Thanks for the support, guys! And to those readers who're still confused as to how why Itachi is blinded, I suggest re-reading the prologue and keep up with the latest manga scanlations in Narutochuushin. Also, NO, Heion is NOT Itachi's daughter. Thanks!

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Chapter III: Heion

The Uchiha mansion had never been this crowded for Sasuke. He shifted uncomfortably underneath his blankets, very much aware that his brother Itachi and his daughter were just in the other room. Turning and tossing on his bed, Sasuke finally gave up all hopes of a peaceful sleep and rose to fumble for his slippers under his bed. He put the fluffy things on and walked out into the dark recesses of the house, heading to the general direction of Itachi's old bedroom.

Sasuke paused outside the sliding door, listening. Of course his brother sensed him standing outside, but Itachi did not say anything whatsoever. The older Uchiha was awake, because Sasuke could hear the baby cooing and laughing playfully at the sound of his hushed voice. Sasuke glowered at the door. What was he doing? Wasn't he supposed to kill his brother? He was up to scratch now, he was sure of that, even though the Mangekyo Sharingan was forever beyond his reach. Sasuke found the answer fairly quickly. He could not dare inflict the same fate he had to his niece, no, not ever. His hands clenched into fists. He would not let his niece suffer through her childhood parentless, just as he had. Itachi was her only family now, aside from him. Sasuke knew it would always be different if it was your own father that raised you. For that reason alone, he would lay down his kunais for now and let Itachi live.

"Can I enter?" he asked timidly.

There was no answer, but from Itachi, that usually meant a yes. Sasuke slid the door open and slipped into the room. He looked around. The bedroom was still the same neat, square space that he had grown used to. There were no posters along the walls, the closet stood silently near the only window, which was currently open to let the cool breeze inside. Sasuke had always been in this room when the clan had seen better days, but he had stopped being here when his family was ruthlessly murdered. This was the only time he ever set foot into this old haunt again.

Itachi was awake, sightless eyes staring blankly into the far wall across him as he held his daughter by the arm pits before him. The girl was clapping its hands and laughing at something Sasuke couldn't see. Hesitating, Sasuke walked further into the room and sat down at the edge of Itachi's bed. His niece gave an excited shriek and freed herself from her father's hands and crawled toward him.

"Caa...ooh...ca..." the girl crooned, pointing to his head protector.

Smiling, Sasuke took the baby and sat her down on his lap. "Ko...No...Ha."

The girl laughed again and shrieked. Itachi blindly turned his head to their direction. Sasuke met his eyes for a moment.

"How did you become blind?" he asked.

"It is one of the effects of the Mangekyo Sharingan." Itachi said levelly. But of course that was a lie; the baby's father had used a special eye jutsu on him when they fought – something like Byakugan – and the jutsu inevitably hastened his blinding, so here he was, completely plunged into the darkness.

Silence. Sasuke stared hard at his brother's careworn and blank face. Effect of the Mangekyo Sharingan? "The Sharingan will not blind an Uchiha."

"I am not forcing you to believe me." Itachi said plainly.

Sasuke glared at his brother. "Son of a bitch..." he whispered.

Itachi shifted underneath his blankets, hands reaching blindly for the baby's bottle. "Tell me, Sasuke, is it true that Orochimaru and Naruto...?"

"The hell you care about them." Sasuke spat. How did he know? Oh, wait, the Akatsuki...

"It strikes me as a curiosity, this news of Orochimaru changing." Itachi went on. "And if I string other people's words together...Otogakure is certainly becoming...open."

Sasuke could not understand, so he kept silent. The baby had now turned her attentions to his left ear. He absent-mindedly tried to keep her fingers away; his ears had always been his ticklish spot. Itachi on the other hand, found the feeding bottle and rose to his feet gingerly. He looked so helpless, blind. He walked with his hands extended forward, touching the wall and the door. He went out of the room. Sasuke turned his attention to his niece.

"What about you?" he smiled. "You cute little girl, huh? Why are you staring at me like that? You, you, you!" he said as he ticked the baby, who gave a great shout of laughter.

There was a small crash from the kitchen, but Sasuke ignored it. Let him suffer! He thought spitefully as he continued playing with his niece.

"Baa! You like being thrown like that, don't you? Don't you? Ha ha ha!"

He was throwing the baby some inches in the air and catching her again by the armpits. The baby liked it so much, though, that when Sasuke caught her for the fifth time, she could not stop herself from peeing down his front.

"Good grief!" Sasuke cried out. "Damn it, you ruined my shirt!" the warm, yellow liquid dripped from his shirt and onto the tatami floor. "Aww, damn...that's really gross...really, really gross..."

The baby only laughed at him.

Orochimaru stood calmly, his head swiveling this way and that as he surveyed Naruto's 'darkness' around him. The Sannin's eyes noted that the darkness was not stable – the shadows writhed and twisted, a sign that Naruto was having trouble maintaining the genjutsu. Sarutobi had once told his students that a Kokuangyou was well done if the darkness was firm and stable around the target. A writhing Kokuangyou was not good – it was a sign of poor concentration and stunted Chakra handling. A smile spread on Orochimaru's lips. Naruto was so much like Jiraiya. Jiraiya was the last to perfect the Kokuangyou back then, of course.

Bending low, Orochimaru removed one of his sandals and clutched it ready as he surveyed the writhing darkness around him. It would take an awfully long time before he could proceed teaching Kuchiyose Rashoumon to his foxy student. And then the Sannin suddenly pivoted on his heels and hurled his sandal full-force to his left. There was a loud CRACK, and the darkness vanished like a cloud of smoke blown away by a forceful breeze. Naruto was revealed sitting on the grass, clutching his nose, where Orochimaru's sandal slammed head-on.

"Whab was dat phor?" Naruto grunted, glaring at his mentor. "It burt!"

"That, Naruto, is the point of Kokuangyou no Jutsu." Orochimaru explained. "What made it easy to find you is that your darkness is unstable. Do you understand what I meant by creating 'a solid dome of darkness around your target'?"

Naruto only glowered back at him.

"You are not concentrating enough, and the way you handle your Chakra...I'm surprised you became Jounin at all." Orochimaru said as he put his sandal back on and walked away. "You are so much like Jiraiya, do you know that? Concentration and Chakra handling had always been his problem..."

"Wait for me! Wait!"

They headed back to the village. Orochimaru suddenly paused and halted a passing cart selling shakes. The Serpent bough two large paper cups of the cold refreshment and handed one to Naruto, who sniffed it suspiciously.

"Cola-flavored?" said the fox.

Orochimaru nodded. "We'll drink it all in one go. Can you do that? Or you can't?"

"Of course I can!" Naruto snorted.

"All right...on the count of three. One...two... three!"

There was a loud slurping sound as the two ninjas strived to finish off their shakes. Naruto felt numbing pain explode in his head, and he let go. "Ack! Brain freeze!" he winced. Orochimaru managed to finish his cup, and after discarding the emptied container, pinched his nose slightly.

"That wasn't so bad." He said, walking yet again.

"What was the point of that?" Naruto demanded as he twiddled his straw.

"Just to see how much endurance you have."

"What?"

"Weakling."

"Am not!"

"Weakling."

"Am not!"

"Weakling."

"AM NOT!"

Rima eyed the Uchiha boy suspiciously from behind the cashier's counter in the grocery where she was working part-time. The Uchiha boy had made strange rounds in the grocery before finally going to the baby care section. As Rima watched him, he was currently crouching down and comparing two different brands of diapers from one another. The Uchiha boy was also very red. Finally he rose, looking around for some help...and his eyes found her. The young Chuunin braced herself as he approached, clutching the diapers.

"Uh...c-could...could you tell me...which one...which one is..." he said lamely as he raised the packages in his hands. "I have no idea..." he blushed some more, as if the whole process of buying diapers was costing him every ounce of whatever pride he had.

Rima raised an eyebrow. "Technically...they are both diapers. You can buy either one of them; they work in the same way, if you ask me." Her father had always lectured her about her sharp tongue, but that was just how she was. And she stubbornly refused to change.

The Uchiha boy glared at her as if this was all her fault. And then he stared at the two different brands for so long Rima thought he must have taken root on the spot. And then he pushed the orange one toward her, and Rima started to punch the price.

"I hate pink." The Uchiha boy said. He tossed the other one into the basket by the counter. Rima raised an eyebrow at him as she shoved the diaper pack into a brown paper bag.

"That's 280 ryo for you." She said as she blew a bubble and popped it.

He fumbled in his pockets for a bit and gave her an exact change. He hurriedly took his purchase and went out of the grocery, looking wildly around as if he were being stalked by someone or something. Rima watched him cross the street and shook her head.

"What a freak..." she whispered as she went back to her romantic novel.

Upon reaching the second street from the grocery, Sasuke broke into a frantic dash and did not stop until he was well into the safety of the Uchiha compound. He threw a furtive look behind him, and was utterly relieved to find nobody except a cat foraging for whatever food there was to be found in the nearby trash pile. Muttering curses and death threats for Itachi, Sasuke made his way back to their house. The delicious smell of gyoza greeted his nose. Perplexed, Sasuke made his way to the kitchen.

His niece was lying on her belly on the dining table, naked. She was resolutely biting into an ancient-looking teether that would have not looked out of place in a museum. And then Sasuke recognized that the teether had been his. Itachi had his back facing him, and the older Uchiha was busy tasting the soup he was cooking. Itachi even had their mother's old apron on.

Sasuke deposited the diapers onto a chair and picked up his niece from the table. Her purple eyes sparkled at the sight of his familiar face, but whatever laughter she had was muffled by the yellowing teether in her mouth.

"Why are you leaving her around naked?" Sasuke demanded angrily. "She'll catch a cold!"

"Then dress her." Itachi murmured indifferently.

Glowering, Sasuke snatched up the girl and went to his bedroom. He deposited her carefully on his bed, where she shrieked and rolled onto her belly again before attacking the teether once more. Sasuke rummaged through his old, smelly boxes until he found her a white shirt that had been his when he'd been a child. He dressed her up – he had difficulty pulling away his teether from her, and he very nearly panicked when she started to cry – and went back to the kitchen. Itachi was already setting the table, but Sasuke groaned at the sight of shards of broken plates on the floor. He also noticed that his brother had countless cuts on his fingers that were still oozing out tiny droplets of blood.

Sitting his niece onto his lap, he took the bowl of soup Itachi offered him. At the sight of the contents of the supposed soup, Sasuke went blue. The soup itself was a suspicious green in color, and it had bits and pieces of unrecognizable vegetables. The tomato in it wasn't even sliced properly (there was a big, soggy tomato in his bowl)! And a whole, disgusting fish head was peeking up from the bowl Sasuke was clutching.

"Ugh, no...I'll pass up the soup." He said in disgust as he pushed the bowl from him.

Itachi gave him a platter of gyoza. Sasuke sighed in relief. Gyoza was the only thing Itachi could cook well. He was hopeless in all other kinds of dishes. Sasuke felt a hint of grim satisfaction as he noted that he could cook a variety of fifty dishes. Hah!

They ate in silence, silence that was only broken by the girl's occasional cries. And then Sasuke remembered something very important.

"Itachi, what is her name?" he suddenly asked. The baby looked up at him.

Itachi carefully put down his chopsticks. "...I...don't know."

Sasuke gaped at his brother. "Gods in heaven! You don't even know your daughter's name!" he said loudly, making the baby start in fear. "You are such a bastard, you foul, you -!"

Itachi only stared blankly into space. Sasuke thought the girl was his daughter? For some reason the whole absurd idea sent a rare spark of humor into his fevered mind. But he did not bother correcting his fool little Sasuke. Let the weakling think of whatever he wants.

"Then we give her a name." Itachi said passively.

Sasuke closed and opened his mouth like a confused goldfish. The baby was crying. He hushed her. "We'll call her Betty."

Itachi choked on the piece of gyoza he'd been nibbling on. "Excuse me? Betty?"

"Yeah!" Sasuke glowered at him. "What's wrong with that!"

"Your taste, that's what." Itachi said in horror. "Betty my ass..." he muttered. "No, we shall call her...uh...uh...ehm...Akatsuki."

"No way!" Sasuke objected. "Why not...uh...Hinata!" it was the first name that came to mind.

Itachi snorted in disgust. Sasuke glared at him.

"All right, we'll try again! Ryoko?"

"Shut up, Sasuke" Itachi said.

"I won't let you name her after your organization!" Sasuke declared, hugging his niece protectively. "I'd rather call her Betty!"

Itachi rose. "We'll call her...Heion."

Silence.

"What does that mean?" Sasuke inquired when his vocabulary finally failed him.

Itachi looked at him for a long time. "It means peace."

The baby laughed and touched Sasuke's cheek, as if saying I like that name. Do call me that, please.

"Fine by me." Sasuke said.

Itachi sat back down. "Good."

Happy New Year! Please review! Thanks!