Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its character, stories, etc.

Chapter 1. Ashes

"There was one girl who survived...besides your brother...an Uchiha Izumi."

"...I will...Sandaime, I will take care of her swiftly. No one will know—"

"No. Absolutely not. There shall be no more killing."

"But...Sandaime…"

"Itachi-san, there shall be no more killing. She will be left alone. If she survives the wounds she sustained, then she shall rejoin the Hidden Leaf upon her recovery, understood?"

"...Understood...It's unfortunate that the Uchiha Clan did not understand your compassion…"

The young woman with botched brown hair reclined the uneven tufts of her head into the back of the couch. She had long ago intentionally cut her hair into a jagged pixie but had left two large, lengthy chunks in the front less to frame her face and more to retain the ability to hide when needed. The strands crowded her features as her matching chocolate eyes—one bordered with her distinctive, dark mole beneath—hazily observed the cream-colored ceiling. She really hated that color. Bottle in hand, she took a large swig and gulped down the liquor. It felt tasteless and made her tongue itch from dehydration. A pack of cigarettes and it's partnered lighter lay before her on the bland, wooden table and next to it among the various garbage and clutter, a bowl featuring cartoonish grinning cats: the default ashtray.

The bowl had been a gift to Sasuke from his blushing, pink-haired classmate. Upon returning home with said gift, he had tilted it in his hands, examining it with what looked suspiciously like softness. Or the closest the young boy ever came to softness. Then, he had placed it carefully on the coffee table and never bothered with it again. That had to have been almost a year ago. She had learned in the midst of their cohabitation, though, to never, ever touch Sasuke's things, so she let it be, not trying to use it or move it.

However, she had one night quite drunkenly put a cigarette out on the smiling tabby cat at the bottom of the bowl. Since then, the insides had become traced with ash, smothering the stupid, happy cats and their gaudy, grinning whiskers. Sasuke had made no comment. Thus it became an extended part of the coffee table.

She released a long sigh and took another swig from the bottle. Her hands itched to hold a cigarette, but she knew she'd get that haughty look from the youngest (and most arrogant) Uchiha when he got home.

"A respected kunoichi should show more self restraint." Plus he hated the smell of cigarettes in the apartment. He took any opportunity to let her know.

That judgmental little shit graduated the academy today.

Who knew where he was at the moment. He might be out with friends celebrating, but she had never seen him with any so-called friends. Nor had she ever seen him celebrate. Most likely he was on one of the training grounds, throwing shuriken into tree stumps, continuing to huff to himself about avenging the clan and eliminating a certain man.

Her eyes traced the vague patterns of shadows on the ceiling born from the filtered street light coming in through her windows. It felt dreamy in her inebriated state. Then, a flashing image of Sasuke's younger, infantile face slipped past her vision. She allowed her lids to fall heavily closed, the patterns still dancing beneath, as the cute sound of his childish voice squeaking "Izumi-san" flowed into her ears. He used to call me that, she ruminated somewhat bitterly. Sometimes even nee-san. But, he hadn't done that for some time, and she knew exactly who was to blame for the change in behavior.

She shook her head vigorously to break up the thoughts, and with eyes drifting open, she sat up enough to reach for the pack of cigarettes and its accompanying lighter. She took no time to draw one out and flick the flame to life, the familiar click the only sound in the dark apartment. As she inhaled, she placed both pack and lighter on the coffee table, her fingers calming somewhat with a cigarette twined between them.

Her chest burned, and she tried to push the rising discomfort back down below her ribcage. Seeing Sasuke graduate should have made her proud. Or something. She imagined a different version of herself tearing up and hugging the boy at the ceremony in congratulations, even as he blushed and nudged her away with his elbow, abashedly muttering, "Nee-san..."

But instead, she had grunted a congratulations at him after the ceremony. He had returned a quiet, "Hn." And they resumed their usual silence.

In the last couple of years, their communication had deteriorated to these basics. Did you pack a lunch. When was the last time you did laundry because you smell. I'll be on a mission for three weeks so don't do anything stupid while I'm gone. And in between those phrases—minimal and quiet sounds of acknowledgement.

Her nose crinkled slightly as the familiar guilt seeped into her chest as well. It didn't used to be like that. She had, at some point, held onto a caring and almost maternal composure even after everything that had happened to her.

But then. Too much happened. And, she couldn't bring herself to tell him any of it, preferring to suffer quietly on her own rather than subject him to the memories of what she had been through. At the same time, she felt herself grow harder, as though not only her bones but her very muscles and tissues became thick and tough like stone. She couldn't move to him, couldn't even breathe or something might crack, and her entire body would come apart. While their emotional bond had burst into something like family in the aftermath of their clan's destruction, it had just as rapidly faded away leaving only a chasm between them, one that seemed to grow a little every day.

The only thing connecting them anymore was the fact that they were both Uchiha, and they weren't dead.

At the end of the ceremony, she had thought about offering to buy a celebratory dinner. But, after acknowledging her rudimentary congrats, Sasuke softly said he would be home late and not to wait up before walking away.

As she had watched him retreating, the famous fan symbol swishing on the back of his navy shirt, she felt old, nostalgic phrases coming to her mouth. An out of practice affection rising up and threatening her tongue.

Your father would be proud of you.

She almost said it. Almost. But, she said nothing, and he continued on his path. Once he disappeared from her sight, she, too, turned and headed towards the nearest liquor store, unable to keep her feelings in check while the tide of memories lapped at the edges of her brain—all because of the damn graduation ceremony.

It resurfaced memory upon memory of another life and another person she didn't know anymore, which produced a complex array of sensations in her chest that she would much rather drink away than confront.

She remembered graduating early, and the small but subtle pride permeating her glowing heart. She didn't get the typical ceremony—just a private meeting with the Hokage where he handed her the diploma—as she was the lone graduate, but she didn't care. She was catching up to him. That ever elusive him. Slowly. Painstakingly.

And yet, as a child, whenever she seemed to gain a certain amount of footing in her skills where she felt confident enough to square her shoulders and look him in the eye with more than sheepish admiration, Uchiha Itachi was already gone.

A shadow was always left in his place as he seemed to take off leaps and bounds beyond the rest of them.

With a deep inhale of her cigarette, she let out a smoky scoff at her idiocy. Her entire life, chasing a shadow. The analogy seemed more than appropriate.

She remembered when he graduated too. Only a year after they'd entered the academy together. The dumplings she offered and how adorably he'd tried to resist. A gentle blush on his young face while he frowned at her. They had sat on the edge of a dock that extended into the lake not far from his home. She remembered the water seemed to glitter that day, and she had felt lucky to be so near him, to see the red in his cheeks, to watch him contentedly eat the sweets while she giggled.

That day, she had asked him what he wanted. And he had stared at her eyes. Not into them but at them, and she knew the distinction was important. In hindsight, she wondered if that was the first flicker of his personal brand of sociopathy—how far he was willing to go to in service of a means to an end, to obtain something he desired. Such as eyes like hers. Never mind what their awakening had cost. Sometimes her brain liked to torture her with what-ifs, and she wondered if he would have ripped her eyes from their sockets had his own sharingan not awakened as soon as he'd needed; it was a frequent night terror.

She took another long drag and exhaled, watching the cloud rise and scatter. She loathed the smell and also couldn't get enough of it. Strong and stubborn fingers rubbed her temples as she urged her mind to drift to more current matters.

She knew what the other shinobi called her. Fire breathing bitch. Demonic fire cunt. Demon of the Leaf. All nicknames that stemmed from her mastery of her clan's fire technique, the smoking habit she picked up from Asuma, and her knack for ignoring general common decency. Or humanity.

She had become carnal, erratic, and damn near sadistic towards enemy targets, and her behavior towards her comrades was only a few shades above that, bordering on brutish and at the very best verbally abusive. Most importantly, she was definitely not much of a team player. It was the reason she was currently banned from her regular spot as an active nin until she received the Hokage's summons to discuss her "issues" as well as viable solutions.

The thought made her groan loudly. She often sought out missions and things to do with her hands because otherwise, this is what she did. She sat in her apartment alone, drinking and smoking while pushing back ardently against memories that never seemed to subside. But, their willpower to be seen, to be remembered, was equally as strong as her want to forget.

After the massacre, after the surgeries and stitches and physical recovery, she'd understandingly been forced into an intense psychiatric evaluation. At the time, she had answered all questions as honestly and earnestly as she could. She was fourteen years old and wretched, desperately seeking anything that would quell her memories masquerading as nightmares and the constant smell of blood that she couldn't seem to shake. She had no problem recounting what had happened to the psych nin in gushing, gory detail if it meant that they might be able to do something, anything, to get this monstrous beast of violent grief out of her body. It was consuming her whole, and she wasn't sure what creature would come out of the other side if it succeeded in claiming her.

So she told them everything.

The man in the one eyed mask. The shuriken and kunai that slid through his body like vapor. His chains wrapping and sinking into her ribs. The absolute certainty that her life was ending, and as much as she wished that she would have gracefully surrendered to it, or at the very least fought back the way even animals did in their biological plight for survival, she simply cried in ragged breaths, not quite giving in and not quite clinging to her own existence.

She just waited between worlds, simpering before the final death blow.

What made matters worse was that no one, not even Sasuke, believed her version of events. The body count and Sasuke's retelling, backed by Shimura Danzo's assurance that Itachi carried a deep hatred in his heart for their clan, left the likelihood of a completely different attacker extremely minimal. Enough that the psych nin tried to convince her that in order to cope with the trauma of what Itachi had done to her, she had completely invented this "masked man"—her brain's own metaphor for a killer version of Itachi she had never known.

She fought back against the corner they thoroughly wedged her into: that of a crazed and frantic girl who was unwilling to accept that her childhood crush had committed such a horrific crime. She knew she wasn't insane, and that there had been a masked man who attacked her. However, when Sasuke revealed what he had witnessed, what his brother had done, she couldn't deny that Itachi had, indeed, been the main perpetrator behind the massacre.

Eventually, she gave up trying to prove her credibility, pronouncing to the psych nin that they must be right; she must have imagined the man as a coping mechanism. She learned to keep the secret of her own truth close to her chest. She knew what had happened. The memories were painfully seared into her body.

In all of this, the one thing she never revealed to anyone. The thing she held closest. Was the quiet pathetic plea as the masked man stood over her. The one before she was completely gutted.

"Help me, Itachi-kun. Help me..."

She sat upright on the couch, her stomach muscles seizing and clenching as she grasped at them. Her breath caught like she'd been slammed in the tender part below her ribs hard, and a strange gargled sound bubbled in her throat.

The sloping scar that dragged over her midriff—almost from one breast to the opposite hip—felt like hot iron beneath her clothing; it's jagged edges seemed to slowly, agonizingly rip apart her flesh at its seams while she struggled to breathe. A cold sweat broke out across her forehead. She spent a moment that felt like days suspended in this form, clawing at her own stomach, willing the pain to recede.

"Such pretty eyes." A laugh that echoed. "I'd love to see them bleed. But I need his plaything around...for now."

The laughter. The laugh. It kept going. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't.

She forced herself to remember her exercises.

Find something tactile like a pillow. Squeeze it, and memorize it's stitches. Drink a cold glass of water, and focus on its flow down the throat.

She opted instead to clutch her cigarette into a closed fist. She hissed as the burning end sizzled into her palm. But, she zeroed in on the smeared circle of bubbled skin blossoming in its wake. The sensation peaked before the heat slowly dissipated, and she sighed shakily as endorphins rushed through her veins, sinking their oxygen all the way down into the pit of her stomach, the muscles at last starting to relax. She leaned back into the couch and let her lean body sink further into the cushions, the after effects of sharp adrenaline racking through her.

After a few shuddered breaths, she bobbed forward and unclenched her fist, dropping the deadened cigarette onto the face of a smiling tabby cat.

She felt the empty, dry sobs in her chest. She couldn't remember exactly when but at some point she stopped being able to cry. It was like her body hacked and tried but simply couldn't produce anything close to tears. As she felt the sensation rise into the back of her mouth, she heard the clack of the front door's lock; her body froze instantly, stopping its mourning from moving beyond her teeth.

Sasuke stepped inside before closing the door and clicking the lock behind him. The door was across the threshold from the couch in the living room where she sat, and they remained in a motionless standstill. Both seemed to sense they were doing something wrong, like he had walked in on her privacy, and she shouldn't have been there in the first place. She could almost see him reading the air, sensing that something had happened seconds before he walked in. Sasuke remained at the door, hand still grasping the lock while he waited. For what, she wasn't sure.

He finally released it and angled his body just slightly towards her, complaining flatly, "It smells like shit in here." Avoiding too-direct contact, he slid down the hallway towards his bedroom. She didn't release her breath until she heard his door squeak shut behind him.

"Izumi-san..."

Wake up. She willed herself. A vacant sob cracked open. Wake the fuck up.

But she couldn't. This wasn't a dream.

This was Uchiha Izumi's life.

Author's Note: Hello, fanfiction world! I have not been here in a HOT minute. But its weird and cool to show up here again! I haven't been in a writing place for a while, and this was just the thing to get me back into it! It's also weird to read old stories on my old, old profile that i wrote as a teenager? Weird as hell, y'all.

Anyway, some fun stuff about this story: I was really interested in writing a Naruto story centered around a woman in the series who didn't really GET a storyline, ya know? I also am always interested in writing about trauma/mental illness, particularly in femme characters, and what better way than an Izumi riddled with PTSD?

This version of Izumi is very far from her canon characterization. I'm 100 percent taking liberties to explore a super unlikable and dickish character. And while I love the character of Itachi and his heartbreaking storyline, i was never down with the idea that Izumi was just "so in love with him" that she would be like "yeah go ahead and kill me bro for the good of the village even though i don't support the coup!" I mean, this is all motivation stuff i intend to explore as well in the story plot.

Also i will be pulling things from the Itachi/Izumi relationship both from the books and from the anime series (but first i have to finish reading the books in full lol). And of course, this is AU, so at some point its gonna go off the walls. There will be some hella romance up in here (though maybe not who you expect duhn duhn duuuhhhnnn; i've written short drafts of quite a few chapters actually so i have an idea of how the whole story will end).

Oh and last thing, at the beginning of each chapter will be some sort of short blip in italics. This will serve as a multitude of things like memories that don't involve Izumi or dreams or what-if scenarios and so on. In my head, if this were actually a book or if fanfiction allowed me to do fancy formatting, the text would be located or positioned in some kind of strange way like sideways on the page or upside down or jagged or something. I very much like using visuals in other works to play with how text is read.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed, and please review to let me know any thoughts! Feedback is always welcome!