IZUNA

10

Fire.

A pillar of fire that reached the sky.

She could taste the smoke.

Father was ordering them to burn everything.

Nothing would remain.

Only ashes.

Everyone would forget.

She saw a journal lying on the ground.

She took it.

She hid it.

She would not forget.

::

Izuna did not forget.

She led Tobirama to an old cabin in the middle of the woods.

"This is the home of the late Mio Uzumaki." Izuna told him as they entered.

There were dozens of incomplete seals and old brushes scattered throughout the cabin.

"Uzumaki." He repeated.

Masters of fuinjutsu.

The Uzumaki were close allies with the Senju.

Tobirama glanced at a painting hung against the wall. There was an Uchiha woman standing beside an Uzumaki man.

"Mio-san was an Uchiha?" He asked slowly.

Izuna tilted her head.

"She was born an Uchiha."

"Born an Uchiha."

"She was disowned by my father when he became our clan head and my clan they'll deny her existence." Izuna explained. "My father tried to erase her. She died an Uzumaki like her husband."

Her father did erase her.

She gestured to the various notes littering the cabin floor.

"I disobeyed him."

It felt odd to admit such a thing.

"A-and I hid her notes."

It gave her no pleasure to disobey her father. Still, she had her own morals and convictions. She wouldn't blindly follow his orders. She couldn't. It would break her.

"She deserves to have someone who remembers her story."

"I understand." Tobirama said.

Her journal survived.

"She had some fuinjutsu notes in her journal." Izuna said hesitantly. "I, um..."

Her face flushed.

"Here." She shoved them into his hands. "I don't know how to read them... you like s-seals, don't you Tobirama-kun?"

"You're giving them to me?"

"She wrote using a type of fuin script that I can't read." Izuna admitted. "Not even with my sharingan. I could only identify a couple words... I was wondering if maybe you might be able to decrypt it. You dabble with seals right?"

"I am proficient." He said and flipped the book open. The pages were yellowing and the binding needed to be redone but Izuna had managed to preserve the text. "She wrote this?"

"She learned from her husband, I think."

Tobirama's brows furrowed.