Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to someone else, I just play around with the world he made :)
Kaze no Uchiha
Her second day in Konoha saw Aya working at turning the house into her home, and that meant redecorating. But first she summoned Sora, since the talkative falcon had been dreadfully curious about her summoner's house, which was by extension her second home too. As she listened to the falcon's chatter, she considered the place:
Her parents had originally moved into the house by the compound wall for multiple reasons: one was the little gate giving them direct access to the rest of Konoha, another was the privacy the smaller wall surrounding the grounds afforded them, and a third the big garden, that Kyoko and Nobuo kept in check. But their primary reason was that the house fitted them in size, not haven been built with lots of children in mind. Its size fitted Aya quite nicely too, and she loved the little improvement that had been made.
Her home was built in much the same style as the rest of the compound: fairly traditional, with floors in smooth dark wood. It had a veranda running around it and was built with two floors. The front door lead into a hallway with stairs on the left side. First door on the left held a big bathroom and second door on the left was after the stairs and held a large kitchen, which opened into the biggest room in the house, the living room, where the door at the end of the hallway also led. The living room had a wide shoji-door with glass squares and lead out onto the veranda turned toward the garden and the private gate to the rest of Konoha. First and second doors on the right led to two rooms, one the office and the other her own old room.
The first floor was a lot smaller than the ground level and held one single enormous bedroom, with a wide shoji-door and a window on the opposite side. The door lead out onto a wooden deck, which was railed in and the roof covered it, so it was almost a room without walls.
The improvements included a cabin for steam baths built in beside the big tub in the bathroom, a modern kitchen with a bar running along the kitchen counter dividing the kitchen from the living room, a tremendous amount of closet-space for clothes in the bedroom, and last but not least, they had made sure there was one window in every room; three in the living room actually.
One of the first changes Aya made was to remove the tatami mats, instead placing multiple soft colorful patterned carpets around the house. She had seen them on her travels and fallen in love, buying several and sealing them away. She kept the low dining table, but put it up on the deck with pillows to sit on and placed a new high table with chairs in its place: to the left of the shoji-door, by the kitchen. The comfy couch and ditto two chairs stayed only with new colorful pillows and rugs, as did the low dark table between them; it all now stood on one of her carpets. Shelves and cabinets stayed as well, but her collection of books and things from her travels moved in together with some of her parent's things. The same with pictures and art; moving it around, storing some of it away and introducing her own stuff. Some of her weapons-collection was displayed on the walls around the house, especially beautiful tessen in all sizes.
She planned on making her old room into a home-workspace for designing, storing and working on projects. The office that doubled as library would be updated, old ledgers and other business-related things sealed away so it didn't take up as much space, and scrolls pertaining to her shinobi- and artisan-skills stored there instead.
Upstairs the bed, pillows and blankets were replaced, since it would just be too weird sleeping in her parents'. She chose a huge soft bed, with hangings that could be closed, as she had plenty space for it. A good part of her wardrobe moved in, but she kept some of her Kaasan's, like she also kept the table and stool by the windows, that she had used for putting on makeup and the like. The many mirrors also stayed. Outside on the deck she hung up a very comfy swing-chair, ideal for reading in.
Kyoko helped Aya pot a massive amount of flowers, herbs and even some little trees, which they placed around the house, on the veranda and on the deck. The ones on the veranda either hung from the rafters or were in large pots, while the ones for the deck were in long flowerboxes hung on the rails, with a few in pots on the deck itself.
She would leave the garden to Kyoko and Nobuo, since she was happy as long as she had her small training-field, soft grass and multiple large old trees.
All in all she was very much satisfied when she went to sleep that night.
Over the first week Aya further settled in and familiarized herself with the village. She wrote to her lawyer to make sure all her letters were rerouted to her address in Konoha, sent off her own letters to friends like Yukihana-Okaa-san and generally got her things in order.
A couple of times she had noticed Itachi's otouto spying, but he hadn't made himself known, so she chose to respect this. After all, if Sasuke remembered her it would be as Itachi's close friend or the clan-member that wasn't a real Uchiha, both of which probably woke conflicting feelings in him concerning her presence at the compound. Honestly she wasn't sure how she should handle or approach him either, knowing what she did – she refused to hide her treasured pictures of Itachi-kun and her, the same way she would never put away those of Obito or her parents.
During the week she also met up with Iruka multiple times, had her Saru-jii-san over for dinner, said hello to Hayate, scouted a bit for a place to set up a workshop and went shopping. It was on one of her shopping excursions she saw Naruto again and witnessed the way he was treated as an 'it'. She observed unseen for a while, becoming increasingly angry at how cruel the normally nice villagers were to the boy. They overcharged him, chased him off or simply refused acknowledge his existence. The part that really hurt her heart was that Naruto acted as if this was completely normal. 'I'm not sure I would have been able to stop at pranking these people like Naruto does' she thought darkly. So as to not let her temper get the best of her, she followed the kid toward his home, catching up to him just before he reached the apartment-building.
"Konnichiwa Naruto-kun, how are you?" she greeted him, putting on a smile for his sake.
"Ah, Aya-Onee-san! Just great, I was just gonna put this stuff in my apartment and go train" Naruto answered. Aya was not fooled by the bright, but fake smile. She let it slip, instead inquiring "Oh, are you meeting up with one of your friends from the Academy?", Naruto's fake smile didn't waver as he said "No, I'm much more serious than those lazy bums, so I'm gonna go practice and become the best at hitting the target by myself, believe it!".
Aya made her decision and she didn't care if anyone saw her with what they viewed as being the demon-container or demon itself.
"I believe it, with that determination you are sure to succeed" she said, her smile not entirely fake anymore, and in response Naruto's also became more real. "But you know, I think that often a training partner will spot little mistakes better than oneself. So why don't you borrow my garden for your training today? There's a throwing range there and I do have basic shinobi-training, so I could probably help correct your aim. This way we can keep each other company, since I was planning on enjoying the weather out there anyway, while getting some much needed maintenance on my weapons collection done." It wasn't strictly a lie; she had noted that some of Otousan's old weapons were getting dull and they were technically part of her collection now.
The genuinely joyful expression that overtook the kid's face made her resolve to do something like this at least once a week from now on. While Naruto expressed his excitement and happily chatted to her, she followed him up and into his apartment, noting how in was in disrepair and had old graffiti around the door. As the blond hastily put away his purchases she discretely threw away some very outdated things and made a mental note that she would definitely be shopping for him in the future; she saw only mountains of instant ramen and a bit of bread in his cupboards 'No wonder he seemed a little on the short side with this diet!' she thought. Depending on how Kyoko reacted to the boy's presence in the house, it might be a good idea to ask her to teach him how to cook just a little… Aya could of course do it herself, but Kyoko was brilliant and if she took a liking to Naruto, he would gain a sort of grandmotherly figure. 'One that won't stop bugging him until she is sure he is living healthily' she thought, smiling fondly at the memories of the stubborn caretaker.
As they reached her home, Naruto was suitable impressed, declaring it to be "Nice!". He also saw the Uchiha-fan that decorated the gate, remarking that it looked like the ones his classmate Sasuke had on his clothes, so what was it?
Aya had in the mean time noticed that said classmate was again spying, 'Wasn't exactly how I thought I was going to introduce myself, but oh well…'
Out loud she said "That's because it's the same; that fan is the Uchiha clan-symbol. You can see that crest throughout this area, since it is the Uchiha-compound, were all the Uchiha used to live. Come to think of it, I never did properly introduce myself, did I?" Naruto shook his head no "Well, better late than never. My name is Uchiha Aya"
The blond kid face screwed up, obviously thinking about something. "But then why do they call him the last Uchiha?" he asked curiously. Up in a tree Aya could feel the little spy lean a little closer in anticipation of her answer.
"Well for one I don't look much like an Uchiha, since I was adopted into the clan when my parents took me in at three. Hence I don't have the Uchiha-blood or kekkei genkai. Another reason is that I have only been in the village very rarely since my parents died, which was prior to the massacre by the way, and then there is the fact that I am civilian. Of course all children in the clan received some degree of shinobi training, but most people picture Uchiha as career-shinobi, so they connect only Sasuke-kun and Itachi-kun to the name. Of those two only Sasuke remains in the village, making him the last real Uchiha in their minds."
"But that's so stupid! They accepted you, so everyone else should too!" The blond exclaimed.
Aya smiled at seeing him get agitated on her behalf, then said "Naruto-kun, it's okay. I'd much rather have people get to know me before they learn of my family. I find that I see more of their real selves that way, and if they suddenly change after hearing my full name, then they aren't worth the trouble. That's not to say I hide it, because I really am proud of the name my parents gave me, but it comes with a lot of pressure. Sasuke-kun most likely fights a daily battle not to drown in his own and other's expectations to him, not being allowed to show weakness. I would give him a place to get away from the pressure, like I did his brother, but I'm not sure he would react well to me offering it given what Itachi-kun did." Aya was mostly talking to Sasuke toward the end, making it clear to him by looking straight toward his position.
"I think I get it, he's like me, only opposite" Naruto said seriously, as she felt Sasuke flee.
"Exactly. But enough with all this; I'm going to go get my weapons and gear and you should start practicing. The range is right that way, I'll join you in a bit" she told him, smiling.
As she went into the house through the shoji-door in the living room, she looked toward one of her pictures. It was of her and Itachi, one of the few where the camera had caught him smiling. Kyoko had snatched the picture when she visited briefly two years after Otousan passed away. Itachi must have been 12 and she 18 at the time, him lying with his head in her lap while she played with his hair per usual. 'Ne Itachi, do you think I did the right thing not confronting your dear otouto directly?' she thought. Then she went to get the katana and kunai she was planning on sharpening, picking up some chilled lemonade for her and Naruto on the way out.
It didn't take her much observing before she concluded that, either Naruto was completely hopeless with weapons or else someone hadn't taught him properly 'Somehow I'm betting on the last' she thought resignedly 'No time like now I guess'.
Aya never got back to her weapons maintenance that day. She found that Naruto wasn't particularly slow at learning, he just learned with his body. Which meant she was right; some teacher had either done an exceedingly poor job or done a really good one deliberately sabotaging the kid. Therefore she moved on to testing his taijutsu, correcting his stances as they went. They ended up going at it until evening, where she declared that she wasn't doing anymore training before she got food. Then she proceeded to drag him into the kitchen and made him help her cook, determined that he should eat something that actually held chunks of meat and vegetables instead of just traces of it.
It was getting late when they were done eating, so Aya found one of her Otousan's old shirts and told Naruto that he could just crash on her couch; she would wake him up in time for the school. When he was tucked in, she picked up his clothes and decided that at least the pants and t-shirt weren't fit for wear the next day. 'But where do I get boy-clothes from?' she thought, until her eyes fell on a picture of Obito and she smiled 'Might as well check, it isn't very far'.
"Naruto-kun, I'm going to see if I can find you some wearable clothes for tomorrow, so I'm going out for a little while" she said, only getting a half-asleep grunt for answer.
Next day Naruto shocked Iruka and Kakashi both without even intending to. Iruka because the only orange he wore was his open jacket, Kakashi because he could swear it was Obito's blue uniform he was wearing, 'Complete with metal plating at the end of the long sleeves and even the white belt, he's only missing the jacket' he thought, walking toward the memorial stone 'I wonder if Aya has something to do with this?'