Hiii? Anyone out there? Yes?
Hello you! Yes, you, who have not yet abandoned me! Thank you for your existence!
I really feel bad ... like I always do. This chapter has been lying around for 2 months now, all finished, but I couldn't bring myself to publish it.
I'm still having some disagreements with Grammarly on several sentences ... but well I hope my English is not too bad ...? *Worrying now after 50 chapters*
I hope the chapter was worth the wait. Enjoy!


What would you choose?

It was dark. So very very dark. She was running and running, without a second to breathe, but where was she running to? What was she running from? She didn't know. All she knew was that she was scared and that running away was all she could do. There were voices in the darkness, familiar ones, but still, she didn't know to whom they belonged. This darkness was overwhelming, this fear that was about to swallow her whole. Why was this happening?

Suddenly she saw something. Something moving in the darkness, a shadow, a draft hitting her face.

"Who are you?!", she screamed into the nothingness.

Instead of an answer, the question was thrown right back at her. From all sides, dozens and hundreds of voices shouted at her that very same question she had just asked.

"Who are you?" "Who are you?!"

It was like an echo, but instead of getting quieter and disappearing slowly, the voices got louder with every time they shouted those three words at her. Louder and angrier.

"WHO ARE YOU?!"

Sayuri choked and sank to her knees, tears running down her cheeks. She didn't know the answer.

Itachi was ripped from his sleep rather ruggedly, by a fist hitting him right in his face. He opened his eyes and was confused for a moment about where he was and what just has happened until he understood. He had brought Sayuri home after she had fallen asleep in their secret hideout and had decided to stay the night at her place, hoping that his presence would calm her down a bit.

Well, it seemed like he had been wrong. She hadn't slept well throughout the entire night, but now it seemed that her nightmares were becoming even worse. And that's how a fist ended up in his face. She sweated and moaned, turning around in pain. Itachi felt sorry for her, but he knew that it wasn't right to wake her up.

She was fighting something inside of her, she had to cope with all the things she just learned and the things she had known all along, but kept suppressed all this time. He stood up and wiped her sweat away, unsure what to do. It was about time to go home, but he didn't want to leave her. And yet, in the end, it didn't seem like his presence made any difference to her.

He sighed and put his lips on her forehead. Maybe his thoughts would reach her somehow after all and give her strength in her battle. After that, he left her room through the window.

When had been the last time he had used doors? For some reason, he was always just slipping through the windows. He didn't want to run into Kakashi, not after all the things that had happened. And when he stood in front of his house, he decided against the door once again and jumped up to the window to his room. He had almost forgotten about it, but upon returning home he suddenly remembered that he had skipped the all-so-important family meeting yesterday and hadn't even come home at all that day. His father was surely super mad and he really wanted to avoid that face.

But instead, he ran into another face that looked like it was better off avoided. Shisui was already sitting on Itachi's bed, waiting for him. God knows how long, but the way it looked … probably the whole night?

It wasn't easy to judge this because Shisui seriously looked like death warmed over. His face was white as a sheet, even whiter than usual, he had dark circles beneath his eyes and they were slightly swollen and red. Did he cry?

"Shisui … what's wrong with you? You don't look so good. Did something happen?", Itachi stayed at the window and didn't dare to make any step further into his own room.

Something was wrong, horribly wrong. The atmosphere, the tension, the horribly serious look on Shisui's face as if someone had died. The sole thought made Itachi's heart skip a beat.

"Did someone die?!"

No single muscle in Shisui's face twitched. If something, it went even darker.

"Not yet", he answered tonelessly.

A moment later he suddenly jumped up and almost flew through the room, that's how quickly he was moving. He went to the door and made sure it was properly closed, then he shoved Itachi away from the window and pushed him on the bed, closing the window behind him and pulled the curtains closed.

Itachi just watched him puzzled and gulped. He hated the way this was proceeding.

"Shisui?", Itachi addressed him carefully, "What do you mean … not yet?"

Shisui turned around and looked at him with an undefinable expression on his face. They had changed positions, now Itachi was sitting on the bed and Shisui was by the window. The light was dimmed and it was even harder to read the atmosphere now.

"Itachi ...", Shisui finally started after a longer pause. "If you had to decide between the village and the Clan, which would you choose?"

Seishi groaned as he lied in his bed, staring at the ceiling and pitying himself. He had the most horrible muscle ache a living being could actually have. It was horribly painful, he couldn't move an inch for hours now.

How did it come to this? How did he deserve this? There were so many things he had wanted to do, so many things he had planned that would keep his head from thinking, but now … all he could do was lying in his bed and, well, thinking.

Thinking about Sayuri and her mother, what she did to his Clan and what it meant to him. To her. To their past and their future. About that training they had had, the weird way the Hokage behaved towards them, that guy with bandages. What did it all mean? He really wished he had something better to do than thinking about it. And from time to time he thought about Ayame, to make sure his heart wouldn't just stop.

Because that seemed like the easiest way. Just stopping to breath and falling asleep, don't thinking about anything anymore and ever again. But of course, he wouldn't do that. He didn't even understand why stuff like that came to his mind at all. He hadn't thought about this ever since … well ever since his family had died and he had lost all the will to live.

Maybe it was this persistent misgiving in his guts, that told him it would only keep getting worse from here on. But what could possibly be worse than this horrible muscle ache? He surely hoped that he would never have to see that crazy teacher ever again.

Just as he fought the self-content grin of Maito Gai popping up in front of his eyes, someone knocked at the door. Seishi gulped and hoped that he had just imagined things. This was hopefully not …?

It knocked again, this time only louder. Seishi sighed. He was really not in the position to receive some visitors now, he could barely move. Hoping that they would think he wasn't there, he just closed his eyes and decided to ignore them. Until he heard the door opening slowly.

Seishi immediately jumped up. Who dared to just come in his house?! This had never happened before, and that was the reason why he never locked the door.

The whole Clan had forgotten about his existence and no one bothered looking after him and even if there were people daring to break into houses in Konoha, they all would know that there was nothing to get in here. So who just barged into his privacy?

Seishi opened the door to the entry room and yelled without even taking a look at the intruders first.

"Who are you and what the hell are you doing?!"

He flinched when he realized that he almost recognized the faces that were looking at him half bewildered, half indifferent. It was two members of his Clan, even though he didn't know their names. They were from the branch family and pretty unimportant so who cared? Seishi just didn't know what they were doing in here. Did they want to finally reclaim the house?

"So you're still alive, huh? Seishi was the name, right?", the shorter guy hissed at him, in a somehow very arrogant tone.

He was pale, had white eyes and long brown hair. Just like any other guy from his Clan. And guess what, the other guy looked pretty much the same, only a bit taller and buffer. Seishi rolled his eyes. He really wasn't in the mood for whatever was to come now. He wanted to stay in his bed some more, groaning in pain and drowning in self-pity.

"Wow, you know my name. Congratulations. Are you two here just to check whether I'm still alive? Well then, you're done. There's the door. Bye."

Seishi turned around again and was about to head back to his sleeping room.

"Actually no, we're here for a bit more", the short guy suddenly answered, his voice almost a whisper. "But let's talk about that somewhere else."

That somewhere else he was talking about was supposedly the living room, a place further away from the door. They both behaved weirdly and looked around a bit nervously. Slightly disgusted of all the stuff lying around and the utter mess, but mostly nervously.

"Don't expect me to offer you tea. Just spit out what you want to tell me and then leave. I'm a busy man, you know", Seishi laid back on his couch and put his feet on the table, trying hard to look as cool and manly as he could. Usually, this was a very simple task for him, but the fact that his body burnt like hell with every move he made, made it quite a bit more challenging.

"Well then, we'll keep it short", again the same guy talked with a stern look on his face, his voice getting lower, "we want you to join our movement."

Seishi didn't quite get it. Movement? What movement? And why did they want him to join?

"The movement of long and silky hair? Sorry, your hair is truly beautiful, but that isn't really my style anymore. I prefer keeping it short, you know. The ladies like it better that way." He winked at them.

"Really?", the taller guy suddenly rose his voice as well, with widened sparkly eyes. "Uhm … I mean … a Hyuuga takes great pride in his hair. It's a sin to simply cut it short!"

Seishi snorted. He didn't know what he found funnier, the fact that the guy had really just considered for a moment to cut his hair for the ladies or that he took so much fake pride in it.

"A Hyuuga, huh? Sorry to break it to you, but I don't really feel like one. You know, being ignored and left to die for so many years … having a ton of family members but not a single one who actually cared for me … I just feel like this whole 'Clan' thing isn't right for me. Somehow it's just 'you have to do this' and 'you have to do that', but this all doesn't bring you any benefit and in the end, when you need someone, no one is there."

"At least that's how it is for the branch family ...", Mr. Pushy suddenly hissed. As neither of them had bothered to introduce himself, Seishi had just decided to give them names. The smaller and more eloquent one was Mr. Pushy and the taller Mr. Dumb. Seishi's blood ran cold when he heard that weird, hateful tone in Pushy's voice and saw the darkness in his eyes.

"I know exactly what you mean, Seishi, and this is the reason why you have to join our movement!", he suddenly got really passionate and agitated. "Do you want to know? The reason why you had to go through all of this?"

"Hey, wait ...", the Mr. Dumb tried to interrupt him, being a bit intimidated by his friend there as well. "Do you really think this is … "

"Yes! He has a right to learn the truth!", Pushy shut Dumb up with a glare, "Do you want to hear it? The truth about your parents' death?!"

Seishi's eyes widened and he didn't understand a single word anymore. Just what was going on here? The truth about his parents' death? The reason why he had to go through all of this? There actually was something like that?

"What the hell are you talking about?!" Seishi shook his head confused. "My parents were killed during the war, by some Shinobi from another village."

"And this is where you're wrong", Seishi's passionate relative almost yelled, "They were killed by the main family!"

Sayuri felt miserable. She cowered in the darkness, unable to give the voices an answer that would shut them up. They still became louder and louder and she felt like her ears were about to burst. The only way she knew to shut them out of her head was crying even louder than they could scream. She didn't know how long this was already going on, but all of a sudden, there was the sound of jangling metal and the voices went quiet. They just stopped screaming in the blink of an eye. The only thing left now was Sayuri's pitiful sobbing and … approaching footsteps?

She flinched when she heard it and almost choked when she heard the steps coming closer. It was so weird. There wasn't even any floor, just black nothingness and the steps sounded so strange, yet familiar. Sayuri's heart skipped several beats when she figured out where she had heard them before. Slowly she raised her head and gulped when she recognized the majestic figure in front of her.

A beautiful woman stood there, with red eyes and long silver hair. Even though she wore weird clothes that Sayuri had never seen on her before and held a metal staff in her left hand, Sayuri would have never failed to recognize her. Somehow she looked like a goddess, in her black and golden dress up that looked like a thin and tight Kimono shimmering like silk.

She knocked the staff on the floor and there was that jangling metal sound again, then she bowed down to her and held her right hand at Sayuri.

"You're my daughter, Sayuri. That is who you are."

Sayuri just couldn't stop the tears running from her face when she finally heard that voice again after all these years. That voice she had longed to hear for such a long time.

"Mother ...", Sayuri whispered. She stared in the face of a beautiful woman who hadn't aged a single day since the last time Sayuri had seen her.

It was as if she had never been gone, her eyes were cold, her expression emotionless, but still … Sayuri couldn't help but feel the happiness and the warmth welling up inside her. Finally, there was this hand reaching out to her and all she had to do was taking it.

Without a second thought, she raised her hand, ready to touch her mother's. She wanted to feel her skin so badly, wanted to know whether her fingers were colder or warmer than hers.

But then, as there were mere inches separating her hand from her mother's, a voice interrupted her.

"Don't! If you take this hand now, there won't be any turning back."

Sayuri flinched and turned around, still cowering on the ground. Kakashi was standing behind her, calling out to her. His face looked very serious and almost frightened. There Sayuri sat now, in the black darkness, her mother on the left, her brother on her right. It was almost like back then...

"Don't listen to this fool anymore, Sayuri!", her mother rose her intimidating voice as if she had read Sayuri's thoughts, "he just wants to keep you away from me, like then when you were still but a child. But now, you're grown up. Now you can make your own decisions and return to your mother's side. To the side, you belong to."

Sayuri gulped. This was the moment she had always longed for such a long time. The moment where she was asked what she wanted and how she wished to live her life. The moment she could choose the side she wanted to take.

And all these years it had been clear to her what her decision would be. All these years she had pictured this hand reaching out to her and how she would happily take it.

But now...

"The place you belong to ..."

A third voice echoed through the nothingness and again steps approached her. It wasn't easy to tell Itachi's silhouette from the darkness. His clothes, his hair, his whole aura blended in an almost melted with it. His pale, white face was the only thing that made him even visible until he stood right in front of her.

"Only you can decide where the place you belong to truly is. Though I wished it was by my side."

He looked at her with that passionate, longing glance in his eyes, something he only showed her so very rarely but never failed to make her heart throb. Then he reached his hand out to her.

Why? Of all times she could have been confronted with this decision, why now, when it was the hardest for her? Whose hand should she take? And who should she turn her back to?

"What the hell are you talking about?!"

Seishi was totally confused. Not once he had ever heard of such an outrageous thing. All those years he had been absolutely certain of the fact that his family has been killed by enemies overrunning the village. Never had he wasted a single thought about searching the blame in someone else, let alone his own Clan.

"I know it's hard to believe ...", his unwelcome visitors continued, "but it's the truth, Seishi. Your father planned to overthrow the head and had to be … disposed of."

"Nonsense!", Seishi screamed and jumped up, the pain of his muscle ache forgotten all of a sudden, "my father would have never … I've never heard of something like that!"

Pushy just shook his head.

"You've only been four years old, of course you wouldn't have noticed anything. It's only been a few weeks before you and your brother's intended sealing ceremony … something your parents wanted to prohibit at all cost."

"The sealing ceremony?", Seishi barely got air, his voice was quiet and he sank back on his sofa. No matter how badly he wanted to deny it, it all started to make sense slowly but steadily. The seal, that goddamn seal.

Pushy, talkative as he was, went on and on, telling Seishi all the things he could make up on is own by now, so he didn't really listen anymore. His own thoughts were far more interesting by now.

Some words still made it through to him, burning themselves in his mind like glowing iron. Devil's seal, branch family, control, subjugation, overthrowing, while Sayuri's face kept showing up in front of his eyes over and over again. He tried to push it away. It wasn't her fault, she didn't have anything to do with it. But still, her face was returning, pulsating, like the beating of a heart.

"You're the only member of the branch family that has never been sealed. You're our trump card!"

Suddenly the voices pushed themselves back into his conscience. Finally, they had decided to talk about the reason they really were here for.

"Your father gave his life so that you were relieved of this burden. Now the time has come to repay him! It's your duty to step into your father's footsteps and help us overthrowing the main family! You owe your -"

"Shut up!", Seishi had heard enough, jumped up and became louder, "Leave now! At once! And don't you ever dare to make another step into this house!"

Those two insolent bastards, that still haven't bothered to give their names, but already started talking about duties and debts, looked at him with eyes gaped in shock.

"But ..."

"No BUT! Fuck off I said! I don't give a shit about this Clan, neither about the branch nor the main family! I never did! So why would I start now?! Leave!"

Finally, the visitors left and quickly moved towards the door, obviously intimidated by the twelve-year-old maniac.

"If your father could see you now …!", that slimy guy gave it one last try-

"But he can't! Because he's dead! And you know why? Because of your foolish fights for power!"

His last sentence left the guys dumbfounded as the door fell shut loudly in front of their noses.

The next hours went by in an awfully weird haze. Seishi didn't know when he got back into his bed, but suddenly he was there.

The muscle ache kept becoming worse and worse as pictures of the past and the present ran amok in Seishi's head and melted together until he couldn't tell them apart anymore.

Pictures of his father, having a kunai driven through his head, his mother telling them to run as the blood ran from her lips and his brother's arm twitching beneath the boulder. He searched in his memories for any other faces, for any clues about who might have killed them, but it was futile.

Over and over again, pictures of other corpses accompanied them. Countless. And in the sea of blood, there was he himself together with Sayuri and Itachi, the red fluid dripping from their hands.

Finally, somewhere in between, he saw glimpses of what he thought to be the future. More blood, more corpses, fire, and destruction. And that guy with white bandages.

Was that really how it was meant to go on? Would his whole life be nothing but violence, nothing but death and more death? If so, wouldn't it have been better if he had just died alongside his family all these years back then?

Suddenly, there was a sound from outside his head that drew him back towards the real world. Someone knocking at the door. Again?!

Seishi couldn't believe how persistent these guys were. He couldn't bring himself to stand up to throw them out again, these guys weren't worth it.

But then the door opened and someone walked into his house. Why didn't he lock it?! Didn't he learn anything?! But something was weird with the steps that made their way through his entry. They were way lighter, yet somehow heavier and familiar. Then someone knocked at the door of his bedroom.

"Seishi? Are you in there?"

It was Ayame's voice. Seishi froze immediately and couldn't answer. But Ayame didn't wait for one, she just opened the door and came in, a huge pot in her hands.

"Oh dear, you look even worse than I thought ...", she said and walked to the bed to put down the pot next to it. "After hearing of your training yesterday I figured that you couldn't move today. So I thought I'd bring you some Ramen over. I hope I'm not disturbing you?"

Seishi still didn't answer. His eyes were glued on her. He realized how creepy this must be, but still …

"Seishi …? Are you alright? Say something already … Don't you want Ramen? Is it too much since you already had some yesterday?", Ayame was slightly freaked out.

Seishi felt a bit sorry for her, but she just couldn't possibly know how it felt when you encounter an angel in hell. And it even brought Ramen.

Finally, Seishi pulled himself together to make this awkward situation … even more awkward. He jumped up, wrapped his arms around her and hold her tight.

"Eh …?! Seishi?!", Ayame was visibly confused and blushed.

"Thank you!", Seishi whispered. Though a thank you couldn't possibly be enough.

It sounded like he was thanking her for the Ramen, but that was not all. He was thanking her for everything, for her whole existence. And how could he probably properly thank her for that?

In his world, there was so much cruelness, so much violence, and death, so much suffering, blood, and tears. There was this hell, this eternal nightmare he could never wake up from. This horrible fight for power and control in his small Clan, in the village and in the whole Ninja world.

And then there was she, the noodle soup girl, that had no worry in the world than him not getting enough food. How could he possibly thank her enough for just being there?

"I would love to eat your Ramen every day, until the day I die."

Silence. There was this horrible silence in the room. Shisui's eyes rested on Itachi, waiting for an answer. But Itachi didn't have one, his brain refused to even think about the question and so he just stared at his cousin incomprehensibly.

"Why? How do you even come up with such a question?", Itachi decided to break the silence without giving an answer. "Shisui, just tell me what that Clan meeting was about."

Shisui's face didn't change, he just kept staring emotionlessly at Itachi. You could almost think that he was dead.

"You know … at first, I envied you for having this choice. But now I think that I pity you ...", Shisui shook his head and sighed deeply.

"Your father … is planning to kill the Hokage and take his place."

He said these horrible words almost casually. Another long, long silence followed while the new information drilled itself through Itachi's ears towards his brain, ready to cause as much damage as possible.

"You know what that means, Itachi, right?", Shisui helped his cousin a bit, who was slower than usual. Whether it was out of impatience or because he wanted to spare him the pleasure of understanding it himself didn't matter. "War. This means war."

Itachi couldn't really say that he was surprised or shocked because something inside of him has always seen this coming. No, he was horrified. He had always forbidden himself to think about something like that and now he had to.

Deciding between his family and his village.

"Have you already decided?", Itachi asked him, knowing very well that Shisui was the only person in this Clan who would even consider anything but the obvious apart from him.

"That's why I said I pity you. I was relieved of that burden called choice ...", Shisui answered tonelessly, opened his mouth and showed Itachi his tongue.

He understood it immediately, even though he had never seen those black patterns before. It was a strong seal that was put on him and which effects one could only guess.

"Danzo …", Itachi concluded.

"So he has already set his sight on you as well ...", Shisui sighed again.

He had already told Itachi several times about that weird guy in bandages called Danzo, that seemed to watch every step he took and crept him out. Until one day, when Shisui immediately would change the subject every time Itachi wanted to talk about him.

Now that was the reason why. Danzo, that man who acted like the Hokage's shadow, had turned him into his puppet.

"So you see … you should tell me your answer before I have to kill you ...", Shisui gulped, his attempt to hide the despair in his voice was futile.

Itachi nodded barely noticeably and dropped on his bed like a wet sac, staring at the ceiling while Shisui silently left through the window.

So this was where it ended after all? Caught in between the choice of either destroying everything he believed in or turning against his own blood, there was one thing that was absolutely certain:

No matter what answer he would give Shisui, it was the moment his humanity would end.