@withouteeth said: “ do you know what i've done ? what i would do again if given the chance ? ”
Stray cub, where is your pack? Mikoto had played witness to more than her fair share of orphaned, bruised and lost things, but motherhood had brought complacency as well as sons, the Uchiha compound a buffer between her and the world beyond the reach of its bloodlines, her home a respite from the death beneath her nails. Even trips to clan territories now were sterile compared to the muddied chaos of the great lands before her retirement, before the war was won.
She had softened against the world’s cruelties; her heart wilted at the sight of a boy no older than her own heir, poorly fed and poorly clothed, pawing his way through her bag of Sora-Ku blades and garrote wire and accelerants (a birthday present for Itachi, who was going through his village grade weapons faster than he did shoes) at dawn’s break. The child was blessed it was only her here, for other Uchiha may not have been so assiduous as to see the face of their thief before executing them.
The matriarch was gentle in her approach, her locutions, her inquiries, and opened a bento with slow, slow movements, listening to his declarations with the patience only a mother could have. Abandoned children are as skittish as kicked dogs, she remembered, I must not frighten him any more than he already is.
“I do not... But as a shinobi, I am no saint, little one. I would not pass judgement on your sins even if I did,” Mikoto assured, cadences low and casual as if they were neither strangers or having a strange conversation. An onigiri is offered upon an outstretched pale palm, her other hand resting upon the top of her thigh to prove her lack of throat-slitting intent. “Would you like one?”
