Title: Crying is All Right

Summary: -in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do." I was unable to tell where Sasuke Uchiha began and I ended. Did it matter? We had both lost everything. (Self Insert-into-Sasuke.)


I always liked reading Naruto fanfiction.

To be perfectly honest, a lot of the time I liked it more than reading the original. …Okay, most of the time. I mean, come on. Magic Alien Moon Ninjas? Hinata is a Moon Ninja Princess? I kind of gave up some point in Shippuden and only kept up via the wiki, after that. I couldn't pick up another volume.

But Naruto fanfiction? I loved it. Reading about Sakura getting so much more appreciation than she got in the manga, seeing Team 7 stay together, possibly some villain getting redemption… It was fun for me, and I liked doing it so much. Who wouldn't? It was cool.

Maybe I should have predicted this.

x0x0x0x

My Papa had died of a heart attack. So had his twin brother. And when I was a toddler, my Mom had always labelled me a 'Papa's girl'. I certainly recalled staring at the photo album I had of just him and I, so so much, even though he died before I even turned three.

Maybe I should have predicted this.

It started with a chest paint, a faint dizziness that I brushed off. I always felt slightly unwell – it was a thing I experienced every single day without any real change. Even the headache didn't alarm me, nor the back pain. It wasn't until tears were nearly springing to my eyes when I tried to put away my computer and get out of my bed, a heavy, crushing weight on my chest. I gasped, fell onto the floor, let out a strangled "Mom!" and was passed out cold. It was so quick, so sudden, that I hadn't even realized what had happened before it began.

In hindsight, I should've said something sooner. Spoken up. Even read more about the symptoms of a heart attack, which I knew were different with women than with men. But I hadn't, and I didn't, and it seemed I would pay the price for it as my world faded to black.

x0x0x0x

My eyes opened to whiteness. Or, rather, a white ceiling. That wasn't normal – the ceilings at school were cream-colored and the ones at the rental house were clouds. White? White wasn't a color I should wake to-

Oh. Unless I had previously had a heart attack.

I shut my aching eyes, not wanting to face the brightness of the day and the sheer lack of color in the room. My body felt so… weak, and my eyes hurt so bad. Was this normal, after a heart attack? I didn't know. Truthfully, the last time I was in the hospital I was nine years old, and my tiniest sister was being born. I had no idea how this even worked or what would happen.

Of course, I had seen various stuff like this in TV shows and movies and books, but they weren't reliable. Goodness gracious, my family knew how much I complained about that kind of thing all the time. So, really, I had no idea how this was going to work.

Either way, I should get up.

With a sigh, I reopened my eyes, pushing myself up with my arms and adjusting the pillows so that I could lean against them. I was underneath the covers, which was… eh. I usually got overheated pretty easily, but wasn't now, so they could stay. Breathe in, breathe out. Something felt… wrong, and I was trying to pinpoint it, exactly.

I wasn't the most self-aware with my body – my semi-chronic pain will do that to a girl – but I didn't feel… right. The usual aches were gone. No twinge in my forehead, no bad knee I had to worry about dislocating, no perpetual tired eyes that bothered me… True, my eyes ached, but they weren't tired. Automatically, I reached up to rub at them, hoping it would go away. It didn't feel like I had left my contacts in, so they didn't hurt from th-

My hand froze. Carefully, I felt around my face with that hand. No glasses. I wasn't wearing glasses, and I wasn't wearing contacts, and I could see. Wh- I- Wh-

A nurse walked in the door, an Asian woman, with a faint smile. "Sasuke-chan!" The rest was followed by a stream of Japanese that I couldn't understand. Bits and pieces that sounded familiar from the anime I had watched, but could I pick anything out? No. No, I couldn't pick anything out, and I stared at the dark-haired woman, dumbfounded.

She shifted – perhaps self-consciously – and my eyes fell upon the glint at her neck. That was a… a ninja headband. One of those things. From Naruto. And she called me Sasuke-chan, and was speaking Japanese, and oh god the fanfictions I had read-

Suddenly becoming aware of the thing between my legs was what set me over the edge. I burst into tears.

I wasn't really sure what happened next – it was a blur of tears and oh god no – but I know she tried to comfort me. There was someone else, a shinobi, wearing the flak jacket and the headband and that made it even worse. Oh god I was in Naruto.

To be honest, I think I fainted from overheating. It happens a lot. I cry, feel my body get warmer and warmer and try to stay calm and not hot, but it doesn't quite succeed. It's probably a mental thing, proven by the fact that I was in Naruto and still had that, but- Tangent. It didn't matter.

I cried until I fainted, and that was my introduction to the world of Naruto.

x0x0x0x

When I came to, I wasn't in the hospital. Not the hospital in Konoha, nor a hospital at home. I was lying on the wooden floor of a house, eyes closed. I kept them that way for a moment – I didn't want to see where I was – letting my fingers run over the cracks in the wood flooring. Just for a moment, I could pretend I was on my back porch at my old house. It felt like this.

"Who are you?" A young voice interrupted my thoughts, and holy maker it was speaking English. There were no words for my relief at the sound, and I jerked upwards, sitting up straight as my eyes flew open- only to crash foreheads with the young person kneeling over me. I clutched my head, letting out a whimper, but didn't curse – an aversion to that was honestly built into my system, and I couldn't even say the h-word.

Yes. H-E-Double Hockey sticks. That was me.

Eyes watering, I looked up once more, trying to figure out who I was seeing through the lens of my glasses. It was a child, maybe a boy – black haired and wearing all black and Asian, just like the people who had been there when I woke up. Had I been found by a cosplay convention, maybe? The thought gave me hope, but then the child looked at me, met my eyes with his guarded own.

For it was a he. When we met eyes, I- I recognized him. He looked… like Sasuke. Sasuke Uchiha. The resident jerkface of Team 7 and the precious pet of Kishimoto. No, but- Wait, that actually lent credence to my 'cosplay convention' theory.

"Sorry," I apologized weakly, feeling a bit better but overall still confused as heck. I cast my eyes around the dark room – it looked… like a Japanese building, like a Japanese house. (At least, judging from what I had seen in anime.) It… maybe even looked like the house of the Uchihas, from the few clips I had seen of Itachi murdering his parents here in AMVs.

I know the anime sucks, but if only I had watched at least a bit…!

Wondering if I had stumbled across the Naruto stageplay set – which, again, would make a lot of sense – I returned my eyes to the Sasuke cosplayer/actor, giving him a sheepish smile. "Sorry," I repeated, not sure what to say. "Where am I? I- Last thing I knew, I was in the hospital, sorry…"

It was a bad habit, apologizing so much, but it was a habit nonetheless. The cosplayer's eyes sharpened, watching me with a wary look that was far too obvious on his young face. "This is my house! What are you doing here!?"

I blinked. "Your… house?" But… There was a sinking feeling in my stomach. "Excuse me, but what's your name…?"

He paused, weighing his response, before giving me a clipped answer. "Uchiha Sasuke." Uchiha… Sasuke. And this looked like the Uchiha house. And there had been a man in a ninja headband and flak jacket in the Hospital.

Hastily, I shoved myself up off the ground, eyes wide and panicked – I was on the verge of tears once more, I was not ashamed to admit. "Are we- Are we in Konoha?"

"Yes." He seemed alarmed by my alarm, backing up a few steps.

But- But that… This had to be a prank. Who would play a massive prank on me like this, I didn't know. The only friends I had that knew I loved Naruto were halfway across the country at the closest. And it seemed like I just had a heart attack! It made… no sense.

And I could see in the hospital earlier.

That was the one thing that made no sense to me – there was no way I could rationalize it. I could see without my glasses. Without them, I was legally blind. With them, my vision was still shot, objects far away still blurry. I had to almost constantly upgrade my glasses and contacts so that I could 100% see, which was expensive and not worthwhile. I upgraded when I could, and if I couldn't… well, I learned to live with it.

That's why it made no sense. My eyes had ached, but I could see 100% and- Oh. Oh, oh, oh. My mind seized on a logical explanation. Maybe I had had eye surgery when I was out – it didn't make a lot of sense, sure, but it would explain why they hurt and why I could see and- Yeah. It made a lot more sense than ending up in the Naruto universe.

Relieved, even though I would be having words with whoever decided to pull this prank, I turned to the fake Sasuke. He was watching me with all the wariness of someone dealing with a completely unpredictable and possibly dangerous stranger, and had a knife in his hand. No, no, a kunai. I almost laughed. Sure, I knew some Tae Kwon Do, but I wasn't dangerous.

I got knocked unconscious multiple times back in P.E. class.

"Sasuke, er, kun," I asked, tacking on the honorific awkwardly. It was insulting to call someone by their first name without an honorific when you didn't know them, right? Whatever. "How do you know English?"

It would normally be an incredibly insulting question – asking people of another ethnicity/race/what have you how they knew English – but I had to, in this case. If Sasuke was speaking English then clearly we weren't in the Naruto universe. Sasuke's reaction, though, made my heart skip a beat.

He wrinkled up his nose, confused. "English?" It was said slowly, pronounced slowly, like he had never heard the word before.

My heart sunk to my knees. "Yeah, English. You know, the language we're speaking?" Voice rising in pitch, the way it always did when I was nervous, I… I tried to remain calm.

That was dashed when the boy shook his head, looking even more wary. "We're speaking Japanese."

He said we were speaking Japanese. We were magically in the Uchiha house. He looked like Sasuke, and there had been a ninja at the hospital and- oh. Oh, oh, god. It felt appropriate to take the Lord's name in vain, even as I teared up once more. She had called me Sasuke-chan. Me. Sasuke-chan.

I was Sasuke Uchiha.

Tears welled up in my eyes once more and I crumpled to the ground, falling to my knees and rubbing at my eyes. I couldn't help it – it was horrible. I didn't want to be Sasuke, I didn't want to have- th-that between my legs, I didn't want to be a ninja or have to save the world or anything.

"What's wrong with you!? Who are you?"

But. But Sasuke was still here. I looked up, face white and eyes beseeching. He looked confused and frightened – no wonder. I was a strange young woman bawling in his home. "I…" How did I even put it diplomatically. "I'm you. Sort of." I couldn't think of anything better through my tears, not now.

The expression on Sasuke Uchiha's face was one of the best I've ever seen, though. A comical expression that belonged pre-Time Skip or in NaruSasu doujinshi. "What!?" came his strangled reply, face red. "But you're-" There were so many ways he could've ended that statement, which I think he realized. "-a girl!"

I snorted, hiccupping through my tears. Who knew if that even mattered. I was pretty sure Sasuke was agender – but I also liked to think of Suigetsu as a trans girl. Who knew. "That's… that's why I said sort of." I hugged my knees to my chest, and with a burst of creativity, gained an idea. "I'm a genjutsu. I guess. And I can help you get strong."

That, if anything, was Sasuke Uchiha's weak point. Immediately, his mood shifted and he sat down in front of me, mimicking my pose. He was so young. Eight, maybe? Nine? "You can? Why are you here?" Bless him, he still sounded suspicious. What a good little shinobi.

"I was an accident." This whole thing was an accident, but yes. I took a gamble. "You know your brother?" His face twisted in raw grief and anger, and a sneaking suspicion occurred to me. Was… was he in the hospital because the Uchiha Massacre just happened? Shoving that terrible notion aside, I continued. "When he caught you in that genjutsu-" I was not going to try to pronounce the mystical techniques of one Uchiha Itachi, "-he accidentally let me slip by. I was going to make him stronger."

It was completely BS. An utter lie that I was really glad I had managed to figure out. Lying to my Mom occasionally about Internet activities and other responsibilities actually helped. Mentally, I said a word of thanks to her.

Sasuke seemed to be taking it at face value, considering. "You're a genjutsu that can make him stronger? How are you… a person?"

Good question! Very good question. Not something I had the answer to, and I shrugged. "I don't know. All I know is that I was made by the man who helped Itachi kill... everyone. I don't know who he is." Thankfully, I didn't have to answer.

But… that didn't seem to help with Sasuke's suspicion, and he watched me warily. "How do I know you're not just trying to take over my body?"

Very good question! No wonder this kid was the top of his class. "If I wanted to take over your body, wouldn't I have done so already? You're kinda… weak." Another gamble. I hoped he did something, soon, I couldn't keep up this boldfaced lying while the tears dried on my face.

I wanted to cry more, and just hoped that I was antagonizing him enough that he would do something. I didn't know what. I honestly didn't know what we were supposed to do. Right now, we were probably in Sasuke's head – and boy, wasn't that messed up, I didn't want to look outside – and we… probably needed to combine. Or something.

Frick, at minimum, I needed Sasuke's Japanese skills.

The boy in question's hackles went up, reacting instinctively to the insult. "Fine! I'll get stronger, then!" Hastily, he forced himself to his feet, offering me a hand. "Do whatever you need to do, genjutsu! I need to be able to kill him!"

This was the start of an extremely unhealthy obsession, and I was relieved to be here to prevent it. "Okay." It was all I could say at this point. I reached out to take his hand – to let him help me up, to hopefully admit that I had no idea what we had to do next – and that was one of the last things I did.

There was a shock of chakra – blue, terrifying chakra, something I had never even dreamed of witnessing – that surrounded our hands. For a moment, I was starkly reminded of the Unbreakable Vow from Harry Potter, before it all condensed. It stuck and burrowed into our skin and both Sasuke and I cried out because pain pain pain pain-

I woke in the hospital, as Sasuke Uchiha, with tears in my eyes and two sets of grief haunting me.


A/N: Obligatory Self-Insert fanfiction, I know. I enjoy reading these, but it... bothers me, sometimes. How they seem to cope so well, move on so easily, and if they're born into a different body, there's no real dysphoria. Thus, I'm trying a bit of a different approach to a Self Insert fanfiction. Hopefully, you'll like, yeah? The quote in the Title/Summary is from C.S. Lewis.