your ubiquitous author: prepare to witness some major character development. Hehehe.
(also if you haven't noticed, i have completely re-written chapter two. pls pls re-read. lots of things have been cut or re-done. you will be very confused. i am exaggerating a little. also i idk how we got from objective third person to 'wtf is this half-subjective third person, half-first person pov' lmao love life.)
THANK ENBI FOR HELPING ME PLAN THIS STORY OUT OTHERWISE YOU WILL PROBABLY NEVER HAVE SEEN THIS CHAPTER
The rainfall in June—
the poems I've pasted
to the walls
peeled off, but leaves traces.
-Basho
Buckets of water slosh from the sky as her arms extend and fingers stretch out; Suiren hums, low and dream-like. Her fingers reach and reach until she can hear the bones under her skin groaning under the dull amplitude of rain. The joints in her shoulders loosen with a plop. She sighs.
Bending down, the entirety of her palms press flat against the floor for ten counts. It's early morning, her stomach is running on empty and she can feel in it the strain of her stretches, the waver of her hands, and the sudden light-headedness that hits her when she stands up again.
There is a light knock at the shoji door.
Suiren twists around, "Good morning Mikoto-san!"
"Good morning. Breakfast is ready," Mikoto smiles and takes a step back from the doorway. "How did you sleep?"
"Good," she doesn't hesitate. Five months in and everything is routine. The girl slipped into the family like she never left. (Except, Itachi keeps his distance, and Suiren gives him his distance. Personal space, goes unsaid.)
"Hello Sauce-kun," Suiren chirps and pulls a face at a blabbering Sasuke. He responds by slapping his fruit with a squeal. Just a little over eight months old, and in all honesty, Sasuke has got to be the prettiest kid she's ever seen. He's got the whole full dark lashes; marble-skin, soul-deep eyes look going on (–how did he turn so ugly). She could not wait for him to grow older, and Suiren-onee-san will definitely protect his virtue! (They are nineteen months apart but she is twenty-four going on two and has the old soul of a humble tortoise.)
Mikoto passes a bowl of steaming fried rice to her ('oh my god my fav') and she takes it to her spot on the table. Itachi is already there, steadily plowing through his miso soup and steamed fish. He gives her a glance.
"Hi," she drawls and struggles to clamber up to her seat. (Suiren misses her old height everyday, every moment. She towered over most men once.)
"Good morning," Itachi replies placidly. She eyes the scroll set neatly next to him, his perfectly groomed hair and ironed clothes-
"Are you going to the Academy today," her chopsticks nudge at large clumps of fried rice. It's clumsy and lacks the fine motor control she keeps thinking she has, but Suiren grits her teeth and tries harder.
Itachi pauses in the middle of eating. "Yes," he answers, "I am."
"Oh," she swallows a lump, unsure and insecure with this new development. "Are you excite-" Her throat constricts without warning. Itachi doesn't get a chance to react or answer because Fugaku Uchiha appears from the hallway like a dark spirit re-entering its stronghold.
The head of the clan takes a seat at the head of the table without a word, but gives a wide breadth of distance from Sasuke. His son likes throwing food almost as much as he will like to spit fire at people, and for a crawling, teething kid, his throwing arm is terrifyingly accurate.
(Sasuke coos at his pa and a stream of saliva drools out.
'Ew.' Her fried rice doesn't look so appetizing anymore. Mikoto flies over with a tissue and Sasuke shrieks happily at her.)
Itachi sets down his chopsticks and rises first, "I will be leaving first."
"Have a good day," his mother calls as she holds Sasuke's bowl. Discreetly, a slipper flies at her husband's shin under the table.
"Make the clan proud," Fugaku grumbles immediately. Sasuke smacks his baby table with a wonderful, articulate squeal, but he hits the edge of his plate and it's sent flying like a knife. Mikoto catches it with catlike quickness—white wrist snapping up in the air. She dabs at her son's mouth, not even blinking.
'Okay…' Suiren's heart weakens and wilts. "I've finished too." She makes a speedy exit for the comfort of her room at the incline of Fugaku-san's head. This whole clan is like a glance from god and Suiren feels very sad being nothing. She will bury her head deeper in her attempts to recall lyrics from the tip of her tongue.
The first time Fugaku Uchiha discovers Suiren sprawled out in front of a towering bookshelf in the family study with her face planted firmly in one of the many history books, he doesn't say a thing. A lingering, weird look is all he spares, and he disappears before the girl even realizes what's happened. Her face burns more vividly than the tomatoes Sasuke loves.
'What if,' Suiren broods in her hiding hole- room, as she reconsiders her position in this household, 'What if he's waiting for me to lower my guard before kicking my baby chicken ass over to T&I?' Her feet pause in mid-step. 'No, no, if he wanted me dead I would be dead already.' She slaps a hand over her face, 'maybe he just really didn't give a fuck- wait… could that even happen? Ughh.' She buries her face into her pillow. 'Fuck it, it is.'
So it's months before the head of the clan brings up anything that rhymes with injure (ninja), and by that time Suiren has already devoured half of the books in the study, without guilt.
"From tomorrow onwards, you will begin training in preparation for the Academy."
Suiren twists to look at Mikoto for guidance. Isn't she awfully young for this, she's only two-
Oh.
Mikoto is smiling at her like always. (There are no children here.) The girl's shoulders strain to sag but she forces her whole body to stay upright.
'I can do this,' Suiren thinks. Then: 'And even if I can't, I have to.'
"Of course, Fugaku-san," she gives a clever imitation of a smile.
Maybe at one stage, she should've reconsidered everything. Why do Fugaku and Mikoto treat her so simply—so easily, like she belongs? Why does Fugaku give an almost-stranger's child access to the family library? She is Konoha-born and raised, but the Uchiha stick together. Always.
(It is in blood. It is fire-burnt and inscripted in rock.)
Suiren has spent 0.9/2 years of her life drowning in others' pity. (The look on the brand-new bookstore owner's face; the pretty blonde lady her mother knew in the flower store; noodle-shop-jii-san's wonky smile.) She knows she does not really belong here. She thinks she should have been killed long ago.
But still: "I am a drop of gold," she chants very, very quietly and stares down hard and god-like at her fingers. "I am molten matter returned from the core of the earth to tell you interior things." She will not forget this forbidden, foreign tongue. She will not forget who she is. But, some part of Suiren is not cynical (-even though she is Konohagakure born and raised, blood of People and Spirit of Fire), some part of her wishes for new!New and Improved! Version 0.91837465382048463 for $2.95! Some part of her really wishes this could be a fresh beginning. She was so cynical once, but now everything is different.
Fugaku starts out with little things: stretches (different to ones she is familiar with), running laps, katas, weaponry, scenarios, strategies and hand seals. Unsure of what degree of progress he's looking for, Suiren just tries her best, and trying her best is all she can do because this shit is tough. It's everything she's never known and everything she's seen before but applied in the most bloody, murderous way (the fastest way to a man's heart is through the sternum).And while her body is bendy and malleable, she's only two and barely reaches Fugaku's knee. Suiren's got short legs and clumsy fingers and isn't quite safe around knives yet—but she keeps going because she has to. (It hurts to become.)
Itachi sometimes watches her move through the stances. They've never trained together ('oh hell to the no-no'), but sometimes he starts his warm up just as she ends, and sometimes she begins warming up just as Itachi picks up the pieces of kunai and himself. Her eyes starve for progress and the flashes of brief fire, the snap and crack of bone meeting bone, between father and son, all disquiet her heart. This is what she needs to become.
Her katas start out choppy and broken at first; center of gravity wavering as Suiren moves, slow and pensive. Her thighs burn like no tomorrow—she's not allowed to straighten her legs when practicing. And while none of her throws get the bulls-eye, she can land it on the board at least. The laps eventually begin to bulk up too, going from zero to a hundred in a matter of weeks, and although she manages to remember and recall hand seals with ease, Suiren stumbles through them brutally when performing it herself. She knows she can do it so much faster, so much easier- and it kills her. (Hates this body; hates this age.)
The worst ones are probably the scenarios Fugaku hits her with. They're so, so horrifyingly absurd. Is she really going to encounter a legion of trained and organised militants when the mission only suggested they might engage with stray bandits? Would a member of her squad really wipe out everyone, leaving her for dead and missing an arm? Is it really possible for her to continue a mission without an arm? Can chakra even perform when missing a set of vital outputs? It goes unsaid she picks the obvious answers and gets them all wrong. (Shame is so much worse than failure, Suiren learns.)
But some hours in, a few weeks of practice, and she can slowly follow Fugaku's slow and steady instruction—from hand seals, to katas, to throwing sharp things quietly.
"Tsk. Your lower body is where the power comes from, not your arms," a warm hand captures the force of her fist, and without warning, Suiren finds herself planted face first in dirt. "Faster this time."
Her raw-red hands twitch from strain, but the girl breathes deeply. She gets up. Fugaku repeats his series of attacks and blocks and she follows each and every one of them through, eyes wide and breathless. He lands bruises but she doesn't waver; doesn't flinch. Her stomach rumbles monstrously.
Although Suiren's fingers will take puberty for the baby fat to disappear, soon she can perform and recall every known hand seal (and every unknown, obscure and completely jutsu and clan-based ones). The sharp things she throws begin to land closer and closer to the red dot in the center like imminent doom, and while her strategies and answers will get better with real experience, she will always have her twenty-four years of knowledge from a previous life.
(The fastest way to a man's heart is-)
And Suiren no longer sleeps without dreaming.
This is the only time she has ever felt truly alive in the motionless place of pre-Naruto Uzumaki: every afternoon she basks in the sun on the porch and counts each new bruise and cut and scrape after training, and the more she trains, the more she wants to know. It feels like progress.
For example, seals are so cool and you can do just about anything with them—so why isn't everyone using them–although she doesn't really know how they work herself. Medicine is startling developed in a place with limited technology, and there is a severe, detailed lack of publications and medical journals that she would devour for. Information as a whole is far too protected to be any use to the masses as well, and as a clanless, homeless three-year-old, there isn't a lot materials or products available to her without Mikoto's help. (Once, back then– way, way back then– information was utterly free and at the touch of a button. Now she has to personally research it.)
('The temperature average of Konoha is 20 degrees Celsius; climate is mostly temperate broadleaf and mixed forest with some degree of Mediterranean forest near the western border of Fire. The average literacy rate amongst adults is 68.9%—a fraction less than India. 1 ryo should approximately equal to 10 Japanese yen, and therefore worth 0.08USD. 100 yen is 0.80 USD, and so one USD is equal to 10 ryo. Konohagakure, and likely the rest of the Elemental nations, also appear to follow the 24 Sekki, as opposed to a Gregorian calendar. The months are named after what appears to be traditional Japanese months, like the Month of Affection (January), or the Month of Leaves (August). And significant dates land on the 24 Sekki too, for example, after the 'Coming of the New Year' is the 'Coming of Spring', landing on what appears to be the start of February. 'Rain Water' is mid February as well, followed by 'Awakening of Hibernated Insects' in March, and Vernal Equinox halfway through March, so on. All incredibly romantic and very Jurassic.')
Change is gradual and slinks over her before Suiren can blink. It's more than halfway through the year and winter is upon them. She loses her baby fat rapidly through extraneous exercise and aerobics. The curve of her biceps begins to show and her still-very-short legs have significantly more pronounced muscle. Her face doesn't change much—cheeks are still baby-soft and rather pudgy, but Mikoto says she's got good bone structure. Like her mother. Suiren knows she is so much like Harry Potter this is almost an AU crossover shitfic. Haha.
Sometimes she has trouble sleeping at night.
It's getting less frequent though; less turning and tossing, eyes wide and awake and staring at the ceiling and thinking deeply about troubling things—things like what the future holds, the timeline, what she knows and what she wants to know. She was like this before as well: over-thinking and over-complicating things, but doing so before had a lower likelihood of killing her. Now everything is different. So horribly and complacently different.
Itachi knows too, she thinks. He's only next-door and only has super shinobi hearing skills. Maybe she is disturbing his beauty sleep. Uh oh.
Suiren plays with her chakra late at night as well, sometimes, both out of sedative purposes and to practice her control over it. She has to be prepared. A ninja must prepare before it is too late. She's only a year older than them—the Rookie Nine. She must prepare before it is too late.
Just before the Winter Solstice, there is an incredible festival that's held in the village. It stretches on for days and days, right up to when the 'day becomes the shortest'. Merchants in vivid bright caravans set up camp on the outskirts of Konoha, eager to trade before winter really sets in, and all the shops on the main street bloom. It is also the time when snow starts to fall. Taisetsu Sekko. The Snowfall Festival.
Birds that missed the annual migration storm bask in the glow of lanterns. Shopkeepers set out signs in the blue of early dawn. Suiren buys a grilled squid from a pop up stall and buries herself deeper in her over-sized duck down coat.
"Do you want one?" She grumbles to Sasuke who trails after her. Mikoto's gone off to argue viciously over a dozen eggs and Fugaku hardly ever makes a public appearance. ('If things are really that bad for the Uchiha clan, he should've invested in a PR,' Suiren considers for a moment.)
Sasuke nods furiously. She gives him a look.
"You won't like it."
He puffs his chest out indignantly and cries, "Will so!"
"How do you know? You've never had one."
His mouth falls open in a display of shock and outrage.
"Eh? Suiren-chan?"
Said girl turns to answer, knowing that voice is bitingly familiar. "Oh!" Her black eyes open wide. "Ojii-san!"
"Wao! How long has it been since I've last seen you? You've grown so much Sui-chan!"
O-jii-san. One of the many of her mother's friends on the main street. It might have been her father's store, but it was her mother who really knew the people of Konoha, and who brought in the business.
"It hasn't been quite the same without your pa's store. You ever thought of takin' over the family business, eh?" The gap tooth shines as the ojii-san grinned. After relieved from shinobi duties decades ago and missing one eye, the current storeowner of the hugely popular seafood market grew to be one of her mother's closest friends, and Suiren's always liked this oddity on the main street. "We all miss the competition, Sui-chan."
"Well I don't know," the girl begins truthfully. "I want to be a kunoichi."
He laughs.
Then realizes she's being honest.
"Ha! Kunoichi huh? That's a tough life for us civilian folks, y'know?" But Suiren doesn't comment. Sasuke gives the ojii-san a snarky look before continuing to mindlessly steal bits of her ikayaki. Ojii-san sighs. "Listen, since it's the Obon or Evening of the Seventh or whatnot, why don't I treat ya-" Ojii-san notices Sasuke Uchiha, "and that brat next to you to some toshikoshi-udon? Nearly New Year an' all. Your ma had helped me out a lot when I first started—really knew her way around the business market, that one."
Suiren agrees, even though it's actually considered bad luck to eat toshikoshi noodles before the last day of the old year (since any long noodles symbolized 'crossing over from one year to the next'). She grabs Sasuke by his collar and takes him over to Ojii-san's store.
As Suiren-onee-san leads him through the automatic doors, the stench of fresh seafood and fish overthrows Sasuke. His eyes water and his stomach begin to churn very, very violently—the ikayaki coming alive in his tummy. He tugs at Suiren-onee-san's sleeve but she doesn't react at all, and instead walks on forward in a trance. Piles and piles of oysters, crabs, and zombified fish haunt him coldly. He's got this sneaky ninja feeling that their eyes are following him. (Their eyes are watching god.)
Meanwhile, some part of Suiren is in awe (he's like Orochimaru but seafood king) 'cause 'Ojii-san's store has grown so much', but another part knows it's because what once was HYO'S GROCERY MART is now a bookstore.
"Wait are those the blue lobsters from Water?" Her jaw slackens and she forgets everything. "Aren't they almost extinct?"
"Yeah and that's why they aren't for sale. I'm tryin' 'ta start something here girl," Ojii-san gives her a knowing wink. "So imagine this: a huge influx of the rare and mythical blue lobster-dragons suddenly hits the market hard and fresh, and comes not from the far and wayward Land of the Waves, but from Konohagakure itself. There's no transit tax, no shipping or freight fees—nothing! Prices will be ludicrously high because that shit's the best, but it'll be in serious demand anyway, especially with the daimyos and whatnot. People won't be able to resist these beauties," he says the last line fondly, one hand over the edge of the aquarium glass. (And deep in the sandy waves lies several starkly indigo lobster-dragons in heat and rattling their whiskers. Most of the cause for endangerment comes from their wayward mating schedule: early in winter they lay their eggs, and it's far from spring when the fry emerge, hungry and cold and miserable. Many die, but alas, that is the fate for these mythical, dumb, blue lobster-dragons. True they are renowned for being blue, but mostly they're dumb and tasty seafood.)
Suiren has a sudden image of Breaking Bad and one very infamous Walter White.
"And then I'll rename this place Seafood King- an' hire a bunch of youngsters while I relax in a nice cottage on the outskirts of the village in the woods somewhere- and by a lake! And go fishing the whole day and eat the food I catch myself! Ha ha ha," he chuckles to himself. Ojii-san stalks behind his freezer-section with all the dead and half-dying seafood and pulls up two bowls of udon with scallions. "Do you want some prawns in these? Fresh from Land of Hot Water?"
Weakly, and tormented by more seafood, Sasuke tugs at Suiren's sleeve faster and attempts to swallow the dry retch floating up.
"Yeah- yes please," she answers distractedly and shoots Sasuke a look. "What's wrong?"
He swallows his saliva—Mother always told him to act civil even when faced with near-certain death—"Onee-sanI feel sick."
Two things happen at once.
Ojii-san drops the bowls of udon and dashes to the counter, an angry finger jabbing at the exit, "NO CROSS-CONTAMINATION IN MY STORE—NOT ON MY WATCH!"
Two: Sasuke vomits very, very violently. Inside the store. Down Suiren-onee-san's leggings.
She shuts her eyes pensively.
a/n: ojii-san definitely has that bogan australian accent. sasuke has now discovered his least favourite thing in the universe. Suiren is not being called 'sister'; onee-san is also a title you give to anyone younger than 25, but older than you. also we have a slightly better and 10000% mentally healthier sui-chan, although not entirely for the right reasons. She's learnt (or rather re-learnt) to channel stress, aggression, anger and sadness into punching things and tiring herself out. well done fugaku you once-in-a-generation genius. well done. also take note of how he's not teaching this two/three year old kids anything to do with chakra yet. (itachi does though, at two and three, but that's itachi. he's terribly sad.) there's a lot I'm holding back for later chapters and it's so super important, you guys are gonna lurve it. huehuehuheuhe.
And because a lot of my writing in this story benefits from withholding (also, suiren's only a kid, she's can't pierce together everything so you're aware just yet, as kids aren't privy to everything in the world), it's up to you guys to really look underneath the underneath! like the implications of what ojii-san says about 'civilian' ninjas and his reaction to suiren wanting to be a ninja compared to how mikoto and fugaku aren't even questioning it! ha ha ha.
Maybe im spilling too much.
And for the curious folks: the sentence Suiren mutters in English is from Autobiography of Red, a novel in verse by Anne Carson. So bloody beautiful. I love her stuff. Also, I am an unauthorized but still very legal sentence stealer. I steal sentences. Hahahhaahhhahahaahhha.
