A/N— Itachi-esque twist. Note that the first 1/4 dialogue is from the anime.

She is there. She is there in her room on the floor, crying. The fusuma slides open with a sound like hissing and then they are sitting. They are sitting in front of her. They are there sitting in front of her trying to steal her dream.

"So why does everyone get in my way? I just wanted to become a genjutsu user!"

They look at her, alarmed (and maybe patronisingly she thinks). "Everyone has a path fit for them, and there is a path for you," he says.

Her mother is nodding and she is grasping her hands, rubbing them (and this makes her think of burns and the one she got when she was six playing with the incense burner – remember fire forgives no one). "That's right. There's no need to force yourself to become a shinobi," she says.

She is shaking now. "No I don't want that! Even if everyone comforts me with their words, I know that I just can't stand living in despair like this! I can't stand living a life where everyone is always watching my every move!"

"Yakumo!" His tone is harsh and her mother is staring at her father agape.

"Anata—"

"No Uroko, she must face this," he turns to her now; "Yakumo, you are my heir. I entrusted you to the Third and he entrusted you to Yuuhi-san. As my heir I expect you to uphold our clan's honour and follow their direction," a pause, "If they believe that you must be sealed, then that is what must be done."

They don't understand. They don't understand. She is the only child born to the Kurama main house in the last decade. Her clan is dying out and she's meant to be the supernova, the bang, the catalyst to spur them to greatness again. It feels more like fading though … like someone's slowly snuffing her out.

So this is her path and it is sterile and blinding and filled with doctors in white coats who speak a logical nonsense so objective it's like a serrated knife. They tell her that her body is weak. They tell her the shinobi way is not her way. They would have her path be that of an invalid—stay still don't move don't hurt—and become weaker day by day until what genjutsu abilities she once had fade into a distant memory. And it cuts and cuts so deep she can see her arteries and veins pumping her life away.

But …

But there is another path. This path is faint and overgrown and she cannot see her way as it twists into a distance that seems bleak and grey. This path has known few feet and those feet are stained vermillion with the blood of kinsman and know the taint of heavenly ambition and forbidden desire and a dread duty. She is sure that this path must cut too but maybe in a way that she cannot see and that she thinks she can deal with.

"I will never …" her fists are clenching, "This … this is your fault. It's always clan this and honour that! Well guess what? Our clan is done. We're finished," she is shouting now, "Open your eyes otou-san! I don't know about you but I'm tired. I'm tired of doing what that man says. I refuse."

Her father is standing now and there is a look like steel in his eyes. "If our ancestors said that I would one day hear my own blood speak against Konoha …" he is the one shaking now, "… would speak treason, I would've laughed."

Her mother is crying now, big fat tears that make Yakumo want to scream because she's had enough of tears. When they told her that her body was too weak to handle taijutsu training she cried. When they told her she would likely never make chūnin she cried. And when they told her she could not be placed on a genin team she had cried. Tears have never changed a thing.

She jumps to her feet and her eyes feel like they are on fire. "Screw the ancestors! Screw the Third! And screw Konoha! How's that for treason o—tou—san?

She can barely feel the slap when it comes but for the deafening ringing in her ears and there's something like rage on her father's face and her mother is pale like a ghost. Her hand is cradling her cheek and she is sure that she must look just as venomous as her father and then there's something like an itch at the back of her mind. An itch where her mental defences (those special defences that every Kurama learns from birth and that even a Yamanaka cannot breach) reside and she does and then she can hear laughter and all she can see is a white haze and it feels like freedom.

"Yakumo!"

~.~.~

Fire Country cicadas have a distinct sound – a constant, sometimes soothing, (mostly irritating) hum. It's their sudden silence that alerts the night ANBU patrols to the possibility that something is not quite right. A glow the colour of the sun at high-noon tinged in gaseous blue is soon seen illuminating the skyline. Overhead carved with painstaking care, the furrowed faces of past prodigies and guardians are revealed in a flickering dance of light.

The conflagration eats into the compound with ferocious delight. The roar is soon deafening, rousing those slumbering in neighboring compounds within minutes. The air is filled with a black smoke so thick the emergency street lights are turned on. It's quite obvious that only the most well executed water release jutsus will be able to extinguish the blaze. The area is so supercharged with heat that for the crowd quickly forming, it hurts to breathe. Through the fire and smoke looms a house - what was once the main house of the Kurama Clan is now quickly becoming nothing more than a hollowed out shell.

~.~.~

She wakes crusty eyed and dirty. Her yukata is torn and black singe marks speckle the fabric. The heights atop the Hokage monument do not faze her but the winds do; they jostle her limbs with an impotent fury that make her want to clutch at something. The buildings below look like toys and she thinks she might want to stomp on them. The fires have long since been tamed and it's only now that she turns her back on the village.

Her feet move like automatons. She looks back often, face frozen in—shockhorrorjoyrelief? No one comes for her; they must think her dead.

She looks back a final time.

Konoha is like a red splash of paint across the horizon and she thinks the moon must've finally done the sun in because what right does that bastard have to shine on the world?

~.~.~

… tears have never changed a damn thing.

~.~.~

— Fin