Chapter 46: My Best Friend, the Legendary Mikoto Uchiha!

[Ding!]

[Weekly Sign-in available!]

[Signing in…]

[Obtained: Drunken Blade!]

Name: Mikoto Uchiha

Age: 14

Rank: Jonin

Affinity: Lightning Affinity, Fire Affinity, Yin Affinity, Water Affinity, Earth Affinity

Unique: Immense Chakra Reserves, Sharingan (Three Tomoe), Advanced Growth Rate

Skills: Fire Style Mastery, Water Style Mastery, Lightning Style Mastery, Yin Style Mastery, Earth Style Mastery, Shurikenjutsu, Elite Taijutsu (Ninja Art: Bare-Handed Blade Block), Superb Genjutsu, Ninjutsu (Body Flicker, Advanced Body Flicker, Clone Jutsu, Substitution Jutsu, Transformation Jutsu, Ninja Art: Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu, Amplified Summoning Jutsu, Shadow Clone Jutsu), Perfect Chakra Control (Chakra Enhanced Strength), Kenjutsu (Uchiha Style: Kenjutsu, Drunken Blade), Stealth, Survival Knowledge, Cooking, Medical Ninjutsu (Mystical Palm, Chakra Scalpel, Poison Extraction Jutsu, Body Pathway Derangement Jutsu, Regenerative Healing Jutsu, Mystical Healing Field Jutsu), Fūinjutsu Mastery (Sealing Jutsu: Release), Pedagogy Mastery, Space-Time Ninjutsu Mastery, Seven Heavens Breathing Method, Musical Talent, Craftsmanship Aptitude, Needle Mastery

Equipment: Kunai, Shuriken, Senbon, Smoke Bomb, Explosive Tags, Poison Gas Bomb, Flash Bomb, Gas/Sleep Bomb, Food Pills x84, Wire Strings, Shark Skin, Gunbai, Bingo Book, Fūma Shuriken x74, Hero Water x4, Superior Frying Pan

“Ah?!” Mikoto exclaimed at the sudden ding. 

As the knowledge flowed into her head, a disgruntled look appeared on her face. While the new kenjutsu technique was cool, she was a minor! Even if she was a shinobi, that didn’t mean she could do adult things like drinking and gambling. So, she wouldn’t even be able to test that sword style until she became an adult! Not to mention, it was dangerous to use as well.

Sure, she would become completely unpredictable, that went both ways. To both her allies and her enemies! She wouldn’t be in control of herself and would be a danger to everyone around her. Mikoto shook her head. No way. No way. She couldn’t touch a single drop of alcohol. Who knows what she might reveal or do while under the influence? Too dangerous!

…

A message came while Mikoto was eating breakfast.

A genin caught her at the clan compound, slightly out of breath, and handed over a scroll with a seal on it. Her own genin were stood down for the week, Nawaki off visiting Tsunade, Yoshino and Tsume each home with their families, the squad on rest. So when a jonin-sensei got pulled away on a sudden mission and left a genin team without a leader, and there happened to be a free jonin sitting around the village healing people and blowing glass and teaching others, somebody upstairs had done the obvious math.

The slip told her she'd be temporarily leading Team Eleven. A C-rank, out the gate, low-risk. Report to the Mission Assignment Desk that morning to meet the squad and collect the details.

She read the team roster, and then she read it again, and then she smiled.

Team Eleven. Genin. Three members.

One of them was Kushina Uzumaki.

"Oh." Mikoto chuckled to herself. "She's going to lose her mind."

…

The Mission Assignment Desk was busy that morning.

It was a big, high-ceilinged room with the kanji for shinobi painted overhead and a long table where the desk clerks handed out the day's work, a banner on the front that read mission assignment this way and another up top that said everybody, do your best. Teams filed through in clumps. Genin grumbling about D-ranks, chunin collecting scrolls, the usual morning churn of a village at war that still had pets to catch and fences to mend.

Mikoto got there first. She stood off to the side and waited.

Two of her temporary genin arrived together.

One girl came in quietly, hands in the pockets of a high-collared coat that covered most of her, dark glasses hiding her eyes even indoors. Aburame. The boy beside her was the opposite, a young kid with a restless bounce to him, sharp eyes, the hood of his jacket up, sniffing at the air.

They spotted her. They knew who she was. Everyone knew who she was these days.

The boy stopped bouncing. The girl stopped walking.

"That's…" the boy started.

"Mikoto Uchiha…" the girl finished.

"The Red-Eyed Angel…" the boy breathed. His eyes lit up. "What's she doing here…?"

"Hi.” Mikoto waved at them. “You two are with me, I believe. Team Eleven?" Mikoto figured.

They both nodded like puppets on one string.

"You're our captain?" the boy said. His voice cracked on it. "For real? They gave us-" He grabbed the girl's sleeve and shook it. "Kaede. Kaede. They gave us the Red-Eyed Angel. We get the Red-Eyed Angel."

"Stop touching me." Kaede’s cheeks briefly turned red. “I know who we have.”

Their eyes were shining. Both of them, the loud one and the quiet one, looking at her like she'd stepped out of a story, and Mikoto felt a little awkward. Even with her own team, only Tsume still had that fan energy about her.

Eventually, Kushina arrived.

She came through the doors already talking, late and unbothered about it, and got three words into whatever excuse she was giving before she saw Mikoto standing there with her two teammates.

She stopped dead.

"Wha…" Kushina stammered.

"Hi, Kushina. Glad to see you finally showed up." Mikoto smiled.

"What are you doing here?" Her head swiveled to her teammates, to the mission slip in Mikoto's hand, back to Mikoto. She understood. "No. No. You're not. They didn't…"

"Temporary squad assignment," Mikoto said, holding up the slip. "Your sensei was busy. They needed someone free." She couldn't quite keep it off her face. "Looks like I'm your squad leader for this mission."

Kushina made a noise that wasn't a word.

"YOU'RE MY CAPTAIN?!" It came out at full volume and half the room turned to look. "MY BEST FRIEND IS MY CAPTAIN?! FOR A WHOLE MISSION?!"

"For a whole mission."

"Together? We're going on a mission together? You and me? Out of the village?"

"You, me, Kaede, and…" Mikoto looked at the boy.

"Rei!" the boy supplied, vibrating. "Izuno Rei!"

"Rei. The four of us."

Kushina grabbed two fistfuls of her own hair. For a second it looked like she might actually combust, the chakra in her practically crackling, her face going the exact red of her name. Then she rounded on Kaede and Rei with a finger jabbed at Mikoto.

"THAT'S my best friend!" Kushina announced to them, to the desk, to the whole high-ceilinged room. "THAT one. Right there. The Red-Eyed Angel. The one I told you about. The one EVERYONE said I was lying about. My best friend. MINE."

"You did say that…" Rei admitted, staring at Mikoto with naked awe. "We didn't, um. We didn't believe you."

"NOBODY believed me!"

"You also said you'd be Hokage too." Kaede mentioned.

"I WILL BE!"

"And that you could slaughter a den of bears."

"That was different, okay, that was still mostly true, " Kushina spun back to Mikoto, abandoning the bear subject entirely. "Tell them. Tell them we're best friends. Tell them right now."

Mikoto softly laughed. "We're best friends."

Kushina leaped into the air with both arms raised like she'd won a war.

The clerk at the desk had to clear his throat twice to get them to settle down enough to take the scroll.

"Team Eleven. C-rank. Wild animal suppression. The Land of Fire's had a boar problem along the eastern farm roads, large breed, aggressive, the size of a small bear and twice as mean. They've been wrecking crops, goring livestock, and there've been injuries to civilians on the trade routes. Several villages have filed complaints. The Daimyō's office finally pushed it up to us." He passed the scroll to Mikoto. "Cull the pack. Make the roads safe."

"How many boars?" Mikoto asked.

"Reports say a dozen, maybe more. One big one the farmers swear is the size of a cart." The clerk shrugged. "Farmers exaggerate. But not always. Good luck."

"We’ll get it done." Mikoto said, and signed for it.

Rei pumped his fist. "A real mission! Out the gate! With the Red-Eyed Angel! We're gonna be famous, Kaede, we're gonna be heroes!"

"We're going to fight pigs." Kaede corrected him.

"Pigs that are terrorizing the Land of Fire!"

Mikoto rolled the scroll up. "Okay, listen up Team 11. Big boars are not a joke. That size, that aggressive, in a pack? They've already hurt grown civilians and they'll hurt a genin just as easily if you get careless. Please treat this seriously or somebody might come home with a tusk through their leg, or worse." She let that circulate through their brains. "But yes. It'll be a good mission. You'll do fine if you listen."

"We'll listen!" Rei said.

"We'll listen." Kaede nodded.

"Good. Go home. Pack for the road, travel rations, a bedroll, your weapons and your kits. Get a full night's sleep. Meet me at the main gate at dawn, ready to move." She looked at them. "That means actually sleeping. Not staying up all night being excited. I'll know."

"Yes, Captain!" Rei saluted for the first time in his life. He never even gave a salute to his actual jonin sensei.

“Yes, Captain.” Kaede inclined her head and turned to go. Rei chased after her, already narrating how he was going to be the one who took down the cart-sized boar single-handed, Kaede telling him flatly that he was not and he was probably going to get the boar tusk through his leg. The two of them bickering their way out the door.

Which left Kushina, who had not moved, and who was looking at Mikoto with a grin that meant trouble.

"Go home and pack, Kushina."

"Yeah, yeah, in a minute. Hey." The grin widened. "You're free the rest of today, right? Mission's not till tomorrow?"

"...Why." Mikoto’s red eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Because you, my best friend, my CAPTAIN, are coming with me." Kushina grabbed her by the wrist. "There's some people who owe me an apology."

Kushina did not go home and pack.

Mikoto knew, the moment her wrist got grabbed, that no packing was going to happen for hours, and she let it. She'd been gone for so long. If Kushina wanted to drag her around the village all day, Kushina could drag her around the village all day.

What Kushina wanted, it turned out, was vindication.

"See, here's the thing," Kushina explained, towing Mikoto through the market by the wrist. "When you were off at the war becoming a big famous hero, I was stuck here. First as an academy student, and then a genin. And I'd tell people, I'd tell them, my best friend is Mikoto Uchiha, the Red-Eyed Angel, the one in the bingo books, and you know what they did? You know what they did, Mikoto?"

"They didn't believe you." Mikoto already knew the answer.

"THEY LAUGHED AT ME!" Kushina clarified. "They said, sure, Kushina, and I'm secretly the next Fourth Hokage. They said I made it up. They said the scary loud Uzumaki girl invented a famous friend because she didn't have any real ones." Her voice cracked just slightly on that last part. "So. We're going to go find some of those people. And you're going to stand there. And be famous. And be my best friend. That's all you have to do."

"Kushina…"

"You owe me. I kept your secret about, you know, the fact that you got a crush on-"

"You don't actually know anything!" Mikoto corrected her sharply.

"Good. I’m glad we came to an understanding." Kushina grinned. "Now come on."

The first one they found was a boy named Ryugi, leaning against a noodle stand with two other graduates from Kushina's class, all of them a year or two older. Ryugi saw Kushina coming and he frowned when he saw Kushina coming.

"Kushina… What do you want?" He asked.

He saw Mikoto. He stopped.

Mikoto watched the recognition crawl across his face. The red eyes. The large sword on her back, bandaged, distinctive. The fan on her hip with the clan crest. The flak jacket of a jonin on someone clearly too young to be one. The whole village had seen her come home in one of the largest crowds. There was no mistaking who she was.

Ryugi's mouth opened and closed. "That's the Red-Eyed Angel…"

"Yep." Kushina said, popping the P, radiant with malice.

"The actual… " He looked at Kushina. He looked at Mikoto. He looked at Kushina standing there with her arms crossed and her chin up and the most arrogant pompous expression a human face could wear. "You, you two are actually…"

"Best friends." Kushina said. "Since like forever. Like I told you. Like I told ALL of you. What was it you said again? Remind me. Something about how I made her up?"

"I…" Ryugi had gone a sick shade of pale. His two friends had taken a step back in fright. "I didn't… I mean, that was a joke, we were just…"

"Hello." Mikoto said pleasantly, because she felt a little bad for him. "I'm Mikoto. It's nice to meet Kushina's friends. Thanks for being friends with her while I was away."

That somehow made it worse. Ryugi looked like he wanted the earth to open up.

He gulped. "Kushina… I-look, I'm sorry, okay? About the, about saying you made it up."

"What was that?" Kushina cupped a hand to her ear. "I couldn't hear the apology over the sound of being COMPLETELY RIGHT this whole time."

"I'm sorry!" Ryugi said, louder. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you!"

"Apology considered." Kushina grinned like a shark. "Come on, Mikoto. There's more of them."

There were indeed more of them.

…

It took most of the afternoon.

Kushina had, it became clear, kept a list. A list of every classmate who'd laughed at her, every kid who'd called her a liar, every graduate who'd rolled their eyes when the loud Uzumaki girl started in again about her famous war-hero best friend. And she marched Mikoto to every single one of them.

A girl by the training grounds who'd told the whole class Kushina was pathetic for inventing imaginary friends. A pair of boys at the weapons shop who'd done an impression of Kushina that Kushina reenacted, furiously. A chunin, older, who'd once told Kushina to grow up and stop making up stories for attention, and who now stood there shaking Mikoto's hand and sweating through his shirt.

And at each stop, the same thing happened. The disbelief. The recognition. The pale, stammering walk-back. And Kushina, glowing, vindicated, finally and gloriously proven right in front of every person who'd ever doubted her.

Mikoto played her part. She was gracious. She shook hands and said nice things and let herself be the proof her friend had been waiting two years to produce. It cost her nothing and it clearly meant the world to Kushina, so she did it gladly, even when it got a little ridiculous, even when Kushina started introducing her with more and more elaborate titles that no one ever called her. Like Mikoto of the Endless Death. The Blood Churning Uchiha. The Red-Eyed Reaper of Death.

But somewhere in the middle of it, between one stop and the next, Kushina went silent for a second, walking, not towing for once, just walking beside her.

"They really didn't believe me, you know?" she said. Quieter than her usual. "The whole time you were gone. Every time I said your name they looked at me like I was pathetic. Like I was making up a friend because I didn't have any." She kicked a rock. "It's stupid. I know it's stupid. I shouldn't care what a bunch of losers say in the first place."

"It's not stupid." Mikoto said.

Kushina glanced at her.

"It makes total sense to me. If I missed my friend and everyone told me that my friend wasn’t even my friend, I’d be upset too." Mikoto bumped her shoulder against Kushina's. "I'm sorry I was gone so long. I'm sorry you had to defend us to people who weren't worth defending us to. And for what it's worth, I told people about you the whole time too. My genin. The other medics. Everyone at the front knows I've got a best friend back home who's going to be the first female Hokage and could probably beat half of them in a fight." She smiled. "I never made you up either."

Kushina's eyes went suspiciously bright. She looked away fast.

"Well, obviously," she said, voice thick. "I'm very memorable."

"You're very memorable."

"Shut up. Don't make it weird." Kushina scrubbed at her face with her sleeve, and just like that she was back to normal. "Okay. Okay! There's one more. Tetsuo. He was the WORST about it. He did a whole thing where he'd bow to me and call me 'friend of the Hokage' all sarcastic, I've been waiting MONTHS for this, come on, come ON!"

And she grabbed Mikoto's wrist and they were off again.

…

The sun was going down by the time Kushina ran out of people to lord over.

They ended up on a low wall near the river, the two of them, watching the light go orange over the water, Kushina worn out from a full day of being right and Mikoto worn out from a full day of being a trophy and neither of them minding much.

"Best day," Kushina sighed, kicking her heels against the wall. "Best day in a long time easily."

"I'm glad."

"Tomorrow's gonna be even better, though." Kushina's grin came back, sharp and competitive now. "A real mission. I'm gonna show you, Mikoto. You think you've seen me fight during our spars? You know that was nothing! I was holding back!"

"You were not holding back, Kushina."

"I was totally holding back. Tomorrow you're gonna see the real thing. I'm the best one on my team by a mile, you watch. Kaede's a bit creepy with her bugs and way of talking and Rei thinks he's hot stuff but they can't do what I do. I'm gonna take down that cart-sized boar myself. One punch." She mimed it. "POW. You'll be so impressed you'll cry."

"Just promise me you'll listen when I tell you something out there." Mikoto said. "It's a real mission. Anything can happen on a mission. I need you listening to your captain, not showing off."

"Yeah, yeah, listen to the captain, I got it." Kushina waved a hand. "But also watch me be amazing. Both things. I can do both things."

Mikoto looked at her friend, lit orange by the dying sun, bruised nowhere and beaming everywhere, and didn't have the heart to tell her that showing off and listening were exactly the two things that never went together on a battlefield.

She hoped she wouldn’t have to learn the hard way.

"Go home, Kushina." Mikoto said, hopping off the wall. "Actually pack this time. Dawn. The gate. Ready to move."

"I'll be there before you." Kushina said, hopping down after her.

She bounced off toward home, and Mikoto watched her go, and thought that for all the lecturing she'd probably have to do tomorrow, she was glad. Glad she got to do this one with Kushina. Glad to be the proof her friend had needed.

Then she went home to sleep, because unlike a certain Uzumaki, she actually intended to be ready in the morning.