “-so I’ll try to do most of the groundwork before coming to you. I’ll be needing your approval for things, and I’m sure you want to oversee any decisions. Also, I have no idea what I’m doing, so I’m probably going to have a lot of questions.”

  Kakashi is watching her again, dark grey gaze unflinching. Though she thinks she’s gotten better at reading the small portion of his face that’s actually visible, she’s stumped here. It’s like looking at a blank shogi tile.

  She raises a brow, and he drops the expressionlessness to nod and shrug.

  “Whatever you need,” he says, “I am your fiancé now, Miyu.”

  “Perfect,” she shoves down the urge to blush, and though she’s not smiling with her mouth she’s sure her eyes convey the mix of anticipation and excitement she feels. “Bring everything to my apartment. We’ve got some research to do.”

  .

  When Miyu was six, her mother had explained what it meant to be clan. A rare moment of clarity from someone so bruised by life, a ghost in the body of a woman.

  “Clan means unity,” her mother had said, dark brown eyes grave, “in protection, in prosecution, in living…”

  She had trailed off then, and Miyu had braved the distance between them and reached for her hand. Her mother’s fingers had been cold – always so cold.

  But for the first time in what felt like forever, she had closed her hand around Miyu’s much smaller one, cementing the moment in her memory.

  “Are we clan, ma?”

  She had watched her mother’s expression shift, too rapidly for her to catch. Finally, it had settled on… dull acceptance.

  “No.”

  Her mother had kept watching the street before them as a procession passed by. At the edge of their district sat a long road leading to an old shrine. The people – a clan, she realised – were walking together in a sombre, dark line. A funeral.

  “To be a member of a clan is to share an identity. To hold each other accountable for values deemed worthy. To continue tradition, and start ones anew with each generation.”

  A woman had been wailing, she thinks. Children, hiccupping over sobs. She’d never been around so many well-dressed people before.

  Miyu hadn’t been looking at them, though.

  Her gaze was stuck to her mother’s pretty, sunken face. Watching her pale features, drinking in the long sweep of her lashes and the ugly, mottled bruising along her jaw. Greedy for the emotion she could see in the woman’s eyes, usually so flat and distant.

  She had thought herself terrible, even then, to have thirsted for the flicker of sorrow in the downturn of cracked lips, the tug of her brow, pulling at a cut over her left temple scabbed and bruised. But to see this woman - this distant, empty woman - come alive with something, gods.

  Miyu had only squeezed the hand in hers lightly, even though she had wanted to clutch at it desperately. It had been so long since anyone had held her, or smiled at her, or called her anything but girl.

  Don’t show what you truly feel.

  In the street that day, it had taken every ounce of her six-year-old will to keep still. Her free hand stayed clenched in her thin, threadbare yukata, eyes burning as she resisted the urge to blink, lest she miss something.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  Once, her mother had called her my sweet, my darling, my lovely baby.

  That mother was gone now, lost to swinging fists and their damp, dark house, in the district the capital forgot.

  Clan, she had thought, not daring to look away from her mother. Unity. That meant together, right? Miyu had remembered wondering what it was like to have a group of people – no, even just one other person – by her side.

  Looking back on the memory makes her feel cold, and small. It’s something that’s stuck with her from a time before shogi.

  To be fair, most of those memories hurt to think about. Who had she been, before that old man had taken pity on her after the fifth time she’d packed stock on his shelves for a chance to earn a book, or a pencil to take to school?

  What had her days been like before that boy had moved in, one alleyway over?

  Cold, and quiet. An empty, dirty house. Stained tatami, barely any electricity or running water. Festival fireworks from the window of her tiny old room, shivering in the chill of winter, or sweating and thirsty in the lingering heat of the summer sun.

  Miyu, alone.

  Her mother, a room over, staining the tatami with blood, eyes so very distant.

  Her father, drunk and passed out in the hallway, an obstacle to clear in order to check if her mother was still breathing.

  A ceiling, blank and plain, no tiles or board or shogi.

  Dread and hurt and sorrow curl in her gut at the thought.

  Never again.

  She won’t ever be clan by blood. This engagement had been to save her life, and nothing more.

  But – If Miyu can help raise this clan from the forgotten shadows, she will. If in doing this, she can help children lost to other forgotten places, she will.

  The Hatake will be a noble clan again, living up to the name that has lasted them generations.

  .

  Miyu skims the scroll, pencil tapping absently on the open notebook set beside her. She jots down a few points, still reading, and reaches for another scroll.

  Her hand pats at empty space for a few moments before calloused fingers close around her wrist gently, guiding it to the smooth surface of a scroll.

  “Thank you,” she murmurs absently, still writing as she unfurls the new one with her left hand. It neatly replaces the one before her, and she fiddles briefly with the previous scroll before managing to re-roll it.

  “Gods, it’s like watching three clones merged into one person.”

  She barely blinks at the sound of Shisui’s voice.

  “Hn,” Itachi’s hum is affectionate.

  “How long’s she been at it?” his cousin asks, and she sees a curly head of hair lean into her periphery.

  “About two hours,” Itachi replies with – is that pride in his tone?

  “I can hear you both, you know,” she continues writing, reading as she goes.

  “What are you focused so intently on?” Shisui sounds intrigued.

  “A history of Hatake contracts with tradesmen, a thesis on clan microeconomics in Konoha, and an updated list of artisans in the village and surrounding towns,” she replies, eyes grazing the bottom of the scroll.

  She reaches for another, and finds it being pressed into the palm of her hand before she can fully extend her arm.

  “Thanks, love,” she murmurs, flipping a page in her notebook and continuing to write as she unrolls the new scroll, beginning to read while she re-rolls the old one.

  “How are you doing that?” Shisui is leaning onto the coffee table now, peering at the scroll she’s reading, and then at the notebook she’s writing in. “You’re not even taking notes! You’re – gods, are you writing out a strategy?”

  “I’ve had practice,” she smiles, “I used to manage Nanami’s correspondence. When I had tournaments coming up, I liked to practice games while I worked. This isn’t so different.”

  “You… played shogi? While you responded to suitors?” Itachi sounds amused.

  “I was reading the correspondence, not writing. And not always,” she spares a glance up to smile at him. He’s reclining in the armchair, looking at her with such fondness on his face, so out in the open that it makes her cheeks feel hot.

  She looks back down to her scroll, and then flips another page in her notebook.

  “Sometimes I’d just write games to play out later.”

  “Just,” Shisui imitates her voice, badly, “oh, look at me, resident multitasking genius, so unfazed by the literal stacks of information waiting for me-”

  “Stop terrorizing Miyu,” Izumi’s voice interrupts Shisui, “go make us tea or something.”

  “Hey,” Miyu glances up again to smile at the woman, “you made it!”

  “Of course,” she nods, eyeing the setup before her with a quirked brow, “now a good time?”

  “Yes, just give me a moment.” Miyu finishes the scroll before her, writes a few more sentences, and then sets the pencil down. She re-rolls the scroll, and puts it in the read pile.

  Then she stretches her arms above her head, sighing as she shifts from side to side.

  “Thanks for coming,” she lifts a hand to cover her mouth as she yawns, “are you hungry? We made dumplings over the weekend, and froze more than I know what to do with.”

  Izumi shrugs, “I could eat.”

  “Perfect,” Miyu grins over at Shisui, “dumplings and tea, please!”

  “Damn you,” he pouts, “you know I can’t say no to you.”

  Miyu rolls her eyes and looks back to Izumi, “Itachi used clones to help me fold them. We made hundreds. Actually…” she gets up, and opens her pantry. From it she pulls six scrolls.

  Izumi only blinks at her as she sets them on the coffee table.

  “Storage scrolls?” she raises a brow, “Can you even open these?”

  “Nope,” Miyu grins, “go on, unseal one!”

  She watches with excited focus as Izumi unfurls one. With a puff of smoke, two containers of frozen dumplings, a small satchel of tea, two airtight disposable bottles of soy sauce and black vinegar, and a pair of chopsticks appear.

  “Look, look,” Miyu leans over the table, perched on her knees, “the containers are made so you can steam the dumplings in them! All you need is some water – Itachi tried using some from a water technique, and it worked.”

  Izumi is nodding, looking impressed, “I know a steam technique that would work perfectly for this.”

  Miyu almost vibrates out of her skin with excitement, “No way!”

  She looks between Izumi and the scrolls, and then asks, pleadingly, “Can we write it down on the lids, please?”

  “Miyu-” Itachi sounds like he’s about to reprimand her.

  “Oh, please, Izumi? The instructions can be easily destroyed with the containers, and it’d just be for our friends for now!”

  Izumi levels her with a considering stare.

  “Make another dozen for me and you have a deal.”

  Miyu has to stop herself from bouncing in place excitedly, “Thank you! Sealing is amazing, isn’t it? Naruto sat with me for an hour to get this one right, look-”

  She shoves the contents of the scroll to the side and points to the seal.

  “See here? We wanted to go for compact storage so that nothing spilled over with too much space for the contents to move around. Naruto says that all the food will be preserved exactly as it’s been put in.”

  She points to a character on one of the outer circles, “This, once activated, will destroy anything resealed instantly. Naruto said that activating this,” she points to another character, “will switch that function off. It can be done like flicking a light switch, and will maintain its form so long as it’s not damaged.”

  “You’re telling me this thing is basically a portable way to destroy evidence, right? And it’s reusable?” Izumi seems more interested now, leaning in to peer at the thick swirls of ink. “Pity I can’t make sense of any of it.”

  “What do you mean?” Miyu traces the outline of the seal, “This is the foundation. It holds the structure of the seal and the bulk of the latent chakra, and also helps channel power into the finer points of the design.”

  She awed at how beautiful it is, while still being functional. It’s made up of pieces that are intended to move, every stroke on the page a cog within a system, spurned into action by a prod of chakra. It’s stunning. It makes sense.

  “See here? This ensures stability within the pocket dimension, and this,” her finger hovers over the array trailing inwards, “is the link between the scroll and its contents. This is the stabiliser, and here-”

  “You picked this up in an hour?” Izumi isn’t looking at the scroll anymore. Her rich brown eyes are focused on Miyu’s face.

  “I’ve been doing some reading on the side. Someone from my calligraphy class gave me a few references,” she deflects with a smile, “sorry, I’ve been rambling-”

  “Don’t apologise,” Izumi interrupts, “you’re brilliant, you know that?”

  Miyu hopes desperately that she’s not blushing.

  “I still couldn’t make a single working seal if I wanted to,” she eases back down until she’s sitting properly again, “I can’t manipulate chakra the way ninja can.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that you could probably recreate a dozen types of seals already.”

  Miyu glances over her shoulder, checking on Shisui’s progress.

  “Gods, you can, can’t you?”

  She really does blush now, “Probably not-”

  “Oh, don’t downplay it, you definitely can,” Izumi is laughing now, “trust Itachi to end up with a person who’s naturally more of a genius than he is! Hah!”

  She’s saved by Itachi as he sets the tray laden with tea and snacks to the side of the table.

  “I hear that the matriarchs will be extending an invitation soon,” Miyu unsubtly shifts the conversation in another direction entirely.

  “Oh? From who?” Izumi is giving Itachi an unimpressed stare.

  “Chikako-san,” Miyu smiles against the rim of her teacup, “though she’s still terribly cagey regarding her sources.”

  “All espionage agents are,” Itachi comments, a half-smile on his face.

  “Well, I can confirm at least that much for you,” Izumi sighs, running a hand through her long hair before reaching for her tea. “I don’t know whether you’re lucky that Mikoto is the only matriarch who understands how this whole situation with Kakashi happened, or whether you’re spectacularly unlucky.”

  Miyu averts her gaze to the table top between them.

  “She knows?”

  It makes something within her… unravel. A part of her had been screaming since the moment it happened – about how it would make her seem to the Uchiha. Spurned by them, and suddenly engaged to another man despite the supposed connection she had claimed with their clan heir.

  She’s… relieved. Mikoto may still dislike her, but she knows the truth at least.

  “Yes,” Izumi sighs briefly, “Fugaku told her, of course.”

  Miyu slants a questioning look to Itachi.

  “My mother,” he begins, stiff, “is very… invested… in the events surrounding you.”

  “Also, she’s got her dear husband wrapped around her finger,” Izumi snorts. “You really hit a few sore spots with her, Miyu.”

  “Sore spots?” she looks to her friend, cocking her head in question.

  “The previous clan head,” Itachi sounds like he’s reciting from a book. His voice is flat and unfeeling. “Had a son and a daughter. His son – the heir – died in the third shinobi war.”

  Miyu watches the careful blankness of his face, and takes a sip of tea to assuage her suddenly dry throat.

  “His daughter was trained to assume the role of clan head. But upon her marriage to a lesser branch of the family, her father decided that her husband would become the head of our clan instead.”

  Miyu scarcely dares to breathe. Gods.

  She’s surprised that her voice doesn’t break, “So Fugaku-”

  “Is the son of a lesser family,” Izumi confirms.

  “And Mikoto-”

  “Is the…” Itachi pauses, and then lets out a long, low breath, “rightful heir of the Uchiha clan. Or, well. She had been, before my grandfather… rescinded the title.”

  “Rescinded,” Izumi says dryly, “more like tore it from beneath her feet. Sexist prick.”

  “I gotta say,” Shisui speaks up for the first time in a while, startling Miyu as he sets the heaped tray of dumplings on the table, “old man Daikichi was a rather spectacular… ah, how would you put it, Itachi?”

  “Asshole,” Itachi deadpans.

  Miyu manages to keep her reaction minimal in that she only inhales sharply, right at the moment she had been about to take another sip of tea. She coughs, yanked just barely out of the spray of tea that comes from Izumi’s mouth as she bursts into laughter.

  Itachi has not only pulled her out of the way of the tea-laugh, he’s also managed to make sure she hasn’t spilt any from her own cup.

  Shisui is standing beside the table, a shit-eating grin on his face and the tray of dumplings balanced in one hand, rescued from the Izumi-hydrant.

  “Oh my gods,” Miyu chokes as Itachi pats her back, dead-eyed.

  “Shisui you dick,” Izumi is wiping the mess she made, grinning like a madwoman, “I wish your grandad was the clan head instead.”

  “Me too,” Itachi adds, “Kagami-san always did have a great sense of humour.”

  “He did not!” Shisui protests, setting the tray down, “Gramps was sadistic as hell! He almost killed me on the daily-”

  He stops himself as Izumi and Itachi share a pointed look.

  “Okay, to be fair you all almost killed me on the daily, but-”

  “Will you lot stop bickering?” Ensui’s voice comes out of nowhere, startling Miyu badly enough that she inhales the sip of tea she had intended to clear her throat.

  “Ah, sorry Miyu. Let’s stop wasting time. We have a matriarch meeting debrief to conduct.”