Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

Status: Incomplete

For the first few years of my second life, the only thing I remembered were hands.

I don't remember when the blackness started to fade at the edge of my vision and the colors and blurry surroundings began to set in instead. All I remembered was that it was as if someone had switched on the light. The memories before the Switch had been darkness; warm, and mulch-like, sticky and gripping. The memories after were like stepping into an ice-spring with only the skin of your teeth and nothing more.

When the hands first came, I thought I had woken up from the dream. The feeling of graininess prickled my eyes. My tongue was dry, like I had slept with my mouth open and drooled all over the pillow. There was a moment of disorientation—one that would stay with me for the rest of this life—when I awoke. A small, buzzing noise filled my ears; the hesitant distance from reality, just a touch of clarity away. The feeling of something tipping came with more force than it should, and the world—a blur of colors and noises and feelings crawling up my throat—suddenly whirled all too fast, and I found myself crashing to what I would later recognize as the floor.

The hands were large, but I didn't notice that at first.

They were like tree trunks, wrapping themselves around my torso like a band of iron. My head lolled, eyes rolling back, before they caught the movement with rough, padded fingers. Something—someone—crooned, bringing me closer.

In that moment, I could scarcely breathe. The world seemed to narrow down to that split second, that moment where I could feel every square inch, every groove etched into those hands, those fingers. They were rough on the back of my head, cradling my neck. They had thick wrists, supporting my spine, keeping me steady.

They spanned my entire body, could crush me in an instant.

In those few seconds, I saw the hands, felt them resting on my skin, and a flicker of clarity began to shine through the fog. Something had shifted, although I hadn't known what. My vision was too shaky to catch anything in particular, but it was so quiet I could hear a pin drop.

The intake of a sharp breath, the sound of fabric rushing across skin, and then something soft brushed my forehead before my eyes shuttered closed once more, unable to be stirred.

…

I was awakened more than once after the Switch. The darkness had been replaced, and the light it had brought was more annoying than refreshing. It was as if something was stirring me from a long-awaited sleep, as if there was a little echo of a thought pushing me to come to a conclusion I wasn't ready to make.

There were times where it tickled my very tongue, and the thought would itch to break free from the fog, bursting against the seams. Sometimes, I whined in my sleep; for what, or whom, I didn't know—all I remembered was the mulch-like, moist darkness, enclosing on my mind, my spirit for far too long to recall.

And then, just as I was on the eve of a reckoning, the breaking of the dam, the thought would recede like the rushing of the tide, and the sleep would gather once more in my mind, and I'd be lost again.

The hands stayed, ever-changing. Sometimes, the thick ones, with heavy-set wrists and calloused fingers would caress my cheek, over and over, and strange, jilted lullabies would filter out from far away. I barely stirred, my mind half-stuck in the darkness, half-dragged to the light.

Others, it was the tender, gentle ones. They were slender, and delicate; long-fingered and brushing. They would wander over my skin, drawing circles as I slept, and sometimes held me close to warmth, whispering close nothings to the quiet of my skin. They were colder than the thick ones, shakier, as if their very essence was trembling to the core; as if they touched with the yearning to live.

Sometimes, I could feel other ones dragging across my soft skin; leathery, broken, and then soft and smooth like scented creams, until I could barely recall the feeling of the ones that had held me first.

The fog recoiled at the touch. My skin became a livewire, a haven of reaction, and there were times when my eyes even flickered open for mere seconds, catching the glare of the high sun, or the downy shade of a green, green leaf, before shutting closed with an exhausted sigh.

Every time, there would be the intake of breath, and the fluttering of hope.

Every time, my mind became clearer, sharper, until one day, the sleep receded, its tendrils leaving me until the time came to succumb once more.

…

The time in the sleep was warped. I remembered the Switch, the hands, and then the noises and colors and sounds and feelings in a haze of blurry glory that threatened to choke me whenever I thought of it too much.

Sometimes, I thought I could hear echoes of words, ringing through my head like bells.

"…so small…perfect…"

The sound of a sobbing laugh, joy so sharp it threatened to hurt.

"…She's ours…oh she's ours…"

Paralyzing, terrified happiness at the sight of the child, so brilliant and poignant it shone out of them.

The language was strange, alien. It had been so long since I'd heard the language of the tongue, so long since I'd felt the murky movements of speech on my own. The sleep claimed me, but I had memories, distant, careful memories, of the time before it.

The rocky, ridging mountains, a splendor of beauty before me, the snow carpeting the valleys like a blanket over a babe. The blackened, dusky smell of burning wood over a hearth, and the sharpness of the heat on my skin, like a knife against my throat. The way the fire flickered, softly, dangerously; a newborn creature in a night of old things.

They went as quickly as they came—the sounds and the memories—but the time of the sleep remained changed, a break in the warp, a glitch in the murk of the overcast.

My mind slept, but the life inside me whirled, until it came crashing and crawling out of me, and I was forced to wrench my eyes open wide enough to see the whites of them.

…

The day I awoke was the eve of my fourth birthday.

I don't know why, or how, or if there was a reason for it. All I know, was that the sleep, the murk and fog left my body the eve of the fourth of June and my mind shuttered open with a screeching gasp.

There was little I remembered about the moment, the hesitation before it, only that the feeling that had been on the brink of explosion finally shattered and I could suddenly—breathe.

The aftermath was a clear, contemplative moment of what the fuck.

I was in a room with high, yawning windows, and lazy, trailing curtains. They were white. That's what I remember. The curtains were so white they hurt my eyes, and for a moment, I tried to close them, to shield myself and fall back, but my mind remained clear.

There was no tempting, seduction of sleep. I could feel myself now. The strange empty fullness was gone. I could touch my skin, the skin that had been stroked and loved and cherished by so many; my tiny, baby fingers trailed over my hands. At some point, I realized…they were small…so desperately, frailly, small. I could count every ridge of my bone, every groove of my fingertips.

There was a moment—a moment where I realized that—and then—

I gasped. I think I might have even screamed a little because suddenly there were thundering footsteps, and shouting voices, and the sound of metal scraping metal, and then my door—a tall, looming entrance—was flung open, and there I saw them.

A man and a woman, wild in the eyes, and desperate in the face.

My heart beat faster, faster, until I was clutching at the skin of my face, wet dribbling down my cheeks, and my eyes were warm, stinging, because I didn't understand—oh god why am I here—I don't understand—I don't understandidon'tidon't—

(I am meant to sleep, and sleep, and sleep until the dawn of time anew.)

I didn't notice that the man and woman came closer, cooing desperately, until I felt a hand brush my cheek. I flinched back, deep and terrified. My eyes were round in my face, petrified.

The woman looked at me carefully. She was tall, stately and slender. The only thing familiar about her was her hands. They were cold, and I recognized them vaguely, like a fuzzy memory, as the ones that had brushed back my hair, and ran circles over my skin with a tenderness of fierce it had nearly pulled me over the edge.

Her eyes were a brilliant, wicked green. She was pale-faced, her pupils dilating with something close to terror. Her mouth worked somewhat desperately, and I thought she was saying words, but I was too still, too shocked to notice. Her lips were pale pink, sickly.

My mind whirled, charged with horror and my baby hands shook, and my face was wet. I was sure that I looked a mess; four years old, a look of inconceivable terror on my face, my mouth stuck in a scream.

I am not supposed to be here, my thoughts raced, I am not meant to breathe this air, not anymore.

It was the hands that dragged me out of the terrified trance I'd locked myself into. Out of the corner of my vision, I felt them, moving closer, and I made an abortive move to run when they caught me by the chin.

Fingers curled around the base of my neck, lifting my face and tilting it just so. Depthless, churning gray eyes stared back at me. Worry, so fierce and brutal raged a storm, and I could see the protectiveness frothing within them. His hair was long, and pale, like the snow on the old orchard fields—why was I here and not there—and it shone dully in the light of the day.

"…Darling…darling…"

The words crashed over me, a tidal wave of terror, fear, agony and awe and then I was being brought closer, and closer, and lifted until I was safe in warm, heavy-set arms.

A thick, calloused finger brushed my cheek. The churning gray eyes were locked on mine.

"Sugi…Sugi…is everything alright?"

In this new life my father was kind, and the breath left me all in a whoosh as my head slumped and the darkness took over once more.

…

I was born to the name Hatake Sugi; the cedar tree of the farm fields.

It was a sick, cruel joke I liked to think. I'd had a sister, before the Switch and the Sleep and the mulch-like, grabbing, twisting darkness, and our names, foreign and alien as ever, remained carved in time, untouchable by the elements in the orchard by the field.

In the cedar tree of so long ago.

Sugi.

(The memories hurt so much I could barely breathe.)

My name was short, and small, and it reminded me very much of the one I'd left behind. My mouth could no longer form the syllables to pronounce it properly, the movements of culture and language left long ago.

The darkness had swept it all away; the fading, distant memories; the feeling of my sister's hair slipping between my fingers; the way the trees swayed on windy nights over the glen, and the world held her secrets in the night air.

Mother had named me Sugi, I was told. Mother who was small, like me. Perhaps not in physicality—there she remained tall, and towering, so similar to the skyscrapers that roamed in my mind—but in character. She was quiet, elegant. The passionate ferocity I'd seen the day I awoke had gone just as quickly as it had come. What was left was a mother who hummed, and danced in the kitchen, but not overly so. She moved with delicate grace and tender affection, her eyes not moving from the top of my silver head for a moment.

(What was left was a woman who expected her daughter and received a shell.)

Father had been a harder pill to swallow.

I remembered the lore. The story that circled in my mind like a vulture, ready to strike. The image of a sword running through a stomach flashed in front of my eyes whenever I set them on his thick frame. He was a towering man, with a deep, foghorn voice. It scraped at the edges, and the fondness and love that welled inside of me at the noise made my child-eyes sting with tears.

Hatake.

Of the farm fields.

I wanted to smile at the irony, but the cruelty made my stomach curdle.

…

I was, more often than not, confused.

My mind would glitch, and sometimes, I would revert to the child I was supposed to be. Tears came easier, as did tantrums. Creativity and freedom flowed from my tongue, and I indulged in foolishness that would have had me flushing in humiliation if I'd still been able to retain the frame of before.

There were times when the sleep threatened, even after so long, and my mind would quiet, the thoughts in my head echoing like stones sinking in a glimmering lake.

They never touched the bottom.

Mother noticed more than Father, but then again, she was home more than he was. She stared at me sometimes, something calculating itching those brilliantly wicked green eyes, and then it would shutter away, behind the loving maternal picture she lauded to the world.

"Sugi." She would say, in that melodic, soothing voice. "Sugi, my dearest, are you paying attention?"

And I would jolt, something getting stuck halfway down my throat and splayed across my face, and I would croak, "Yes."

The words still felt alien on my tongue no matter how much I practiced in the mirror.

Father would catch me staring at my hands, and he would gently lift my chin, fixing me with those churning gray eyes, so desperately worried and a tender smile would spread across his scruffy face.

"Little Sugi-chan…" his voice wrapped itself around me, and I lifted my face.

He searched my eyes, "there you are my little cedar tree."

If he felt the flinches, he never quite said.

…

There were days were my mind felt more solidified, more alive.

I looked at things then, noticed them, and breathed them in like long-awaited air. The potted plant on the bookshelf was wilting, the leaves curling a mottled yellow-brown. Mother watered it far too much, and I could feel the dying thrum of its energy. The scrapes on the kitchen counter weren't from Mother's knives, as she was far too careful around a toddling four-year-old, but instead from Father's stray shuriken, occasionally used to secure sandwiches.

Those were the days where I smiled more, laughed, and giggled like every other child.

Mother's eyes would sparkle, and I'd know I'd be doing something right because she would laugh, deep and low—a sound so deep and infectious it made my own grin hurt my chubby cheeks—and run a finger down my face, a murmur of something lifting her lips. Her hair, a sharp, auburn-brown shone in the day and in the night, when my mind receded, and the ghosts came to haunt the door, it glinted silver.

The days where I could feel the thrum inside of me were dangerous.

My father loved to have me outside the husk of my mind; his joy, ever-rampant, was thunderous in its applause when he saw me spirit across the living room, a giggle escaping my childish lips. He scooped me up, large, warm hands settling on my child-waist, and for a second, I'd stop and the shadowing sleep would skitter in the back of my mind and I'd stutter—

"Sugi-chan," Father would say, tugging on my silver locks, "What have you been doing today?"

—And then my mind would snap and the smile slipping off my face would come back in full force.

"I played with the sand today!" Something tickled the back of my mind, something desperate to break free, "It was fun."

My father laughed, and it was deep and ever-infectious, just as my mother's smile. His eyes would soften when they landed on me and the itch would scritch-scratch-scritch-scratch, and I'd think of those orchards, with the snow and my sister's hair except—

"Are you going to play with me next time daddy?"

—I had no sister.

Father smiled, and the beat filled my throat, and the rush burrowed through my mind.

"Of course, my dearest one."

Remember to take your sister.

…

The sleep had gone, but something remained in its wake.

There were times where I was better than others. My mind, long-lost and half-shadowed, tried to emerge, a struggling, vicious beast, restrained by circumstance and time. There were times when the mind I'd had before nearly burst free, and I'd touch the freedom that splayed over my tongue, so close, so desperate, as the blood trickled down my chin.

"Sugi," my mother scolded, "you have to stop biting your lips so much. They'll run ragged, you know."

A deathly scream. The orchard-girl, stuck in the dead tree.

I pouted, and it felt warped on my skin. "Mama…it just…happens."

Her eyes, those striking, clear green eyes would shutter, and the intelligence behind them would flicker for those few seconds of hesitance, before—

"Nonsense, Sugi." She hummed, although her shoulders were tense. "You have to be more careful, child."

Her eyes burned into mind, and for a moment, I thought she could see—

Take your sister. Run if you hear too much.

She tapped my temple. "Try not to get too lost, Sugi. The mind is a dangerous place to be."

Won't you take your sister for me, dear?

"Yes mama."

…

The day I awoke, the sleep had left me. The stirrings had gone, but what was left was troubling. In those moments of clarity, when the darkness didn't threaten to steal me away, I wrote. My hand cramped. My throat begged for water, clenching in thirst. My eyes burned, unblinking.

I wrote everything I could remember. Everything I'd scraped from the remains of the last mind, tattered and broken, trying to catch the billowing trails of black smoke from the heap of disaster.

Father had looked at me strangely, when I'd asked for the journal. Mother merely watched, lifting a cup of tea to her lips, the calculating expression ever-present. Then, as I widened my eyes and pouted my lips, he relented, a soft, cherishing smile filling his face.

"Anything for you, my darling." He hummed, running the calloused hand over my head. I barely resisted the urge to flinch. The memories of the ghost-touch had pressed too hard the time before, and I could feel those cold, deathly fingers wrapping around my throat, my head pressing against the bark of the cedar tree.

Won't you take her, my sweet, won't you remember to take your sister?

"Would you like to come with me?" He asked, and there was something hopeful in that tone, something lurking and desperate as his eyes flickered over me.

"No." Mother snapped, and the calculating expression vanished in a blink. Her mouth was furious, eyes burning, and her knuckles white against the teacup. "It is too early, Sakumo."

Father's eyes turned stormy. His lips turned down. The hand clutching my cheek gripped me harder.

"Sakumo." Mother repeated. Something ugly rose in her face, something a little too close to fear. "She is not ready."

He flicked his eyes over to her. "We won't know…" his voice was raspy, conflicted. "We won't know until we try, Aia."

Tears, heady and ripe, glistened in her green eyes. Her mouth trembled. "Not today, Sakumo. Please not today."

Father closed his eyes. He stroked a thumb over my cheek.

"Alright." He breathed. "Alright."

When he closed the door behind him, Mother went to cry in the bathroom again.

…

My screams echoed in the house, a melee of old and new, a wound not yet healed, and the scab all too fresh. There were echoes of the memories, slithering and whispering, and yearning and begging—

Please take her, please, please, please—

Sweat dripped down my forehead, my hair soaked against my waxy skin. Someone murmured against my head, arms circling my tiny body, my baby-body, my child-body—

I thought I saw a flash of familiar brown, smell the crackle of the fall against the air, the feeling of the cedar tree pressed against my head—

Remember to take your sister.

"It's alright Sugi," they hissed, desperation clouding their words, "It's alright, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here now."

…

And then, all of a sudden, the attention that had escaped me in those young years focused and sharpened the day Mother sat me down, mouth nervous, eyes searching, at the dinner table.

"Sugi-chan…" she began, fingers clutching her teacup. She didn't call me that often—somehow, she knew that the childish endearment wasn't as beloved coming from her lips. "You know that I love you very much, my sweet. You are my little wise one…my child…there is nothing that I would not give you…"

"Yes Mama…" I said uncertainly, and something was building in my throat, a warning, an omen and it threatened to choke me. "…Is Daddy okay?"

"Yes. Yes, yes." Mother rushed out, throat working. "He's fine, don't worry, he's quite alright."

The low sun shone on her face, and the auburn of her hair glinted a warm, familiar brown. For those half-seconds, my breath caught, and I felt the touch of the fingers splayed over my throat, slick with blood.

"Sugi-chan?" Something old and desperate shimmered in her eyes, vanishing at my blink.

"Yes Mama?"

She watched me, "…are you paying attention to me?"

"Yes Mama." I bowed my head dutifully. "I'm always listening."

She smiled, tremulously, and reached out to catch my chin before it dipped too low. Her eyes searched mine, clear and sharp, and then she spoke the damning words.

"You're going to have a little brother, Sugi." She beamed; she was always watching, always cautious but in that moment she truly looked free, truly looked overjoyed.

I froze.

You're going to have a little sister!

"Aren't you happy?" Mother asked when I did not speak.

My breath caught.

Aren't you happy, sweet child?

The world fell away, and the last I heard was Mother's screams echoing in the empty room.

(It's a miracle.)

Co-authored with NineStoicCrayolas - a lovely, amazing writer! Go check out her stories if you can, they're really something :)