/12/12/12/12/12/12/12/12/

Chapter 12

A New Beginning

Sasuke let go of the embrace with her newly found sister; Rei. No, that's now Uchiha Rei. Sasuke looked into her eyes. Rei looked slightly awkward and nervously smiled. It was Rei all this time, why didn't I realize it? Sasuke thought.

"You know, you have mother's eyes," Sasuke said, truthfully. He could see the deepness in her eyes, just as his mother used to have. Rei smiled without fear. She could tell that her life was now changed forever.

"As of you," Rei said. She knew what she looked like from the photo, but now she felt her mother; even though she never remembered her herself. The room now filled with silence. From the top of the stairs, she heard Hizume's voice, followed by little hurrying footsteps.

"Hey guys, the dogs were scratching at the door so I-" The rest of his words were muffled out, and then a thud

Jin held Hizume's mouth and put a finger up to his lips. He hoped the two they were spying on didn't hear him. It looked like they didn't, but just as he lowered his hand, Masura whispered in his ears, almost reaching a yell.

"The dogs!" Masura whispered, or at least he hoped what seemed like a whisper, and leaped at the staircase from which the dogs were running down. Hizume didn't really get what was going on, so he jumped at the bottom of the stairs, ready to catch the bouncing puppies. At the top, he saw Jin reaching to help Masura not stumble down the stairs. Masura obviously tripped on the stairs in his hurry, and Jin rushed and reached out his hand for Masura to catch on. Masura grabbed his wrist in hope to not stumble and break his back. Jin, however, was surprised by the sudden wait and pull on his arm, that he couldn't with stand it, so he fell down the stairs, tumbling with Masura.

Hizume was shocked and, like most people would do, he just stood there and watched his two falling brothers. He didn't notice the puppies past by his legs and were running into the living room. Masura went head first into Hizume's legs and Hizume tumbled on top of Jin, who was on top of him at that moment. The all landed with a light thud on the floor.

"Ouch, that's gotta hurt," Rei muttered, plainly standing there, wincing at the sight. Sasuke rolled his teary eyes. He then looked away and wiped his eyes back to normal.

"Hizume, you dope," Jin said and punched Hizume on his side.

"Owwwwww, get off of me!" Masura complained from underneath.

"Fine…I still don't know why we were spying downstairs," Hizume said as he got of and noticed Rei and Sasuke standing there. After a few seconds, it finally came to him.

"Oh! We were spying on them, because Sasuke never came to our house before!" Everyone sweat-dropped, besides the ever so silent Uchiha. Jin took this moment to slip over to Sasuke.

"So, uh, do you like Rei or something?" Sasuke blinked at him. "We saw you…er…hug her just now, and were you…" he trailed off, maybe accusing him of hugging and crying all at once would make him very…upset. Sasuke shook his, then looked at Rei.

"I have to explain it?" Sasuke just stared. "Fine, look Hizume, Masura, Jin. You see those photos on the wall? Well, those people are my family, right?" Rei said, and plucked the photo of the boy off the refrigerator. She then put it next to Sasuke's head, much to Sasuke's annoyance. "Don't they have a striking resemblance?" It was hard to argue against that since he was the only known boy that had raven black hair that stood up in the back. Well, better yet ANY boy that had hair stick up in the back for that matter.

"You mean to tell me that…Sasuke here is your-," Masura was saying.

"BROTHER?" Hizume said, completely freaking out. Jin took Rei by the shoulders, shaking her to death. By the force, she dropped her photo as Sasuke caught it.

"YOU'RE A UCHIHA? A SURVIVING MEMBER OF THE FAMOUS UCHIHA CLAN?" Jin yelled in her face.

"Yeah! I'm so fricken AWSOME, aren't I?" Rei said, practically taking Jin's wrist and dancing around the room with him. Sasuke thought this very disturbing and disgraceful, but he decided that when the idea of Itachi killing the clan seeped into her head…

"Well, your welcome here anytime then!" Masura said as he put out a hand in the form of a waiting handshake to Sasuke. Hizume was right next to him, smiling at the young Uchiha. Sasuke lightly sighed and extended his hand. They both shook and Sasuke returned his hand back into his pocket. After Rei got done celebrating, Sasuke said, "Rei, we should go to the Hokage's office and get some answers about why we didn't know any of this."

"Right," Rei turned to the three siblings, "Can you guys keep it on the low? As in not tell anyone?" They all nodded their heads. "Ok, dogs, come on, you need your walk."

Obediently, the five dogs followed her outside.

When they were far from the house, Sasuke asked, "Are they all your dogs?" He glanced at the five dogs jumping along the path.

"Of course! When I said I was just about to go out when you came into my house, I meant that I was going to take them on a walk!" Rei said cheerfully, "Why? They're not…bothering you are they?"

"No, it's just I started thinking…since you're my…sister, I was supposing after this talk, you should immediately start packing so you can move into my house."

"Really? I never thought of that! I was really thinking more of the looks on people's faces when we tell them the news! Maybe we should invite everyone over for a little, and then announce it!" Rei suggested, "Wouldn't that be nice?" She asked her dogs. "Sounds really fun! Maybe we could see Akamaru-kun! Rei swore she heard her collie, Fuyu, say. Of course, the shock could always be giving her strange thoughts.

"Sure, but if you move in with me, I'm not sure they're enough room for your dogs." Sasuke continued. They talked on this problem until they reached the office building. Rei thought it awkward talking to Sasuke so normally after realizing he was your brother, but what else COULD she do?

"Hello Sasuke-san, Hokage-sama has been waiting for you," The lady at the front desk said. Sasuke moved along. Rei knew she wasn't allowed to bring pets in there, but under the circumstances, she thought she could at least be permitted to do that. Luckily, the lady didn't notice. Sasuke turned the door handle and walked inside, sitting in a chair in front of the desk. Rei followed him and did the same, letting Natsu, her male collie, sit on her lap. She found out she was nervous as the chair slowly turned around to show the Hokage. To ease her nervous-ness, she softly started petting her dog. The Hokage looked at Rei and rose his eyebrows, then turned back to Sasuke.

"I'm guessing you've already figured out," he said.

"Figuring out she's my sister who I was told that was dead? Well in that case, yes," Sasuke said. Rei could tell his anger level was rising, so she took the liberty of talking.

"Ano…Hokage-sama, we mean that we would like to know some answers of to why were told other wise," she simply put. The old Hokage sighed.

"I knew that this time would come. When we heard that you, Rei, had lost your memory on the night of the slaughter, we thought we should take advantage of this, thought it was a hard decision."

"You mean you just decided that she shouldn't know she was an Uchiha?" Sasuke said, his temper lowering.

"Like I said, it wasn't an easy decision. The council and I debated for hours. On one hand, if we told her the truth, she would be happy to be with her brother, but she would most probably be bent on the same revenge you yourself are so eager to take. On the other hand, if we told her something else, she wouldn't seek revenge and she could live her life out normally, even though we knew that some day you two would figure it out sooner or later. The down side on that was that she would be left without any family, and maybe making her emotionally week, we worried about this for a little while afterwards, but when we saw the young Jin take her as a friend, we thought our little dilemma was solved until now. The topic came back up that now you two are genins and full-fledged shinobi; we now thought you two should learn the truth. Right now, though, it seems you've already figured out."

"Now what do we do?" Sasuke asked, coldly staring into the depths of the Hokage's eyes.

"I suppose you, Rei, would like to move into your brother's apartment?" The Hokage asked. Rei nodded slowly. "Right, but first, I would like you two to sign a paper and that you keep this a secret for the time being, or at least until we've confirmed everything and make sure all the jounin know of this, understand?" Again, Rei nodded, with Sasuke. The leader of the village pushed forth a scroll that obviously re-declared the two siblings. In turn, they both signed it. As they started heading back out again to immediately start moving Rei's belongings into Sasuke's house, Rei found a new joy in life, and new journey that would begin there. A long journey: The journey of her life.