AN: Short, but here's an update!

I. Sasuke's Family

Uchiha Sasuke had known for years Uchiha Mikoto wasn't his real mother. He hadn't cared that she wasn't though, Mikoto had raised him and as far as he was concerned she was his mother. When he'd been especially young, kids had teased him about it mercilessly, but he'd been able to ignore it so long as they didn't insult Mikoto. The second they did it led to the few fights Sasuke ever started with his cousins. It also led to Mikoto keeping him at home for fear he'd get hurt. Sasuke hadn't minded though. It just meant he'd gotten to spend more time with Mikoto and Itachi. By the time he was six the clan kids had forgotten why they'd teased him and Sasuke's parentage was rarely mentioned if ever.

He could only remember his father mentioning his mother twice. Once during Sasuke's fifth birthday he'd been reminiscing and told him about her. "She was the most beautiful woman I've ever met. She had a fierce sense of honor and justice. You look more like her than you do me." The only other time had been when Sasuke had asked if he'd ever meet his mother. Fugaku had shaken his head and said, "Your mother is not one to be very domestic. She loves you, but you will only see her when you are in most need. Perhaps when you are older."

Sasuke had accepted Fugaku's words. He loved Mikoto and Fugaku as his parents. Only once or twice did he try and picture her only to fail. It was just too odd to think of someone other than Mikoto when the word mother was mentioned. After the Massacre Sasuke had waited, half expecting her to show up now that he needed her most. When she didn't Sasuke gave up on her. If she didn't come after that, he doubted he'd ever see the woman who had birthed him and left him.

So when he walked into the bridge builder's house to find his daughter serving a woman with long black hair and Sasuke's face tea his heart nearly stopped. The woman smiled catching sight of him and Sasuke saw she had dark violet eyes.

"What the hell!"

"Hello there, Sasuke." Sasuke's Mother said as if it was the most natural thing in the world. As if she'd been calling him that since she was born.

Sasuke didn't know rather to cry or scream.

"You know this lady?" Sasuke starred at the blonde dumbly, before remembering himself and dragging back his normal expression with some trouble.

"No, Dead Last. We've never met." Sasuke told the hyper blonde sharply. Naruto actually raised an eyebrow and looked at the pleasantly smiling woman and back to him.

"You can call me idiot and Dead Last all you want, but she clearly knows you." Naruto told him with his obnoxious, infectious grin. "She has your face bastard."

Once in a blue moon Naruto said something mildly intelligent. Sasuke never enjoyed the reminder that his rival wasn't the complete idiot he preferred categorizing him as. Naruto looked at him expectantly along with his mother and Sasuke fought back a growl as he heard his fangirl's heavy footsteps and the soft, nearly silent ones of their sensei making their way behind them. If Naruto and he hadn't raced here they would have arrived together, not giving Sasuke any chance to compose himself out from under Kakashi's sharp eye and Haruno's suffocating, smothering 'love'. Thank the gods for small blessings it seemed.

"I'm hurt Sasuke, saying something like that to your own mother. I thought Mikoto and Fugaku raised you better." There was a light chiding in his mother's voice as she spoke those words that made his insides twist as if blades were being stabbed in him so casually. Sasuke's face hardened against this woman even as Naruto's eyes lit with interest.

"You're the Bastard's mom? Who's Mikoto and Fugaku?" Naruto demanded without a hint of hesitation or consideration, like always. Sasuke growled.

"She is not my mother." Sasuke snapped looking straight into the woman's eyes. She ignored this though and gave Naruto an indulgent smile.

"Fugaku is Sasuke's father and Mikoto his wife. She raised Sasuke for me." his mother explained. Naruto snickered.

"So he really is a bastard."

"Shut up!" Sasuke snarled fury pounding through him like he'd never felt. He turned back to his mother spitting and shaking. He'd thought only Itachi could get him this angry, but this woman prancing in her after years of abandonment and so casually dismissing Mikoto seemed somehow just as horrible as his traitorous brother.

"You have no right to talk about her!" Sasuke was screaming now, but he didn't care about that or about the fact that the others had arrived and stood frozen in the doorway or that the bridge builder's daughter was looking horrified or even that Naruto was shocked silent. "You abandoned me! You aren't any sort of mother! That is something reserved for Mikoto so don't you dare say her name! A real mother would have stayed! A real mother would have been there to tuck me in or tell me they loved me! A real mother would have come after the Massacre! I don't even know your name!"

The woman took it eyes said, but unsurprised. Sasuke wanted to break her calm. To throw himself at her and rip her hair out. But no. He wouldn't. He wouldn't give this woman anything more than those words.

"My name is Nemesis and Mikoto will always be more of a mother than me I know this. Many of my children feel this way about their step-mother's, but it doesn't change who I am. It doesn't change your heritage. Now put your Sharingan away." the woman said calmly as coolly as a queen, but her eyes were soft and almost affectionate.

Sasuke looked away not wanting to see it, sneering. He hadn't realized his bloodline was showing and despite himself something in him obeyed the tone in her voice and he could feel it switch off.

"I would have come my son, but I'd thought you'd died."

Sasuke tried not to hear the truth in those words focusing on his feelings of bitterness and hatred. He didn't want her now. Didn't want a changeable painful love.

"And I did not leave you alone. Why one of your cousins is right there." Nemesis said voice easy and so casual Sasuke almost missed it. His head snapped up and he followed her violet eyes to a stunned Naruto.

"What?"

Nemesis smiled her eyes flickering passed them to where Sakura stood looking, Sasuke suddenly realized, oddly pale as she met Nemesis's gaze trembling slightly.

"You and I will talk later girl." Nemesis said eyes looking darkly curious. "For now I'm sure my son has many questions. Naruto-chan too."