She steps out onto the streets of Konoha with Sakura by her side. As they walk towards what must be the bank, she points out their unmistakeable Hokage monument, as well as the area of their most popular shopping districts.

  “The clan compounds are out of the central zone,” she explains, “the Nara take up the north west along with a large chunk of forest and research labs. The Yamanaka, the west and a section of greenhouses. The Inuzuka are south west with the veterinary district in their compound.”

  Miyu listens to the chatter, grateful that she doesn’t have to speak about herself. Konoha passes her by in a haze of colour that doesn't register.

  They make it to the bank and stand in line only for five minutes. Sakura keeps talking, and Miyu knows she’s trying to keep her distracted until they’re in private.

  “Sugawara Miyu,” she says to the teller, “I’d like access to my account. Unfortunately, I have no identification with me, and will need to submit my security key.”

  The teller is not talkative, and efficiently hands her the forms.

  Miyu fills them out with her complicated key. It’s a combination of shogi moves, an ever-shifting rotation that will never be the same at any bank she goes to.

  She hands it in and within five minutes has a pouch borrowed from Sakura, full of cash.

  They make for the markets.

  She buys clothes, underwear, her essentials. Kitchenware, cleaning and laundry supplies. A shogi set, groceries. The list in her mind gets smaller and smaller. Their purchases are sealed in little scrolls that sit in a pouch strapped to Sakura’s thigh.

  “Furniture?” Sakura cocks her pretty head, “Oh, don't worry about that. Sasuke’s taking care of it. He should have your apartment ready soon.”

  Miyu wants to ask how but decides against it. He’s an Uchiha, and this is Konoha. The answer would probably just depress her.

  They buy her linens next, accounting for a bed. Sakura picks out the sizes, and Miyu chooses neutral colours. Towels, tea-towels, and face washers.

  They stop at a shoe store last, and Miyu buys more than she probably needs. Both traditional geta and more practical sandals and heels. Even a pair of boots with winter approaching.

  At a signal of some kind that Miyu can’t make out, Sakura leads her out of the shopping district. They walk for only ten minutes before they make it to a well-kempt apartment block. It looks new, with impeccable white paint on the exterior and a dark red roof. It’s ten or so stories high, and when Sakura leads them inside they go up nine flights of stairs before stopping at a door marked nine-zero-three.

  Miyu takes a deep breath before stepping in behind her chaperone.

  The floors are all hardwood, and as they take their shoes off in the entrance the differences to the Okiya leap out at her. The kitchen is to the left against the furthermost wall, with a dining table in the far left corner. To the right is the lounge and living area, a large open space with a bookcase along the wall and a sliding glass door that leads to the balcony.

  There’s a corridor at the end of the open living space, which Miyu finds leads to her bedroom and its connecting ensuite, a main bathroom, a guest bedroom, and a laundry room. It’s more space than she’s ever had to herself before.

  “Shall we?” Sakura asks, pulling the various scrolls out as another six versions of her pop into existence.

  They get to work.

  .

  When she’s finally alone, she takes a moment to survey the apartment again. It’s painfully sparse, and a glance towards the empty window frame by the kitchen sink reminds her sharply that even Popo-chan is gone now.

  There’s not much for her to do. Sakura had used her clones to unpack the clothes she’d brought. The two of them had organised the kitchen and the linen cupboard. With the groceries packed, the only thing left is to make her bed.

  She’s never had a bed before. Always a futon.

  Getting the fitted cover on is work for her exhausted body, but it’s distracting enough. She enters her ensuite for the first time, already stocked with anything she could possibly need by Sakura.

  She turns a tap, and steps under the sudden stream fully clothed. The water is cold, but she refuses to let herself jerk away from it.

  The clothes Sakura lent her aren’t heavy even when drenched, and she thinks distantly that they must be special ninja-grade cloth.

  Her body starts to tremble, and she can’t fool herself into thinking it’s because of the water that’s gradually warming.

  But here, alone in the shower, Miyu has nothing left.

  To do - to distract - from the sudden gaping hole that was her life at the Okiya.

  Her breaths are coming in short pants now, and she leans against the cold tiles as her eyes sting and blur. She can almost pretend it’s a response to the steam that’s steadily rising in the room.

  A sob tears out of her chest, and she slides down the wall as her knees buckle. The water is too hot now, and the steam is making it hard to breathe, but she lets the discomfort ground her.

  In the corner of her blurry gaze she sees shifting shogi pieces against the bathroom wall. She refuses to look, but she knows exactly what they’re playing out.

  The game at the Fire Festival. On repeat, each shift of a piece accompanied by a feeling, a sentence, vivid flashes - details that she doesn’t want to remember. But she can’t stop, can’t breathe, and the board is so loud –

  Miyu squeezes her eyes shut, hands pressing into her temples to alleviate the pressure that keeps building and building and building -

  She barely registers when the water starts to turn lukewarm, and then ice cold.

  Doesn’t notice when her teeth start to chatter, body wracked with shivers.

  Can’t block out the game or the memories or the grief as Nanami and Masa and Mother and Kikyo roll through her aching head. She wants to memorise them, every single detail, before they blur into her past like her mother and the old grocer and a boy with dirty blonde hair and pale green eyes and -

  Distantly she hears a knock on the door she hadn’t realised she’d closed behind her.

  “Miyu?”

  The sound of her name filters into her head, and she realises suddenly how cold she is.

  “Miyu, is everything alright?”

  She can’t recognise the voice over how loud her thoughts are.

  “I’m fine,” her voice is husky and her throat feels too tight.

  “I’m going to come in-”

  “I’m fine,” she repeats louder. “I’ll be out soon.”

  Her legs shake hard as she pushes herself upright and begins to strip out of her soaking clothes. The water is frigid and her limbs are almost numb with cold, but she forces herself through the motions and washes herself as thoroughly as she can, scrubbing at her hair with shaking hands and hoping she gets the muted twang of smoke off her.

  The shampoo is scented like pomegranate, her body wash like vanilla, and conditioner like pears. They’re new scents, and she doesn’t know whether to be grateful or upset that they don’t quite match those at the Okiya.

  She exits the shower and dries herself thoroughly. Hesitates at the door, because someone is in her house and she’d forgotten a change of clothes.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Miyu wraps the towel around her and secures it. Her hair is heavy and wet as it hangs down her back, and her brush is at her sit-down dresser.

  She opens the door and tries not to jump out of her skin at the sight of a figure reclining on her bed. At the sight of grey hair she relaxes, because Kakashi is apparently a friend to Itachi and that’s better than a stranger.

  “Ah. So you are human, after all.”

  Miyu knows she looks a mess. Her eyes are stinging and her nose is red and she’s still shivering and pale from the cold water.

  Kakashi is lounging on her bed, one hand behind his head, the other holding a book open in his lap.

  “What made you think I wasn’t?” Her voice is thick and scratchy, and she’s still shivering even as she makes her way to her dresser to pull some clothes out.

  “Oh, not much,” his tone is light as he flips a page leisurely, “just the unnerving composure under what must be a very traumatic situation.”

  Miyu’s hands clench around the jumper she’s chosen, and she forces herself to continue completing her little tasks before she can have another episode.

  Jumper – done.

  Underwear – done.

  Pants – done.

  “You should probably brush your hair,” Kakashi comments offhandedly, “those tangles don’t look fun.”

  Miyu snatches her brush off her dresser and re-enters the bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind her.

  She dresses, still shivering. Starting from her ends, she brushes out her hair and tries to towel dry it as much as she can. Then she brushes her teeth and tries to ignore the clinking of pieces at her right ear.

  Picking up the soaking clothes lent to her by Sakura, she exits the bathroom again. Kakashi is nowhere in sight, but she can hear someone rummaging around in her kitchen.

  She goes into her laundry, shoves the wet clothes into the wash, and then doubles back to her room. Gathering armfuls of her new clothes, she takes them to the washing machine and shoves in as much as it allows.

  She adds detergent and turns it on before heading out to the kitchen.

  Kakashi is making tea. Miyu stands at the island and tries not to shiver.

  “Here,” he sets a steaming cup into her hands, “your lips are blue, by the way.”

  She presses them into a line and hopes he doesn’t read despair in the lines of her face.

  “Thank you,” she murmurs, walking over to her couch. Sasuke has good taste, because the leather is smooth and buttery and when she sits it gently accommodates her without being too soft.

  She sips at the tea. It’s pretty terrible, but it helps warm her hands and her mouth at least.

  Kakashi must be taking extra care to project the sound of his footsteps as he seats himself on the armchair – a choice Miyu realises that allows him a good vantage point of the entrances to the apartment.

  His book appears again, and Miyu can only be grateful that she doesn’t have to talk. The board is still there in the corner of her eye, and though it burns a little she forces her palms into contact with the hot porcelain of her mug to keep herself present.

  She can smell oolong, though the cup in her hands bears jasmine tea. Her sweater is dark blue but it feels pale lilac and – gods - she’s going to spiral again if she doesn’t –

  “Take a deep breath,” Kakashi’s deep voice leaves no room for argument. It’s an order, one she makes herself obey.

  Closing her eyes, she inhales slowly. She can see the board on the back of her eyelids, and it makes her feel like crying again because it won’t stop.

  “You’re doing well,” he comments, and she somehow feels like he’s struck a balance between seeming uncaring while actively helping.

  “Am I?” Her voice wavers, and her eyes are hot and stinging again when she opens them. “I feel like a fucking mess.”

  She half-hiccups, squeezing her mug hard in an effort to compose herself.

  “I apologise for my language,” she says shortly, and yep, there goes the knight, and she feels the swish of her hair coming loose from her pin.

  “Don’t,” his authoritative voice cuts through her attempted posturing, “we’re in your home. Do whatever you want.”

  She chokes out a laugh at that, spilling her tea over her fingers and onto her lap as she does, because this isn’t home. In an instant the cup is gone, placed on the table before her as Kakashi procures a tea towel from nowhere to wipe her hands and her legs.

  “If I do what I want, it’ll never stop,” her voice breaks and she feels herself creeping closer to hysteria, the clicking of the shogi pieces against her wall keep getting louder and it’s getting harder and harder to focus on the man crouching before her, holding her hands in his own.

  “Look at me.” He orders, and she tears her gaze away from where she’d been about to look at the board again.

  His dark grey eye is solemn, “Do you know who did it?”

  The pressure at her temples intensifies and Miyu finds herself incapable of responding. How can she respond? What would she even say?

  Yes, I do. It was my idiocy that did it. Lit the fire and barred the doors and windows, and rode into the sunset with my future.

  It sounds less mad than declaring the most powerful man in the country cared enough about her to want her and everyone else in the Okiya dead.

  So she nods around the headache blooming into existence, and wishes that he would squeeze her hands a little harder to keep her anchored in their conversation.

  She stares in the general vicinity of Kakashi’s face and resolutely tries to ignore the pieces shifting on the wall over his right shoulder. As it is, she struggles to hear him over the sound of Makishima’s footsteps as he swept out of the hall.

  “What can you tell me?” Kakashi is tilting his head now, trying to catch her eye.

  It’s just so hard to figure out what’s real and what’s not when everything is so loud.

  “There’s nothing you can do,” she feels disconnected from the sound of her own voice, “nothing anyone can do.”

  The man before her is silent for a moment, hands still cradling hers.

  “What makes you say that?” He’s doing his best to stop her dissociation and she tries hard to help him.

  “The man responsible is untouchable.”

  His eye crinkles in a way that indicates a smile.

  “No one is untouchable, Miyu-san.”

  She clenches her fists and he clenches right back. A silent promise to keep her as present as possible.

  “Touching this man would have consequences,” she manages to get out, voice flat and dull, “even for someone as esteemed as your Hokage.”

  She watches distantly as his eye loses its crinkle. Can vaguely appreciate its sudden seriousness.

  “How did you get a target on your back from someone like that?”

  Pieces, shifting. The sound of a condescending tone. The cool feel of the board, the scent of incense in the room. Her clothes, stiff and expensive. Hot breath at her neck. The feeling of eyes, so many eyes - on her.

  “I was a fool,” her voice is thick now and she can feel herself slipping, “what did I think I was doing?”

  She pulls her hands away from him, presses them to her temples and tries to block everything out.

  “Gods, I may as well have signed my life away the moment he asked for a game,” her voice is rising as everything rushes in, the sounds and smells and the way she felt – colours and looks and physical sensation.

  “They’re all dead because I couldn’t just – oh gods-”

  Hands, pulling hers away from her head, fingers pressing hard into the insides of her wrists.

  “Breathe with me now,” she can hear a voice but she feels like she is the board, waiting anxiously for a piece to slide over her and crush her. Would she die instantly? Suffocate slowly? How long until she couldn’t do this anymore –

  “Miyu, listen-”

  She can’t see out of her blurry, burning eyes, and her chest is so tight it’s physically painful.

  “-you need to try and concentrate on me-”

  “It was a true challenge.”

  Her last words to the Daimyo ring through her head, sharp and final. She should have shut her mouth and taken his insults with more smile and less sass.

  Gods, the anger she felt that evening makes her feel too hot, too frustrated, and the tears that plague her change flavour to accommodate that.

  “-going to make yourself-”

  It’s too much, too bright, and she wants it to stop so she can dedicate herself to memorising –

  Oh, gods, they’re really dead, and Miyu’s not but she should be – it was never meant to be their punishment but of course –

  She feels young and small again, just a girl lying in her dingy room listening to her father raging on the day that her mother hit the ground and never got up again.

  A little older, watching her friend’s back as he tried to guard her from the chaos, watching frozen as he gets struck down.

  So loud, so vivid, and she just wants it to end.

  And then she sees red.

  .

  “- do you mean you put her under genjutsu?”

  Miyu’s consciousness filters back to her slowly.

  “She was bad, you didn’t see it. You weren’t here, remember?”

  Silence.

  “Thank you for watching over her,” comes the stiff response.

  “What happened to make the Daimyo decide to murder her?” The question is so blunt she almost emerges from the last dregs of sleep to snap back a dry retort.

  “She’s the shogi player.”

  A moment of silence.

  “Ah. I should have suspected. Sasuke was unusually diligent about a woman he didn’t seem to know.”

  “I told him nothing. But my little brother listens to the gossip as much as any ninja.”

  Little brother? Then that must mean –

  She forces her eyes open, and then inhales sharply as the soft light from the kitchen makes her head pound. Someone has laid her out on the couch and placed a blanket over her.

  Miyu blinks as she takes in the coffee table and armchairs, and then shakily tries to push herself upright.

  Another blink, and Itachi is right there, crouching before her with his hands extended to help her.

  The relief is unmatched. Her arms go weak and she tilts forward, knowing that he won’t let her fall.

  “Itachi,” she murmurs, cheek resting in the crook of his neck, lips skimming the side of his throat. His arms have come up around her, and they’re steady and strong.

  “Miyu,” she barely catches his whisper, but she doesn’t think she’s ever felt so safe in her life.

  “I wasn’t sure where you were,” her hands come up to fist in the back of his shirt. “I didn’t think anyone would tell me, so I didn’t ask.”

  A soft laugh huffed into her hairline.

  “Clever. I was meant to be out of the village for another week but Sasuke got word to me so…”

  She’s suddenly even more inclined to like his little brother. If he hadn’t showed up, hadn’t helped her, she doesn’t want to think where she’d be right now.

  “He has been so kind to me,” she lets her eyes close and just enjoys the feeling of Itachi holding her. “His team, too. But Kakashi thought I wasn’t human. Rude, don’t you think?”

  From somewhere behind her – in her… kitchen? – a chuckle sounds.

  “I stand corrected,” he sounds like he’s smiling. “You’re just more like Itachi than I realised anyone else could be.”

  She feels Itachi’s huff as it tickles her forehead. But her eyes are already heavy and she’s way more comfortable than she’s been in a while.

  “We should get you to bed. You’re falling asleep,” she can hear the smile in his voice.

  “Hmm,” she feels his arm slide under her knees and then she’s being lifted effortlessly.

  “You’ll stay, right?” She yawns, barely registering their movement before he’s setting her down onto her bed.

  Oh, she owes Sasuke. It’s firm but supple, and makes her feel as though she’s floating. The sheets are silky and breathable, but warm as Itachi pulls the blanket over her.

  “Of course,” his lips skim her ear as he leans down to tuck her in.

  She drifts off, exhausted, with the feel of his fingertips brushing at her forehead.