A/N: Wow, I didn't expect that! Thank you to all of you who reviewed and followed and favorited! I greatly appreciate it!

This chapter is a little bit shorter, I apologize.

Raven dreamt of snow.

Cold, cold snow, swirling around her, landing in her hair and clinging to her eyelashes, flying into her eyes.

Each snowflake had a different pattern, some very simple, others eloquent, drifting throughout the air in floaty dances.

The air was frigid and the chill bit at her nose and any other exposed bit of skin, but the cold felt good after all of the weeks and weeks of nothing down in the room in the cellar. She could smell the wind and see the watery winter sunlight. The snow was blindingly white after the darkness she had lived in. The fresh air burned her sinuses.

She could've stayed there forever, playing and laughing and giggling as if she was a child again, but Piper had other ideas.

"Come, child. Don't fight me. I'm only trying to help. You should be proud; you're being sacrificed for the greater good."

Raven's head hurt when she awoke. Her thoughts were slow and groggy. A steel nail of pain had been rammed into her skull.

Piper... no, Piper wasn't here, Piper was dead... but, wait, where was here?

She could feel a mattress beneath her body, heavenly soft compared to an ice-cold floor. Her head rested on a pillow.

She tried in vain to move, twitch her hands or open her eyes or bend her arms, but she couldn't.

There were other people in the room. Slow, disjointed sounds faded in and out of her foggy consciousness.

"Found her in the snow... don't know... she's only a little..."

And then another voice.

"Can't have stra... dump her... could be a foreigner..."

The sounds corkscrewed themselves straight into the middle of her headache, increasing the pain. It was also frustrating, only having pieces of the conversation that she knew was about her. She tried to flex her fingers, but was met with stiff resistance. Her joints protested with a flare of pain.

It took a few long hours for the fog to clear out of her head, but when it did, she decided that it would only be for the best if she pretended to be asleep and did a little bit of recon.

If she tried to move, she probably would've just passed out again anyway.

The bits and pieces of conversation began to become clearer and connected, speeding up and going back to normal.

One voice was much deeper than the other; it was a female and a male talking.

No, arguing was the word.

"Itachi-san, you know we can't have foreigners. She could be anyone."

"I found her freezing to death. I couldn't just leave her; look at her and have some pity, woman! Starved, cold, and as young as Sasuke."

"Don't bring your brother into this. As fond as I am of Sasuke, this is totally different, and appealing to my empathetic side won't work."

"Listen to yourself. A SIX YEAR OLD girl. DYING from the cold and starvation, Sen-chan. DYING. As in DEATH."

"She isn't a Uchia. Her death would not have affected us in any way. We don't even know who she is."

"How can you be so cold-hearted?"

"What about the brands on her back? Her blood-stained clothes? Where did the blood come from?"

"I suspect child abuse."

"But you can't know."

"A six year old girl can't kill people."

"All it would take was her to creep up in the night with a kunai."

"Oh, and she just DECIDED one day to brand herself with demon summoning marks?"

"You're changing the subject."

"What REASON would she have to kill someone?"

"You can ask her. She has been listening in on our conversation for a little while, after all."

Raven's eyes flew open, feeling that there was no purpose in feinting sleep any longer, and she sat up abruptly.

The sudden movement caused the room to pitch violently to the side, spinning slowly. Her hands jumped to the sides of her head, and she moaned in a momentary second of weakness.

When the room came into focus, Raven noted the two people in front of her, indeed one female and one male.

The girl was willowy and lithe like a cat, with fair skin and long black hair. Her eyes made Raven think of dark tunnels, cold and uninviting. The way she surveyed her was not the way Piper looked at her- like a butcher preparing a pig for slaughter. It was more similar to the way a rat-catcher looked at the vermin. Like she was a pest.

The young man shared her hair and eyes; it was obvious that they were related. They both had the same narrow, straight nose and fair complexion, but there was a friendlier light in the boy's eyes. Something brotherly.

Both were wearing dark cloaks with a strange pattern embroidered on the back and headbands with a leaf-like symbol.

"Are you okay?" The boy asked kindly.

Raven didn't know how to respond, but she gave a short, jerk of the head to the side.

"Can you speak?"

"Yes."

"What's your name?"

"R-Raven."

"I'm Itachi, and this is Senbia." He gestured to the girl, who was still looking down on her like that.

"How old are you?"

"I... I'm not sure."

Itachi raised his eyebrows. "You don't know how old you are?"

"I don't have any parents, so no one knows exactly how old I am... but I think I'm around six." Raven felt terribly uncomfortable. She realized for the first time that she was wearing a thin, white cotton shirt and black shorts. Boy's clothes. Her hair was clean and untangled. When did all this happen? One moment she was dying in the snow, and another she was in a strange dwelling.

"You found me outside?" She ventured.

Itachi laughed. "It seems you WERE listening. Yes, I did, and brought you here."

"As you shouldn't have." Senbia murmured, placing a hand on her hip.

"Excuse my friend." Itachi shot her a harsh look. "She's just bad with meeting with new people."

And then there was a small period of silence, in which both of them exchanged a series of stares.

Judging from their personalities that she had learned from the conversation, the facial argument went like this:

Senbia- "We can't trust her!"

Itachi- "You're being paranoid. Look at her. An orphan. A nobody. Show some compassion!"

Senbia- "But-!"

Itachi- "No buts. She's STAYING."

Glare contest. Which Itachi seemed to win.

Senbia growled, her face flushed with anger, then held up one slim finger. "You have one week to get her on her feet, and then she's leaving." And without further ado, she stormed out of the dwelling.

Itachi cringed as the door slammed.

Raven followed it with her eyes. "She doesn't like me."

"No, she doesn't." Itachi agreed.

"Why not?"

"We'll get to that later. For now..." He went over to the side of the room and produced a bowl of food. "... you should eat."

Raven felt her stomach give an inexorable growl as she homed in on the nourishment. Real, actual food. When was the last time she had actually had a real meal...?

Like, not in forever.

She practically INHALED the food, not stopping to breathe until she was done. After she was finished, she smiled, feeling undeniably happy. Food worked wonders on a malnourished girl.

"You WERE hungry." Itachi chuckled, picking up the empty food bowl. "Faster than Sasuke."

"Who's Sasuke?"

"My younger brother. He's about the same age as you."

Raven nodded, then asked, "Where am I?"

"The Uchia hideout, somewhere in the land-hidden-in-the-tree-leaves."

"The Uchias? I think I've heard of you guys..." She said slowly, thinking back. The name sounded familiar.

"I'm surprised you have. We're a bit hidden back here, not too many visitors... actually, none at all for a long time, besides you."

Raven nodded again. "So, you're a ninja, Itachi?" She recognized the ninja headbands.

"Yes." Then he crouched down so that he was eye-level with the little girl and grinned. "Would you like to be a ninja too?"

A/N: As always, review, favorite, follow.