More Talk: I thought I'd mention what Sasuke doesn't in this story, which is anything not dealing with gender identity. So she doesn't really mention too much about her training (which she was doing even before the change) or her search for power. I don't know if I'll be able to do more than hint as to what her other problems are.

Unfortunately, I can't write too well about instability as I could before. Instead, I have to write this as if it's not totally Sasuke's point of view, but a rewriting of such.

And about the crickets, I don't know. Something in my mind said crickets are important.

I'm skipping a lot of key spoilers. I'm sure you've noticed that by now, but it's even worse for this one. For the sake of the story, I'm pushing everyone up to 1718 by the end.

Feminism: Stranger in a Strange Land

"It turns out that you have a chakra imbalance in your system. With that, it's surprising that you even survived the curse seal," Kabuto told me, eyeing a syringe and a scroll diagram.

"That makes him all the more worthy," Orochimaru hissed behind me and reached for my shoulder. "I'll raise you to be a fine container. You were wasted in Konoha."

I didn't disagree with that, but I shrugged off his arm in distaste. "Just give me the power I need and we'll be fine." At least I would be -- I wouldn't have to deal with this body afterwards. Orochimaru could keep it.

As I began to stalk back to my room, I vaguely heard Kabuto begin to speak.

"Since he's imbalanced at such a young age, we have to be extra careful..."

--

I didn't know what he meant, but I realized when I lost my voice for a week that whether or not this was what he meant, this was going to be something I had to deal with.

"How are your dreams, Sasuke-kun?" Kabuto asked me while he looked me over. I looked at him in irritation -- it wasn't like I was about to answer him even if I had a pencil and paper in front of me or my voice back. Ignoring me as he always did, he continued on.

"Any aspects in them such as blood, the moon, or crickets?"

Crickets?

I had been having dreams of bleeding, but not from my arms, chest, or legs, like I did when I first got here. The moon showed and I heard my brother's voice taunting me.

Foolish little sister.

"Well, even if you aren't, expect them. They'll help you balance your yin chakra out as you go through puberty."

"..."

"Don't complain, everyone has yin and yang in them. Because your yang is strengthening to support a man's body, your yin must also grow to support your spirit. This will happen in different ways. Personally, I hope it makes you more respectful to Orochimaru-sama."

I looked disbelieving at him. If I didn't respect Kakashi like that, what made him think I'd ever respect Orochimaru?

Luckily, Kabuto never did understand my facial expressions too well but somehow Orochimaru always did. I wondered if it had something to do with him having the spoken form of an old woman, but I was the last person about to bring something like that up.

--

It turned out that puberty was indeed going to be harsh on me. Because they were trying to rebalance my chakra system to take the change that had been forced upon me a year or two ago, I ended up experiencing three times more confusion and problems than most -- One for myself, another for being a male on the outside, and another being a female in my inside (my dreams).

There were some days I'd tear things down just because I could, and some days that I couldn't see anything as better than annoying. And some days that I sat alone on my pallet, trying not to think about the people I'd left behind. I couldn't make my prayers to my mother from here, and I sometimes felt like I was the brat that Kabuto always accused me of being.

However, it was because of this rebalancing that I was frequently excused for whatever I wanted.

They even gave me new clothes to wear. I didn't know what to think about them as they didn't look very neutral to me, but the two agreed that it was a good balance, and balance was important to grow powerful. Or so they reminded me often.

I really didn't believe them in this case, but it's not like I had much choice. The clothes were practical, at least.

What I happily remained ignorant about was the fact that due to this rebalancing, my face was actually getting prettier as I got older, and not the other way around, to the amusement of Kabuto and the desire of Orochimaru.

It would take me a long time before I could explain to anyone that this was one of the few things in my life that I never felt was a curse. Of course, it was really one of the few things that I ever got right.

--

If I thought Naruto was bad, Suigetsu was worse.

Bad enough that he had been commenting that a match between Karin and I would be one made in hell, but also that I wasn't interested in Karin or any woman, which was true. And that I was a cat person more than a dog person. Actually, all of it was true -- what he actually said out loud, anyway.

What he insinuated was not.

It didn't help that Karin and Suigetsu had some sort of familiar hatred going on -- there were some days that I thought they were almost not worth the trouble. And then with the fact that I had to keep Juugo controlled, well, it made for some working on control for myself.

On top of that, Suigetsu had somehow made it his mission to make me seem more approachable. I didn't want to seem more approachable -- it'd just mean that I would have to deal with someone actually wanting me. And considering that I really didn't want anyone after me in that way (or for hero worship, for that matter), I made it a point to be somewhat aloof.

It didn't work, but I tried anyway.

--

On the first day I changed back after his death (I can't believe he thought that this would protect me), I failed to run away from Karin, who screamed when I was the middle of dressing myself.

I wanted to scream too.

"Well, this is something I didn't expect," Suigetsu said thoughtfully, eyeing me up and down.

"Orochimaru didn't either," I grounded out in a subtle threat.

I then turned to Karin, who still looked wide-eyed at me. "I thought you would figure it out first, though, since you are what helped Kabuto develop my treatment plan after being given the curse seal."

"No, I..."

"I told you, Karin," was Suigetsu's chime.

"No!"

I never did find out what happened after that, but it's none of my business anyway. I was just glad that they just rolled it over somehow. I had enough on my plate.

I was a woman again, but worse; I didn't know how to be one.

I pointedly didn't think about how much more of an alien I felt than I already was.

--

As nervous I was with my new body, and even more nervous to be alive, Naruto was too. Nervous around me, that is. He was, however, absolutely fascinated by my face. I didn't know whether to grimace at this fact or hide -- I had almost the same exact face as I did before the reversal.

My voice, which was one of the things that I was forced to get used to because it went from deep to deeper, now was the same as it was when I was a genin. It wasn't a woman's voice, but it wasn't a man's either. It was a boy's -- the only obvious remnant of my life as a growing boy. (The other one was dismissable -- my height.)

Naruto loved my voice too, which made me even more uncomfortable to be around him.

Kakashi thought the whole thing was hilarious which prompted me to beat the shit out of him. When he asked when I started swearing, I just told him that he made me start, because I didn't do it as a boy.

Perhaps to the surprise of everyone, including me, Sai's habitual disparaging comments didn't actually bother me. Perhaps it's because it's nothing that I already hadn't had to deal with with unwitting people, or maybe it's because Sai was so confused by me to begin with, I didn't know.

Or maybe it was because it amused me to watch other people's reactions on my behalf.

There were a lot of other changes that I didn't anticipate. One was that unlike my entire time as a male, my moods would actually stabilize.

Another was that I would still be forced to keep a balance, but in a different way.

The Hokage Monument.

I tried not to shift under my own thoughts, letting it known that I was nervous. My body still felt uneasy and rather irritable, still trying to get rid of the foreign chakra in my system.

"It's not like that, Naruto," I said as I looked at his imploring face. "It's not a matter of whether or not I can, whether I'll get through it or not. It's..." I grasped for the proper words, but none came.

He looked at me blankly and I internally sighed. He didn't get it -- not that I should have expected--

"You'll get through," he said suddenly. Assuredly.

I turned to look at the same sky he saw, full of ash and smoke. Like a funeral pyre.

"...Yeah."

For the first time, despite all the shit I had been through, I felt like I might be able to believe it.

The next day, I signed up for kunoichi teaching at the academy.

As one might guess, the last scene was a separate one. I didn't want to put a drabble all by itself, so I just stuck it underneath here.