Gr's note: Yeah, this won't make any sense at all unless you've read the first arc of the story, and for the simple reason that I haven't completed the rewrite to my own satisfaction, I'll be posting Chapters 1-19 again so that you can all refresh your knowledge of the story. Enjoy the long time in the making Chapter 20!
Explore
the cave that is my chest
A torch reveals there's nothing
left
Your whispers echo off the walls
And you can hear my
distant calls
The voice of who I used to be
Screaming out
"someone, someone please"
Please shine a light into the
black
Wade through the depths and bring me back
I Need You – Relient K
- Lost -
Daffodils. A great big bunch of them that had started only one strong and had grown to at least a couple dozen over the last week sat in a plastic vase on my windowsill, begging for more than the meager light being let in through the iron mesh outside the glass. Having been brought in one or two at a time, the oldest ones were wilting and turning brown... An apt mimicry of what I was experiencing myself.
"Has somebody been bringing me flowers? I love daffodils."
"Kakashi keeps bringing them in. He wants you to get well soon." I knew. I remembered, even if I wasn't supposed to, exactly what happened. She'd tried to make me forget... so I let her believe she had.
Even if that meant that I wasn't supposed to remember spending the night with Kakashi here in the hospital and finding him gone in the morning, on account of Tsunade changing her orders and what she planned on doing with me. I wasn't supposed to remember any of the days that followed either... Being isolated, without even the faintest shadow of someone who could be called a visitor.
The less personal interaction someone had within a certain period of time, the less significant the memory became and so it became easier to destroy those memories. That's the basic gist of the theory behind memory removal as it applies to the method I'd brought with me back to the village... I had enough experience with the jutsu and more than enough tricks up my sleeve to ensure that it hadn't worked, while still making her think that it had, but I still felt... cheated, in a sense.
"...Why am I here, Shishou?" She didn't trust me not to exact revenge of some sort on Sasuke, so she'd taken the easy way out and simply gotten rid of any reason for me to want to. Worse yet, she hadn't done it right away so that I could have company, she'd waited until after I was completely stable; The accelerated growth patterns she had been so worried about had finally stopped sometime last night and I'd only gotten out of surgery a few hours ago.
My skeleton had been badly damaged by the excessive growth and my muscles hadn't fared much better; I even bore scars where my skin had torn from trying to accommodate my changing frame underneath. Now, after Tsunade had basically put me back together, I was still going to be on medication for a very long time while I adjusted back to normal. Strictly speaking, this was something else I wasn't supposed to remember. The official story was...
"You had a seizure, from the unstable growth. We put you to sleep and kept you like that to keep it from happening again. We'll be able to let you out today, after I go over your new medications with you." Unfortunately, people have a harder time trying to sound like a convincing liar while they're fighting with their own conscience, as the blond-haired woman was doing now. She knew that getting rid of someone's memories was wrong, but at the same time she was attempting to do what was right for the village, not me. For the village, the continued existence of two shinobi was more valuable than only one, with the possible destruction of the other.
It didn't matter so much when I put it all into perspective, it just required that I change my plans, for the time being. I'd have to get creative with Sasuke after I found out exactly what, if anything, had been done to him about this incident... More than likely, there had been no action taken in that regard. That was going to change, whether they liked it or not, because I wasn't about to let him get away with such cowardice.
For now though, he could be relegated to an afterthought, a shadow flitting just within the borders of my psyche; He was the very least of my worries at the moment. Far more important right now were the lengths I was going to have to go to and the time it would take to get myself back to normal. Sedatives to make me sleep through the nightmares, vitamin cocktails to help replenish and fortify my drastically undernourished system and various antibiotics to heal and prevent infection were just the start of the prescription medley Tsunade had been ever so kind as to provide for me in addition to a carefully constructed diet and exercise regime.
As well, I couldn't be left alone. She said it was due to the danger of me possibly having another seizure so soon after surgery, but the concern and fear in her amber eyes screamed otherwise; Sasuke was probably in the village and she was wary of my safety and ability to take care of myself. Though she said she strongly wished for me to stay with a friend or have a friend stay with me, it was slightly more than a hunch that told me I wouldn't have the choice; She'd already ordered someone to 'politely impose' on me, probably Kakashi... Of course I didn't mind, provided that it was, but I couldn't say what he might think when he finally got the chance to see me as I was.
Skeletal and waif-like, I had both lost weight as my body tried to produce the energy I needed to grow and shot up drastically in height, resulting in me being as tall as most men and maybe half as heavy. Uneven lines and partially healed cuts could be seen all over my skin in imperfect patterns that blossomed out from sharp, bony joints where my skeleton had actually torn through not twelve hours ago, a sight that had sickened me and I couldn't stop seeing when I looked. I'd lost the baby fat that had rounded out my face before and now bore unflatteringly severe features to accompany my already ugly forehead, making me look too much like my father to be able to stand my reflection; I'd covered the bathroom mirror in this room after making the realization that even though I'd killed him I'd never truly be rid of him and the emaciated teenage boy's body I had been 'blessed' with did nothing to improve my perspective upon my appearance. Top it all off with the tri-pupiled scarlet eyes that I could no longer deactivate and the premature white streaks I was sporting in my sheared off, boyishly cut hair and I... well, I didn't quite look like my worst nightmare, but I was certainly no beauty queen. I looked even worse that I had, a feat that I would have thought impossible a mere week ago.
Safe enough to say though, whatever appeal I might've had then I'd certainly lost and was fully aware of it. Tsunade had given thought to my self-repulsion the first time she'd found out that I had covered the mirror, which was actually a few days ago and had afterwards added on to my quarantine uniform to include an over-sized gray sweater with a voluminous hood that swallowed me entirely and a pair of gray gloves with the fingers sheared off; It was truly a gesture I was grateful for, especially since her inner medic should have been vetoing such coverage in humid thirty-five degree weather due to the increased risk of heatstroke and any number of other seasonal ailments.
"Now, you have a visitor that I asked to wait until I was finished with you. Get dressed and I'll walk you out to him, since you're leaving anyway." I nodded quietly and set about working my way out of the wretched paper scrap that was doing nothing to hide me, either from myself or anyone else... A task that it would turn out I was near incapable of doing by myself through the lingering pain I was in.
Depending on others for even just the smallest of things... It felt humiliating and infuriating, even though I knew it was nobody's fault but my own. Almost seeming saddened and slightly smug at the same time, Tsunade assisted me with getting dressed in much the same manner as she had when she caught me shearing off my overgrown mess of matted, tangled hair because I couldn't pull a brush through it without its brittleness causing it all to snap and fall off in the brush; That is to say, she cautiously gave me my space and helped as minimally as she could, mainly to ensure that I didn't take hours doing it and to make sure I looked neat and tidy. She always did have high expectations for her pupils' hygiene and appearance, evidenced enough by Shizune's carefully crafted look of simplicity and her obsession with cleanliness.
Keeping my hood up and my head down provided me with a delightful shield, figuratively speaking, and the heat wasn't nearly as bad as you'd think, but Tsunade looked particularly perturbed with how far I chose to withdraw into my clothing; Hiding from the world certainly wasn't a healthy habit to get into, but I didn't plan on doing it forever. I only wanted to hide the worst of it, the cuts, unexplainable bruising and the... severity of my image as a whole. It was only temporary, I could hope.
"There is just one more thing I'd like to discuss with you before you leave, but this is as your hokage, and not your medic." I shrugged, truly uncaring of whatever she might see fit to drop on me right this moment. She cleared her throat at my dismissive gesture and continued cautiously, as if she was expecting a bomb to go off in front of her if she spoke too harshly.
"...I'd like you to strongly consider taking your place as the leader of the Uchiha clan as soon as possible."
At first I didn't say anything, wary of the lessons throughly beaten into my skull about composure and remaining level-headed regardless of the situation, not only by Tsunade, but more importantly by Itachi himself. Once I understood exactly what she was asking (which in all truthfulness should not come as any sort of surprise) I found myself quirking an eyebrow in amusement, the gesture she was evidently expecting the very least.
"Not today, I hope. Ceremonies of that nature take time, preparation... Another willing to undergo it with me..." I almost rolled my eyes, remembering the rules concerning a woman taking over the leadership of such a naturally patriarchal family; Of course I would have to get married to formally accept the title, gender bias was the bread and butter of all old clans like this one. They would never assume that a woman could be a good leader without a man looking over her shoulder at all times.
'Ah... Yes, I was going to mention that you'd have to get married... You already knew?" Her eyes narrowed inquisitively and I shrugged, adopting my normal stance on issues of such a... delicate nature.
"Ask me no questions..." She only glared more sharply at me, obviously displeased.
"Very few would speak to me like that, young lady."
"...Gender bias among old-fashioned clans isn't exactly something new, Tsunade-sama. I assumed, that's all." Apparently satisfied with my answer, however grudgingly, she opened the door to my room and I grabbed the freshest blossom from the vase on the sill, noting with the teeniest of smiles that the end was jagged and roughly cut; It was hand-picked and probably cut with a kunai, rather than bought at the flower shop all neat and pretty. It was sweet that he knew about my preference for white daffodils, enough so that he would seek them out himself... So what would he think about the situation I found myself in now?
"... I almost wonder why you'd bother to warn me though— It's not like I'm not already being treated like a piece of livestock for the village's gain, so what's one more grain of rice on the scale, so to speak?" A significant silence followed me out of the room as she handed me a cloth drawstring bag with all of my medication in it and removed my file from the bracket on the door to indicate that the room was empty, all the while casting me a disparaging stare. Breaking eye contact easily, my eyes fell on the only other occupant of the hallway, a young civilian nurse. She walked past us in a daze, obviously lost in the wrong part of the hospital and unsure of how to get back; Almost inquiringly her glance fell pleadingly on us before she made eye contact with me and recoiled, obviously terrified by what she saw. Too late I dropped my eyes to the linoleum below my feet as her flat-bottomed loafers slapped against it loudly in her hurried escape, attracting the attention of the hokage, who had been busy notating something in my file.
"...What's wrong with her?" Finding the floor to be the most visually appealing thing around, I dipped my head back farther into my hood and felt ever so slightly more at ease with the reprieve my sensitive eyes were given from the glaringly bright overhead lights. After a perpetually dark hospital room, the neon lights were far too harsh and I was beginning to absolutely detest them.
"...Who knows?" As I turned and walked slowly down the hall, the old path that I had walked hundreds of times before abandoning became familiar once again and even weak, cautious steps carried me quickly to the quiet lobby, where nobody seemed to be waiting. Evidently satisfied enough with my progress that she was sure I'd make it on my own, Tsunade had let me go on alone when we hit the nurse's station a couple hallways back and so wasn't here to see that there was nobody here waiting for me... Nonetheless, I didn't feel like waiting around for an escort, hokage's wishes or not. I'd make it home fine on my own, provided that I didn't try to do anything stupid, like take the rooftop route.
Outside, the village streets were marginally busier than the hospital had been and for every step I took down the crowded street I attracted another hushed whisper, another suspicious stare... Even here, where a seven foot tall blue fish man in a black and red cloak could once walk without attracting the faintest hint of attention, civilians' heads had started to turn at anyone the least bit sinister looking... Such as someone who wouldn't show their face to the public, I can only imagine.
Eventually the streets grew smaller and less densely populated as I got further from the center of town and closer to the training grounds; Nobody really lived out here besides a few elderly persons who had been there their entire lives and were too set in their ways to leave. We were too close too close to the Uchiha complex. After the massacre, everyone in my neighborhood moved away... Afraid of the specters and vengeful spirits that seemed to emanate from the property, I can only assume.
I used to like being near where Sasuke lived. When I was six, I could climb onto the roof of my house and by jumping as high as I could, I could see over the main gate of the property and all the way back to Sasuke's front door, the house furthest back on the lot and the biggest one in the compound. Every day I'd go and see if he wanted to walk to school together, even after the massacre, despite being rejected every time...
I never used to notice the ghosts.
It never bothered me when I was younger that dozens upon dozens of people had been slaughtered there, probably because I didn't fully understand much past the fact that Sasuke no longer had a family like I did. Now though... I could feel the shadow that had descended over it.
A ruined, desiccated palace over which I had truly no desire to rule, even if that seemed to be the ultimate goal that Itachi had been aiming for... his reason for all of this. The threads of his intent were slowly weaving together to create a fine, if not slightly morbid, tapestry as every conversation we'd ever had began to make sense on a different level, now that I had a new context to add it all to.
What I had originally thought were offhand comments about his loathing of the clan as it was and his ideals about what it could be now sounded more like instructions, advice on what he wanted from me. Even the endless training and extensive repertoire of rare fire jutsu that he refused to give up on until I could do them in my sleep now felt like training of a different sort; The passing on of family secrets.
The extensive and heavy shadows only grew longer and more chill as I approached the gate, one side falling off its hinges. It looked far worse than I ever remembered seeing it, as if it had been abandoned for a hundred years instead of a scant fifteen... Through the gap in the gate I could see the caved-in roofs, brown grass and weeds growing wild everywhere and not a single live tree anywhere in sight. Houses lie in shambles covered in large gray and black splotches, most likely soot from the massive funeral pyre that had cremated the victims of the massacre, and there was a... dead feeling hanging over everything. The same feeling that sank into the very fiber of battlegrounds and graveyards everywhere, that kept people frightened and believing in ghosts.
The place wasn't meant to be lived in as it was... Maybe after being burned to the ground and purged of... whatever it was, ghosts or spirits or whatnot, but not now. The gate wouldn't even open, rusted and off-kilter as it was.
I lifted my head for a moment to let the momentary rare breeze that was floating by brush against the sticky, sweaty skin of my neck to cool me a little, only to find myself covering my nose quickly against the incredible reek that was following the cool air. Blowing out at me through the cracks and gaps in the gate, it smelled like decomposing flesh. Decomposing human flesh.
"...What have you done...?" Had Sasuke actually killed someone within the village limits? A civilian, maybe? To smell like this, the corpse would still have to be pretty fresh.
The gate wouldn't open and I didn't really have the strength or spare chakra to jump over the wall, but the wood was throughly rotten, crumbling under my fingers as I applied even moderate pressure— An entire side tore itself off of its hinges when I pushed as hard as I could on the rough iron crossbar, leaving it partially dangling from the chain and lock that looked to be rusted well beyond the point of usefulness. Stepping carefully over the upended gate, I found that the smell immediately grew stronger once I set foot on the property.
Walking very carefully and slowly, I intermittently removed my hand from my nose to more accurately discern where I was going... At least until the crows came into sight. There were dozens of them, perching and circling around dead trees and hopping along the ground way back at the back of the compound; Directly in front of what I knew to be Sasuke's house.
Quietly I approached, unwillingly to scare the murder before they'd had the chance to tell me what they were there for... That certainly didn't take long though. There was one burrowing around in some very soft soil, and another one pecking at something nearby... A something that looked suspiciously like a woman's hand, poking out of the dirt.
Loud screeching and cawing accompanied the flurry of ebony feathers swooping upwards as I rushed in, only for me to find that I had been right; A slim, calloused and bloody left hand rose out of the dirt, its entire ring finger missing and the wound ragged where it had been pecked at. Swallowing the stomach contents (or lack thereof) that had risen to the back of my throat, I ignored the little voice in my head telling me to run, to get away because it was dangerous here and I moved to where the other bird had been scratching away at the dirt, noticing from the corner of my eye that the entire murder seemed to be watching me... Staring down at me from a dead yew tree with glittering, intelligent black eyes.
Forcing my attention back, I merely had to brush aside the top layer of soil to see the prize that the clever bird had sought: Eyes. The face under my trembling fingers was missing her left and most of her right, her eyes sockets still sticky and wet with blood that had not yet had a chance to really dry. She had been a pretty woman with bright, poppy-red hair and naturally pale skin made even more pallid with the onset of death... Broken glasses still clung to her ears, neither of which bore earrings or even the tell-tale holes from piercings. Fresh as can be, this woman had most likely been alive less than twenty-four hours ago.
What had she done to make Sasuke want to kill her? More importantly, what was her relationship with him and why had he felt enough remorse to bury her, even if it was a shallow grave?
My head jerked up when the strangely appealing sound of a hundred wings beating in unison alerted me to the shadows around me moving; One in particular, at the side of the house and moving to the back... It looked like a person, but with how dark it had gotten I couldn't be sure. Even the sharingan picked out very little in the shadows on this part of the grounds.
It had to be Sasuke. Who else would it be, here? Especially now, with twilight starting to fall around me.
I knew I should run, if I could. Opinion on which direction, however, differed between finely honed instincts and plain old common sense... But, my instincts were rarely flawed anymore, and they hadn't killed me yet.
"Sasuke!" Running was difficult, almost impossible in the condition I was in, especially through the thick brush that encircled the expansive manor... Even going all the way to the courtyard-like back, Sasuke was nowhere to be found; The air and everything in seemed undisturbed, almost completely still... like a morbid postcard or something equally rigid and quiet.
Aching from exertion, tired and still sick that Sasuke had murdered a girl within the village, I couldn't help it; I did something that I never in my right mind would have done.
"ANSWER ME!!!"
"HELP! Please, help me! Let me out!!" Distorted and echoic, the voice that answered me was most definitely not Sasuke's.
Perking up and looking around as I tried to quell my own rising panic, I narrowed my sights on a lone well overgrown with a single creeping rosebush, with its wooden cover in splinters on the ground next to it. Taking a breath, I sucked it up and started running, afraid that the voice might not be a ruse; Maybe there really was a little girl trapped in the well on a nearly deserted property on the edges of town. Stranger things had happened, I suppose.
"Can you hear me? Talk to me sweetie, I'll help you out, okay?"
"I don't want to be down here, I want my mommy! I want my mommy..."
"I-it's going to be alright, I promise. Sit tight, I'm going to help you.." Heavy, frantic sobbing echoed up the well shaft as I leaned over it as far as I could, palms braced on the edge as I tried to determine how deep it was; With no rope or anything of its kin nearby, I'd have to hope that the little chakra I had would get me down there and back up with a passenger before Sasuke really did show up... Assuming that he wasn't watching from the shadows, just waiting for me to jump in before moving in for the kill.
"Alright... Sweetie, can you see me up here?" The sobbing broke down into irregular hiccups, but in the rapidly fading light, I couldn't see the bottom or her at all, sharingan be damned.
"I sees you."
"Good. Now, I'm coming down there, okay? Move to the back of the well and get as close to the wall as you can, so that I don't hurt you when I jump." There was some shuffling and the sick sound of someone trying to walk through thick mud, but shortly the crying started again full force.
"I can't... When I move my leg hurts really bad, and my tummy does too." Breathing a soft sigh, a mix of frustration and exhaustion, I almost stepped back before a thought struck me quite violently.
"... H-how long have you been down there, sweetie?"
"...Since the bad man put me down here." I flinched, having been abruptly shoved into a realization I hadn't wanted to make; This wasn't a chance accident... That would be hoping for too much, considering whose house I was lingering behind at the moment.
"Alright, when was that?"
"I... I dunno... before it got dark...and then got light again... and now it's dark again... I don't like the dark..." Yesterday. Somehow, I got the feeling that she was somehow related to the poor woman laying in a shallow grave on the other side of the house, and at the same time I was given the rather strong suspicion that Sasuke had never planned on this kid living; Either he was coming back to kill her outright, or he was going to let her stay down there, screaming and crying until her throat was hoarse and she starved or became critically dehydrated. It's not like anyone would have heard her, if I hadn't shown up.
Almost out of nowhere, a foreign and almost incomprehensible thought struck me; Crows... Itachi always seemed to be surrounded by the clever birds, and one might say that he had quite an affinity for them...
Had I been led here? Maybe there were such things as restless spirits... Restless spirits who saw fit to run interference in their siblings' doings.
Looking up at the sky through the gnarled branches of two trees intertwined above me, the sapphire blue of twilight sky reminded me sharply that if I didn't hurry up, I was just asking to be caught... Like this, I wouldn't be of much use defending either myself or the girl, especially since I was already gambling with the possibility that I wouldn't be able to get either one of us out once I was down there. Here's hoping Tsunade's talent for games of chance hadn't rubbed off on me.
Her crying quieted after a few raspy coughs and I dropped my bag down on the dead grass at my feet, unwilling to lose the valuable medication inside in case I accidentally dropped it down into the pitch blackness. Steeling myself, I stepped up onto the ledge and quickly dropped down into the dark, keeping one hand as firmly against the chipped and worn stone as I could while I rushed past it, counting the distance I fell as closely as I could.
Abrupt, high-pitched screaming made me halt my descent just as suddenly, grunting in extreme pain as I had the wind knocked out of me, all of my weight and the momentum from my descent dropping wholly on my left arm, suspended as I was by only my fingers and the minute amount of chakra I could afford to hold myself up on the slimy, wet wall. From my shoulder to my finger tips the pain was absolutely debilitating, to say nothing of the muscles in my neck and back that I could feel I'd pulled or possibly even torn; The sensation of so much pain at once wasn't unlike having the seal activated, and I was only just stopping myself from getting sick.
"W-what's wrong, honey? Why did you scream?" Swallowing sharply to help contend with my sudden shortness of breath and nausea, I lifted myself up on the other arm to distribute my weight more evenly and help lessen the pain. My shoulder and elbow were probably both dislocated at least somewhat, but I could only hope that the chakra pinning me to the wall had kept my wrist from doing so as well; It hurt as badly as the other two joints, but if it was injured badly, it might swell up too fast for me to get out of here. Below me, I realized that I could hear panicked, shallow breathing that certainly wasn't mine.
"...I didn't want you to land on me." Her quiet, shaky words sounded closer than I anticipated, and were immediately followed by the feeling of tiny, cold fingers wrapping partially around my ankle, eliciting a shiver from me that wasn't out of place in the oddly frigid dampness down here. Forget starving, the poor thing would freeze to death first.
"Can you still see me, honey?"
"Yes..."
"Can you grab onto me and stand up?" Small hands grabbed at my leg and I swallowed again as additional weight began bearing down on my arm; Soon it was just a gentle tug on my pants just above the knee and slightly surprised, I slowly let myself down from the wall. Immediately I sunk into the muck at the bottom, and I found myself completely shocked when two hands grabbed onto my shirt just above my right elbow, with the sounds of her straining and trying to dislodge herself from the mud indicating that it was as high as she could reach; Despite her articulation being that of an older child, she was a very little girl, with the top of her head reaching my hip, at best. I had been expecting a much larger kid, maybe eight or nine years old. Bending down slowly to kneel on one knee in the mud, I braced my good arm on the wall as I cautiously tested the movement capabilities of the other.
"Lean on me and grab onto the front of my sweater as tight as you can so you don't fall." Small hands obediently reached around my neck and held onto me tightly, her sniffling and intermittent coughing making my stomach curl in pity. She was too young to deserve this.
"Hold on as tight as you can." I took her tensing grasp as an affirmation and stood up, feeling the thick mud drop in chunks from my pant legs while I carefully felt along the wall with my fingers for a makeshift handhold to get me started. Raw and stinging from my less than graceful descent, my sensitized and bloody fingers had no trouble finding niches in the stone; The problem was getting a grip on the slimy, slippery rock.
Finally giving up on the conventional method, I cringed a little at the piercing shriek that sounded out right beside my ear as I took a chance and used chakra to quickly vault myself up the wall, well aware of and prepared for the pain when I was forced to latch onto the wall with my other arm, lest we both fall right back down to the bottom. Breathing heavily and doing my best to ignore both the excessive pain and the broken crying and coughing right at my ear I began our ascent, one step after another.
"Shh... You don't need to cry, it's going to be okay." I didn't have the free hand to spare her a comforting pat, but apparently my raspy, labored words were enough to placate her, her broken crying subsiding once again into hiccups and eventually just quiet, shallow breathing while I steadily gained us ground through a single-minded fixation upon the little circlet of midnight blue sky above us.
The tunnel seemed endless, with the pain eventually being replaced by the dull, fiery burn of exertion that penetrated deep into my chest and lungs, even going as far as to impair my vision even further than it already was; Colored spots not unlike those that appear after a camera flash goes off in your face were the deadly messenger of defeat that, thankfully, barely began their tale before my fingers no longer stuck to stone and I broke out into completely clear air, my lungs and every other part of my body screaming out in relief as I sagged over the ledge, my legs still dangling in the well, my fingers brushing dead grass on the ground below my eyes.
A startled and pained shriek caught in my throat as a hand much larger than my own wrapped tightly around my upper left arm, wrenching me up and to my feet before stifling what noise I had made with its twin pressed firmly over my mouth and constricting my breath.
"...What do you think you're doing here, Sakura?" Disoriented and shaking from being pulled up too suddenly, I couldn't stand; As soon as he let go of me I fell to my knees, eyes firmly shut to stave off the abrupt dizziness plaguing me. I couldn't even muster up enough coherence to speak, or explain myself... For a moment even the girl around my neck went forgotten, lost to the pure relief that it hadn't been Sasuke that found us.
"...Poof!" A curious giggle pulled me back to reality and I opened my eyes, just barely able to see the tiny hand pointing up at Kakashi's head; He himself backed up a step, clearly startled and at a loss while he ran one hand back through his hair, the likely target of the girl's curious observation. Clearing my throat in an exhaustive attempt to regain my speech, I tried to stand and once again fell, my arms and legs about as strong as strands of overcooked ramen.
"...For the love of god, don't ask. I'll explain later." Limply I reached out in the general vicinity of where I had left my bag, flinching slightly every time the little girl hanging onto me fidgeted and moved, until my fingers finally found the cloth bag and dragged it towards me in preparation to attempt standing up and getting the hell out of here.
"...Where's my mommy? I want to see her..." I flinched openly this time, even though the girl sounded tired and was moving less now; How was I supposed to tell her that her mother wouldn't be coming back for her?
"... Why don't we worry about you first, sweetie? I'm sure your mother would feel better knowing you're safe and healthy." I swallowed, disliking the careful dance I did to avoid telling the truth to a child so young. I was never one who enjoyed deceit, no matter how minimally I used it or how necessary the lie may be. Lying to a kid though... It just seemed so much worse.
"Okay... If it would make mommy happy..." I swallowed inadvertently at her optimistic obedience, knowing perfectly well that I'd eventually have to burst her bubble in the worst way.
Bracing myself forward on my shaky right arm, I was interrupted in my attempt at standing when the kid on my back finally let her curiosity get the better of her and did exactly what she had to Kakashi.
"...Poof! You poofy too!" I heard a snicker somewhere above me when the kid pulled my hood back and buried her hand in my short hair; Completely mortified that he was even seeing me like this I quickly pulled my hood back up, jarring her hand out of my hair with more than a little tug and an indignant squeak. Immediately after I followed it up with a swift backhand to the only part of Kakashi I could reach, although I doubt he even felt it through his sandal.
"Help me out here, you wanted to go didn't you?" My legs were like jell-o— I couldn't move them any more than I could dredge up the chakra to transport us all the way back to my house, and the ever-so-slightly irritating eye-crease he came down to eye level to give me told me that he damn well knew I was helpless.
"What's the magic word?" I ground my teeth in frustration, utterly pissed off by being forced to remember that I would be at the mercy of somebody else for a very long time now— Whether it be him or whoever else was assigned to 'assist' me at any given time, I'd lost my independence.
"Please!" Small arms squeezed my neck even tighter for a moment, startling me as much as the thin, piping voice at my ear that was all too happy humoring him. Growling at the eye-crease that only seemed to deepen once the kid answered him so obediently, I mumbled my own rendition of her simplicity, one that was markedly less polite and most likely not appropriate for her young ears.
"...Hold on, if you can." I heard giggling and I was pulled to my feet again, this time by the hands easily spanning my waist under both my sweater and the short-sleeved shirt underneath of it. The abrupt movement forced me to wrap my arms around his shoulders and cling as tightly as I could, lest my staggering attempts at independent stance drag him back down to the ground with me.
"...What is her obsession with my hair?" His whispered voice right in my ear was accompanied by a warm puff of breath to tickle the wispy hairs at the side of my neck and some more giddy, childish giggling from behind my head as her arm curiously went missing from its established spot around my neck; After only a moment his head dipped in utter concentration and his hands slid away from my waist to join together at the small of my back, forming a flurry of handseals at a speed that I had always been a little jealous of, especially now that I knew I could match it, if it weren't for my unfortunate condition. It was going to take months of rehab to get me back where I was.
Closing my eyes tightly to fight the natural vertigo that came from teleportation jutsus of all sorts, I found out quite shortly that I should have had the foresight to warn the girl hanging around my neck— A high-pitched whimper barely preceded the particularly distinct sound of retching and a deep, hacking before I felt something warm and moist soak into the base of my hood and heard the sniffles that would be shortly followed by crying. It didn't bother me as much as it might have, had I not been a medic and doused in every nasty substance and bodily fluid conceivable over the course of my career, but all the same I couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor thing.
The conclusion to the jutsu took no more than a few seconds, and the retreat of Kakashi's hands from my back to spanning my waist once again was an acute reminder that he was not a medic, and most likely wasn't fond of the idea of having his hands drenched in stomach acid now that it was trickling quickly down my back, aided by the sweat slicking my skin under my layers.
"I... I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean t-to get s-s-sick on you..." More coughing and I let go of the back of Kakashi's vest to gently clasp the hand that clutched my sweater like her life depended on it, grimy and frigid as it was.
"It's alright, it's not a big deal. I'm used to worse." Feeling safe that I myself wouldn't get sick, I opened my eyes only to be met with the shocking and inexplicable sight of my living room couch... Pristine save for a washed-in bloodstain in the shape of a hand on the armrest; Even barely visible with the sharingan, I knew that it was Sasuke's handprint, and the knowledge initiated the formation of a heavy lump of ice in my stomach.
Fear... Nearly foreign to me now, at least this kind, I could still remember it. If I looked a little to my right, down to the floor, I'd be able to see the stains where the blood couldn't be shampooed out of the rug, or the outline of where it had soaked into the floorboards and couldn't be scraped out of the individual seams between each plank.
If I could make myself look.
"...It's still yucky, and it stinks... Can I get down now? I feel sick again." Swallowing hard to clear my throat and hopefully dissolve the lump of ice growing among my innards, I nodded and wrenched my eyes from the hand print on the couch, my voice most resembling a raspy squawk when I turned around to find the kitchen door to be the source of the light allowing me to see.
"I'll wash the sweater and it won't stink anymore though. Here, sit down here, okay?" Setting her down on one of the wooden chairs next to the table, with Kakashi's wordless and extremely patient assistance, I was finally granted the privilege of being able to connect a face to the little girl's as of yet disembodied voice.
She looked absolutely terrified, but it was nothing next to the initial wave of cold that washed over me at first glance— Except for dirty, wet hair that hung down her back in two braids the color of poppies, the girl could have sprung to life from my class picture of first grade at the academy, with a dirty purple yukata in place of the blue sweater and white shorts that my photo favored.
Was she his daughter? His niece, Maybe? No, she was definitely his daughter. He and Itachi may have looked similar, but this... She was absolutely uncanny.
Why would he want her dead? Unthinking, I reached out to brush the stream of tears from her muddy cheek, my hands shaking with... not rage, or fear, but something... unfamiliar.
Sasuke had tried to kill his daughter, his own flesh and blood. He'd killed her mother, and he'd tried to kill her.
Not unlike my own father. No different from the bastard whose face I bore the unfortunate fate of sharing.
Is this what happens when fate decides to laugh in your face? It involves us with one already tagged to share a similar history and... What? Charges us with changing their lives, or dooms us to watch it all happen again... From a different viewpoint, in a different order, but with a duplicated outcome.
Fate certainly had a sick sense of humor, it would seem.
"...What's your name, sweety?" How literal could fate be, I wonder.
"Ren-chan." I swallowed, the significance of it all not lost on me. The lotus, a symbol of ultimate purity and perfection... A lotus with red petals, however, either would mean a symbol of divine passion and energy, or of consuming rage. Either way, her mother had named her with a higher meaning than just this little girl's existence, and in another tie of similarity between us, had gone the ever-so-original route of naming her after a flower.
"Ren? That's a pretty name. Do you have another name, your family name?" She shook her head quietly, but her jet black eyes didn't leave mine, her pupils indistinguishable from the irises surrounding them as she pointed at my face, looking less frightened and more curious.
"Mommy says only my family is special like me." It was less a statement than a question she was just dying to ask, but apparently afraid to; There was something akin to distress in her expression and she took my hand with both of hers, squeezing so hard that I could feel my weak frame cracking beneath her fingers despite the fact that she was so small.
"Is being special bad here too?! People were scared of me at home, so I wasn't allowed! She said it would be better here, because daddy was special too, but he's a bad man and I don't like him!—" Her tears began afresh and her words quickly became garbled and unintelligible as she dived off of her chair at my chest, knocking me on my ass with an extremely jarring pain that shot directly up from my tailbone and had me seeing spots again.
Winded, I let her cry freely, wrapping her up in my good arm as I sympathized for her as much as I could. Crying was important, after all— I might not be able to do it as often as was good for me anymore, but she wasn't a shinobi, and so wasn't privy to our rules. She was just a little kid, let her cry if she needed to.
"... Her ankle is the size of a baseball, Sakura. I think we should take her to the hospital." I shook my head firmly at the advice being conferred to me in a low, almost inaudible tone. I needed time... to think, to understand the situation better.
"No... I don't want Tsunade or the elders to find out that there's another sharingan brat wandering about for them to exploit." I let a half-hearted smirk grace my lips at the mention of a long forgotten nickname keyed by a friend with a grudge against the family, albeit with very good reason. I wonder if he'd like me so much if he knew I was one of them now? Probably not.
"... I can fix her leg here, get her something to eat and get her cleaned up. Further then that, I'll figure out what I'm going to do while she sleeps, but..." I straightened up, an idea lighting up my mind as if I had forgotten one very important detail.
"But, for all intents and purposes, I am the clan leader. She's my responsibility and I don't want you to breathe a word about her to Tsunade until I figure out what's going on. Is that clear?"
"Not a word. ...Although you really owe me a damn good explanation for why you were at the compound and how you even knew she was there. Sasuke's been gone since last night, so obviously he didn't lure you there." I thought back and smiled, wondering if this meeting had truly been orchestrated as I hugged the still-sobbing girl close to my chest.
"Call me crazy, but I think he wanted me to find her..."
"Who, Sasuke? He didn't even know—" I shook my head, cutting him off.
"This... is going to sound strange, but... I think it was Itachi that let me find her. I don't think he wanted her to die." The crows, the shadow... Even the scent of the corpse should not have reached me as strongly as it had, but...
"I'm no psychiatrist, so I can't definitively say that you're crazy. What I can do is say that I think you're batshit insane and that I think you need to take your medication and get some rest. How's that?" I snorted, less than surprised about his lack of belief in the supernatural.
"Duly noted, although I'm afraid I'll have to decline your advice for the time being. Here, give me some space." His proximity was beginning to make me slightly uncomfortable, being as close as we had to be for our whispered exchange and I needed to get the girl off of me; My legs were falling asleep under her weight.
"Honey— Er, Ren-chan... Why don't we get your leg fixed so that it feels better, okay?" Sniffling and hiccuping, she slowly pushed away from my chest, her face red and eyes swollen under the grime.
"...Is you a doctor?" I thought for a moment before nodding, wherein Kakashi picked her up off of my lap easily and set her back down on her chair. Fully devoid of her weight, it was no longer an impossible task to stand on my own two feet, albeit with the slightest amount of assistance from the nearest appliance. Leaning down to remove her sandals and socks was a little more challenging, but examining her swollen and thoroughly black and blue appendage yielded a far better diagnosis than I'd initially expected.
"... It's just a small fracture, nothing big. I'll be right back, so how about..." I looked around for something to amuse her for a minute while I went and got the supplies I'd need, and my eyes fell upon the ugly pink dry-erase board and neon green marker that my mother had always used for notes and messages when she wasn't around. Quickly I pulled the magnetized board off of the fridge and set it down flat on the table beside Ren, prompting the gaze that had been securely fixed upon me to shift to the brightly colored object.
"Go ahead and doodle, okay? I won't be far." I waited until she'd picked up the marker and turned to face the board before turning myself around and limping down the hall to the closet where I kept all my supplies— Barring what had been in my kit, of course. Kakashi made absolutely no attempt to hide the fact that he was following and remained no more than an arm's length away at any given time; It was a devotion to his mission that was doomed to get irritating, I just knew it.
"...Need a hand?" With practiced precision I disarmed the closet and picked through the contents, grabbing only the meager few items I'd need to bind her ankle after I was finished healing it. I needed Kakashi to look away for just a moment though, to grab something I needed for myself... Strictly speaking, I was not allowed to touch them, after all.
"I'd love one. Can you go into my room, into a blue bag decorated with clear moons and stars and get out one pajama set that is shorts and a t-shirt and another that's long-sleeved with long pants? Thank you." Despite the silly and strange request, he did nothing but look completely serious, even appearing to commit it to memory.
"...Anything else?" He was taking me seriously.
"... A pair of panties and an undershirt would be much appreciated, thanks." None of it would probably fit either me or Ren quite right, but there wasn't a whole lot of choice. I wasn't going to bed smelling like puke and the inside of a well, and Ren wasn't going to be wearing that yukata on any piece of furniture I owned other than the kitchen chairs.
Within moments he had disappeared into my room, presumably to root through my underwear and look for the clothing items that I'd specified and I was taking advantage of the moment of solitude I was being afforded; Out of a broken, rusted old mint tin I removed an equally broken piece of a soldier pill, one of many that were small enough to be of next to no use in a battle situation and so remained here for occasions where I needed just a little boost, like now. The piece I selected wasn't big enough to give me a huge burst of energy, nor was it immediately noticeable when I bit into it and swallowed... Thankfully it wasn't big enough to provide the 'rush' associated with the artificial adrenaline high normally given by soldier pills. It was just big enough to get me through the night, and that's all I wanted.
"These okay?" His timing was impeccable, as was becoming more often the case, as he showed up just when I was shutting the closet door and re-arming it, broken soldier pills safely tucked away where nobody would look for them. Looking quickly I recognized the pajamas easily and approved; I couldn't see any underwear, but they were most likely sandwiched in between the two sets of clothes. Turning around I stepped across the hall and reached into the bathroom to flick on the light. Finding it to be exactly as I left it, I tapped a portion of the bathroom counter that remained clear and quickly eyed up the towel supply in the linen closet— It would have to suffice for tonight, but tomorrow would be a day for mass amounts of laundry getting done.
"Just put them down here, I don't want to touch them." Off I went back towards the kitchen with only the most basic of materials in my hands and while there wasn't quite a bounce in my step per se, at least I wasn't limping quite so openly anymore. My arrival in the kitchen was greeted by Ren being completely engrossed with drawing a picture with the wrong end of the marker on a scribbled green background, reversing the normal usage of colors that I was used to. She barely even looked at me as I wet a rag in warm water and placed it on the table along with the rest of my supplies before pulling out an adjacent chair to sit and place her foot carefully up on my knees. From my limited experience with kids I'd say that she was almost unnaturally quiet, but then again it could also be her natural response to everything that had happened.
I was gentle, and even numbed her leg from the knee down to crack and reset the bone, earning me a brief look of curiosity from her before she looked away and I got to work actually mending the break; A feat that took next to no time, considering that her bones were so much smaller than the ones I was used to working on. Reducing the swelling was one thing I couldn't do, unfortunately, so of course it would still be uncomfortable to walk on for a day or so, even if I did have something to speed up the process. After I was done here, the first thing would be to clean her up.
Quickly I washed her foot and ankle with the warm rag I'd brought to the table before I took a tub of topical chilling gel and rubbed it over the entire patch of swollen limb, earning me a faint squeak of protest at the initial chill; While I still had the chance I wrapped her leg just so in the linen bandage I'd brought with me and then let her pull it away from me, touching it lightly out of curiosity.
"Ready to go have a shower, honey? That's the best I can do right now." She looked at me quizzically and slid herself off of her chair, cautiously putting her foot down as flat as she could on the floor. Upon discovering that it didn't hurt anymore, she made a funny face at me, hopping up and down on the balls of both feet.
"...What's a shower?" It was my turn to look at her in inquiry before realizing that she might never have had anything but baths; I had no idea what kind of life she'd lived up until now. Stretching my hand out to take hers, I began to lead the way towards the bathroom, pondering how to explain it.
"It's like... very warm rain that you wash yourself under. You'll see." Once again she was quiet, seemingly lost in thought, like she was trying to picture it in her head. I lead her into the bathroom and let go of her hand, only to turn around and stop Kakashi from following me into the room, an action that wasn't well-received, if anything could be taken from the look on his face.
"Go start supper, I won't be long cleaning her up, I promise."
"Sorry, I can't leave you alone, for your own safety." And Tsunade's peace of mind, I could only imagine.
"Listen, I'm feeling fine. I'm not going to collapse and it'll only be ten or fifteen minutes. There's a plastic container of vegetable soup in the freezer that you can just dump in a pot, cover in water and let simmer until it's all yummy and warm, so just..." I sighed and ran a hand through my hair, frustrated with his stubbornness.
"I don't need her getting shy now, okay?" I made a motion to shoo him out of the doorway he was blocking, watching as he looked over my shoulder and sighed in annoyance, raising one hand with his fingers outstretched.
"Five minutes. If you're not done, that's what the curtain's for." Gone before I could protest this unfair 'compromise', I had to be content with the fact that he had even given me one, considering that he could've cited it a mission requirement and I wouldn't have been able to do a thing about it. Quietly I shut the door, turning around to the endearing sight of Ren looking around, both arms up on the counter and trying with everything she had to climb up onto it. She was light, so it wasn't much of a problem to help her something which visibly surprised her.
"I is dirty..." She was staring in the mirror and rubbing her grubby nose, a petite little pout on her tiny face as I reached up and began finagling the tangled ribbons out of her equally tangled hair so that I could let it loose and shampoo it properly.
"Well, you'll be nice and clean soon, okay? Arms up, please." Automatically she obeyed, letting me unwrap her obi and set it aside, although I seriously doubted its potential to be salvaged, much like I did for the yukata itself, which fell to the floor with a sickeningly wet sound when she dropped her arms. Left only in a pair of frilly white panties, she was bruised over much of the side where she'd broken her ankle, confirming my initial thought about it being the side she'd landed on; Considering that she hadn't died on impact though, I could only assume one of two things— Either the mud had been considerably deeper yesterday and thus a whole lot softer, or Sasuke had gone out of his way to bring her far enough down the well that she wouldn't die immediately, signaling intent. Less and less was it looking like an accident, or some sort of sick punishment than it was a death sentence.
Healing the bruises wasn't much of a challenge, but it was tiring expending much of my minuscule energy reserves on it, so I only healed the worst ones, acceding to a promise that I'd fix the rest tomorrow, when I was better rested.
"...Mommy did it diff'rent." Purposely ignoring my own reflection in the large mirror, I looked up at hers, seemingly entranced by the green glow coming from my fingers; She was even going so far as to try and touch it. Interested in the certainty of her observation, I couldn't help but wonder... Had her mother been a medic too?
"How did your mommy do it?" She stretched her arm straight out and stood up proudly, pointing at it with her free hand.
"If you bit her, the ouchies went away! But, it din't work on ev'rything, I had to wear a cast last year 'cos I broke my arm and Mommy couldn't help." Ah... Direct healing, a method of healing that was incredibly simple and uncontrollable, although it was genetic and couldn't be taught. Very different from and probably not as beneficial as Controlled healing, but I suppose it could be pretty handy in a pinch.
"You can probably do it too, can't you? It's something that you have to be born with, but the way I do it can be learned." She tilted her head off to the side, seeming deep in thought again before she answered me.
"Do you learn it at ninja school?" I nodded in utter certainty; My parents hadn't wanted me to go to the academy and become a kunoichi, so when I was studying behind their backs I hadn't had the extra time to take specialty courses like those associated with becoming a medic-nin... Otherwise I might have chosen my career a whole lot sooner.
"You can learn some of it at school, but most of it you'd learn by working at the hospital when you get older." That would be how it normally went anyway— Only about a tenth of all fresh-out-of-school medics actually got placed on a team right away, the rest all became interns to further their skills first.
"...How old do you hafta be?" She was looking at me in rapt curiosity, obviously expressing an interest in it all that I would be an idiot to quash this early on. I couldn't help but smile.
"To go to school, you should be about six, but to work in the hospital you'd have to be closer to thirteen." Looking down at her hands, she started counting on her fingers before looking sad and holding them up.
"That's... nine years! That's a long time..." Four years old... if she was counting right, that it. Strangely, I didn't doubt that she was, considering the intelligence she'd displayed thus far.
"You're four years old? Wow, you're a very smart little girl, aren't you?" I think I noticed a hint of a blush as she turned shy and hid behind her hands. Maybe she wasn't used to being recognized for being smart.
"... I turn five at Hall'ween." So... four and a half, basically. She truly was exceptional for her age.
"Well, it might seem like a long time now, but there is a lot to learn, and you'll never even notice because time will just fly." Taking off my sweater, since I was going to have to anyway, I dumped it in the laundry hamper before wrapping Ren's foot in a plastic bag I kept expressly for the purpose and helping her down off of the counter. Swiftly I turned on the shower and removed the showerhead from its perch on the wall; It wasn't often that I cared about or even noticed the handheld feature, but with Ren being such a small child it was going to help immensely.
"Alright, panties off before you hop in." She almost slipped as she clambered up over the side of the bathtub and I made a mental note to lift her in next time, to avoid her hurting herself. With her eyes shut tightly against the spray I was able to rinse her off quite a bit, though the amount of mud and other gunk that swirled on down the drain was staggering, just like the sheer saturated brightness of her hair once it wasn't visibly dirty anymore. Once done with the bulk of it I put the apparatus on the floor for the moment and grabbed my shampoo, conditioner, soap and a washcloth, setting it all on the edge of the tub except the cloth, which I handed to Ren.
"I'll give you some soap and you wash up while I wash your hair, okay?"
"Okay." She stretched out her hand with the washcloth on it and I squeezed out a dollop of cucumber and mint scented body wash, provoking her to scrunch up her nose and stick out her tongue.
"That's not soap, soap's like... hard, and slippery!" Folding the washcloth in her hand, I scrunched it up until it started to sud, wherein she started copying me and doing it herself.
"Some soap comes in bars, but mine comes in bottles, like shampoo." She started to wash up with an almost gleeful expression on her face and I left her to it, turning my attention to her hair and the shampoo bottle that sat at my elbow.
Unlike mine, her hair was long, naturally thick and straight as a pin, which made it a whole lot easier to try and deal with than my own hair in a similar state of disarray; Whatever couldn't be manually disentangled as I shampooed it gently, came out with only the slightest bit of coaxing and a wide-tooth comb once I'd added conditioner. She was good about shutting her eyes while I was rinsing her off and didn't emit so much as a peep until she was clean as a whistle and I'd turned the water off, where in she took a peek around the shower curtain, squeaked like a frightened mouse and promptly retreated back into the safety of the shower.
Sitting silently behind me on the counter, with his arms crossed over his chest and his back to the mirror, Kakashi was very obviously trying not to cause a problem; His eyes were averted towards the nearly empty towel rack standing across from him and were very nearly closed. Shrugging, I got up only to retrieve the fluffy pink towel he was staring at before handing it around the curtain to Ren, where even wrapped right around her the edges were trailing around in the puddled water at the bottom of the shower, making her look that much more tiny, vulnerable and cute.
She adamantly insisted that she could dry herself off, refusing outright to let me help her as she carefully and meticulously worked from her feet up, ending at her hair which she wrapped firmly in the towel and twisted it on her head so that it trailed down behind her.
One piece at a time I handed her the short-sleeved pajamas and finally she stepped out of the shower, looking less scared now that she was clean and dressed. Thoroughly soaked from my waist up to the top of my head, I finally grabbed a towel of my own and half-assedly dried myself as I opened the door, mostly to keep whatever excess water I was harboring from ruining the hardwood floor; An old habit instilled into me by my grandmother, who had owned the house before my parents had.
Past me sped a blur of red and powder blue while the towel was draped over my head, ruffling my pants with a soft breeze and head directly for the kitchen— Right behind me Kakashi hopped off the counter and flicked the light off, prompting me to ditch my towel and follow the little redhead who had obviously done so already.
On the stove, a large pot of soup had reached a rolling boil and at the table, her hair hanging down her back and dampening her blue t-shirt, was Ren, doodling away on the markerboard. She flashed me a happy, close-mouthed smile revealing a dimple on her left cheek; A mark of inherent cuteness that she certainly had not gotten from her father.
"You still hungry, Ren-chan?" She nodded decisively after a moment and returned to her doodles, both arms up on the table holding her up over her work while she knelt up on the chair. At the stove, Kakashi had already switched off the burner and taken the pot off the heat, leaving me to retrieve dinnerware for the three of us.
Ren drawing in the background whilst I handed one bowl after another to Kakashi for him to divvy up the soup into gave me this odd, incredibly foreign sense of domesticity— I couldn't say that I hated it, but it did remind me all too clearly of what was now considered my 'duty', and because of that it was something I wasn't quite comfortable with.
"Here you go, hon." Ren stared at her bowl for a moment when I placed it in front of her before running the spoon I gave her through the broth to make all the vegetables float around aimlessly.
"What is it? It smells nice." Her tone wasn't mocking, not that I'd expect it from a kid pushing five, but she looked pretty curious... Like she'd honestly never seen soup before.
"It's vegetable soup and it's good for you." She looked at it again and picked up a piece of diced carrot on her spoon, getting it almost all the way to her mouth before staring at the bowl suspiciously and poking my thigh with her bare toes.
"Are there dead animals in it?" She sounded sad and worried, something that almost made me wonder if she was a vegetarian. What a strange kid.
"Nope, just vegetables, some barley and black-eyed peas. No meat whatsoever." She looked relieved, to say the least, and dove back into it without any further inquiry, her feet kicking back and forth lazily under her chair. Kakashi didn't exactly look thrilled once I said 'no meat', but he wasn't saying much about it either way... He wasn't saying much at all around Ren actually, and he seemed a little... offput by her presence. Icha Icha hadn't even made an appearance, a worrisome omen in and of itself.
Especially since he was going to be even less thrilled when he found out that both of my parents were hardcore vegans, and I just plain didn't like meat; There wasn't a scrap of it anywhere in the house and most likely never would be, if Ren ended up staying with me and she didn't like it either. He'd just have to suck it up and deal with tofu and legumes instead... well, and seafood, because seafood is the only exception to the 'no meat' clause of my diet. Seafood was delicious.
"... Thank you very much, that was really good." An absent glance at Ren revealed her bowl to be empty, save for a teensy bit of broth lingering at the bottom, and the glass of apple juice I'd set out for her was equally empty. The shock must have been evident on my face, considering that I'd eaten maybe half of my bowl in the same amount of time, but even Kakashi looked surprised, speed-eater that he was.
"Are you still hungry?" She shook her head, rubbing her eyes and yawning in such a way that she was trying to hide the fact that she was tired. She probably hadn't slept in the well, so of course the poor kid was tired.
"Ready for bed?" She shook her head, as I expected; I could remember doing the same to my grandparents when I was her age, and I pretty much assume that trying to seem grown-up pretty much outranked needing to sleep for any kid, not just us.
"You'll get sick if you try to stay awake too long when you need to sleep. Let's get you to bed, okay?" She didn't protest again, instead obediently abandoning the table to make a short run for my side, where she took my hand to walk down the hall.
She'd said that she didn't like the dark, so I wouldn't torture her; The bathroom light shone indirectly into my bedroom, and the green glow of the numbers from the alarm clock should be more than bright enough to serve as a nightlight, so that's where she would sleep tonight.
Walking into the room revealed that my bed had already been remade neatly, saving me the need to do it, and the floor was mostly clear since all the bags had been neatly arranged to one side. Ren climbed onto the bed quietly, still holding my hand tightly as I shut the curtains over the window and pulled the thin topsheet over her to tuck her in.
"...If I pray hard for Mommy, will God take her to heaven?" Once again she looked worried, staring down at the floral bedsheets while I gaped at her in tongue-tied silence. The question was so... abrupt, and out of place, that I... I wasn't quite sure how to answer.
"I... I'm not sure what you mean—"
"He killed her. He tol' me so, and he said I'd stay in the dark until I died too." The sorrowful tears that started to spring up in her voice pulled at me tightly and left my chest aching with sympathy for her; Immediately some instinct prompted me to pull her in and comfort her, shushing her sobs with the best reassurance I could offer without explaining my own opinionated stance on theology.
"It's okay, I'm sure she'd happy knowing that you're safe and taken care of. She's probably already watching over you from heaven." Her crying grew slower and quieter, though not from any lack of grief; She was simply too exhausted to keep it up, that's all.
"...Are you gonna put me inna orf-nige, now that I tol' you mommy died?" Laying her gently back down on the pillow I wiped her tears with the side of my hand and smoothed her hair back from her face with every effort to make her feel cared about... The last thing she needed to think was that she was all alone.
"You're not going to any orphanage, I'll make sure of it. We're family, remember? We have to stick together, because we're both special, right?" It was my responsibility to keep her safe now; I'd treat her every bit like the daughter her mother would have, if her life hadn't been unfairly cut short, and I'd make sure Sasuke never laid another hand on her. Ever.
"... Can you stay 'til I'm asleep? I don't like the dark." I nodded, smoothing back her hair again as she shifted over to lay on her stomach, the pillow cradled between her arms and head.
"I won't leave until you're fast asleep, I promise. I'll even leave the bathroom light on in case you wake up in the night, so that it won't be dark." I vaguely felt her nod under my fingers and I settled back onto the mattress, laying just outside the reach of her short legs with one hand stretched up so that she could easily find it, which she did almost immediately.
Her hands were so small and soft, just as delicate as the rest of her. I couldn't imagine anyone trying to hurt someone so sweet, so innocent and vulnerable... Not unless they were a true-blue psychopath, an unfeeling, soulless freak utterly consumed by hate and negativity.
Had I been so wrong to think that Sasuke's retention of his humanity hadn't completely failed? I'm sure that at some point it would have been impossible to convince me that he was so depraved, but... To someone who counted sodomy and utter humiliation a method of teaching, maybe starving a terrified child to death was humane.
Was there even any point to trying to analyze him? He was on a completely different level altogether— One that I could only hope I'd never even come near. The day I could murder my own daughter without so much as a shred of remorse would be the day I'd deserve... Well, the only punishment I could think of to suit that particular crime was moot, as the artist responsible for performing it was well and throughly dead, his secret lost at my hands— It would be one of the few things he hadn't taught me before he died, most likely because he couldn't. He'd always told me that the Mangekyo techniques were unique to each person, and so both Tsukiyomi and Amaterasu were dead and gone, leaving nothing comparable in terms of pain to punish such madness.
I only knew of a small handful of people that had ever witnessed the technique and survived without going completely insane, although that isn't to say they were left without any psychological damage at all; There was something about Itachi's cruel use for the technique that left you not quite right in the head. Deidara, for example... I imagine he would have been a lot like Naruto, when he was younger, but Itachi had been the one to recruit him into Akatsuki, and I hadn't known him before that. When I met him he was a reckless, impatient head case with a disposition that made it seem like he was on a potent cocktail of speed and crack at all times. His undeniable violent streak was the one thing I'd attribute to mental damage the most; I had a sneaking suspicion that the unwavering fascination with various forms of pyrotechnology was a personality trait he'd carried from birth, considering his unique bloodline. Kakashi only became more introverted and even less willing to reach out for help, Sasuke... I can't say he became a psycho, because Orochimaru is more likely the one to blame for that, but it was probably a huge factor in it all the same, making a bad problem even worse, and I...
I'm honestly not sure. I've always been a bit of an adrenaline junkie, so to speak, and once I get started the bloodlust kicks in and I have trouble stopping— But those were problems that were present long before I had ever met Itachi. Truthfully... he would probably be the only one who knew me well enough to pinpoint what about me had changed then, but now that was another secret lost into nothing.
Beside me, light, even snoring and a limp hand clasping my fingers gave me silent permission to leave and I slowly slid off of the bed, careful not to shift the mattress enough to wake her; I had no idea if she slept heavily or not, so there was never any harm in being safe. I made sure to shut the door tightly as I left, knowing firsthand that if I didn't, when I went to take my own shower the noise would most likely wake her, heavy sleeper or not.
"So we've gone from 'needing time to decide what to do', to outright adopting her. That's not a huge leap at all." I shrugged without turning, the knob still clenched tightly in my right hand as my left lay dead at my side, indifferent at the moment to any judgment that would clash with my own; I only wanted her to stay safe.
"It's me or Sasuke— Who would you trust to take care of her? Because I'm pretty damn sure Tsunade wouldn't put her into Sasuke's care and nor will I. I'm not as much of a bitch as people seem to think I am."
"That's not what I—"
"I know what you meant." Finally I turned, only to be met with the single most skeptical I'd ever seen adorn his... well, unadorned face. Frowning at the implication that held, I sighed and reached up to rub my sore left elbow, which had more than began to swell; It was easily bigger than Ren's ankle had been, and that injury had been at least a day old.
"Nonetheless, you have to consider what my alternatives are— I'm not above empathy, I can't just cast her out on her own or worse, leave her to the vultures that would prey on her for their own personal gain without any regard to what their treatment would do to her as a person. What if she was your niece?" His reaction involved little more than narrowing his eyes at me and crossing his arms over his chest, although that was more than enough to make it apparent that he disagreed with me.
"She's not your niece. She's Sasuke's daughter." I huffed, knowing that he was technically right, but I had no idea of how to actually classify the blood bond between Ren and I. The way he said it too... It was as if being Sasuke's daughter was her fault, as if she could've helped having a psychopath for a father.
"So what would you call us? We're still related by blood, like it or not. Itachi was enough like a brother to me that if he would have called her his niece, then that's more than good enough for me. The technicalities can be put aside, since everyone else will be doing the same anyway." I sighed and rubbed my temple, strung too tightly to avoid the headache that was already starting. This was all getting so complicated... Maybe if I knew what Itachi had done to me, I'd have a better definition to assuage him, but I didn't, and there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it.
"...Ugh, I need a shower. We can continue this later, since I assume you won't be leaving tonight anyway." A light sprung up in his eye and he started to scratch the back of his neck, signaling trouble and halting my steps before I even took them.
"Uh... thought you should know... I've been... temporarily displaced from my apartment, so—"
"—you moved everything here to give you a valid reason to be around me twenty-four seven without me getting suspicious that you were, in fact, on a surveillance mission as per Tsunade's direct order. ...And, more importantly, you knew damn well I wouldn't kick you out, either." His face morphed into an expression that made it seem like I'd dumped a bucket of ice down the back of his shirt, a clear sign that I'd hit my mark dead-on. Unsurprised, I walked right past him and into the washroom, flicking the light back on as I rummaged through my medicine cabinet for my medical scissors; I couldn't raise my arm to get my shirt off and unlike the sweater, it didn't zip up the front, so I was going to have to cut it off just to get to my shoulder to fix it.
"... Yeah, that's one way to put it, I guess." I very nearly rolled my eyes, and might have actually done it if I hadn't caught sight of my reflection in the mirror just then and completely averted my eyes, simultaneously angered and sickened from the sight.
"Honestly, I don't care, but you could have just asked to stay. You didn't have to move out and pretend to have gotten evicted." One little snip at the collar of my shirt let me rip it easily all the way down the front and I shrugged it off like a jacket, where it landed in a crumpled mess on top of Ren's soggy yukata.
"Who's pretending? I got kicked out after my landlord found out that one of my students was systematically destroying my apartment and putting the one above me in danger of collapsing." I looked up almost sympathetically at him as I started the slow and agonizing process of repairing my arm with next to no chakra, beginning first with my badly out of whack shoulder joint.
"You don't need to explain yourself, I said that I don't mind. At least here you're not paying rent." Sucking in a breath and bracing myself for the pain, I was almost able to catch the distinct morphology of his face in the mirror when I finally wrenched the bone into place with a sick crunching sound and numerous muted curses; From horrified, to disgusted, to morbidly fascinated... only the minutiae distinguished each emotion individually, and such a small detail as the constricting of a pupil, or the peculiar quirk to his narrowed eyebrow was something I could easily have missed without my own sharingan to see it.
"What are you doing?" I rolled my shoulder to test it, finding with more than a slight wave of pride that despite the difficulty the swelling posed, I could move it properly again. Next would be my elbow, a less difficult but equally painful challenge.
"Avoiding the hospital like the plague. I'm not exactly in the best of moods with our dear hokage at the moment, I'm afraid." Let him think that it was because I didn't like being treated like an infant, because it was true, I just didn't want to let him know my other reasons knowing that he was reporting back anything relevant to my condition.
Retaining my memories would be considered extremely relevant, and a possible hindrance to my recovery. I couldn't say anything, or the elders' will for me to remain complacent might provoke her to use more... potent methods of memory destruction.
"It's for your own good, you kno—" He flinched as I abruptly snapped my elbow into place with a gruesome 'pop', glaring back at him in the mirror as I silently dared him to finish the overused and inappropriate adage he had been about to spout at me. Apparently common sense suddenly struck him and he thought better of his words, as he turned and refused to meet my eyes in the mirror.
"... My condition does not cripple me or put me in enough physical danger that twenty-four hour surveillance should be an issue—"
"Your attitude and proclivity for finding trouble, however..." I only glared even harder and harshly cleared my throat at the interruption, while flexing my arm gently to ascertain that I had set it properly.
"They certainly haven't gotten me killed yet, have they? Get in here and close the door, I don't want to wake her." Swiftly I turned towards the shower and began unraveling the linen bandages wrapped around my chest, letting out a frustrated sigh that made me remember to mind my own emotional upkeep; I could keep from losing my temper, but the night's events were weighing down heavily on me and remaining devoid of anger and negativity was becoming difficult again.
I heard the door snap shut an arm's length from me and pointedly moved out of reach, intent on keeping my personal space just that: Personal. One of the last things I wanted was to be within arm's reach of him while in a state of complete undress, no matter how much I cared for and trusted him; Those reasons probably contributed more to it than anything in fact, since despite my current condition and appearance, I was still a grown woman, and my feelings had never been sparked by appearance in the first place— They remained, stronger than ever, whilst I knew the same wouldn't be true on his end. It was safer for me if I kept my distance, because then at least it kept me from doing or saying something stupid and irreversible.
Modesty no longer being one of my strong points, I normally had less of a negative opinion about undressing in front of the opposite sex than most girls could claim; Problem was that before, I had every reason to feel self-conscious but couldn't care less, whereas now I looked even worse and couldn't make myself not care.
"Turn around." One arm clamped tightly over my nearly nonexistent chest, I turned on the shower with my bad arm, a task which proved difficult but not quite impossible. Behind me, Kakashi hadn't so much as twitched to accommodate my request.
"...Please turn around? I'm not undressing while you watch." One good look back over my shoulder found Kakashi leaning back against the door, his uncovered eye glazed and most definitely out of focus. Daydreaming, or simply inattentive at the moment, he probably heard what I said about as much as he was actually seeing me.
Sighing softly, I unsnapped my sandals and slipped them off before stepping into the shower. Shutting the curtain behind me, I couldn't help but notice the waves of mud that washed off of my pants as the hot stream hit them and undid the drawstring waist to let them fall off of my undersized frame. The hot water was a bit of a shock to my skin, evidenced quite sharply by the red tint taken on by the scarred white flesh while I slipped off my panties and bent down to toss both articles out on the floor after wringing them out as much as I could in my weak hands.
Hospital showers didn't get this hot, mostly as a precaution against the medics and nurses inadvertently boiling their delicate patients alive... It also meant that I hadn't had such a chance to scorch away Sasuke's fingerprints in the time since he'd actually touched me, just like I hadn't been able to get rid of the cadaverous frigidity of his skin on mine.
As often as I tried, I couldn't remove it from my mind, and now it was even worse as I washed up and the soapy washcloth passed over where I could vividly remember the bruises, or the cuts, or even the teethmarks he had left. It was endless, the feelings of restraint and suffocation that came when I couldn't help thinking about it... I wasn't one to talk about fairness, usually, but this... what he'd done to me, was not fair. I couldn't even vent to someone or openly bitch about it either, because it never happened, of course.
It never happened... but there had to be something I could do to make sure it wouldn't 'not happen' again. It was in my head somewhere, among the plethora of medical jutsu and chaotic, unorganized smattering of less specialized elemental jutsu... Something to put Sasuke in his place for good, to make him realize what he was doing... Something to make him empathize with it...
Empathy...
I jumped abruptly when a brilliant idea came to me under the bubbling cover of shampoo suds falling down over my face— One that would positively cripple him if I could work it out just right. There wasn't any particular hurry for me to put it together, considering that my target wasn't even in the village, evidently, but even if he had been, the scrolls that I wanted were in my room and I wouldn't wake Ren to begin my research.
Casting a glance at Kakashi's silhouette through the curtain, I bit my lip and shut off the water, hoping beyond hope that what I was planning was well within the realm of jutsus too far removed from his area of expertise for him to recognize it without substantial help; I didn't need him or anyone else trying to stop me from what would essentially amount to ruining Sasuke's career, if not his life.
With a plan forming in my head I grabbed a towel and dried off, my mind singing with the theories and possibilities concerning my idea; I'd never heard of anyone succeeding with what I was going to attempt, but then, I'd never even heard of anyone even trying it.
I couldn't help the low chuckle that escaped me, though it wasn't indicative of glee so much as something darker, more sinister... If all went well, Sasuke would get a taste of my particular brand of teaching and how much more effective it could be.
"You seem to be in better spirits now." Smiling to myself, I stuck my hand out the shower curtain and he handed me my pile of clothes, exchanging them for the sodden towel I passed back out to him.
"Maybe I've just gone mad. We mad people laugh at nothing all the time, you know." I almost grimaced at the inherent joke he'd made in the pajamas he'd picked out for me, a tight red number with 'You can call me Your Highness' silkscreened in curly gold letters across the chest and a shiny gold crown emblazoned across the ass. Trust him to pick out the set I'd had my arm twisted to buy so that I would match the rest of the girls— Each of them had it in their respective favorite colors, and Ino had been adamant that I had been removed enough from the group for so long that I owed it to them to join in the tradition. Unfortunately, red was the only color left that was unique, so I had been stuck with it.
I guess they weren't that gaudy, or pubescent, or over-the-top, or... just plain not me. They were okay.
"You aren't mad." I frowned slightly, though it wasn't at him... or at least it wasn't at his observation. The underwear set, which I hadn't previously seen, were not cotton, or plain in the slightest. They weren't even a set which I remembered buying, although the shimmery pink lace was certainly pretty enough to catch my eye, and the set was far too small for it to have accidentally gotten mixed into my bag from either Ino's or Temari's. Not that I'd have ever made that mistake anyway, since neither of them would be able to survive without their underwired security blankets, let alone in something as inherently shapeless as a camisole.
"Of course I am, sane people don't survive shinobi life." I hadn't expected anything to fit, and of course I was right— Everything was just a teensy bit too loose, although the pajama set in particular was far too short. A long sleeve shirt became a crop-top with three quarter sleeves, long pants shrunk to a length somewhere between 'flood-pants' and 'capri-pants', and a camisole which was meant to fully cover the torso ended almost an entire inch above my navel. I can't say I was the most confident person in the world, pushing aside the curtain to emerge more exposed than I was entirely comfortable with, but I didn't have too much of a choice.
I hopped out of the shower after a short pause and busied myself with gathering up the strewn clothes on the floor before tossing them all in the laundry basket, salvageable or not. It could wait until morning, the laundry... Like most everything else, it could wait.
The world was swimming in front of my eyes as I tried to comb out my hair; I'd used too much energy, and the hot water had inevitably only made me more fatigued. My hair didn't even really need to be combed, considering that it was too short to even tangle. Wet and lying flat to my head, my bangs barely reached my eyebrows— There wasn't a hair on my head longer than the length from the tip of my index finger to the second knuckle. It was all sheared short.
"Feeling alright?" I shrugged, trying not to flinch outright when his hand fell onto my shoulder, right over three different bites... or at least the places they had been. Biting my lip rather than try to fake a smile I quickly shook his hand off under the guise of running my hand through my damp hair and ushering him out the door.
"Just... tired, that's all." I couldn't let on about what was really wrong, so I was limited to half-truths, at best. I detested it, but you only get what you give, as it were.
I purposely left the bathroom light on and the door mostly open before traipsing down the hall to open Ren's door, like I had said that I would. A moment of quiet listening assured me that she was still sleeping quite soundly, if not necessarily peacefully; She seemed to be tossing rather fitfully, yet another correlation between the two of us that was rather uncanny, if not downright unnerving.
"Finally time to take your meds and get some sleep?" I shrugged, reaching up and ruffling my still-damp hair before turning back down the hall to walk numbly into the kitchen.
"...Yeah, I guess it's about that time. I'd want to be able to get up when she does and preferably with the least amount of caffeine possible." My pills were all in the kitchen, still in the cloth bag I'd brought them home in, which I emptied onto a blank stretch of counter top without hesitation. An unappreciative 'hmph' sounded from over my shoulder, where keen eyes were reading every label that I did.
"...Excessive much?" Once again I shrugged dismissively, quickly sorting out the 'required' medication from the 'recommended' ones; At a ratio of four bottles to two, it wasn't particularly difficult to tell the two groups apart.
"Not really." The painkillers and sleeping pills were both only recommended, no matter how strongly so... The other four bottles were required, but I only had to take one pill from each per day; Two out of the four were vitamin and mineral compounds, not dangerous in the slightest. Looking all over quite thoroughly, I was surprised to find that there was only one that I was required to take before bed, although considering my situation, I decided that one of the painkillers certainly wouldn't hurt me any. I didn't want to take the sleeping pills because if I did, once I was out I was out until they wore off, a guaranteed eight to ten hours later. I didn't want Ren to be unable to wake me up if she needed me in the morning.
I heard nothing but an amiable silence as I swallowed the pills and began organizing the ones I would have to take first thing in the morning, which basically amounted to the rest of them.
Now... where to sleep? I'd given Ren my bed, and sleeping in my parents' bedroom was an idea that was a little more morbid than I was willing to entertain... Kakashi would still be sleeping in the guest room and I wasn't about to take away his bed or join him in it, which left...
"...'Night, see you in the morning." I deftly flicked off the kitchen light to deprive me of the ability to see the bloodstains and flopped down exhaustedly onto the couch, a squishy embroidered cushion I'd taken from the adjacent armchair lodged under my head and neck while I only absently noted that my blanket was still missing. Maybe they hadn't been able to salvage the color enough to bring it back... Pity. It had been comfortable.
"...What are you doing?" Though my eyes quickly got used to the dark, I didn't need to see to notice the couch cushions shift when he sat down on them, careful not to disturb my legs as he did. Behind him, in the portion of the living room I had been terrified to look into earlier, stood the silhouettes of various mismatched pieces of furniture and numerous stacks of boxes— Kakashi's possessions.
"Going to sleep. You should probably think about doing the same." I heard him sigh quite audibly in exasperation, an emotion that I'm sure was anything but foreign to him after having to put up with the genin team he had been situated with, some nine odd years ago.
"... I'm not sure what kind of game you're trying to play, Sakura, but I'm only going to say this once: I can not leave you alone. I'll give you ten seconds to get up and go to a proper bed under your own power before I'm forced to carry you." I frowned into the dark, crossing my arms over my chest with some difficulty as I debated to myself whether or not he was bluffing.
"You wouldn't— There's simply not enough reason for us to be in the same room when we're both asleep, for crying out loud. Don't waste your energy." Apparently he disagreed, because I wasn't even given any further warning before he hauled me up off of the couch and over his shoulder like an oversized sack of potatoes, unable to even struggle as he stood and strode back towards the bedrooms easily, as if I weighed nothing at all to him.
Inside I screamed, though I never actually made a sound— Complete helplessness had frozen my vocal cords and shortened my breath, like I was being suffocated. I needed down, now.
"...P-put me down." With my nails dug into the back of his vest to keep me grounded against the intense vertigo that was afflicting me, I had to struggle to speak even such a tacit request. The knee I nudged his chest with when he wouldn't stop went ignored, just as my verbal plea had, and shutting my eyes in a futile attempt to stop the floor from spinning so violently, I could only grip on tighter to the back of his jacket to keep myself from losing it.
None too soon did he unceremoniously drop me onto the guest bed, spots swimming in front of my eyes in colors that I was positive didn't exist in any true visual spectrum as my lungs shrieked at me to take a proper breath. I barely even noticed what he was doing over by the door as I tried to get up and promptly collapsed again, my arms and legs shaking too badly to even consider supporting my weight. Absently, under the cover of the natural rationale that I attempted to push onto everything I encountered, I found myself wondering for a moment whether some or all of this could be a side-effect of my medication; I couldn't bring myself to believe that I was physically reacting to an irrational, subconscious fear of helplessness.
"...Gonna live?" I hardly noted his sarcasm as I fought back the stomach contents that had leapt to my throat in their desperation to decorate the carpet, my throat closing up and making my situation worse as I did so. Strong hands gripping my shoulders inflicted an undeniable and terrifying sense of deja vu on me and the heavy sound of my own pulse in my ears blocked out everything else— I couldn't see, I couldn't breathe...
The caustic, manic laughter I heard as I stopped feeling made me hope that I wouldn't dream—
The familiar sensation of a warm hand caressing my face made me wish I wouldn't wake.
Looking at the latest name to be carved into the white marble of the family cenotaph, I had no more tears for her.
13 days...
Beyond the stone, the family cemetery had always frightened me, even as a child— I'd done all my crying out here instead of beside her tiny grave.
We failed her...
I was no longer a mother, and nobody could tell me why. My husband hadn't shed a tear, but he was broken inside.
You failed him...
He wanted a family and he'd lost it, again.
It's your fault.
All I heard from my family was that we were young, there would be others—
He's leaving.
But she was mine, and she was the one I wanted back in my arms, wailing her little blond head off.
Uzumaki Nami
March 28 – April 09
I wanted my husband to smile again. I wanted my family to look me in the face again.
Nobody's here.
I needed someone to tell me it was alright again.
Cry all alone, little girl.
