Welcome back dear readers! So, this chapter might be a trippy, it's the first time I've tried writing something like this so I guess we'll see how it goes... But first, reviews! Yayyyyy!
Konslov - Yay! Knowing that someone enjoys my writing makes me super happy. I'll be sure to keep it up. And lol, I'm the exact same. 100% can't resist a cute kitty. (evidently, 'cause I made it my profile pic) Thanks for reviewing too, I'm happy to hear you didn't notice any mistakes. I really try to avoid them but sometimes they just slip past you. Thanks again!
Guest - Oh my god, I flipped when I read your review 'cause you're actually pretty close to what I was planning. Are you psychic? Anyway, I've basically revealed how she survives at the end of this chapter so you can kind of see how close you actually got and I'll be elaborating more in my next update. In the meantime, thanks so much for reviewing and I hope you enjoy my story!
I'm probably gonna end up rambling at the end of the chapter so I'll just let you get to the reading now.
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I'd been kind of excited for ninja school. I mean, it was ninja school. Even kids in a ninja village got excited at the term 'ninja school'.
Ninja school was boring.
Maybe it was my adult mind doing 12 year old maths (at like 6 years old, mind you) but I was pretty much done with the Academy. I also sucked at taijutsu. I thought that'd be my better subject considering I'd been training myself for about four years now but maybe I should have consulted someone 'cause my stamina was great and all. I killed laps and stretches and learnt I'm actually pretty flexible. My speed isn't half bad either. But when it comes to things like precision, strength or endurance, I hadn't really done much of the right training for those.
We hadn't started anything on chakra yet, my one other subject that I craved to start excelling in. Other than taijutsu, it was just th core subjects. You know, maths, history, Japanese, etc, etc. Well, I could do maths. But I'd only done the basics for Japanese in my former life and the anime/manga had covered surprisingly very little of what we were learning in history.
The only thing that sucked more than boring ninja school was being bad at boring ninja school.
So, I studied on my own. Mostly, I just wanted to skip ahead to chakra and fire-bending. I mean, most Uchiha could do that cool Katon fire-breathing thingy and damn it, I wanted to be a dragon too.
I was quick to borrow a couple of dozen books on chakra from the nearest library a few days after my sixth birthday (a week after I started at the Academy) and snuck them home. Mum didn't seem like she'd approve, you know.
Not that my secret lasted long.
Barely a month after that, I came home from Academy to find mum standing in my room, my entire stash of books and scrolls at her feet.
"Kaida, honey," she began sweetly. I flinched at the familiar tone. That was the I'm-smiling-but-not-on-the-inside tone. "What are these doing under your bed?"
"Uh..." I thought quick. "They're for class?"
I've been deceiving my mother about me not having been reincarnated and about how we're all gonna die soon, so you'd think I'd be able to lie about this.
Nope!
"Kaida, you haven't started chakra at the Academy yet," mum sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose in disappointment. "You've been there for a month."
"Oh," I blinked. "Right. They're for... um... leisurely reading?"
Why does everything I say sound like a question?
Uchiha Miu smiled serenely and warning bells went off in my head. "Let's talk."
~{}~{}~{}~{}~{}~
Surprisingly enough, mum offered to train me after school. I mean, after the tongue-lashing and general punishment for lying and hiding things.
I kept forgetting she was a jounin and super lethal. She also specialises in this weird gymnastics taijutsu. Yeah, imagine my surprise when she bent into an unnatural pretzel shape during one of our stretching sessions. It was a joke, she said, but I think she just wanted me to freak out as revenge for borrowing those books without telling her. (Because I flipped, that was unnatural, does she even have a spine-)
Vindictive woman.
She was pleased at least to find I was already fairly flexible. I've probably never seen my mother prouder than when I successfully twisted into one of her more complex positions.
Ninja villages are weird.
But I've quickly started climbing the ranks in taijutsu class so I'm not complaining. (Yes, I know I'm not going to live to be a ninja anyway but goddamn it, I was mentally like thirty years old by now and I was not going to lose to children)
She also trained me in chakra control. I had to practice at that one. I was really hoping that, you know, being from a chakra-less world and all, I might get some chakra sensitivity or something. Something cheat-worthy. But alas, I was thoroughly average.
2 months passed. Mum was a slave driver. Once I'd built up my speed, flexibility and stamina, learned to weave around an opponent's attack like water slipping through fingers, to turn their own strength and their own weight into my own power, she started focusing on my weak points. My strength and endurance mainly. I wasn't going to be much use as a ninja, she said, if I couldn't even throw or take a hit.
It's for mum, it's for mum, I repeated to myself as I hit the ground hard and felt the air leave my lungs. It's for mum, it's for mum, it's for mum.
She smirked and said, "Again."
I stifled a whimper and slid back into a defensive stance.
Mother also had me start learning about the human body. The weak points, the soft points, the placement of organs and the way it moved.
Shikamaru shot me an odd look in maths class the next day as I skimmed a book that did not contain maths.
My least favourite training was blindfold training.
But let's not get into that (torture).
(And throughout it all, I never even realise how well Uchiha Miu shields me from the building tension between the Uchiha and the village.)
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I met Itachi for the second time a few weeks later. It was raining that day and I'd stayed late to ask sensei some last-minute history questions. (We had a test the next day, I aced it.)
By the time I left the classroom and headed outside, there was only one student left, scowling in the rain.
"Sasuke?" I blurted out before I could stop myself. Duck-Butt turned his scowl on me and I could feel his mood worsen.
"What do you want?" He grunted.
"Aren't you heading home?" I said, squinting at him curiously. Hey, I figured I'd already dug my grave here. Who cares how deep it is really? (I do, I care, I care so very much and I should really just lock myself in my room forever, stop talking to main cha-)
"I'm waiting for someone," he bit out, "obviously."
"Right," I edged away. "Obviously. Well, don't get sick and die!"
I need to stop talking now. For the rest of my (short) life.
I barely took three steps before a soft woosh sounded from behind me and a familiar voice called out, "Otouto."
Shiiiiiiiii-
"Oh," Itachi focused on me curiously, "this is the girl from the park, isn't it? So you are friends?"
"Not if she begged," Sasuke hissed. His eyes practically screamed murder. I gulped.
"You're an Uchiha, right?" Itachi continued. I nodded slowly, wondering where this was going. "So you're heading back to the Uchiha compound? Why don't we walk together?"
Retreat! RETREAT!
"Haha, no, that's fine, really," I blanched. Well, on the bright side, Itachi might not be my future murderer because Sasuke looks like he just might beat him to it.
Itachi insisted. "You don't even have an umbrella. Here, you can share Sasuke's."
Well, I would but Sasuke looks like he might bite me with how hard he's gnashing his teeth right now.
Yeah, actually, he seems angrier than usual. I paused to survey him.
Oh wait. That's right, Itachi would be getting super busy by now. I'm totally intruding on what little brother-time he has left.
Wow, Kaida. Not cool.
I turned my inquisitive stare to Itachi. Yep, those stress lines were much more pronounced now. He doesn't look so good.
I nodded, proud of myself for figuring it out. Man, maybe I'll be a detective next time around. If there's a next time around. God, I hope there isn't a next time around.
"Great," Itachi smiled, opening an umbrella for Sasuke before pulling out a second umbrella for himself.
I shot him a panicked look. "Wait, what?"
And that is how I ended up walking home sandwiched between the two people most like to kill me in the future.
I was more exhausted than usual by the time I got home.
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If I had to pinpoint the beginning, the start of the downward spiral, it was probably that day in October, 5 months after starting at the Academy. Life had been good. I went to class and had lunch with Shikamaru and Chouji everyday. I went home and trained. I had dinner with mum and slept. Rinse and repeat.
It was during one of my days off that I was heading to the park to meet Natsu. The park had just come into view when I caught a piece of a conversation nearby.
"...u hear? A ninja died near here recently."
I stopped. Moving, breathing, all of it. I just stopped.
"Yeah, that genius one right? Shisui? So young too. What a tragedy..."
I stopped and I couldn't move again. I couldn't breathe.
No, wait, that wasn't the problem. I could breathe. I was breathing too much.
"Hey, miss? Are you ok?"
I couldn't- I didn't- I don't-
"Hey kid!"
"Is she alright?"
"I think she's having a fit or something? Or going into shock?"
I faintly registered the world spinning, spinning (spinning and red and seeing and killing and dying) and I was falling, wasn't I?
No. No, I was already on the ground.
A ninja died near here recently.
Yeah, that genius one right?
Shi. Su. I.
Had died.
I don't want to die.
(You can't fight fate.)
I've died before.
(Yet here you are.)
It hurts.
"Kaida!"
Natsu's face swam into view.
Oh right. We were supposed to play in the park.
She faded in and out for a few seconds, then the world went dark.
I'm sorry, Natsu.
(I'm sorry for leaving you to mourn me.)
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I woke up in my bed hours later. My mother (she looks different) stood in the doorway. She stayed quiet, her expression (looks different because she isn't your mother) was unreadable.
(She is a mother)
I laid back down and stared at the roof.
(But she isn't yours.)
I closed my eyes.
(Is that guilt you feel?)
My head pounded.
(It won't help.)
(Thief.)
(Liar.)
(Mistake.)
I had died once before and I wasn't as scared as I once was but that didn't mean I wasn't scared.
I was not one to fight fate.
I had neither the fear nor courage to.
(You are nothing.)
(You are the thing you can never escape.)
You are death.
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I am eight years and three months old when I come home to a mess. Mum hadn't slept in days. She was at the sink, scrubbing the dishes. She was muttering to herself again.
My mother, with her monster instincts, did not hear me come in.
"Mum?" I spoke, breaking the silence like glass. Mum looks up and focuses on me. I stare back, almost scared.
She's scrubbed the plate in her hand so hard that it's cracked.
We stay that way for what feels like years. Then she smiled. A tired, strained smile but a smile nonetheless.
"My Little Dragon," she breathes, gingerly putting the plate and sponge down. "How do you feel about staying at Natsumi's for a few nights?"
I frowned.
"Things are a bit tense around here," mum explained, answering my unspoken question. "I'd just prefer it is you were at a friend's until everyone calms down a bit."
She helped me pack that night and I left the next day.
I knew something was wrong. I knew the massacre was coming.
But in that moment, I just smiled and planted a kiss on her cheek. She pulled me in for one last hug and watches me head off.
Because when it matters most, I am so incredibly slow.
I thought I had more time.
That is the last time I see my mother.
(Because you never really know when you'll see them last. Not until you look back and think, if only I'd known.)
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Itachi flicks his blade and splatters excess blood across the ground as he moves to the next house.
Upon entering, he is surprised to find the inhabitant waiting for him. Not running. Not fighting. Waiting. Just waiting.
Uchiha Miu watches him like a cat would watch a mouse.
"I can't beat you," she says. She says it like she knows it's a fact, like she's commenting on the weather.
"Is this where you beg for mercy?" Itachi asks. He stays cold, stone, steel, because if he feels now then he can't do what needs to be done.
"There will be no begging." She stands, her every movement precise and cautious. If she decides to fight, he thinks, she will be a challenge. But he will win still. "I'm never going to beg you for my life. No, I'm going to convince you why you should let my daughter live."
Itachi blinks, running through his memory. Kaida. The little Uchiha girl. The one in Sasuke's class.
Uchiha Miu smiles slowly. "Yes, her. You're going to leave her alive."
"Many parents have begged me for their children's lives tonight," Itachi comments. "What makes you think you will be any different?"
Something entered her expression. Sympathy? Pity? Sorrow? Even with all his years of training, he can't quite pinpoint it. "Because you are a pacifist more than you are a killer and I am so sorry this is happening to you."
Itachi tries to keep the panic from his face but he's sure that a little surfaces.
"Don't act so surprised," Uchiha Miu snorts. "I'm closer to the issue than you think, little nephew. Mikoto-nee was not stupid and neither am I. Or is not stupid. Tell me, have you killed her yet?"
He stays silent.
"Irrelevant, sorry. No, you are going to leave my little girl alive because I'm going to make it in your best interest that you do. Because you don't want to kill anymore and I think you can get away with leaving one little girl alive."
"And you'll just accept your death?"
"If it is necessary. If it saves her. I have lost my husband, my sisters, my friends, dear boy, and I will not lose my daughter. Not if I can help it."
"... I'm listening."
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Yeah... that was so hard to write and even reading back on it, it's not my best work. Again, once I get more practice, I'm seriously considering a rewrite. But anyway, we have reached the Uchiha massacre! Did I surprise anyone? Yeah, I feel like some of you might be a bit disappointed since Kaida wasn't actually in the Uchiha massacre directly but hey, I'm sure I got a few people. (This is my first time writing such a dramatic scene and I played around with the italics and bold a lot so I'd love to hear how that went over) We're also steadily edging closer to the actual canon timeline! I think maybe one more chapter, maybe two, for the aftermath and we'll be on our way.
Did anyone guess about Miu being Mikoto's sister? Yeah, I love Miu. She's badass. And a jounin. A badass jounin. If anyone was gonna have a reincarnated child, it would be Miu. It's a shame I couldn't use her in more of the story too. As for how she convinces Itachi (because you know she will), don't worry. We'll get around to that much later on. Also, Itachi was a bit hard to keep in character too! Like, Sasuke just hates Kaida so he's just a brat to her but Itachi, I don't know, he's weird. One of my favourite characters but weird.
Ok, pretty please review! Let me know what you think!
Until next time
- Dragon
