"The areas in which we felt most insecure, unsafe, unloved, uncomfortable, embarrassed, angry, and generally unresolved as a child are the areas that we will be most prone to self-deception as an adult."

— Cortney S. Warren,

The small knapsack she carried proved to be a hindrance as Reika dashed through the woods, leaping over thin winding creaks and slippery rocks.

It had been a few hours since she snuck through the gates of Konoha—without a destination in mind or any sense of direction. All she knew was that she'd rather be anywhere but the village.

The only thing her father cared about was the Sharingan and since she wouldn't wield it ultimately he didn't care about her. It was becoming more and more evident in the way he treated her brother as opposed to how he treated her.

Heck, even the Uchi portion of his name indicated how treasured he was.

Uchito.

The true Uchiha.

She thought feverishly about it until her head spun and pounded with tension. Uchito was a very lovable character, even Reika had to admit, but his existence had stolen her tranquility and her security. It hadn't granted her any favours. All it had done was left her with a hideous sense of inadequacy and self-loathing and a temper as unreliable as an active volcano.

She dodged and zipped past rotting oak trees and under lowered and snapped branches. Everything blurred into dizzying blend of earthly colours. The earth was wet and moist beneath her sandals. There was no snow, but a fine layer of frost lay over the trees and the crunch of the concrete like soil was audible with each footstep.

She jumped into a muddy brook, swollen by the recent rains and soaked her clothes.

Her eyes swam in tears of frustration but she wiped at them and carried on.

"If I am to surpass daddy, I will have to find my own strength," she sniffed.

Her nose should've been pink by now from all the sneezing but with the temperature so low, it was as ashened as the rest of her.

"It would've been easier with the Sharingan," she grudgingly admitted and adjusted the straps of her bag.

She thought back to Tenten—the person she loved more than anything—and hoped she hadn't ruined her mother's opinion of her. It would crush her, because Tenten's love was the one thing Reika was certain of in life. The one thing that made her feel like a part of the family.

Uchito this, Uchito that.

That was all Sasuke was about.

Sharingan this, Sharingan that.

It made her question whether he truly saw value in her mother. She didn't possess the Sharingan or was from any notably skilled family. In fact, Reika was told that her mother only got a surname through marrying her dad. It struck her as odd that she would've been his first choice of a bride since all he cared about was having powerful Uchiha heirs.

She remembered hearing whispers on the playground about her father having been a traitor and that he only returned to Konoha and settled down so he could restore his clan—the clan that Uncle Itachi wiped out in a single night.

It was a messed up situation.

She wondered exactly how powerful the Uchihas had been if a mere teenage boy had made them nearly extinct. But, he was no ordinary boy, old man Kakashi had once told her. Just as she was no ordinary girl, he conceded, saying she was the Itachi of her generation.

Reika didn't know whether it had been a praise or an admonishment, she only knew that it couldn't have been any further from the truth.

Itachi had the Sharingan. She didn't, or rather, she wouldn't.

There was no ground for a comparison there.

Still, what bothered her the most was the thought that her daddy was using their mother to further his ambitions—to populate the clan?

It was the only explanation—the kid at the playground had told her—why someone of Uchiha Sasuke's calibre would've chosen her mother—a woman who should've remained a civilian rather than become a ninja, he derided—for his wife. He said her daddy was only interested in her mommy because she didn't possess a Kekkei Genkai or features distinguishable enough to completely cancel out or make the Uchiha gene recessive.

Reika supposed that statement answered her earlier question about Tenten's value to Sasuke.

And as she thought about her mother in comparison to the other Kunoichi, heaviness crushed her. While she never thought of Tenten as plain, under skilled or lacking in anyway, the truth was there.

Insistent and brutal.

It forced itself upon her.

Like blows to the head.

Reality slammed into her and hatred burned in her eyes for her father and the despicable manipulator that he was.

Her heart pounded and adrenaline surged in her body. Crackling through her like overloaded static.

There was a ball of pain in her chest, she acknowledged, and it grew larger with every step she took.

The once thick heavy undergrowth of the forest began to dissipate before a clearing. It laid ahead with almost perfect circular symmetry.

The notable absence of trees gave it the appearance of the point of impact of a bomb or even part of the footprint of a giant of almost unimaginable proportions. Like the ones from the tales her mother read to them.

Surrounding the clearing was an army of trees standing guard as if to protect the empty space from the rest of the advancing forest with their branches extending as if to ward off the curious trees who leaned back and forth to see what laid ahead of them with such subtlety they almost appeared to be standing still.

Reika was too wrapped up in her thoughts and the riot of emotions that assailed her and to hear the twig that snapped beneath a boot behind her.

If daddy didn't love mommy then there was no way he would love me either, she thought. Not when we look so much alike and especially not when I wouldn't have the Sharingan.

The only difference was that her mother would have use to Sasuke, after all someone has to bear him more children.

"But me—" she thought aloud, "—I would just be a burden."

She had considered speaking to Uncle Neji about it. He would've understood. He too was from a clan where children who didn't posses the family's bloodlimit weren't really considered as part of the family. But Uncle Neji did possess the Byakugan, she reminded herself, so he might not be able to relate. His issue was not a lack of the clan's Kekkei Genkai, rather its division into a Main and Branch family.

"Would daddy establish a main and branch family in our clan?" she wondered and was absolutely horrified that she would probably be the first branch member.

She imagined the clan's politics would become similar to that of the Hyuuga's but the principle of segregation would be different. More rigid.

Earlier when she arrived at the Hyuuga compound to speak with Uncle Neji, Reika was informed that he was away on a mission and was then told off by Hanabi for being out at night without an adult. Of course she knew Hanabi was merely panicking at the thought of having Sasuke discover his child on Hyuuga grounds.

There would forever remain an area of lifeless sticks of charcoal where canopies of green trees once resided in the Hyuuga Garden, as a reminder of the last time the head of the Uchiha household visited.

Reika had casted the region a pitying glance when she stopped by. The unfettered light illuminated the scorched ground and the smell of burning lingered still, despite the rain.

Daddy's fire ball jutsu is very impressive, she mused.

Pity, she had been counting on Neji being around so some light could be shed on the circumstances surrounding her parents' marriage before she left. She wanted to know that her mother would be in good hands even if those hands didn't love her.

She shook her head in tearful dismay and the tangled curls of her hair thrashed wildly on her shoulders.

Daddy never lets Uchito's hair go unbrushed for a single day, she acknowledged bitterly. But it all made sense now.

Only prized Uchihas were polished.

OoOoOoOo

Silence thundered.

The laughter evaporated from Tenten's eyes. Her customary warmth gone faster than summer rain on the tarmac.

Her brown eyes.

There was an emptiness in them but not in any vulnerable sense. Uncomfortable with the void, she had filled it with an emotion that was more suited for the situation—raw anger. The unmoving gaze was accompanied by deliberate slow breathing, like she was fighting something back and loosing.

Then she gruffly brushed aside her bangs and pinned Sasuke with a stare that could have frozen the entire Fire Country.

She snarled more than spoke. "What the fuck did you do this time?"

His dropped his gaze to the floor and hooked his thumbs into his trousers. The strangest little pang of guilt nudged at his conscience and provoked a deep flush on his troubled face. "I didn't do anything."

"Don't give me that," she growled, coming to her feet. "I heard the door to her bedroom slam before I even entered the house."

Uchito's sobbing quieted down and he stuffed his fingers in his mouth, watching the exchange between his parents from where Tenten had sat him down.

"If your ears are so sharp I imagined you heard how rudely she spoke to me as well?" It was more of a sarcastic remark rather than an account or enquiry.

Her mouth twisted with flagrant distaste. "This is not the time to be smart," Tenten took a step towards him, a vein almost popping in her temple and her fists tightly clenched.

Sasuke stayed right where he was. Well over six feet in height, he had shoulders like axe handles and a massive chest, but years of service to Anbu had taxed even his impressive resources.

"What happened?" she demanded sharply, her delicately cut profile set in lines of derision.

The question ripped into his heart more surely than if she'd burst into tears. The distraught expression on her face made it feel as if there were a blade twisting in his guts.

"That's what I'd like to know," he frowned, treating her to a look of pained male incomprehension.

"Enough with the half-assed responses, Uchiha—" she took another step forward, in turn treating him to a chilling look of cold menace. If they were similar in height then they would've been almost nose to nose. "—I will fucking cut you."

"Mommy! Beehive!" Uchito gasped, as if he thought she would start packing punches at his father any minute now.

"Yes. Behave," Sasuke agreed, leaning forward to briefly—spitefully—cover her lips with his.

He giggled and threw his little palms over his eyes, grimacing. "Yuck, daddy!"

When Sasuke pulled back Tenten's hands were flexing furiously at her side as if to reach up and slap him. A fierce flush lit her cheeks. "This is not the time to be fucking around," she mumbled.

He turned to Uchito and elevated a brow. "So it's okay for you to do it and not me?"

The brat had the audacity to nod. "My mommy!" was all he said in his defense.

"My wife," Sasuke countered indulgently, returning his attention to Tenten. He found himself being regarded much as he himself might have regarded a cockroach. A lump ballooned in his tight throat. "Stay with him, I'll go find her. She couldn't have gone very far," he said and swallowed hard.

As he was about to take off a hand whipped out and closed round his forearm to stay him.

"You stay with Uchito, I'll go look for her," she told him in a tone that would've meant she got the final say had Sasuke been a lesser man.

He shrugged her off gently. "You just came back. Rest," he said softly but Tenten's face remained hard.

"Rest?" her voice was a sick thread of sound. "How can I rest at a time like this?"

Panic was clawing at her. It started out as thin cellophane, something fingers might be able to pierce breathing holes in. Then it became a deluge of ice water surrounding every limb, creeping higher until it passed her mouth and nose.

"I'll find her," he grasped her hand and gave it an assuring squeeze. "It's cold out, stay home."

"Why don't you stay with Uchito? Reika ran away because of you. She might just kill herself if you're the one to find her," a bitter little laugh was dredged from her tight throat until her strained voice shook and she compressed her lips to silence herself.

For a split second, Sasuke stared at her, inky black lashes low on his stabbing gaze. Then a flicker of something she couldn't distinguish softened the hard line of his mouth for a moment, and Tenten gave him a suspicious glare.

"Did you scold her for talking about being in love with Neji again?"

As if it was the worst possible conclusion to have ever been drawn, a frown marred the smooth perfection of his forehead.

"Don't remind me of that or I might just forget that this is my fault and ground her for the rest of her life." he said rawly, slashing an overpoweringly arrogant hand through the air in emphatic command.

"Then what is it?" Tenten pressed.

A change came over him as he gave an account of the incident.

She lifted her hand to her head, suddenly feeling dizzy from lack of sleep, stress and disbelief. "My poor baby. Why would she think we loved Uchito more?"

"It's because he will possess the Sharingan," he explained, a muscle started throbbing in his jaw. He shook his head slightly, and even shrank back a little, as if he was unsettled by the accusation for good reason.

"I don't love any one more than the other," Tenten said, sounding utterly dejected. "I know what it's like to grow up without the privilege of a Kekkei Genkai. It would be hypocritical of me to chastise my child for something beyond both our control."

"Reika never said you did," he explained. "She said I did."

"Well do you?" she demanded, but the expression of guilt she saw in his face cut her to the quick.

"Was that why you were so insistent on having another child? Because Reika wouldn't have the Sharingan?" Tenten asked, suddenly sounding angrier than Sasuke had ever heard her. "Usually you two iron out your difference right away, but this time you couldn't reassure her—" she summarized.

"The Sharingan is what makes us Uchihas," he stated simply.

"—you couldn't because she wasn't wrong was she?" she shuddered in disgust and then registered in horror what he said. "So I guess by definition she isn't an Uchiha. I can't believe you'd say that."

He stared down at her in shock at such an assumption. But her impassioned outburst had struck a chord deep inside him. Another rush of emotion stormed up through him, overwhelming him once again. He cleared his throat gruffly, and turned away.

"Don't you dare turn your back on me," Tenten said, pulling him back towards her. "It's no wonder she ran away, I feel like doing the same damn thing after hearing what you just said."

Sasuke felt himself smiling.

Like mother like daughter.

Both irrational and crazy.

A bubble of laughter burst out of him. "The mere fact that she has ran away is proof enough of her Uchiha lineage."

"Do you think this is fucking funny?" she asked, thumping hard on the chest. "I know what it's like to walk in her shoes."

Colour came and went in her face, tears of rage spiking her lashes, trembling there before falling, streaking her cheeks and dripping off the end of her elegant nose. She didn't care. It was a terrible thing for their daughter to feel so unloved and unwanted that she'd run away.

Sasuke caught her hands in his, and gathered them up to him, looking seriously into her eyes once more. "So do I," he said, with heart-wrenching honesty.

Tenten licked her dry lips and waited, fingers rolled into feverish fists because she was so desperate to acquaint it with his arrogant cheekbones.

"Are you forgetting that I had a sibling?"

"Let's not make this about you," she snapped.

Sasuke breathed in slowly like a non-swimmer about to plunge into a deep pool without a lifebelt. "I know what it's like to grow up in someone's shadow." Tenten felt a tremble pass through him, and she looked up to see the shimmer of moisture in his eyes. "My father constantly made it seem as if Itachi should've been the first and last child he had. I don't want for Uchito to ever feel that way."

"So this isn't about the Sharingan?" she concluded.

Dark eyes glittered over her as he confided that, "It isn't, not from my end. With or without the Sharingan, Reika will do great things. Uchito will have to live up to expectations formed based off her performance. I don't want him thinking he has to impress anyone—especially not me."

Her smile was sheer, infuriating irony. "By trying to prevent a repeat of your relationship with your father from happening with Uchito you end up forging the same madness between yourself and Reika." He shuddered as she said, his eyes turning momentarily bleak. "Don't you find that ironic? He isn't even three feet tall yet and she is already living in his shadow."

He was searching her face, his expression earnest as he affirmed, "I might not be able to relate well with her but that was never my intention."

"I also find it ironic that you don't relate well to the child who is most like you." A smile broke out over Tenten's face and she felt her heart swell to bursting with understanding and compassion. "Go get our baby."

OoOoOoOo

"Uchiha Reika," a voice slithered through the thick veils of trees she left behind and the mentioned girl's entire body turned cold and damp with instinctive fear. "Don't you know your daddy is out looking for you?"

Her heart lurched sickly against her breastbone, the oxygen locking at the foot of her convulsed throat.

She jerked round in horror.

Involuntarily, she glanced up and froze.

Her beautiful face stiffened like pale, tear-streaked marble into stricken stillness. Sheer shock slowed her heartbeat to a numbing thud that echoed sickly in her eardrums.

"I never thought I'd find you luring in a place like this," her companion croaked, staring down at her, apparently entrapped by the same immobility that paralyzed her. "You are really your father's child."

A wave of dizziness engulfed her as she collided with deep-set eyes—golden eyes.

"Sasuke was always more trouble than he was worth," he murmured thickly, one fluid movement brought him to tower before her. "I was hoping that for your sake you wouldn't turn out the same."

Her bemused gaze locked with compulsive intensity to his and she noted the odd slits in his pupils and the strange colouring around his eyes.

Recognition dawned on her and it was as terrifying as walking off a cliff edge and falling—and falling—and falling. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't speak. It frightened her.

Reika didn't know whether she should curse her rotten luck or count her blessings that she had stumbled upon him. He would have all the answers to all her question—and a possible solutions to her problems. After all, he couldn't be considered legendary for nothing.

Still, she knew it all would come at a price she wouldn't be willing to pay.

Then again, she heard how her daddy had pulled one over him, many times at that and couldn't help but question his alleged wisdom. Did he hold any grudges, she wondered.

Who wouldn't?

She turned white as death and backed away on legs that were ready to buckle. A cold spasm of fear impelled her at the realization that a cost would be incurred no matter whether or not she asked anything of him.

That was the reality that scared her.


A/N: Do you see the significance of naming the child Uchito? I know at least one person must have wondered, what the fuck kind of name is that lol. I promise you its real! I found it on Google lol.

So, I have a proposition, if anyone can tell me what they noticed about the kids' names in relation to Sasuke's and Tenten's names then…I will write you a SasuTen one-shot with a plot of your choice.

Thanks for reading. Reviews are always appreciated :) I hope you guys are enjoying this or I'd actually feel stupid for troubling myself with writing this. I was under the impression that the fandom need sasuten family fics. My own thirst for it, I suppose?