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When Mito was seven, she partook in a ritual all Uzu-nin do. Toes sifting through golden sand, every crushed grain spilling beyond the calloused balls of her feet—if she thinks of low tides and the muggy hum of Uzushio, the sun dunking into the horizon, if she smells the salt of the sea, coming to the forefront of her mind is the fire-bright coil, spiralling beam in her chest that binds her to her home.
Her first home. The home she belongs in. To make a home is something entirely from being home, and Uzushiogakure has always been the unforgiving place that thrums for her.
When Mito partook in the ritual, she held the ashes of her ancestors. Spilt the stilted grey into the careless tan, followed the precise lines that countless sealmakers before had instilled. A protection, a vow, honor in every meaning of the way. A promise, in every meaning of the way.
Even bound to Hashirama, she is Uzushio’s first, and like every Uzu-nin, she can feel the seal of the tether that holds her in place. She would know the direction back in any life, in any moment.
She knows Uzushio. She knows the island. She knows the weeping skies and the thankless whirlpools, life and death, tied so finely to the lay of the land.
It is so keenly…
It is so keenly part of her that she knows the moments before the wards fail, the wrench of burning lungs hauling her awake. Like every Uzu-nin, she can trace from the entrails of shredded strings of the ancestors’ ashes, the aching strain of her soul as it reaches-
Reaches-
Reaches for something that falls away like it was never there. Thankless. Slipping through every crack, every drop of blood bled. Like the sting of salt and sand against a fresh wound, and leagues away, Mito feels it.
Uzushio sinks back beneath the ocean’s embrace, and from that moment, heart beating in time with the rust in the water and gold on the horizon, gold beneath her feet, rust beneath her nails—Mito’s strength wanes.