Author's Note: Ah geez, I'm really sorry about how long it's taken for this chapter to get out. I only JUST finished school yesterday, and since it was my senior year of high school, I was more focused on getting my work in on time and doing my assignments and trying desperately to boost my ranking in my class (which i did! I rose from number 66 out of 668 to number 58!) than finishing this chapter. But now that's out of the way, and the next milestone coming up is graduation, which I honestly don't look forward to :\

But I have the entire summer to work on this, so I pray that I'll actually do just that!

One last thing before we go on with the story- I have to say WOW, I absolutely love the attention this story is getting! I'm absolutely thrilled that DOtD has over 50 people following! Thank all of you so much! many hearts to you all

Chapter Three

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The figure was in her bedroom, knife in hand. A chuckle escaped lips that could not be seen— too dark— and the weapon switched hands a few times. She was sleeping, unaware of the intruder, and as the blade slashed across her throat it was already too late. The cut was too deep, blood was escaping and staining her skin, her clothes, her pillow. She tried to call for help— all that came out was a panicked gurgle. Darkness became even darker, impossibly black, as even the light of her clock dulled into nothingness and—

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How did I get here?

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Red and white fans mocked me day in and out. They stared accusingly at me, they clung to my back and filled my vision with pale skin and dark blood, windmill eyes, frantic screams for help that would not come and I couldn't do a thing about it.

I was being haunted by what I knew would come and I didn't know how to stop such a thing. I wanted to prevent the massacre— desperately so— but I didn't even know if such a thing was possible. The clock had started ticking three months after my birth, on the day of the Kyuubi attack and coincidental absence of my parents, and I had maybe six years until everyone around me lay on the ground dead— and I may even be among them.

I wasn't so arrogant as to believe I was significant enough to survive the massacre. I couldn't let myself believe that. It would only make the eventual demise of my Clan and myself that much more horrifying and heartbreaking. No, if I wanted to survive, I had to endear myself to my oldest brother. He loved me, this I could tell, but with my heightened awareness of the world that came when I fully awakened, I could also see that my strangeness was a cause of some distance between us.

Not that he actively showed that we weren't as close as he was with Sasuke. But, prodigy he may be, in the end he was only seven, and I could pick out the flaws in his well-intended act.

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"I go, too?" were the first three words I spoke to Itachi that morning, having heard the excited squeals of Sasuke. He only squealed like that when Itachi had time to spend with the family, and generally he spent that time by taking Sasuke or me out on walks.

But usually Sasuke.

I didn't blame Itachi for his favoritism. After all, Sasuke never woke up in the morning terrified and without a clue of where or who he was. Sasuke knew that he was Sasuke, while I still battled between being Jūbei— a two year old boy who should very well act like the two year old he was— and being the me from Before— which honestly I didn't really want to be. The me from Before was boring and too often sad. I wanted to evolve into a new person who had courage and strength and didn't tremble at the mere thought of helping someone in need— which happened far more often Before than I'd like to admit.

He paused, our brother clinging to his back like a little monkey (I found a bit of amusement in this, simply because he was named after a Sarutobi, and he was clinging like a monkey), and turned to face me. I was standing in the doorway of my room, and to get to the front entrance of our house he had to pass by there. As quiet as he was, Sasuke most certainly wasn't, so it was always easy to detect him.

I think he was a little impressed by my ability to always catch him on his way out.

Twin pairs of obsidian blinked at me, and there was a beat of silence. And then Sasuke grinned at me and gently tugged at the collar of Itachi's shirt. "Jū! Niisama, Jū come, too?" he pressed his cheek into the seven year old's hair, and let out a happy hum.

Instantly I could see Itachi's eyes soften, and I couldn't fight the grin that appeared on my face. I had never been a big fan of Sasuke Before, but here I felt none of the animosity I once did— just love and adoration bred from spending my entire life with the boy. He was cute, in the way that completely innocent children could be. I didn't want him to ever lose that wonderful smile, though I knew such a wish was impossible considering the impending future.

I didn't like thinking about it.

Itachi— my brother, the to-be Clan murderer— smiled at me, and freed up an arm from underneath Sasuke's rump for me to grasp— didn't want me to wander off after all. "We're going to the river, Jūbei," he informed me, leading me out of the house. "I'm going to show you and Sasuke how ninja catch fish."

At the word 'ninja,' Sasuke immediately let out a shout of joy. He absolutely loved everything and anything to do with ninja. All it took was the simple utterance of the word and my slightly older brother was all ears. In a very Sasuke-like turn of events, ninja had also been his first word. My first word had apparently been 'help,' which wasn't exactly the most encouraging start to the career of a shinobi.

I took a hold of Itachi's hand, lacing our fingers together. This outing was more for Sasuke than for me, but that was okay. I just needed to spend time with him. With them.

I didn't want to die. I really didn't. Not again (I say again under the assumption that I've already died once, but to be honest I didn't really know. Did I die? If I did, how? They were questions I desperately wished to answer, but I had no way to truly discover if I had or had not). This was my second chance at life and I really didn't want to squander the opportunity that came with it.

I had to live.

Admittedly, it was scary knowing what Itachi would do to the Clan— what he might do to me. I knew why he had done what he did, beyond the whole I wanted to test the limits of my abilities crap. I didn't know the exact details, since I never actually read up to that point, but… But I knew. I knew of the coup and how the Council had placed the terrible burden of slaughtering the entire Clan on the shoulders of a boy of thirteen— thirteen! Ninja or not, he was just a child— and how Itachi had carried out the order because of his love for Konoha.

It was scary, it was terrifying, and it made me anxious and jumpy of every little thing— Father would look so disappointed in me. So, so, disappointed in a boy that was scared of the dark despite the fact that he was one day expected to operate from the shadows.

It was as if the massacre was right around the corner rather than six years from now.

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By the time we returned home, both Sasuke and Itachi were sopping wet. Sasuke because he had thrown himself into the river in an attempt to copy Itachi's water walking— it goes without saying that he failed— and Itachi because Sasuke had dripped and splashed all over him when he had plucked the toddler from the water. I, of course, had managed to stay completely dry simply by keeping my distance from the water. I was much more content to sit on the riverbank and observe my brother practically gliding atop the water's surface with ill-conceived awe.

After he had handed off a giggling and squirming Sasuke— I couldn't get over how different he was to the Sasuke I knew, even if he was only two— to Mother, who looked a little annoyed that two of her three sons had dripped all over her clean house and that she'd have to mop up the gathering puddles from the lacquered floors.

She leveled Itachi with her classic mother-glare. "Explain," she ordered, one hand holding Sasuke in place while the other was placed on her hip.

Mother was never really intimidating, to be completely honest. She probably could be scary, considering the fact that she was at one point an accomplished kunoichi—a Jounin, to be accurate! The only reason she wasn't out on the field kicking ass and taking names was because she had a family to take care of.

It was a little sad that she didn't get as much recognition as she deserved, though. No one walked past Mother and exclaimed, "Oh! There's Mikoto-sama, the great shinobi who once took down an entire squadron of enemies during the Third War with only a few feet of wire and a handful of shuriken!" Which was a pity, considering she was insanely talented with thrown weapons, and was the main reason Itachi was so skilled. Oh sure, he was a prodigy, and he learned insanely fast, and would eventually grow more accomplished in the art than Mother, but without her tutelage as a base he wouldn't have gotten so good.

But being overshadowed by the men of the Clan was a far too typical fate for your average Uchiha woman. Father was given the credit of being the best with shuriken, though honestly he probably was by now, since Mother's skill most likely decayed with disuse.

But, I digress.

"Sasuke tried to water walk," Itachi said, pushing sopping wet bangs—courtesy of Sasuke— out of his eyes.

She rolled her eyes, though there was the slightest of smiles on her lips as she held her little boy out in front of her, before pressing her nose to his in a sign of affection. "Honestly, Sasuke-kun!" Mother chided gently, swaddling him into a towel that she pulled out of seemingly nowhere, "You need to learn how to sit still and be a good boy like your brother!" At this, she gestured with me, adding in a wink as if saying good boy, Jūbei.

I smiled.

As she carried my twin brother off to take a bath, I heard her quietly add, "Besides, you'll be able to walk on water in due time, my little shinobi. Patience is key."

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Knowing what was to come, could I be patient?

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"What're you reading, 'Tachi-nii?"

Said brother of mine looked up from the small crème and green book in his hands, peering at me with those large black eyes of his. Curled up on his bed, with his blanket wrapped around him and his hair pushed back out of his face with a headband, he looked more like the actual child he was rather than a soldier or trained killer. The plush covers swallowed him whole, so only his arms and head were really seen.

Gosh, he looked too cute.

A smile graced his lips—smiles were becoming more and more infrequent ever since he graduated—and he scoot over in his bed, opening his cocoon of blankets up in invitation. "It's a book I found the other day," Itachi replied as I climbed up and tucked myself into his side, pressing my cheek against his chest. He shifted, and the blankets surrounded us as a protective barrier from the rest of the world. "It's about an utterly gutsy shinobi who strives tirelessly to break a curse."

Instantly, I was all ears. "Read it to me?" I asked quietly, twisting so I could look up at him.

He looked… I don't know. I wouldn't say delighted, because that was too extreme of an emotion to place on Itachi when he's such a quiet and reserved child.

Pleased. Itachi was pleased. And I was, as well.

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I want to live.

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Author's Note: As usual, a million thanks to my beta, Orodruin, for helping me out!