Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Spare Parts Club

Chapter 1: Rule Number 1, Don't Die!

I remember dying, well not really. I remember an experience that led to my likely demise and I can recalling a state that I briefly experienced that most would call an Out of Body Experience but it was brief. Death? It's, well, let's just say that if it hasn't happened to you than you can't understand the description. I, more than halfway at least, expected to end up in an afterworld. Barring that I expected to just disappear.

I was driving, on a date with my wife. It was winter and the roads were icy, but I was long used to it. I was so very confident I could maintain control. But we hit a big icy patch just as oncoming car hit it from the other side. Both cars lost control and collided. Presumably it was what killed me. Presumably it killed my wife too.

So when I experienced sensations I would later be able to recognize as being born, I was very confused. I certainly did not identify my rebirth for a couple months. The first thing I noticed after the pain and the discomfort was over was how weak I felt and how blurry everything was. I struggled desperately to see, to move, straining my eyes and my weak body. I completely panicked at my inability to see or move. I was becoming frantic until I felt a brief but agonizing pain in my eyes burn like fire and then everything became crystal clear. But now I was quickly exhausting, indeed it felt like my life was being sucked out through my eyes. I passed out after just a second.

When I woke up I was still pretty panicked, still so weak and nearly blind. It was very hard to calm down. The whole experience dying was bad enough and then here I am in this place that is clearly not Heaven.

I wonder if I am in Hell. I mean this sucks but its not like I am in pain or anything. Maybe our expectations for Hell are just too high. 'Heh, Hell is lame,' I thought bemusedly to myself.

To avoid thinking about my life and death I decided to think about that moment of clarity when I drained my life out through my eyes. 'My eyes must be closed and I must be so weak that even opening my eyes is completely exhausting to me.'

That sucked so hard. Maybe this wasn't Hell and I had lived but was so hurt that I was like this. If just opening me eyes exhausted me like this than it could be years before I was able to get back to an even vaguely normal life.

But I wanted my life back, I wouldn't give up. Not me, no way, no how. There's always a chance my wife survived and I wouldn't abandon her. And if she had died, well. I wouldn't be much of a man if I did not grieve for her properly, right?

Casting about with the dim vision that I assumed was the light pouring through my lids, I girded myself and once again, opened my eyes. Searing clarity assaulted my senses for a second and than I was slammed into unconsciousness again.

When I came to again it felt like my body was being shifted and eventually I felt a warm fluid pour down my throat. My caregivers must be feeding me. When they had finished and put me down again I resolved to make sure I was fed at least once between attempts to Blink, as I had begun to consider it in my head. I did not want to starve because I was too exhausted to eat. Of course having things settled I proceeded to Blink.

Thus was the course of my days. I had no real perception of time beyond my Blinks and feedings. So I called them days, hoping each one was not actually a full day and fearing each was more than a day.

After 'weeks' of this I reached three seconds with my eyes open and decided to attempt to close my eyes before I passed out on my own. Re-learning how to close my eyes took an embarrassingly long time. By the time I managed it I could last five seconds with my eyes open and it took most of that to close them in time.

I realized that the sensation of life draining into my eyes when open never faded, I seemed merely to gain more life and strength to spend. I learned there was a cost for opening my eyes that itself was divided into amounts that were lost and amounts that were returned when I managed to close my eyes again. On top of this was the ongoing maintenance cost of keeping my eyes open. I spent what felt like months working on improving my efficiency, reducing the energy that was purely lost when opening my eyes the most with lesser improvements in maintenance and committed cost.

I still had trouble keeping track of time, even if I wasn't forced to pass out I was still so tired that sleep came easily. Over the course of several weeks I managed to truly blink, flicking my eyes open and closed several times in a second. While my committed and maintenance costs had minimal improvements, I had lowered the pure waste considerably. After all of the speed Blink training I timed myself as keeping my eyes open for twelve seconds before succumbing to a long sleep.

Finally I decided it was time to gain an awareness of my surroundings. I arranged a brief Blink while being fed so I could see and potentially interact with my caregivers.

The sight remains forever burned into my brain, for more than one reason. I was being nursed, as in breastfed. I shut my eyes instantly but the image stayed in my head. I analyzed it quickly and realized the woman was huge compared to my body.

I compared this to the the sensation that marked my 'illness' and realized; I had died or something and then been reborn with my memories intact. I was a baby.

'Oh shit oh shit oh shit!' I screamed out in my mind. My eyes opened and I looked around in panic rejecting my infant body and trying desperately to seek an escape. My eyes, my left eye in particular, seared in agony once more and this time the pain drove deep into my brain. My vision collapsed and I was soon unconscious.

I spent who knows how long panicking and fretting every time I awoke. I probably drove my parents to tears. When I calmed down I continued my Blink training but almost despaired. My period of panic must be longer than I thought as it was as if all my progress was lost. My activation cost, my committed cost and my maintenance costs were all seemingly worse than they had been when I started.

I hardened my resolve and got back to 'work' starting from three seconds and working my way up to twelve and past it again and more quickly this time.

Realizing I was a growing baby who seemingly had health problems and that would worry parents and doctors, I began to interact with my 'parents' more. Since I still had trouble seeing I was mostly listening. I did not understand the language but had no idea if this was my baby brain or if I was in a foreign land. So my routine went. I explored what must be my crib physically, trained with Blinking and when I was exhausted I concentrated on listening to gain linguistic understanding.

I had gotten back to what was probably the same level of Blink efficiency I preciously had. With my increased stamina this gave me a total Blink length of nearly nineteen seconds. I normally tried to avoid paying attention at breastfeedings and changings, which easily made me the weirdest baby ever. But one time during a changing I heard my 'mother' leave and a little curious I hoisted myself as best I could and Blinked down at my body.

There was something missing. Oh don't worry too much. I had two legs and ten toes. Half the human race would consider the view I was seeing perfectly acceptable. Unfortunately I was from the other half.

Thats right! I had been reborn female instead of male. Once more I start to panic and fret. I writhed and wailed, but I would probably have calmed down soon. The distress of loosing your gender cuts deeper but is over far more swiftly. At least the initial distress, but being 'bothered' by your gender wasn't something to cause constant wailing, not from me at least.

Before I could calm myself though I once more felt agony flare through my eyes and brain, especially my right eye. I wailed in pain and fear and fell unconscious before anyone could arrive.

I was already calm when I woke this time. By now I was far more concerned with the pain in my eyes than the gender thing.

I discovered that my Blinking had suffered again. Not quite as badly as last time but enough that it took weeks to catch up again.

I had spent much more time working on physical skills and listening. My impression, from the little I could understand of the language, was that my 'parents' were concerned about my keeping my eyes closed all the time and I didn't want to give them any more causes for concern.

I was training myself to sit up, ignoring my eyes for once, when I felt something horrible and menacing descend upon me. It was horrible beyond belief and I drove myself to escape, but I could barely sit up. Unable to flee I panicked as the feeling kept growing thicker. By the time my eyes and brain flared up in agony and didn't notice as I was already in pain and screaming. Unconsciousness was a blessed relief when it came.

Much talk was heard and I was paraded to outside locations I had never been to before. My best guess is that people were in mourning and we were attending funerals.

My Blinking has been completely reset. I could barely open my eyes anymore for the activation cost to my energy levels. I would have ground my teeth, but of course I didn't have any yet.

It was weeks later when my now half hearted training allowed me come close to my previous abilities. Of course now I was seeing things like auras and lines of power. I was reluctant to even try around people for fear of what I would see.

My 'mother' had pulled me into her lap favoring one leg, I sensed another baby across from me on her other leg. I could hear her talking with someone else in the room but most of the words were beyond me. I did catch one thing that I understood and it chilled me to the core.

My 'mother' said in a voice filled with pride, "My children, Sasuke-chan and Kushina-chan."

The voice said, "Ah, they are cute, Uchiha-sama"

I froze.

No.

I recognized those names.

They were impossible names.

Under no circumstances should I have been reborn as some kind of sister to Sasuke Uchiha.

What universe could be so very cruel.

I fell.

Into despair.

Into Misery.

I fell and knew no more.

Even when I woke my despair rode me. I not only had lost my family but my whole world. My world was gone with no chance for me to see it again. I ignored everything to sob in grief.

It reminded me of something I had been putting off since discovering I was a baby. My wife. There was no chance to see her again. And she was probably dead. Dead to my blatant overconfidence. She was dead and it was MY fault.

And as this thought creased my mind and caused a pain and sorrow an echoing pain rose within my eyes and mind and even my body. Viewed objectively it was probably the most pain I had been in before but buried in my sorrow at the loss of my wife and my guilt, it was a minor thing, barely noticeable.

After a period of grieving I shook myself out of it enough to do an assessment.

'OK, So I am screwed. That's a given. But let's deal with my situation.'

'So I am an Uchiha. OK so that means my Blinking was not opening my eyes, but activating my Sharingan. I probably wasn't having my eyes closed and seeing things through my lids, but had the blurry vision of a newborn, made worse by comparison to a Sharingan level clarity. I had eventually trained myself to actually blink with my Sharingan so I never noticed a difference. The eye pain and increased difficulty activating my eyes that accompanied shocks to my psyche...'

I gasped, well gurgled but it served the purpose.

'I was adding levels, or Tomoe, to my Sharingan.'

I grunted. 'At this point it is either fully mature, or possibly... Shit! I probably have a Mangekyou Sharingan at this point due to my Kakashi-like guilt for my wife's death.'

'Damn, so OK I am going blind before I can even do anything with my supercool powers that might make it worth it. I was also an Uchiha and apparently related to Sasuke. So my clan was planning a revolt and Itachi would put it down and I would almost certainly be too young to do anything about it.'

'Would he kill me?' I pondered.

'He and Madara had been pretty thorough. But the one who was left was Itachi's sibling. I suppose he might make the same exception and let both Sasuke and I live.'

I sighed. 'That going to suck either way, but it will be years before I can, even have the chance of effecting it.'

'So what about my eyes? Well I technically have two brothers, one of which I KNOW will gain the Mangekyou, even if I cannot conceive of how I could beat him.'

'I also am pretty sure that the Uchiha do not bother much with medical technique and do not really consult non-clan medics. I might be able to slow or stop the blindness, at least the kind that comes when you don't use techniques. If not I might be able to widen the genetic scope from siblings to wider family members. Its not like any of them would survive. Technically if there was even hope for the technique working all I had to do was reach the level of preserving the eyes before I was what 6, 7... If I could preserve some eyes from family that I knew was going to die than I could research and possibility go 'Eternal' shy of killing my brother.'

'OK, that's a pseudo plan at least. So massive research into medical techniques as soon as I could. But how? ...'

'Well I am an Uchiha, they hope for, and after Itachi my parents especially, practically expect prodigies. I have no real reason to hold back developing as fast as I possibly can in this family, unlike some fanfictions I have read about where something like this happened in other Narutoverse families.'

'Note to self: Self, Naruto is a person now, so this world if it must be distinguished shall be known as the Shinobi-verse.'

'Anyway, so I train as hard as I can in mind, body, and chakra, concentrating on medical techniques to preserve a Sharingan Eye and research into saving my vision, at least until my brother kills everyone. Than take stock of what's left and make a new plan.'

Feeling, not Hope as that is too optimistic, but a new resolve I begin relearning to use my Sharingan, being especially careful to note what it is doing different to catch if I can see what is making me go blind.

A/N: An SI that has been poking me in the side of my head, my hope is writing these other stories means I can make more progress in my original story as less is distracting me. If nothing else getting more words on paper should improve my writing faster. My interest in the re-gendering thing comes from having a daughter and wondering about how she will develop. I am still not sure if I will bring up having kids in a SI, not sure even an Uchiha-centric story needs THAT much grief invoked.