Chapter 1
"Birth is like a lottery. Sometimes you win and you get millionaire parents who really sincerely care about you. Oh who am I kidding? That's pretty much a myth, no family is absolutely perfect! Either way, if life gives you kumquats, find a way to forcibly transform them into lemons so you can make some sweet lemonade."
Sometimes, Masaru wondered about his clan.
Though he and Akari proudly displayed the red and white fan on their backs, their small family had never been particularly close to the rest of their clansmen. Their home rested on the edge of the Uchiha compound, the nearest two houses empty after the elderly man that lived in one died and the woman who occupied the other married and moved in with her new husband. Their mother rarely took them to clan events, and their extended relatives rarely visited their house.
That didn't mean they were ignorant of their heritage though.
As one of the founding clans of the village, the Uchiha clan had a powerful reputation attached to its name. The name alone seemed to demand respect and awe, even their enemies supposedly offering their skills grudging respect. Some people might even call them the shinobi equivalent of royalty, everyone vying to get into the clan so their offspring might inherit the incredibly powerful Sharingan.
On top of that, many Uchiha seemed to just be unnaturally beautiful and/or handsome.
Not all of them, mind you. Uchiha Tekka certainly didn't look handsome with his square jaw and heavy creases around the corners of his mouth. Uchiha Inabi might be considered pretty by conventional standards but he had a somewhat sleazy air to him which negated it, and Uchiha Yashiro squinted way too much and always looked like he was scowling.
Hmm. Maybe if they smiled more Uchiha would be considered pretty, but as it stood most of the clan seemed to have surgically altered their face to forever sever the muscles required to turn their frowns upside-down.
That said, Uchiha Masaru looked rather average compared to some of his relatives. He had unruly brown hair his mother liked to call "Indra's hair," two thick locks wrestled into cloth wrappings to keep them out of his face while they left the rest of his hair to its own devices. His face meanwhile was relatively plain and unnoticeable, at least as far as he was concerned. He grew up exposed to natural Uchiha looks, so he'd grown a bit desensitized to it. Non-Uchiha might think differently.
Alas, he never really had a chance to find out though, as fate saw fit to dump him in the same class as Sasuke.
Masaru and Akari never really spoke to their distant cousin at school, partially because they were focused on their schoolwork, but also because Sasuke spent most lunches hiding from fan girls. Their determination and persistence scared Masaru, motivating him to skulk in the background and go as unnoticed as possible. On the other hand, it thoroughly annoyed Akari since some of the girls lagged in their own studies because of their obsession.
Uchiha Akari had always wanted to be a ninja. She had grown up hearing how awesome her mother was. She never heard any actual stories because Ryoko would interrupt her relatives before they could share them, much to her annoyance, but the awe and respect her mother demanded spoke for itself. Even Uchiha Fugaku, the head of the Uchiha clan, had commented on her skills, so that had to mean something!
So to see their classmates acting so immature irritated her immensely.
"Why do they even want a boyfriend so bad!" she grumbled to her mother once. "Boys are so icky!"
"You say that now," Ryoko demurred, "But when you're older—"
"No! I won't like boys when I'm older! They're gross and smell bad! Girls are way better!" Their mother blinked once at the claim, staring at her blankly, and then smiled and said okay.
Still, her mother provided no helpful input on her current problem, so Akari was stuck watching her fawning classmates day after day. Masaru could see her resentment grow each passing day, her black eyes smoldering. Sometimes, he thought he saw a flicker of red in them, and he fleetingly wondered if she might activate the Sharingan in her annoyance over the situation. When he suggested that to his mother, she laughed.
"The sharingan is triggered by strong emotions, particularly negative ones," she mused with a mirthful twinkle in her eye. "If she activated it over annoyance at someone else's fangirls, that would be hilarious and revolutionary. I'd take fangirls any day over near-death experiences."
"Near-death experiences?" Masaru squeaked, eyes widening, and Ryoko stiffened.
"...Don't you have a worksheet to do?"
Yes he did a worksheet to do, and she never did answer his questions later, but back to the point. By the end of the second month Akari had deemed her fellow future kunoichi to be woefully incompetent, and she resolved to fix that. Initial attempts to convince the girls to try hard didn't work out well. Some of the bullies openly scorned her diplomatic attempts and called her a goody two-shoes, while others just ignored her.
Then a few fangirls accused her of being after Sasuke-kun's heart, and her social life turned to hell.
"I am going to murder them," she declared to Masaru flatly. He replied with a traditional Uchiha 'hn' response, more interested in his bento than his sister's ranting. Ooh, mom packed salmon onigiri today. Nice. Nibbling on it like a hamster, he hummed and nodded at the appropriate points as his sister ranted on about her classmates' latest misdeeds, stabbing at her own food angrily.
Funnily enough, before joining the ninja academy he'd never even seen her get angry. It was strangely relieving to know she was capable of it, her relentless cheeriness and puppy dog pouts wouldn't help much on the battlefield. It got annoying to hear it day after day though, and he was starting to worry it might become a permanent part of her personality.
Feeling a bit fed up, he cut her off by jabbing her forehead with his chopsticks, bits of rice sticking to it. "Stop thinking so straight," he chided, offering her a bland glare. "If your current strategy isn't working, then try something else." Staring at him wide-eyed, she firmly clamped her jaw shut and turned away with a huff. Masaru just shrugged and returned his full attention to his bento, missing the calculating gleam that soon entered his sister's eyes.
Walking home after classes was usually a quiet affair. Sasuke tended to stay late to practice in the training grounds at the academy, but the twins would go straight home to practice under their mother's watchful gaze. However, that day, Akari broke the pattern. After class she instead skipped to the training grounds, sneaking up on Sasuke and watching him curiously. Masaru trailed her and hung in the back, watching her with a bemused expression.
"Sasuke-kun," she called, her voice dripping sweetness. He flinched and turned to look at her, a slight grimace on his face.
"What?" he asked shortly, clearly anticipating some fangirlish screeching. Fluttering to his side, she giggled as she looked at him, rocking on her feet with her hands folded behind her back. Several sets of eyes instantly burned in her direction, futilely attempting to set her aflame.
"You're really good at throwing," she giggled, batting her eyelashes at him.
"Yeah, I guess," he muttered, looking away. Smile growing, she then glided closer and pressed a finger under his chin, prompting him to snap his gaze back to her with his eyes wide with shock. She prettily tilted her head at him, leaning in a bit closer as the tension emanating from their observers grew more palpable.
"But I'm better," she declared sweetly, and then pulled away and spun around, flinging the kunai she'd kept hidden behind her back. It soared through the air and hit the target right on the bulls eye, earning small sounds of surprise and awe from her classmates. Skipping back from a surprised Sasuke, she offered him a more mischievous grin, all traces of the lovestruck facade she'd presented wiped away to be replaced by a more feral expression.
"You know, if you have the Uchiha name, you need to be more than just a pretty face," she declared, her voice taunting and challenging anyone to disagree. "We Uchiha are warriors, the best of the best. Even the civilian Uchiha women are badass, don't you think?"
"Uh, y-yeah," he agreed, slowly nodding his head. "They are..."
"I am so glad you agree. Have fun training!" With that, Akari spun around and walked away, leaving a rather shell-shocked Sasuke in her wake as he tried to process what just happened. He glanced at an equally surprised Masaru, and the brown-haired Uchiha boy offered a small shrug and smile before chasing after his sister. Akari waited for him near the front gates, a smug smirk on her face.
"Did you just flirt with Uchiha Sasuke in front of his fan girls?" Masaru asked, and she snorted.
"Please, boys are icky. I just needed him to confirm that Uchiha women are all badass and know how to fight." He paused, shooting her a bemused glance.
"...Why?"
"You'll see," she sang, skipping off towards home.
And the next day, Masaru did see. Word of the brief exchange quickly spread among the various classes, and as he walked through the halls he caught wisps of conversations among his female peers about "strength" and "accuracy" and "ideal wife". That day he noticed his female classmates seemed a bit more focused on the lecture than usual, and during the practical parts of the class they placed more effort.
By the end of the week, he finally figured out what she did.
"Akari is an evil genius."
Masaru sat in front of his uncle's grave with his arms crossed, a fresh bouquet of flowers resting atop the stone. Normally he'd visit on Saturdays and wipe down the stone, but after realizing the extent of her evil genius he had felt compelled to visit the grave and share his newest observation a day early. Besides, he'd already cleaned the grave on Monday, that visit prompted by the weird confrontation-flirty-thing between her and Sasuke.
"Remember how I told you about that weird kinda-flirty thing with Sasuke after school?" he asked. "Well, it turns out she was making a big scene to get him to say that Uchiha women are all strong in front of his fan girls. And I guess I forgot that if they marry him they'd become Uchiha women too, since girls take on the guy's last name. Unless the girl is an Uchiha women, and then the guy takes on the Uchiha name? Why is that? It's kind of weird. Maybe I'll ask mom."
Pausing, he shrugged and continued, "Sorry, I went random. Anyway, basically, Akari made the girls think they have to be really good kunoichi if they want to marry Sasuke, so now they're putting in a ton of effort. And none of them figured it out, not even Sasuke. So, yeah. She's officially an evil genius. Really glad she's on my side." He got up and dusted his pants, shrugging at the gravestone. "I should get back now, I have homework to do. I just wanted to fill you in. I'll see you later!"
He bowed to the grave and headed home.
One unpredictable factor in their class was the presence of Uzumaki Naruto. Ostracized by everyone for reasons largely unknown beyond "adults don't like him" and known for being a slacker, Naruto often resorted to pranking to garner attention, quickly becoming the scourge of the academy teachers. Classmates alternated between laughing at his practical jokes and following their parents' examples of silently scorning him, his standing in the classroom seeming to fluctuate from day to day. Outside the classroom he was almost always alone though, even the teachers seeming to avoid him.
While most seemed to view him with negative outlooks, not many kids went out of their way to mess with him directly. Naruto had a vengeful streak a mile wide, and combined with his penchant for pranks he proved a nasty enemy to make. The few kids who'd tried to bully him directly came to class with technicolor hair and skin colors after falling victim to paint bombs, or found their bag's contents liberally bathed in glitter. An unspoken rule existed among his peers to never get on his bad side.
Unfortunately, Masaru ended up on the sour end of it towards the end of their first year after accidentally knocking over Naruto in class. The blonde had been holding a bucket of paint for his latest prank and it promptly splattered over his front, earning jeering laughs from the rest of the class. In retrospect, Masaru probably should have apologized, but the thing is, he really wasn't good at talking to people. There was a reason he spent so much time at his uncle's gravesite, he had absolutely no idea how to interact with anyone who wasn't his mom or sister.
So yeah. Masaru just did the stupid thing and raced back to his back without a word. Looking back, he could see how that might make it look more like it was done on purpose rather than the honest accident it was.
So when he went to the classroom to get his lunch the next day and found Naruto bending over his open bento with a bottle of some undeniably yucky-looking gunk, he didn't really feel that surprised. Glancing at the bottle, the bento, and then the faded paint stain still faintly visible on his shirt, Masaru raised his gaze to stare the frozen blond straight in the eye and declared flatly, "Yeah, I really can't blame you." Then he promptly stalked over and snatched his bento away, and proceeded to take a large chomp out of the tainted onigiri.
Which was how he found himself walking home early. According to the nurse the stuff Naruto sprinkled on the rice wouldn't start to kick in until later, but he'd probably want to be home with unhindered access to a toilet when it did. Reaching his house, he paused outside to brace himself for his mother's reaction before opening the door. He expected a lot of things: angry yelling, confused questioning about why he was home early, maybe some concern or accusations about him ditching class.
What he didn't expect was to see his mother abruptly flash into the hallway before him, eyes blazing crimson as she brandished a kunai.
Masaru's breath caught in his throat at the sight, his eyes locked onto her Sharingan, his body locking up in shock. Despite being an Uchiha he'd only seen the clan's famed kekkei genkai a handful of times, and he'd certainly never seen it on his mother. Three tomoe orbited her pupils against a backdrop of red, the angry hue adding to the ferocious scowl on her face as she glared at him. As her eyes flicked over him her expression quickly softened though, the red bleeding away until her eyes regained their normal black hue.
"Masaru?" she choked, lowering the kunai. Frowning, she quickly closed the gap between them and knelt in front of him, placing her hands on his shoulders. "Masaru, what are you doing home? Did something happen? Where's Akari?"
"I-I..." He trailed off, still too shocked to respond. The overwhelming concern and panic on her face threw him off, and it only grew worse as his silence continued.
"Masaru, it's okay," she said, trying to sound reassuring. "You don't need to be scared, you can tell me anything. I'm your mother, it's my job to protect you and your sister, right?" Masaru couldn't find his voice so he settled for nodding, and she offered a feeble smile. "Good. Now, can you please tell me what's wrong?" He fidgeted slightly, feeling more and more uncomfortable by the second.
"Naruto put a lax'tib in my lunch so the nurse sent me home early!" he blurted. Silence fell, his mother's face smoothing into a stony mask as she processed his words. Masaru felt his own face heat up, wondering if maybe she'd explode after all.
Then he heard distinct laughter from behind her and jumped with a yelp.
Startled, he swiftly darted back and peered around the edge of the doorway, his gaze wary and loaded with suspicion. A teenage boy with curly black hair stood hunched over in the back of the hall, his whole body shaking with loud, raucous laughter. "Laxatives?" he wheezed. "Oh, man, that's a good one!" Masaru just stared at the stranger in silence, shooting his mother a hesitant look. Ryoko no longer had that scary look on her face, instead replacing it with a small smile that seemed to quiver.
It did not ease his nerves when she also broke into hysterical laughter.
"Mom?" he stammered, feeling increasingly alarmed and confused. Maybe he should be offended that she appeared to be laughing at his expense, but he was way too frightened by her insane cackling to care about that. As her laughs tapered away Ryoko shook her head and smiled at him, her eyes soft and fond. Then something flickered in her face, and she launched forward to pull him into a tight embrace, making him stiffen in shock.
"Masaru," she murmured, rubbing his back gently as she squeezed him. "Oh, Masaru, I love you so, so much..." Masaru just stood there in silence, too overwhelmed by the violent and extreme shifts in her mood over the past three minutes to react anymore. Vaguely he noted the stranger had stopped laughing, and when he glanced over he saw the teen watching them with a faint frown.
Later, as Masaru holed up in the bathroom in utter misery, he still didn't know if he should mention the incident to Akari.
