She dreamed of standing at the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean.

The sun stared down at her, its unrelenting heat should have been unbearable; it always was this time of the year.

Waves crashed against the rocks below, and for the briefest of moments, she considered diving, joining the crashing white waters below.

She did not.

She blinked; the skies turned grey, dark clouds rolling in at a speed that made her think that perhaps someone had been controlling them.

Lightning flashed, thunder followed. It was like the sun and the moon; one always chasing the other.

The waters lifted, spiraling upwards and funneling into a tornado of sorts.

She closed her eyes.

Then felt nothing but the wind whipping through her hair.

In the distance, she could hear her brother's voice, quietly whispering something that would never reach her.

Naomi Uchiha always had trouble sleeping.

She was well acquainted with the moon and her secrets; sleep was an elusive thing and only came at odd hours of the day, and only for a few hours of the night.

But that was only half of it. Truth was, she didn't always want to sleep anyway. At first, it was more that she wanted more time with the quiet the night time hours promised, but then it became a thing out of spite.

Sasuke had started it with a remark of how she never sleeps, and just to prove a point, she did. Just not at the hours he would ever expect her to sleep. Which was to say, never the same time he did; which was a ridiculous notion in itself, but that wasn't going to stop her.

"You seem more distracted than usual today, Uchiha," Hiruko noted from his spot atop the rock.

Naomi snorted, but her gaze did not drift from Atsuko. They were sparring partners for the afternoon while their sensei, Yura Kurosawa, was away running some errands.

"You're the one with your nose buried in a book and not participating in training and I'm the one distracted?"

The wind picked up, stopping the conversation before it went any further; Atsuko was a wind user, so this ultimately came as no surprise. Despite her chakra control being the best on the team, Atsuko was never particularly good at getting off any jutsu; she often panicked under pressure, which often meant most jutsu exploded in her face before she did anything.

But that was what training was for, and they would need any amount of training for the chuunin exams that would take place in a week.

Naomi activated her Sharingan, her eyes following Atsuko's hands as she lifted them. The wind picked up, gathering around her fingers, forming a sort of blade.

"When'd you learn that one?" Naomi asked, a smirk forming as she watched Atsuko closely.

"Recently, actually."

Despite being notoriously bad under pressure in most situations, Atsuko does well under training circumstances. An odd one, Naomi remembered thinking about her teammate on their first mission; their training sessions before and during the mission had gone fine, much like it was now. But she panicked, blanking real hard when it came to serious fighting.

Naomi couldn't blame her. Serious fights were stressful; it was always something short of a miracle that she found herself being able to do anything during a fight.

When Atsuko charged, Naomi found herself surprised; she had expected just about anything else. But her movement had been fairly predictable and was not nearly fast enough to close the gap before Naomi sidestepped out of the way. Atskuo stumbled forward briefly, not anticipating the sudden absence; in the moments following, Naomi quickly grabbed her by the wrist and pulled it back. Her momentum forward had prevented her from falling backwards, all of which resulted in Atsuko being right back where she had been on her feet.

Naomi merely smirked at her when Atsuko's gaze swept over to meet her eyes.

"We're gonna need to work on your execution."

The rest of their training had gone by without much problem, going late into the evening. Their sensei, Yura, had arrived just as they finished up the last of it, long after the sun had set.

"Good to see all of you working hard." He had said upon arrival, "I don't have to tell you that the chuunin exams are in a week."

They all nodded, everything stilling as if in anticipation. Yura stepped forward, pulling out three sheets of paper.

"Here, you'll need these."

Naomi took it, a smirk forming on her lips.

"Applications, huh? So, you really did recommend us for it?" she asked, "Ya know, despite us having graduated from the academy like 6 months ago?"

"Has it really been 6 months? It hasn't felt like 6 months," Atsuko remarked. Though the redhead wore a smile, there was a look of nervousness in her eyes.

"It's been 6 months and some odd handful of days, I think," Yura told them, "Anyway, I take it I'll be seeing all three of you there if you all so choose to participate."

They all shared a look, caught somewhere between anticipation and anxiety.

The chuunin exams were right around the corner and for all her confidence, Naomi could not help but feel like something was bound to go wrong.

"You too, huh?" Naomi muttered quietly, peering over Sasuke's shoulder as they walked through the door together.

"Tch, yeah, of course."

The confidence in his voice did nothing to elicit any shock; he had always been more confident than her, even if he didn't always feel it. Even if he weren't feeling it, he always did a much better job than her at hiding the fact.

"Seriously?" She had been sarcastic, though the look of offense he threw her way was noted.

"Hey, I'm-" He had started to argue but Naomi scoffed before he got anywhere with it.

"I know you are perfectly capable, asshole. You're confident Naruto and Sakura are the same level?"

The silence that fell around them was far from awkward; they were twins after all, they had spent much of their childhood in silence. At least, when they weren't bickering. anyways. Too much time spent in their heads, she supposed, and heartfelt conversations were few and far in between.

"Naruto's got the confidence for it at least. Sakura's got enough skill to make up for her lack thereof."

Naomi simply gave him a questioning look, her expression full of a mixture between confusion and amusement.

"And alas, you end up somehow being the perfect balance of both?"

Sasuke simply snorted before getting up. He did not have to say a word for her to know exactly what he was thinking. His ego was skyhigh at this point, and honestly, she didn't have the heart to knock it down. He wouldn't be him if that weren't the case, she had figured. Besides, she had long run out of the energy to try a long time ago.

The sounds of shuffling around in the kitchen told her that he was likely making dinner tonight; a duty that they had agreed that they'd swap every day when they could if they happened to be home at the same time.

She sighed quietly, flopping over to lay down on the couch.

Things were changing, for better or for worse; and she had a sinking feeling she wasn't going to like how fast things were going to go from here on out.