This idea just sort of came to me. I'm rereading the series, and I don't know. I find genderswap stories really interesting because gender roles realistically would affect character decisions.
Oh, and the seal/massacre/Mangekyo all have considerably stronger psychological side effects than in the manga.
Also I've never seen the anime, so all the canon compliment parts are manga compliment.
.
Chapter I.
When Sasuke is five, her father registers for the Academy. Only three days ago Itachi became a chuunin, age ten. Now it's her turn to follow in his footsteps.
Unfortunately, the kunoichi division of her year has different ideas. "She'll be the youngest of the group, sir," the woman says, and Sasuke catches sight of a pink-haired girl who can't be much older than she is crying by the bushes. "It might be better if you wait until she's grown to catch up with the rest of the them."
At this age, it's easy to tell who's nearing six and who's still close to four. With her birthday only a week earlier, Sasuke falls solidly into the latter range. The new school year is to start in three days.
She wants to go over to the other pink-haired girl, to ask what's wrong, but her father squeezes tightly at her hand. "My daughter is Uchiha," he says, insists. "If her brother can do it, so can she."
The direction still looks doubtful, but she signs Sasuke up without another word of protest. As they leave, she glances over her shoulder to search out the crying girl, but doesn't spot even a dot of pink anywhere.
Later, once they're home, her father tells her, "You're a Uchiha, Sasuke. You're going to be great one day. It's in your blood."
Though Sasuke is five, and doesn't quite understand yet, she takes these words to heart.
That's the problem.
.
Sasuke comes back from a special lesson in flower arranging with a civilian woman carrying a bundle of white lilacs and daffodils. With nothing else to do with it, she gives them to her brother. "Oh, thank you," he says when she holds them out to him. "Was this for class?"
Until a certain skill level is hit—or now a certain year, as the minimum graduation was legally made twelve six months ago—boys and girls are separated. Things like flower arranging are kunoichi specific, and so Itachi never had to learn it. Sasuke thinks that makes him pretty lucky. "It was boring," she says, and frowns. "The teacher said it was 'important.'"
Itachi smiles slightly before getting down to her level and snapping a daffodil stem. "This is very important," he says, tucking the flower into her hair. "One day you might need to disguise yourself as a civilian woman. Infiltration and intelligence is just as important as strength and speed. You need to remember that."
The petals tickle her temple. In all her short life, she's never actually heard any women discuss flower meanings like in class. "That's easy for you to say," she answers, and her frown deeps into a scowl. "You're smart and strong and fast. That's why everyone likes you best."
"Sasuke!"
Shrugging, she says, "Well, it's true. Everyone's always telling me how I'm not as good as you."
This hurt her at first, but now she's just used to it. After all, most years are split into a two to one ratio of boys and girl and, as a last minute addition, she became an extra kunoichi in training. If it weren't Itachi she was compared to, it would be someone else. And she has the best scores of her year, so that just wouldn't be fair. At least with her brother they're right.
Before she can explain all this though, Itachi reaches forward and taps her forehead. "You're still growing. Don't listen to them," he says, which means he doesn't realize she's talking about their parents, too. "Now, do you want a lesson in kunai throwing? I'm not occupied."
Since he so rarely has time, she jumps on the opportunity right away. He picks her up, doesn't complain when she talks the whole walk to the compound's training yard, and she thinks that maybe with his help, she'll be good enough one day to make their parents proud of her, too.
.
At seven, she shoots up in height, becoming the third tallest girl in her year, and has trouble keeping track of her suddenly awkward limbs. Father gets annoyed with her more quickly, and takes to training her himself on days Itachi breaks his promises so her scores stay so high. But Father's style of teaching hurts at lot more than her brother's, and he isn't afraid to hurt her for the sake of a lesson. It only takes a month before this becomes an issue.
The first time she ever hears Itachi and her parents fight is after her wrist is accidentally broken in a lesson on how to keep her emotions in check while under "high stress situations." Most of the argument is loud, but muffled, and the only thing she makes out clearly is her brother saying, "She's not me, she's not going to be. Give her time to grow on her own, or I swear, I'll bring her to the hospital for that arm right now."
Sasuke curls up in a tighter ball in her place on the front step where she waits for Itachi. Why the hospital is such a big deal when her wrist was already fixed up by a medical-nin in the family is she doesn't know, but it must be because she doesn't hear her father's answer. This was her own fault anyway; he's just really strong and wrist bones are delicate and she panicked and tried to pull away, so next thing she knew there was a snap. When her brother was seven, he'd already graduated. Here she is panicking and getting her bones broken as a result.
Maybe there was some mix up and she's not even a real Uchiha. Knowing her luck, she won't even develop the Sharingan.
A few minutes later Itachi emerges from Father's study, and gives her a rare, careful smile. "How about we go out for ice cream?"
She agrees, and takes his offered hand in hers. The popsicle they buy is two sticked and cherry flavored, and he hands her half. It almost makes breaking her wrist worth it.
.
More often than not, Itachi is gone, and both her parents won't train her, so Sasuke takes to spending time by herself. This is how she meets the boy.
It's after school, and she's waiting on the roof of the opposite building for her very late brother to come get her when the boy crashes into her life with yellow hair bright in the sun, and eyes an even brighter blue. "This is my spot," he tells her, and he's wrong.
"No, it's mine," she answers. "I'm here all the time."
"No, I'm here all the time." Before she has the chance to ask why they haven't seen each other, then, he points to the right of her and says, "See? It's even got my name on it."
There really is something scratched into the stone, and she has to squint to read it. "What sort of name is Naruto?"
When she looks back up, he's frowning. "A good one!" he says. Then, less offended, he asks, "Who are you?"
Considering that she has her family emblem on her back, people usually recognize her on sight. She's the first girl in generations to be a member of the family by birth rather than marriage, and practically her brother's double. "Uchiha Sasuke."
Naruto laughs. "Isn't that a boy's name?"
According to one of her cousins, her parents were so sure they were having a son they hadn't even thought of a girl's name. This is a comment she gets a lot. "So what if it is? What's your clan?"
"I don't have a clan," he answers. "My full name's Uzumaki Naruto."
"So you're a civilian's son?"
"No, I don't have parents."
That shuts up any retort she could think up next, and from the way he's looking at her, it's pretty obvious he thought he'd be recognized, too. Huh. Maybe he's popular or something. With hair like that, she wouldn't be surprised. "Well, I don't have any friends, and I don't think my own parents like me very much," she says, taking her pen out of her bag, "so I get this spot too."
As she scribbles her name next to his, Naruto says, "I can be your friend."
Her parents would probably disapprove of her being friends with anyone without a clan, but loneliness is boring. "Okay," she says, and adds her family name, too.
.
On the day Itachi blows off another promise to give her a lesson on his throwing technique, Sasuke grabs a whole bunch of her own and drags Naruto out to the woods. "It's just unfair," she says, trying it again on her own, and watching the kunai bounce lifelessly off the center of the target. "This is no use. No wonder he doesn't want to waste time on me."
Naruto picks up one of the kunai that rebounded, and flips it back and forth between his hands before throwing it himself. His technique is sloppy, and he misses the center by a lot, hitting the edge instead, but the tip imbeds into the wood. "Well, at least you still got better aim than me," he says, and shrugs. "What's so special about the way he does it? Why can't you just do it your own way?"
"Because I look like him—just a girl, of course," she answers, throwing one hard enough that it sticks for a moment before slipping out. "I'm supposed to be exactly like him, except I'm not good. Just look at this! I can't make them stay."
Itachi says it's because she just isn't strong enough yet, but that makes her feel worse. "And how can I get any better," she continues, handing Naruto another one, "if we're still just learning how to blend in with 'the civilian population?' Kurenai is amazing, and there's this sennin who's a girl. That's proof that girls can be as good as boys."
She doesn't need to look at her friend to know that she's making him awkward, but she's so annoyed she just can't help it. This is the third time in a row her brother broke his promise. And he didn't have a mission or anything; no, he didn't even give her an excuse. Somehow, that hurts even more.
Then Naruto's kunai sails past hers, and sinks itself into the wood right outside the target. With a frown of his own, he says, "You're better than me. I suck."
"You get it to stay!"
"You get the center!"
There's no point in getting the center if she doesn't do any damage. Her enemy would get a scratch. "If this keeps up, I'll never graduate top of our class, and I'll disgrace the family name."
Naruto says, "'Least we're graduating together. Who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky and be on the same team."
So he's kind of bad at a lot (she doesn't bring him around the house, too afraid her father will deem him an unworthy friend for a daughter of the Uchiha family), and didn't know how to read until about a year ago because he didn't have parents to teach him, but the thought of graduating together still makes her feel better. If she has to stupid and slow, at least she can be stupid and slow with a friend.
In the end, that's better than nothing.
.
Her cousin Shisui commits suicide, and other members of the family ask Itachi if he had anything to do with it, which she thinks is stupid, because there's no way her brother would have hurt his best friend.
"Sometimes, when really bad things happen without any seeable logic," he tells her later when everyone is gone and she refuses to leave his side, "people don't know how to accept it, so they find someone to blame."
All Sasuke knows about suicide is that it's considered disgraceful. She doesn't get why Shisui did it, either. "Are you blaming someone, Itachi?"
For a long moment, he just sort of looks at her. Then he says, "Placing blame is what we do," and doesn't elaborate.
.
After, her father starts training her again, and shows her the family's secret Kanton jutsu. "Your brother did it on the first time," he says after her second failure. "Go practice. Come back when you can do it."
On the second day she passes out from chakra exhaustion, and sleeps for six hours. She skips a day of school, and misses her regular to meet ups with Naruto three times.
A week later, a full seven days and hundreds of more tries than it took Itachi to learn it, she goes back to Father with the jutsu perfected. For once, he actually smiles at her, and afterwards touches the emblem on the back of her shirt. "Wear this proudly," he tells her. "This is what it means to be a daughter of the Uchiha clan. We're old clan built on old blood, founders of this village. You're smart—quick. You'll grow into greatness like the rest of us."
When she says, "Like Itachi?" something dark and almost angry passes over her father's face. "Oh."
For a moment, she thinks the look means that she'll never be as good as her brother no matter how hard as she tries, and that her achievement isn't much of an achievement. But then he says, "Sasuke, I need you to stop trying to be like your brother," and her disappointment shifts into surprise. "You're doing fine on the path you're on now. Your mother and I are proud of you."
"I thought—"
"Sasuke, if you want to make it in this world, stop following in your brother's footsteps. Do you understand me?"
This is the most confused she's felt in a long time, but she agrees because she doesn't want her father to realize she doesn't understand, not really. After a moment of examining her face, as if trying to decide if she's telling the truth, he sends her on her way.
They don't speak of it again.
.
"But Itachi, you promised."
He pokes her in the forehead hard enough to hurt. "Not today, Sasuke," he says, and stands to walk away. "Perhaps tomorrow."
With that, he leaves her in the silence of his bedroom, and she's too used to disappointment now for it to bother her.
.
Tomorrow comes, and in that tomorrow fits another twenty-four hours of watching her whole family die at her brother's hand.
By the time Kurenai, the direction of the kunoichi school, finds her the next day when coming to inquire why she missed class again, she's passed out in a pool of blood not her own with Itachi nowhere to be seen.
.
She can't sleep, she lost her voice. Make eye contact and you'll see the Sharingan, her mind tells her. Food suddenly turns to blood or worse, the chopsticks to blades, and she won't eat. Someone tries to touch her, she panics. Whenever she shuts her eyes, she sees her brother's shadow in the corner of the room.
A week the person everyone says is going to help her returns from a mission. Something happens, and Sasuke falls back into the world again. Sounds make sense. People are people. She knows her own name. When she shuts her eyes, she sees nothing.
Then her lack of sleep catches up to her, and the first thing she does is collapse.
"She's seven," she hears the trauma specialist that's been trying to help her say before she's completely unconscious. "Whatever he did to her, her mind just couldn't handle it. Thank you."
A voice she doesn't recognize answers, "I just should have known."
When she passes out, she dreams, but the fear is muted, and she doesn't wake up screaming.
.
Because she's so young, she's not allowed to live alone back at her house, and wouldn't want to even if she could. Instead she's stuck in the apartment building for orphans, given a suite to sleep, a weekly allowance, and Kurenai as a babysitter until she's twelve. It's not until she gets the knock on the door that she realizes what this means.
When she opens it, she doesn't find her teacher as expected, but Naruto. Oh. This is orphan housing. He's an orphan. She's an orphan. They have separate apartments, but the same building, of course. She should have known.
He isn't put off by her lack of hello. "I, uh, know you're here now, and didn't see you in the cafeteria, so I thought maybe I'd bring you some dinner," he says, and holds out a bowl of ramen. The liquid doesn't look like blood. The noodles don't look like anything worse. Food is food again. "I heard about happened. I'm really, really sorry, Sas—"
"Naruto, I don't think we should talk anymore."
His expression, which wasn't happy to begin with, slides into something somewhere between shocked and hurt. "Like, ever?"
"Yeah. Not ever," she answers, and shuts the door in his face.
There's a long moment of silence before she hears the bowl put against the floor and his footsteps retreat down the hall. That's when the tears start, and it's the first time she cries. She misses her friend already.
She hates Itachi—hates him for what he did, for not finishing her off, too, for leaving her with this curse. Orphaned, sister of a traitor, chosen for revenge. No, she can't get anyone else involved in this. It isn't fair. This is her burden, and hers alone.
It isn't fair to her, either, but her brother handed her this duty the moment he left her alive among her family of the dead. And if it's the last thing she ever does, she'll make him pay for this, because no one else can.
.
In the aftermath, she speaks to no one she doesn't absolutely have to, and throws herself into training. On written tests, Haruno Sakura could easily be considered her rival if not her match, but come anything else—infiltration, jutsu, combat, or steal exercises—Sasuke quickly shoots to the top of her class. The more tired she is, the less the nightmares hurt. The less people she talks too, the more emotions she doesn't have to feel.
It's not long before people are saying she'd already be a gennin if graduation laws weren't set in place. By the time the boys' and girls' schools merge under Iruka after Kurenai raises to jounin rank, the whole year knows the name Uchiha Sasuke for more than just her family's massacre.
Girls start growing their hair out the way she wears it, and watch longingly after the boys who watch her. The more she distances herself, the worse it gets, but even though the attention makes her uncomfortable, she doesn't try to hide herself behind her hair or clothes—she sticks to her v-neck and shorts and long hair. Let them look, let them speculate. She doesn't have to give them the time of day if she doesn't have to.
Past their first day in the same class where she just ignored him, the only one who doesn't look at her is Naruto. At one point Iruka tries to pair them as sparring partners, but she just says, "No," and Naruto immediately agrees.
The teacher seems at a loss, but it's been three years and people still treat her like she's about to break. Instead, he backs down, and pairs her with Kiba and Naruto with Sakura.
Three years have gone by, and the two of them still won't look each other's way.
.
Another two years pass, and she becomes a gennin after graduating with the highest scores of her year. Her reward is something she thought would be lucky when she was seven and knows the truth is otherwise now, because one of her teammates is Naruto.
To his credit, he doesn't seem too happy about having her, either, though he's more than pleased about getting Sakura. They're the only team to have two girls and one boy rather than the other way around. "How did you pass?" Sasuke asks once they're all alone, because their new jounin leader is so late that even Iruka left. "I saw you yesterday. You have no control."
His eyes narrow for a moment, something uncharacteristic of him in recent years, before going back to normal as he answers, "You've got your secret jutsu. Well, I've got mine."
"No, you don't. Who taught you, Iruka?"
There's a pause before he realizes what she's implying. "Hey, wait. No! It wasn't some pity pass."
"A person doesn't go from no control to control overnight."
"Yeah, well, you would know all about that, wouldn't you?"
Before the argument can get too heated, because that was just low, the door slides open, and the eraser Naruto set on the frame lands straight on their jounin leader's head. It slides with a thump to the floor, and Naruto must be really angry with her not to laugh at his own prank.
A quick glance around, the man's eyes focusing on each other them individually before settling on hers specifically as if this were her fault. "My first impression," he says, and she vaguely recognizes his voice, "is that I don't like any of you."
This whole situation is a joke. Sasuke isn't laughing.
.
They pass the test to stay gennin because Hatake Kakashi believes in second chances. Since she and Naruto live in the same building, walking back would mean walking back with him, and instead she wanders.
Somehow, she ends up back home.
It's silent and dusty. The front gate opened easily with the spare key still hidden in the wall, and she walks the stone pathways between the buildings with a detached sort of recognition. In a naïve sort of way, she thought this place would be frozen in time. That the only thing to have changed would be skeletons instead of full corpses. Instead someone's even cleaned up the blood. Plants and weeds are overgrown in every garden and crack between cobblestones. The windows are too covered in dust and grim to see through.
Every space is layered with different memories. In one alley, she can still see her uncle lying dead, but that was also where she one found a stray kitten at five and at six Itachi taught her division by using chalk on the wall of one of the buildings. Her brother was the Uchiha heir. He slaughtered everyone, abandoned Konoha, and in some way still gained the land regardless.
No matter where she looks, she can see him, just half a memory away.
Then, her house. There's still a hole in the front door where his shuriken had imbedded into it. Before she can open it, though, to see what's inside, a voice says from behind her, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
She spins around, kunai thrown without having to look, but Kakashi's already caught it. "This is private property," she says once she gets over the shock that he's here. "Why are you following me?"
As he holds her kunai out for her to take, he answers, "I thought you might come here. It isn't a good idea."
"Why not?"
"Sasuke, go home."
Suddenly whatever hold this place has over her is broken, and she takes a glance over her shoulder, back to the mark in the door. This isn't a home. This is a mausoleum, and the living aren't welcome.
With her emotions not nearly as in check as she wants them to be, she says, "All right," and lets him lead her back outside.
.
"I had it, Sasuke!"
"No, you didn't, you were nowhere near it!"
"I was an inch away! Stop being such a show off."
Sasuke turns abruptly, about to lash out, but next thing she knows, Kakashi's restraining her while Sakura does the same to Naruto. It's not until she forces herself to relax that Kakashi releases her. "Something happened between the two of you, that much is clear," he says as Sakura lets go of Naruto, circling around so he's visible to all of them. "Whatever it was? It doesn't matter. You're a team now. You need to start acting like it—and that goes for both of you, not just Sasuke, Naruto."
As much as she wants to point out that she wasn't the one who started it, she refrains. After all, that's childish, and she's done with being treated like a traumatized little girl. "I understand."
"Good," Kakashi says, and the looks to her left. "Naruto? Sakura?"
Though scowling, Naruto still answers, "Yeah, yeah, I understand," and Sakura quickly agrees, though of course much more politely.
That seems like all for today, but Sasuke knows the moment something like this happens again, they'll get much worse than a telling off. She just hopes this woman doesn't lose her cat anymore, because three times is enough for all of them combined.
Did Itachi have to deal with this in the beginning? she wonders, and hates herself for even letting the thought cross her mind.
.
Whenever Sasuke imagined her first fight, she always thought it would be anticlimactic, like everyone claims. Instead it involves three Kiri-nin and a really horribly done disguise.
She's fighting off one, who Kakashi incapacitates, and jumps instinctively to the side when she sees a second charging her teammate and client.
It's not until the fight is over that she realizes she'd reacted for Sakura, not her charge, and this was what she was supposed to avoid.
.
Avoiding everyone from then on would have been preferable, but unfortunately, that isn't an option. Missions mean they're on top of each other, she doesn't know the land, and she can't just wander off. Training should have been a respite, but it quickly stops being one when Sakura makes it to the top of the tree first.
Even though it doesn't take Sasuke long to get there, too, it takes long enough. "You're a Uchiha," her father used to say to her all the time. "You were born to be great."
Now here she is, five years later, and she couldn't even make it up a tree the first time. Sakura doesn't understand. Maybe Kakashi does, maybe he doesn't—he must have known some of her family to make his way around the compound. But Naruto does, because there was a point where she told him everything.
"I'm going to go train. Thank you for the food," Sasuke says, standing, and ignores the way Naruto's eyes follow her as she walks away.
.
When Sasuke's Sharingan activates for the first time in the dome of mirrors, the whole word suddenly comes alive.
The Sharingan isn't perfect, she can actually feel that, but it's good enough. Haku attacks—from the left, right, top. Naruto is a little bigger than her, but shorter, and easy enough to pick up and get out of the way along with her. Each needle misses her by a significant enough space. Only a few attacks, and she's predicting Haku's moves before he makes them.
This is draining her chakra and she knows it, but it won't be long before she has an opportunity to attack. And she'd rather not kill, if she's going to be honest, but Naruto's hurt to the point of unconsciousness, and she's not in top shape herself. If it comes to it, it comes to it. She's a kunoichi. Killing is inevitable.
If she's ever going to kill Itachi one day, she has to learn not to cry about it.
But then—
It doesn't take much more than a thought before she throws herself in front of her teammate, unarmed but willing to do what it takes. She thrusts her arm out to block a killing blow to her neck, and doesn't scream when the needle slides between the bones in her hand. Wait—the needles! As gross and as dangerous as it is, she's faster than Haku is when he isn't hiding in his mirrors, so she makes it in enough time to block his next two needles when she rips one out of her arm, knocking them uselessly to the side.
Though she can feel her chakra draining already, she has enough still in her that when Haku goes to attack her full on, close quarters, and this time she doesn't dodge. Instead she moves right into it, evading enough to avoid the worst to the damage, and gets her less injured hand on his chest. Before he can react, she focuses as much chakra as she can into her palm like she did with her feet earlier on the tree, and shoves him hard.
That's the final straw for her body. The Sharingan flickers out; the colors lose their vibrancy, movement speeds up, the world is less clear. In her exhaustion, she doesn't notice the last three needles until they're too late.
She passes out from the final hit and chakra exhaustion, and never hits the ground, because Naruto gets his arms around her first.
.
After everything is done, and the bridge saved, Kakashi pulls the needles from her body, and something occurs to her. "It was you, wasn't it?" she asks as he starts on the ones in her back. "In the hospital. You used the Sharingan on me."
He pulls out one near her spine that hurts worse than the rest. She's too tired to care. "I was wondering when you'd recognize me."
"I don't," she says, and feels like she's admitting something because she's smart enough that she should remember a detail like that. "Seeing yours made me realize you used a genjutsu to counteract the effects of genjutsu."
"Sort of. What I did can easily end up a double edged sword—this is going to hurt." The next one is in her shoulder blade, brushing against her bone, and he's not wrong. "Genjutsu trauma is common. In most cases, the hospital offers psychiatric help, but you weren't responding."
Though she wants to ask why he has a Sharingan, she leaves the question alone for another day. Right now she just needs to know what the man she's putting her trust in as her leader did to her head when she was a child. "So what was your solution, then?" she says. "How's it a double edged sword?"
As he comes back in front of her to take the needle from her hand, he answers, "The Sharingan can affect a person's memory in its more advanced form. I haven't reached that point, but it was enough that I could dampen the memories. But go back into that house of yours or do something else to trigger a strong memory, and that's gone."
"So that's why you followed me home."
"This is going to hurt," he says again, but she just grips her teeth against the pain, and he continues, "You're one of my gennin. I wasn't going to let you risk it."
Her hand is bleeding once the needle is out, and he bandages it quickly. She was supposed to be the good one, she has the bloodline, the Sharingan, the skill, and it was Naruto who beat Haku and saved her. Kakashi says he damped the memories, but she still dreams of Itachi's eyes every night.
Not feeling was easy. She really hates that Team Seven is forcing her to care about them enough to risk her life.
.
In the aftermath, things settle between her and Naruto. She took away his one friend by shutting a door in his face, and she understands this. Apparently he hasn't realized yet that she took away her friend that day, too.
Somehow, when they reach Konoha, he manages to get his hands on an apple. "You still like them, right?" he says, holding it out to her, and it's not like her offering him food the day of Kakashi's test or him bringing her dinner because she spent a week barely eating.
This is casual. This is friendly.
This is bad.
Even so, she says, "Thanks," and wipes it off on her shirt after accepting it. The bandage came off her hand today, but her palm is scarred.
They split after, and she climbs a tree to get a moment of solitude before returning to her busy apartment building. From here the compound is visible just barely, and she tries not to think about what Kakashi said. On one hand, she's curious, but on the other, she can't imagine it being any worse than how she remembers. She's not in the mood to find out.
That's when he hears the commotion below. Naruto and Sakura are there, of course, but a kid who can't be much older than ten she vaguely recognizes as the Hokage's grandson is held up by someone with a Sunagakure head protector. In no stretch of the imagination would Sasuke consider herself a good person, but even she has reservations against hurting children, so despite how good this apple looks, she takes aims at the older boy's wrist and throws.
It hits right on the mark, and the Hokage's grandson lands sitting on the ground. When everyone looks up in her direction, neither of her teammates look surprised to see her there, though Sakura's eye rolls speaks a thousand words. "What are you doing here?" Sasuke asks, twisting so her legs dangle off the branch. "You know, besides tormenting children half your size."
The Suna-nin's face colors under his makeup, and Sasuke suddenly places the time of year—it's the advance to the next school year, as well as the chuunin exams. She hadn't known they were in Konoha this year.
If she's lucky, maybe Kakashi will put her through. Chuunin are given more complicated missions, which are one step closer to her brother, and one step closer to being free to do what she wants. After five years, she's starting to get lonely, and there's only one way to make that stop.
In the end, she doesn't care how bloody she needs to get her hands to do it.
.
She gets her contract without having to ask, and signs it immediately.
Later that night, she activates her Sharingan while looking in the mirror just to see if she can do it on demand, and all of the sudden, it's her brother's eyes staring back at her. The resulting panic ends in broken glass and a final understanding of what Kakashi meant.
.
With her Sharingan, she passes the first chuunin test easily enough, and finishes half the questions without having to cheat. Sakura could probably finish the whole thing without help. Sasuke doesn't want to risk the time.
When her eyes find Naruto, she sees he hasn't done anything. Must not have figured it out then, or at least not figured out how. Maybe he can't. Some of these are pretty inventive. She particularly likes the puppet and the mirrors, even if she doesn't like the ones working them, and the third Suna-nin's eye is just weird. The plants are obvious, though Sakura and Shikamaru could easily pass as two if they weren't clearly so young. Both Neiji and Hinata are doing something similar to her, and Ino's using possession to help her team. Sasuke makes note to watch out for that one.
From their methods in this room, Sasuke knows the Suna-nin are the ones to look out for, and Ino, too, though it takes perfect aim for that to work, she remembers. Neiji, obviously, from the rumors; Hinata, alternatively, is a nonissue unless she grew exponentially since the Academy. While Naruto appears useless, he's not, and she's really starting to understand that. Both Shikamaru and Sakura are smart, which is dangerous in a different sort of way, and Sakura has nearly perfect chakra control. Earlier Lee proved he was someone to look out for, too.
Oh, this is going to be fun. There's going to be one on one fighting eventually, she Sasuke just hopes she goes against someone good. Some of the people here even seem like they might be challenges.
This is a room of monsters, and Sasuke wouldn't mind proving she ranks right up there with the rest of them.
.
At first, the Forest of Death really isn't so bad. But then comes the man, the snakes, and the bite. The pain is like nothing Sasuke's ever felt before, and even the embarrassment of Naruto having to save her against isn't enough to diminish it.
She doesn't pass out right away. Sakura has her arms around her, trying to hold her upright, and Sasuke can actually feel her temperature rising. A few feet away, Naruto lies injured, and now they have no scroll at all. You're not the real Sasuke, he'd said. She'd never give up like that.
Well, she had, and this is price for it. A bleeding neck, a mark on her shoulder according to Sakura, and the effects of exactly what Kakashi told her to avoid—she'd only felt killing intent like that once before, after all. Hurting herself was the only option to snap out of her. Her father taught her years ago that sometimes pain is the only option.
There's a heat in her body and in her mind, and she's not thinking straight when she says, "We have to move. Now."
"We should, but we can't. I can't carry both of you," Sakura answers, and before Sasuke can point out that she can walk, her friend continues, "You're about to fall over. Sleep. I'll protect you."
Sakura has the best control, but she's the weakest out of all of them. It should be Sasuke protecting her. "I'm fine," she hears herself say. "We have to, we have to."
The world comes rushing in dark, the opposite of the Sharingan, and everything dims. Sasuke doesn't have time to think before the heat takes over her mind and everything fades.
.
It's late in the day, some time around dusk, and Sasuke is six. Itachi stands behind her, maneuvering her body and holding her wrist to teach her how to throw. Not too far away is a target painted on a tree right outside the walls of the compound.
Now lean your hand back, just a little, her brother says, using his fingers to adjust hers. All right. Eyes on the target?
She grins. It's almost never that Itachi takes the time to give her a lesson like this. Eyes on the target, she answers, and lets him adjust her elbow. Now?
As he backs away from her, he says, You should be ready.
The kunai, which will later become her favorite weapon, soars with perfect trajectory towards the center of the target. She turns, goes to look at him for approval, but he puts his hand on the top of her head, and keeps her eyes steady to watch the result.
I told you, Sasuke, he says as the tree morphs suddenly into their mother. You should be ready.
When the blade connects, burying in her chest, Sasuke tries to run forward, but Itachi grabs her first, hand over her mouth. The forest falls away, the trees widen, the leaves become a roof, and she's back in her home while her parents lie dead on the floor, and their blood's on her hands instead.
Sharingan eyes stare at her in the darkness and the Mangekyo is fire burning her through.
.
She wakes to damaged Oto-nins and half the applicants from her own village all standing around. There's something wrapped around her, too, and after a moment, she realizes Sakura's holding her from behind, face pressed to her shoulder.
Though still dazed from whatever the man did to her earlier and the weird dream, Sasuke still has enough of her mind working to ask, "What happened?"
There's a beat of awkward silence before Neiji answers, "You happened, Uchiha."
One of the Oto-nins hands over the scrolls in exchange for their lives even though Sasuke still doesn't understand why everyone's acting so afraid of her. Everyone but Naruto, who's still unconscious, and Sakura, who refuses to let go of her hand.
.
The next time she tries to use the Sharingan, all the air is sucked from lungs from the pain. Whatever the thing on her neck is burns, and it's not that it's blocking off her chakra—no, it's draining it. Considering her moves rely on so much already, this is a problem.
By the time Kabuto comes, she's feeling as useless as everyone said she was as kid. "Fight me," she tells him. "If I win, we get the scroll we need. You already said you have both."
He answers, "It's better if we help each other," so fast she knows he didn't even consider it. Maybe he's one of those shinobi who refuses to hit women. There are enough out there, and she's not some delicate flower. She graduated best her class, she can fight. Even with this sudden handicap with the Sharingan, she can still fight.
Then Sakura asks, "How?" and Kabuto's reasoning is too sound to ignore.
Itachi became a chuunin at ten, her parent's pride and joy, and raising ranks three months after graduation would finally mean she's done something better than him.
.
When they find out they pass from Iruka, she's relieved enough that she actually lets Sakura hug her. Five minutes later, though, after the finding out about the preliminary rounds, Sasuke's appreciation for the girl plummets when she says, "You should forfeit now."
She's made it pretty clear to both her teammates why this important to her, so Sasuke thinks she has a right to be offended. "I'm fine," she says, crossing her arms. "This is just the preliminaries."
"But—"
"If you try to stop me, I'm never going to forgive you."
That silences Sakura instantly, and even Naruto keeps his mouth shut for once. The last thing Sasuke wants is for him to find out about the mark, because the last thing she needs is for him of all people to think she's weak. "Just be careful, then," Sakura says quietly, tucking her newly short hair behind her ear. "And don't use the Sharingan. Promise?"
Before Sasuke has a chance to answer, the board lights up, and her name appears on screen. "I'll make it quick," she says, and it's as close to a promise as her teammate is going to get.
.
Sitting in a giant circle with scribbles all over her bodies makes Sasuke more nervous than she wants to admit, and it only gets worse when Kakashi picks up on it. "This is going to hurt. You'll probably pass out from the pain," he says, and she's so sick of doing that by now that he isn't helping. "I'll be careful not to hurt you more than I have to."
"I can handle it."
As he finishes the final line on the edge of the circle, he says, "I've noticed. What got you to regain control over yourself?"
Naruto yelling for her is the real answer, but she doesn't want to admit that. It's just that she had a sudden reminder of childhood, some stupid day when they were seven and she was had almost exhausted herself from a jutsu her father had taught her. He kept telling her to keep going, because he's been that pushy since he was six. The only difference is that it managed to become annoying as they aged.
"I told Sakura I would make it quick," she says instead. "That would have made it longer."
Even though the way he raises his eyebrow seems skeptical, he doesn't question her, and instead positions himself near her shoulder. "Don't feel bad if you scream," he tells her, and puts his hand down right against the seal.
She doesn't make a sound.
.
Waking in the hospital wasn't what she expected, and she hadn't meant to knock over the small vase of daffodils. Really.
"Sakura brought them for you," Kakashi says, putting them back on the end table, and Sasuke tries not to look at them. "We need to talk about your next match."
When she was younger, she picked daffodils a lot because Itachi liked them. Sakura couldn't have known, but they aren't helping. "Hard, or easy?"
"It's the Suna boy. Gaara, without the eyebrows. He destroyed Lee's body."
That's enough to get her attention. Sure, the kid was weird and his technique easy to replicate with the Sharingan, but he was still good enough to gain her respect. "Destroyed as in how?"
Putting down his book, Kakashi answers, "His arm, leg, and spine are shattered. There's a chance he'll never be able to be a shinobi after he's released, even with extensive rehabilitation. Gaara has a layer of indestructible sand around him that can't be breached, even with Lee's technique, and he can do much more than what you saw."
"You aren't telling me to forfeit too, are you?" After Sakura, Sasuke isn't sure she take anyone else.
But Kakashi just shakes his head. "You're going to need private training. I think I know how to beat him."
"What about Naruto? Sakura?"
"Naruto is advancing. Sakura and Ino, her opponent, lost in a draw."
This comes as a bigger disappointment than Sasuke thought it would, but she's seen what Sakura can do. More than that, she's heard about what happened in the Forest of Death. Sakura's not spectacular, but she at least deserved to advance. But she and Ino hated each other, if Sasuke remembers correctly. She wouldn't be surprised if that got in the way of a fight.
Still. What happens with Sakura isn't her biggest concern. "So when do we start?" she asks, because the sooner the better.
As he stands, Kakashi says, "The meeting point is on the paper under the vase. Come whenever you think you're well enough to leave the hospital. And, if you beat Gaara and Naruto beats Neiji, your next opponents are each other."
Sasuke waits until he exits the room, and concentrates to listen for his footsteps walking away. The moment she's sure he's gone, she throws off the covers, and starts looking for her clothes. Even if she isn't fully healed yet, it doesn't matter. If she can beat Gaara, if she can beat Naruto (who better beat Neiji, because she really wants to fight him), then she can go on to become a chuunin. She can get one step closer to reaching her goal.
On her way out, she accidentally knocks the daffodils to the floor. Hopefully Sakura won't take that as too much of a personal insult, because Sasuke's not hanging around long enough to fix it.
.
They focus on taijutsu first, using Lee's as a baseboard and then adding her own twists. Unlike him, she can chakra, and utilizes that ability to its fullest, focusing it where she needs for a power boost. Kakashi saw the saw, saw how it fast it was. According to him, she's probably faster than the outer layer, but the shell Gaara uses will still be too quick.
A week, Kakashi tells her, "Stop using so much chakra. If you waver, the seal's going to pull it from you, and any moves you try are going to be useless, and you're faster than most shinobi already."
"You still haven't told me what this is," she says, brushing her bangs out of her face. Sakura had the right idea cutting her hair. "And I know you know. I'm not an idiot."
Kakashi's silent for a while he puts his hand on her shoulder without the seal and pushes her to sit down on one of the rocks. "His name's Orochimaru. He's one of the three sennin of Konoha, and he defected. The mark means he wants you to become one of his men—or, more specifically, he wants to possess you, and use your body to achieve immortality because his is getting old."
The mark was already creepy enough without finding out she was in line for possession. "And what, he thinks I'm actually going to go along with that?" she says. "Who—"
"With the training he'd give you, you'd be strong enough to kill Itachi first." When she shuts her mouth, he continues, "But whatever you do, Sasuke, just…don't go with him."
"Didn't we just go over that I'm not an idiot?" she says. "Even for revenge, I'm not going to let someone use my body. I have a little more dignity than that."
Another bout of silence, and then Kakashi takes a seat next to her. "There's this talk that all shinobi, but specifically kunoichi are supposed to get before their first mission without their jounin leader," he says, and she can already see where this is going. They get a version of it in the Academy. "If I'd known there was going to be a Forest of Death, I would have given it to you and Sakura earlier. When it comes to captive situations and interrogations, kunoichi get the worse treatment, usually. Rape is outlawed in most of the allied Hidden Villages, but I doubt the same's true for Otogakure. Just because you're twelve won't change things."
In the Academy, she heard this too, but it was more long-winded and a lot less blunt. Even so, she does know it's usually one of the harsher interrogation techniques. "So you really think—that would happen?"
"Manipulation comes in a lot of different forms, Sasuke."
She's not even considering it, and she thinks he knows it, and doesn't like that he seems to doubt her enough to think this talk is even necessary. Though, from the sound of it, she'd be getting this eventually.
As she stands, she says, "All right, then. I guess you just have to show me this new move so I can run him through instead next time I see him."
It's hard to tell under the mask, but she thinks he smiles at that.
.
Another week passes, and she masters the Chidori. The effects of chakra exhaustion kick in immediately.
By the time the day of the third test comes, she can do two in a row.
.
Naruto's already in the arena when she arrives, and she'll never admit out loud that she's actually disappointed to miss the match. That said, his hug comes as a surprise. When did he get as tall as she is?
"I won," he tells her, "so kick Gaara's ass so I can beat you, too."
The ref calls him away too quick for her to answer, leaving her alone with Gaara. There's killing intent raising off of him in waves. She's late, and he's probably angry, but she doesn't care. Naruto won, and that means she actually has a chance to fight him now.
When the match begins, she makes the first attack. Gaara's sand is too slow, but his inner shell protects him, and that's okay because all she needs to do is piss him off first.
.
Here she is, curled up on the branch of a tree with her ribs broken, seal taking over her body, and Sakura dying. Naruto's arrival is cutting it too close to too late. "You're the one with the excess amount of chakra," Sasuke says, gripping at the bottom of his shirt. "Use all of it if you have to. Just save Sakura."
Right now she doesn't care about Itachi, she doesn't care about her damn pride, and she doesn't even really care about Konoha—that's Sakura, stuck to a tree by stand, with her life slowly squeezed out of her. She's dying, and it's not quick. It's not painless. It's going to hurt, and she's going to suffer, and Sasuke's not losing anyone else. The seal just isn't letting her fight her own battle.
Gaara, or the thing that Gaara turned into, makes a noise halfway between a snarl and a roar. Even though she can't see herself, Sasuke knows the lines aren't receding, and she told Kakashi she was stronger than this. She told him—
"Hurry the fuck up, you idiot, and save her."
For a second, Naruto's fingers touch her hair. Then he's gone, and Sasuke struggles to get a kunai out for a last line of defense if he fails. This can't be the end for her, for them, but if it is, at least she's dying for her team.
.
Even though her injuries were nowhere near as bad as Naruto's or even Sakura's, something about the seal amplifies the damage, and Sasuke's in the hospital the longest. She misses the Hokage's funeral. It gives her too much time on her hands to think about how stupid she was back there, really willing to risk dying like that without doing what she has to, and how Naruto had to save her again. There's this general belief that kunoichi aren't as strong as their male counterparts. That's why there are always more boy trainees in the Academy than girls.
Sasuke always thought she'd broken the stereotype.
As a gennin without parents, at least she's a legal adult and can sign herself out early if she wants. The medical-nin stares at her disapprovingly, but can't say anything against it. Getting to back to her apartment would mean maybe seeing Naruto, and she doesn't want to do that. Being in town risks running into anyone else. Konoha still looks destroyed, whole buildings covered in scaffolding as civilian construction workers patch things up, or shinobi helping out by climbing walls with chakra. There's a crack in the Hokage monument.
This is her village, and it's destroyed. As much as she wants revenge, she can't understand why Orochimaru would ever think she'd follow him after doing this to the place she calls home.
.
There's a letter under her door when she arrives back at her thankfully intact apartment (with a view of the damaged Academy three streets down from the window) from Kakashi saying to meet him at nine tomorrow by a sweet shop downtown, which means that area must not have been touched that badly. When the knock comes, she automatically assumes it's Sakura, who she legitimately wants to know the condition of, and opens it.
Instead of Sakura, she finds Naruto holding a bowl of miso soup. "I know you don't like ramen or sugar," he says, and she's too surprised to shut the door in his face, "but I also know food always makes me feel better, and this is the next best thing."
She blinks, realizes what he's saying, and answers, "I'm fine," but he's already forced himself past her. "Hey, I didn't say you could come in."
Apparently her lack of invitation doesn't bother him, because all he does is put the bowl down on her table. There's even a spoon. "Wow, I always thought this place would be neat, but this is spotless," he says. "How do you do it?"
"I clean regularly, like a normal person," she says, frowning. "What are you doing here, Naruto?" The question, are you here to rub it in my face that apparently you're better? goes unasked.
"Remember that time when we were kids and we said we were going to run away from Konoha because your cousin asked why you even bothered trying and that older kid beat the shit out of me for no reason?" he says, which is somehow even more surprising than him showing up at her door.
Though she hasn't thought about it in years, she does remember—she was having trouble getting her fingers to move right to make seals, so everyone got pissed at her, and when she went to go find Naruto to complain, he was covered in cuts and bruises. With his memory as bad as it is, she never though he would remember something like that, too, considering they were only six at the time.
She doesn't get a chance to say anything, because he beats her to it. "You know, seeing as I'm going to be Hokage one day and all, it's a pretty good thing that we didn't run away, but I still liked you a lot better when you actually smiled."
Without that, he leaves, and when she spins around to protest that excuse him, but just because she prefers not to smile to him doesn't mean she doesn't smile at all, but this time, she's the one who gets the door in her face. From what the creaking floors in the hallways give away, she can tell he doesn't wait around for her reaction, either.
After a moment of just standing there, she throws out the miso soup, and curls up on her bed, trying to tell herself that hadn't hurt her as much as it did.
.
She's sitting at Kakashi's bedside waiting for answers from the other jounin when the man comes running in. "Is it true that Itachi's returned?" he says, and she snaps her eyes from Kakashi to him. "And that he's after Naruto?"
Like that, all the air leaves her lungs. Someone says, "You fucking idiot!" and by the time Kurenai's reached out hand to grab her, Sasuke's already gone.
Even if she doesn't know exactly where Naruto is, it shouldn't be too hard to find him. Sasuke throws all her concentration into tracking him, trying to block out the image of her brother's blade going through his back.
.
When she comes across them finally, the sight of Itachi makes nothing else matter. Not the man next to him, not Naruto staring at him with terrified recognition as he knows her story. It's just her, and Itachi, except her brother is seeing so much more than she is.
The Sharingan activates with her thinking about it. "It's been a while, Sasuke," he says, and he was thirteen at the time, so she shouldn't really be surprised his voice sounds different. To someone else, he adds, "This is the little sister I was telling you about."
A shiver racks her body, and everything she's feeling is condensed and muddled and doesn't make much sense. "Hello, Itachi," she says, and her voice doesn't sound like her own, either. "I see you've been talking about me."
"Well, when you join an organization, it's a good idea to mention if your massacres had any survivors who might come seeking revenge."
"Survive—you left me."
With his Sharingan, more advanced than hers, he'll be able to see everything, but speed is still speed, and the chakra gathers until she has a fully developed Chidori sparking around her hand. Adrenaline makes her fastest than usual, Itachi hasn't had a chance to move yet, and for a second she really thinks she can do it. That's the worst part.
Instead Itachi just grabs her wrist, and snaps it, like all that chakra can't hurt him at all. "You're getting in the way, little sister," he says over her scream, and next thing she knows, she's in a heap down the hall, having landed right on her wrist.
Naruto's chakra explodes, terrifying and all encompassing, and Sasuke doesn't lift her head in time to see what so suddenly stops it. All she knows is that next second some other guy shows up, ranting about something or another, and it gives her the opportunity to pull herself back up. You can ignore pain. A broken wrist is just a broken wrist. Father showed her that years ago.
And Itachi defended her when she came to him in tears. Had he really only been pretending to like her for that long?
When she comes at him again, she does so from behind, and he's distracted enough by the new person that her kunai gets him in the side as he evades her attack. But he recovers fast, and then there's a knee to her abdomen followed by a punch to her solar plexus and finally a hand at her throat, holding her against the wall. Naruto calls out, but Sasuke can see clearly now that Itachi's just too strong, and they're both useless in the face of him.
Just as her Sharingan deactivates, a voice from somewhere behind says, "You shouldn't use your eyes so many times in one day," and the memories Kakashi dampened years ago rush back as she realizes what's about to happen.
"Hey, wait, don't—not again!"
It's not any easier the second time around.
If anything, it's worse.
.
This time, food stays food and people can touch her, because she's older and she could handle it, maybe. But sleeping is impossible and she's afraid to shut her eyes and nothing seems to make sense the way it should.
"Where's Kakashi?" she asks on the third day, unable to take the nightmares. "I want Kakashi."
Whoever this medical-nin is, he just sets his mouth in a line and keeps working Sasuke's wrist. "He's still bedridden," the medical-nin answers, and holds her arm steady when her body shutters. "Hey, you're going to be okay."
Their father died first, trying to shield his wife. Itachi made her watch it from his eyes, that's what Kakashi blocked last time. She wants it blocked again. She wants to stop feeling herself killing her family. They had a cousin, age fifteen, and she—no, Itachi—ran her through the back.
She'd been engaged to a civilian.
Right when Sasuke starts crying, horrified by her own reaction, Sakura enters, and the medic backs out quietly. "Sasuke, Sasuke, calm down," her friend says, and climbs onto the bed. They had an aunt, her aunt, and she in the middle of making the seals for the family Kanton jutsu. "You're safe. Konoha is safe."
"It wasn't me, it wasn't me." Breathing is suddenly hard, and she can feel her—no, Itachi's, because Itachi is the one who killed everyone—katana go through their mother's ribs. Sakura wraps her arms around her, and Sasuke twists her hand in her friend's shirt, face pressed to her shoulder. "It wasn't me, it really wasn't, I swear—"
"I know, we know," Sakura says, and the grip of her arms tightens. "Sasuke, you're safe as long as you're with me."
Sasuke doesn't believe her.
.
When Naruto returns with the Fifth Hokage, Sasuke's childhood hero heals her with only a couple simple touches. "What happened to your wrist?" Tsunade asks. "Not this time. Last time. Whoever did set it did a terrible job. You're lucky you can throw properly."
Even though she's healed physically, she's still having trouble thinking, which has to be the only justifiable reason she answers, "My father wanted to teach me not to scream."
She misses Sakura's horror and Naruto's balled fists. Instead she thinks, It didn't work, and feels even more ashamed of herself than before.
.
At seven, she mastered the Kanton jutsu in a week, a full seven days and who knows how many tries more than her brother. It was the first time since she was registered to the Academy that her father told her, "You're a Uchiha, Sasuke," with pride instead of reprimand. Wear this proudly, he'd said. This is what it means to be the daughter of the Uchiha clan.
She's Uchiha Sasuke, daughter of head family of the final line of the Uchiha clan, the clan that helped found Konoha. She's the hope for the family, the last of them, and that bloodline is hers.
So why does this clan-less kid who couldn't even hit the center of a target at seven suddenly have the power to progress so quickly?
Her attempts to pick a fight lead her as far as the hospital roof, but Naruto just ends up planting himself where he is. "I'm not going to attack you," he says in a voice that makes her sound like she's a child and he's an adult with some great wisdom when his whole life is nothing but thoughtless, stupid mistakes and attention-seeking pranks. "I want to fight you, too, but not like this."
"I'm fine," she snaps, and doesn't think about how she uses those words more often than not lately. "What is it, Naruto? Too afraid to be beaten by a girl? If you've forgotten somehow, I should remind that I've been better than you since we were children."
"I—I've learned a lot since the Forest of Death!" he says, which means she's getting to him already. "But that's not the point. You're barely standing, you—stop acting like you think you're better than everyone else when we both know you don't!"
She doesn't think she's better than everyone else, yeah, but she doesn't need to. All right, so she hasn't slept in days, and she's barely eaten, and this is the first time she's spoken in more than monosyllables in a comprehensible way since the hotel, but she's perfectly fine, because Itachi was wrong. She isn't useless. She wasn't getting in the way. She's the daughter of the Uchiha family, she's the last hope for the clan, and Naruto's is the one who's the screw up.
This isn't fair, and she's sick of being confused.
From the doorway, Sakura calls out, "Naruto's right, the insomnia's affecting you still, you can't," and that's enough. When Sasuke blinks, the Sharingan activates.
Now finally, finally Naruto understands she's serious. "I'm not going to go easy on you just because you have a stupid inferiority complex," he says, and she attacks.
.
Not ten minutes later, and Naruto's flung away towards the water tower by the ankle while Kakashi takes advantage of her much thinner body to snag her by the waist instead. But her adrenaline doesn't fail even as the Sharingan does, and it isn't hard to struggle out of his grasp.
Even so, she doesn't try to attack again. As Naruto emerges from the water tower, Kakashi says, "What were the two of you thinking, fighting on the hospital roof? You could have killed each other."
"Sasuke started it," Naruto says, and rubs the back of his head. "Blame her."
Kakashi rounds on her immediately. "You," he says, "stay here. We're having a talk when I'm done." Turning back to Naruto, he continues, "And you, you shouldn't have let her get to you. Do you see the damage behind you? Were you trying to kill your teammate? Because one hit of that and she'd be dead."
"She had the Sharingan, it never would have connected!"
"I thought you knew better than to be reckless enough to take that risk, Naruto. You two are on the same team—partners, allies, however you want to think of it—and you need to focus on fighting everyone else, not each other." Then he goes back to her, which means she's the lucky winner that's going to get two talks in row. "So what was it, Sasuke? This is a pretty unconventional place to start a fight."
She plans not to answer, but Naruto, that traitor, says for her, "She ran into her brother, who broke her wrist, and then did something weird with his Sharingan. Why do I have to get a lecture? She started it!"
When she tries to move towards her teammate again, Kakashi wraps his arm around her ribs and forces her back. "Change of plans. Naruto, Sakura, get out of here. Naruto, we'll talk later."
"But I didn't—"
"Naruto, we should go," Sakura says, and when she grabs her arm, he actually leaves with her.
Once the door to the roof slams, the tension decreases, not increases as she expected. "Sit down, I want it harder for you to run away," Kakashi says, and gestures to his left.
"I—"
"Sasuke."
She sits, scowling, against raised edge of the hospital roof, and he crouches down to her level. It's not until she feels the adrenaline rush finally ending that she realizes this was actually just to make the exhaustion kick in again. "So you've now had the Mangekyo used on you twice," he says, and it isn't a question, so she doesn't justify it without an answer. "I'm guessing you remember, then."
This isn't a question, either, but still, she nods, and wonders if he learned the full extent of it when she was younger. "He used on you, too, didn't he?"
"Yeah, he did, but just the pain. No images," Kakashi says. "When's the last time you slept?" She shrugs. "If I hadn't cut in, that attack would've connected. Insomnia has side effects even the Sharingan can't help."
Now that she's calmer, she's starting to see that, too. Her reaction times were slower, her speed not exactly at its best. She keeps quiet, and when he must realize she's not going to talk, he adds, "Look, you've been in and out of the hospital since the second test. That seal was a big enough setback, and then there's this. Sakura and Naruto have had this whole time to train, and you've gotten roughly three weeks out of nearly three months. I can keep training you once you've gotten some sleep, but only if you stop."
She looks up at him, confused. "Stop what?"
"I've seen what revenge does to people," he answers. "You're not going to have any satisfaction beyond superficial after you get it. There are people in Konoha who care about you, and you probably shouldn't repay that by trying to kill them."
This time, he lets the quiet sit, and it takes her a minute to gather her thoughts. "Why is he going after Naruto?" she asks eventually. "Who was that man he was with? He was blue, or something, or at least I think."
When all this happened, she'd been out of the hospital for a day, and even she knows she wasn't in any condition to fight, especially not against Itachi. But then she found Kakashi unconscious and that jounin said her brother was after Naruto, and they aren't the only people who care, though it's a liability for her. It's just that she knows what Itachi can do, could do, and if he could kill the entirety of the Uchiha family, then thirteen-year-old Naruto wouldn't stand a chance. His insane chakra stamina doesn't matter, and against her better judgment, she's still spend a lot of time thinking about how close she was to finding him dead, or worse.
Sasuke refuses to go through that again.
"He's another missing-nin in the bingo book," Kakashi tells her. "We don't know everything, and some of it's confidential, but you can know this much, I suppose. It seems as though your brother joined an organization called the Akatsuki. I don't know what they want with Naruto, and I wasn't able to get answers."
The Akatsuki. At least now she has a name. "A Sharingan can counteract a Sharingan," she says. "Can you show me how to combat the Mangekyo? If he goes after Naruto, then I'm going to encounter him no matter what I say. I just don't want to have that weakness anymore."
"It'll make you the only one here immune, so, yes, I will," he says, and stands, holding out his arm. "Do I have your word this won't happen a second time?"
Again, she nods, and takes his hand so he can pull her up. "He told me I was just in the way," she says, and wonders when she let herself become comfortable enough to talk to him. She's too soft, now. "That's when he broke my wrist."
Kakashi sighs. "You're here, Sasuke. Your brother's not," he says. "He can only matter as long as you let him."
That seems to be the end of the conversation, because he takes her by the shoulder and steers her back inside. People only matter as long as you let them. Though she never thought about it directly, she'd been under the assumption that on some level she must still matter to Itachi, and that was why he left her alive.
Looking down at her arm, she decides he must have been an even better liar than she thought, and maybe Kakashi is right.
.
All she wanted to do was go for a walk because she couldn't sleep, and she assumed Konoha would be safe enough for midnight stroll. A second fight in one day after a still unbroken bout of insomnia wasn't part of the plan. To make it worse, her chakra is still so low from the failed Chidori against Naruto earlier that she can't even use the Sharingan without risking this seal.
This has to be karma.
The person holding her up looks completely unhurt, though she landed every blow, and even tired she should be strong enough to leave a dent. "Why Orochimaru would want a weakling like her," he says, and the name sends a jolt down Sasuke's spine. "Kimimaro was a lot more promising than this one."
"You didn't blow out my hearing, you know," she says, and he just raises an eyebrow. "If you want to say something to me, then say it. Don't act like I'm some set piece."
His laugh jostles his grip on her, and her shirt slides, catching on the edges of her chest wrap. "No one mentioned you had a mouth on you," he says, smirking, but at least he's actually addressing her. "Now, I've got a proposition for you. See, if you stay here in this village, you'll be just as weak as everyone else. Playing nice with that little team of yours will only ruin you. But if you come with us, Orochimaru can train you personally. He can make you strong."
The prospect isn't as appealing as it would have been twelve hours ago, and the conversation she had with Kakashi during training wasn't exactly an easy thing to forget. "Thanks, but I'd rather not," she answers, and the man holding her flings her at the wall.
"Quit messing around," he snaps. "It'll be such a pain if we actually have to take you by force."
"Really? Then try—shit!" Orochimaru's seal suddenly burns, and it might've been a while, but she can still recognize it as the feeling it gets right before it spreads.
Not the one who held her up, but the one next to him who was equally annoying to fight, kneels down. "You're doing a pretty good job holding it back, girl," he says, "but you still haven't figured out how to control it. If you don't learn to soon, it's going to consume you until you have no free will left and you're just Orochimaru's puppet. You don't want that to happen, do you?"
They must not know Kakashi confined it, she realizes. "I'm not going with you," she says, ignoring the pain. "Just leave me alone. You can tell Orochimaru the same thing."
The first one smiles, like she said some sort of joke. "Oh, we can?" he says, and that's when the man in front of her lunges.
.
Sasuke is seven, and Itachi thirteen. Am I really a waste of space? she asks, young and indignant and most of all, believing it. Everyone says I am.
Itachi adjusts his grip on her so she settles more comfortably around his hips. There's a daffodil tucked behind her ear. Haven't I told you before, Sasuke? he answers. You shouldn't listen to them. No little sister of mine is a waste of space.
This doesn't feel very reassuring. Yes, I am, she says, and leans her head against his shoulder. That's why you act like I'm always getting in the way.
No, I don't.
But you spend all your time with Shisui now.
He stops walking. Sasuke, Shisui is dead.
Oh. Somehow she'd forgotten about that. Did you kill him?
Yes.
Why?
When he sets her down on the wall by at the border of their property, she's confused, because he said they were going to the woods. Then he blinks, and his Sharingan is different.
Because you need to kill your best friend to get these eyes, little sister, he tells her, and Sasuke wakes with a gasp to darkness and a cramped space and heat burning from her shoulder to her head.
...
note: I'm dyslexic. I tried to proofread, but this is a blanket apology for any inevitable typos.
