Reaching

LilacLilyFlower © 2009

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Unfortunately.

-O-O-O-O-

Prologue

Her first memory is of colors.

Or rather, the color red.

There was the golden red that brought warmth and soothing, then the orange red that was so hot and terrifying and choking, then a flash of yellow and calm, and loud cries that originated from the wriggling heat by her side.

Then silence.

-O-O-O-O-

Her next oldest memory consisted of blobs that coursed with a shimmering blue.

Chakra, she later learned. It was the source of life, physical and spiritual energy.

Each blob had a slightly different feel to it. The biggest blob sparked like a flint, and as it approached, she turned her head away from its brilliance, right into the bundle of yellow by her side.

Curious, she reached out to examine the new blob. It stretched out its tendrils like the sun, until she felt a trickle of orange red that burned.

Her screams brought the sparking blob over, and she felt herself being lifted, and calloused hands patting her back.

"Hush, child, you'll wake your brother," a gravelly voice murmured.

Her wailing gradually ceased, and with it, her consciousness.

-O-O-O-O-

She found herself surrounded by little blobs, some bigger and some (only two, really) smaller than her. The warmth from her side was gone. She was at the orphanage.

The managers, although she was still a baby, told her that her name was Hikari and never spoke to her again.

When she said her first word, "where", no one heard.

When she took her first step, no one saw.

And when she asked her first coherent question, "Where is my brother?", no one answered.

-O-O-O-O-

Later on, Hikari would wonder if her early memories had been delusions, because it was highly abnormal for a person to remember their infanthood, due to infantile amnesia. Then, she would remember the feel of the flinty chakra, which had the same feel as the Third Hokage's chakra, and decide that the memories were real and she was not crazy (at least, by shinobi standards).

Her first birthday passed without incident. So did her second and third. Starting with her fourth, she woke up to find a little book with the faintest traces of flinty chakra on her bed the morning of her birthday. Hikari was a little disturbed each time that someone had stood over her while she was sleeping, but since that person didn't do anything to harm her, she found no reason to be really alarmed.

The book she had received on her fourth birthday was titled Chakra: What it is and What it Does, according to Ami, one of the caretakers. She begged for her to teach her to read, and Ami reluctantly agreed.

The two spent three weeks going over the basics, and by two months, Hikari could read kanji, albeit slowly and with much difficulty.

She began to spend most of her time in the library, reading about any subject from folklore to fuinjutsu, the sealing arts. She learned about shinobi and the history of her village-Konohagakure, the Village Hidden in the Leaves-and above all, else, she learned that she wanted to become a shinobi.

Shinobi were strong. They could do feats that civilians couldn't, such as walking on water, or breathing fire. They could protect and kill, erase someone from existence, and find others. And what she really wanted in the end was to find her brother.

She had tried, of course. She had extended her sense-chakra sense, according to books-and had attempted to locate the sun with the burning orange red center, but her sensory range had been too small to reach outside of the room she shared with 5 others, let alone the entire orphanage. And besides, it was entirely possible that her brother wasn't even in the same orphange as her.

The fact was, she couldn't find her brother at her current status, so she would become a shinobi to learn how to find, how to track.

-O-O-O-O-

The older children had begun attending the Academy. They had come back and bragged about becoming shinobi, and the information they were learning. When she asked if they could share the information with her, they had yelled at her to "stop bugging us and go away, brat".

Miffed, she instead returned to her books to prepare for when she went to the Academy. She frequently fell asleep at the library, only to wake up in her own bed with the last vestiges of jumpy, erratic chakra that was completely unlike the sparking one wisping away.

Hikari realized that she had at least two people looking out for her, even though she didn't know who. Probably shinobi, judging by the way she never felt their presence. Either way, she felt comforted knowing that there were people looking out for her.

Then, after her sixth birthday had passed, came the day she put a face to the flinty chakra.

"Kids, wash up well today," Ami barked. "The Third Hokage is coming today to see who's going to attend the Academy."

Finally! She would finally be able to enroll! And if she enrolled, her brother probably would too because they were the same age.

She smiled as she pulled her hair (which was golden red, warmth and soothing, unlike the orange red that choked and burned burned burned) into neat pigtails, and practiced her puppy eyes in the mirror in case she had to change the Third Hokage's mind. Wide, blue, with the slightest hint of tears. Perfect.

"Children," Ami called much more pleasantly than usual, "Hokage-sama is here."

Hikari grinned at her reflection one last time before sprinting towards the sound of gathering children.

When she got to the doorway of the room, she paused. No way. But her sense had never been wrong before, so it had to be.

She could feel the Third Hokage's chakra, flinty, sparking chakra. She didn't say anything, though, and instead took a seat on one of the many couches in the room.

And even though the Third had barely given her a passing glance, it felt like he was watching her.

"Hello," he said, smiling gently around his pipe. "I'm here to talk about the Academy today."

He paused to survey the eager faces before him. "If you choose to enroll, the work will be hard. Your body and mind will be pushed to the limits, but if you can manage, you will earn the chance to become shinobi.

"There are three requirements: Love the village and hope to help preserve peace and prosperity; Have a mind that will not yield, able to endure hard training and work; Be healthy in mind and body."

He smiled at them again. "I look forward to your enrollment."

The other kids cheered, but Hikari remained silent. When the children filtered out of the room, she stayed behind.

"Hokage-sama," she paused, struggling with how to approach the topic before blurting, "Hokage-sama, where's my brother?"

He eyed her strangely, and she cringed internally.

That could have gone better.

"Child, what's your name?"

Her eyes narrowed. He knew who she was. Still, she answered, "Hikari, Hokage-sama."

He hummed thoughtfully, still eyeing her. "Why do you think you have a brother?"

"You told me!" she cried, frustrated. "When I cried because of the weird chakra!"

The Third stiffened and sharply asked, "Weird chakra?"

"Yeah! It was orangey and red, and it hurt-ttebana!" She gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth. Slowly, Hikari lifted her eyes to meet those of the Third's.

He looked straight into her eyes, and pondered, "To be able to sense and remember from that age..."

He got up and made a few handseals, dispersing his chakra around the room to form the kanji for "silence". Silencing seals.

"Alright, child, listen up. I'm going to tell you an S-rank secret." The Hokage puffed on his pipe once. "This, of course, means that you cannot tell anyone, even your brother."

Hikari opened her mouth to interject, but the Hokage held up a hand to silence her. "I ask that you let me finish before asking any questions."

"You probably know that you were born on the day of the Kyuubi attack, October 10th," he stated, settling down on the couch with her. "You were born Uzumaki Hikari, twin sister to Uzumaki Naruto."

Uzumaki. Her last name was Uzumaki, and her brother's name was Naruto.

"The Fourth Hokage sealed the Kyuubi into himself, but it was too large to be contained in one person, so he chose a newborn as the container of the other half of Kyuubi. The newborn was Naruto.

"The two of you were separated to protect you, in case the seal didn't hold. You also weren't told your last name because you would have been linked as the sister of a jinchuuriki, a host of a Tailed Beast, which would have made you a target."

This time, he paused slightly before continuing.

"As you know, many shinobi died that night. Your parents did too. They died protecting Konoha, and you and your brother. They were some of the noblest people I knew."

Her parents. Momma and Daddy.

"Remember, you must not tell anyone, even your brother," the Third said as he got up.

As he reached the door, Hikari cried out once more.

"Wait! Who were my parents? What were they like?"

The Hokage smiled again, this time with a tinge of sorrow.

"That is a story for another time."

And halting once more, the Third added, "Work hard; I know you will do well."

And he was gone.

-O-O-O-O-

A/N: Well, I've done it. I've done the most horrible, cliché thing of Naruto.

I MADE HER NARUTO'S TWIN SISTER.

Really, the only thing that could get more cliché than this is making a Self-Insert. Not that those are bad, if they're well written!

Let's just see how this goes, yeah?