Whilst Keiko might have identity problems, the same could not be said for Miretsu. There was only one name that rang through his subconscious, Aisu Miretsu. He was of noble birth, or as close to noble birth as there could be without a monarchy in any of the villages, in their current state of military dictatorship. That sounded bad, but it was one of the best ways that a world like this could be led. Because of his noble blood, or perhaps despite it, he knew exactly where he was supposed to be in life, he knew what he wanted to do and he knew who he was, the person that he wanted to be. At least, that was what he thought; Many people would argue that people can't know who they truly are until they're placed in a life or death situation that ensured their death if they continued to live up to who they wanted to be. For all of Miretsu's experience in life, that was not one of the things that had happened so far, so he was stuck with mere assumptions and beliefs. One of those assumptions was the fact that he thought, or rather hoped, that one day he would become strong enough to take the responsibility of clan leadership onto his shoulders, and for that very reason he was going to have to get to know the people that he would one day be leading, or rather, he had to get to know his family.

One of the people that he needed to meet was a girl named Aisu Keiko, or more accurately nowadays Kitahara Keiko. She  was one of the first people that he wanted to get to know, since he had barely heard of her before he had looked through his family tree. She was his paternal cousin, but other than that he hadn't known very much information about her. He honestly hadn't wanted to know that much information about her, if he had known too much information about her he would have probably become biased from things she had either said or thought, her concepts and dreams all making him feel slightly different about her, tainting his mental picture. It was best to get to know her himself like a normal person would. However, he was restrained by a few things that made such an attempt impossible, such as logic and sanity.

With more and more people becoming a danger to the village as a whole, and rumors about people being attacked by ex-village loyalists, there was no sense in throwing himself in danger just to be able to meet this girl without preconceptions, so he got one of his "friends" to get information from the village's files on the girl. She was an interesting case, if a rather upsetting one. She was seventeen, a full year younger than him, and was a genin just like him. However, there was something confusing about her birth and her current status. Despite the fact that both of her parents were very much alive, and weren't even ill at the time of it happening, they had given up their daughter to be adopted by the Kitahara clan. The information that she was sold as a slave was not something that Mire had found, but he still saw it as abandoning their child for reasons that surely had to be selfish. That very concept disgusted him to his core, and although he tried not to let it color his feelings for her, it made him feel sorry for her. He had never had to deal with a situation like that and couldn't even comprehend how much that would hurt.

So, he had to find her now so that he could get to know her properly. Moving through the streets, he looked everywhere that he could for her before finally noticing her down a street, the people around her giving her dirty looks like she had done something wrong, but she didn't appear to have done anything. Nobody was hurt, there was no blood on her so she hadn't attacked anyone, he would have heard her if she had said anything offensive or abusive, so it really looked like people were just glaring at her for glaring's sake. That was even worse, she was being mocked by the people of the village for either something so incredibly minor that he couldn't notice it now, or they were mocking her for her situation that she couldn't help.

Running to catch up with her, his cloak flying out behind him in the early morning wind, he stopped before her and smiled. "Aisu Keiko?" He said, not letting any emotion out through his voice - Or, at least, trying. Despite how much he was trying to repress his emotions, he seemed a little... too nice in his tone. "I was wondering if I could have a moment to speak to you... I am Miretsu, Aisu Miretsu. To make a long story short, I'm your cousin."

Honestly, with this girl's history he wouldn't have put it past her to get hostile with him simply because he was a member of the clan that abandoned her into some sort of adoption deal when she was grown up enough to understand what was going on. That concept still worried him and was actually surrounding him with reasons why he had to be careful. Normally, he would have just gone in all guns blazing, maybe even give them a hug since they were, after all, related, but with Keiko? Keiko.. She was like that dog on the street that people kick frequently whenever they walk past. Cute, and with the hint that they once had a loving family, but now just had misery and confusion. Or, maybe that was just his pro-Aisu thoughts showing out again. After all, her adopted clan were rich as hell, they were one of the most affluent clans within the village.

For all the influence the Aisu had for their intelligence, practicality and duty towards the village the Kitahara had that in money. Money, unfortunately, was more valued than either duty or practicality when the village became this big faceless corporation. Ayakashi was making her move to try and bring it back to the old way, by doing controversial things like killing all the prisoners within the Kirigakure prison system, but it was not going to be the same for a very long time no matter how radically she acted. She could control people's actions to some degree but she couldn't do it perfectly nor could she control people's thoughts, which might very well be a blessing according to what some people had said about her.

However, the way she reacted was completely different from what he expected, not a cruel little burst of spite before leaving but rather a simple hello. So, perhaps she didn't hate the family as much as he had expected. He was glad she couldn't read his thoughts, she might have gotten offended. However, there was something cold in her tone of voice, corrupting the niceness in his own tone into silent, frosty hostility. So, he decided to do something that was either going to help... or it was going to get him killed rather brutally. So quickly that she might not even have time to react, he moved forwards and put his arms around her, pulling her into a hug. They were almost complete strangers, but they were family so surely this was appropriate.

"What I want... I want to talk to you, I want to get to know you." he said, as honestly as he could. That was, after all, the truth; Even if there were different reasons for why he wanted to get to know her, the fact remained that he wanted to get to know her. Sugarcoating his words like this was one of the easiest ways for him to be able to make an impact on this girl. Positive or negative, at least it would invoke some sort of reaction.