.8

"Always skillfully manipulate your pieces, that's how you survive. Use me and madam red, any piece within your reach. Even if the bodies of your pawns pile up in front of your thrown. Because if the king falls - this game is over." ~Kuroshitsuji

….

Deception isn't a lie so much as a choice you willing make to believe. You choose to be unaware of deceit and you choose to ignore what could not possibly be true. All so you can live a blissfully ignorant life. But the biggest tragedy of deception is not when you deceive another human being but when you merely deceive yourself.

I wanted to believe that my existence didn't have a lasting impact on this universe. I believed that for twelve whole years, and then my brother brought back an alive Yuuki clan member from his mission to the land of wave. It was deception that made me believe that nothing but what I intentionally messed around with was affected by my mere presence.

I was wrong.

I did not like being wrong. I did not appreciate being deceived.

Especially by my own self.

I didn't know what to think about it. It was hard to think about it.

Shishou's hand landing on my head pulled me from my thoughts. Joy I probably had a brooding look on my face. "Worried about your brother?" His question caught me off guard, because maybe that's what this was.

Another problem of deception, is that there is always another layer underneath. And if you are looking too close you'll never see it.

I nodded my head at his words. Because I was worried about him. If memory served correctly, and it had never been wrong. My brother and his little gaggle of friends would go through the ringer in the forest. It made my blood boil, to think that the Snake sannin was so close to my brother.

Do not confuse this with fear. I was not afraid of that slithering demon, fear did not make me bones ache like this. No this was a feeling of uselessness. I couldn't help my brother with this, but if I didn't stop that boy from leaving. Well it wouldn't end well.

My stupid idiotic, optimistic, loyalist brother loved that damn Uchiha like a brother. And allowing him to leave the village would hurt my brother more than I ever wanted to see. Yes there were somethings that I could not help, and then there were things I looked head on straight in their face and told them to screw it.

What was cannon when you were a girl who should have never existed and the only person you'd claim openly as a friend was a dead man walking? I still didn't know. But this was my life and I was going to live it however I damn well pleased.

I must have been unresponsive because shishou is ruffling my hair. He knows I hate that. My eyes flutter to look up at him, I don't glare. Is he smiling?

"You worry too much. I'm sure your brother will be fine." Another nod. I sure hope so. But unfortunately I knew better.

I always knew better.

The problem was, that I wanted to keep believing that everything would be fine. Even when I knew it wouldn't. That is what deception is. It twist you mind, so that even when you know up should be up and down should be down you still want up to be down and down to be up.

Deception was a right bastard.

I was left alone to my thoughts. Shishou had only stopped by to check on me and let me know that he was leaving on another mission and taking Haku. So I really was alone. I don't know if I was comfortable with that.

Contrary to popular belief I didn't always like to be by myself. The quiet consumed me and I was reminded of how empty life was without those precious to me. It also left me to repressed thoughts of a life I had once lived.

A life filled by deceit. It was a life that I did not want to think about.

It reminded me of the simple truth.

People did not change.

People could not change.

But most importantly, it was a life full of regrets, memories of things left behind.

I did not want that from this life.

Life would not deceive me here. I would not let it.

There was a puff of smoke, and a body appearing before me that stopped me in my tracks. I gave the man curious eyes, and received a single eye smile. "Hello Mitomi-chan." I'm sure my brow is raised. He had never called me by my full name.

"Hatake-san." He's not my teacher. If you are wondering why I don't call him by his more popular tag.

The silver haired man ruffled the top of my hair. Why did they keep doing this to me? I didn't understand why this was a popular tactic. Surely they all knew how much I didn't like this, and how uncomfortable it made me.

"Mah, my kouhai's cute little student how would you like to come wait with me for the results of the second exam?" What is going on? My hands move in the standard Anbu signs, eye alert. His tone is wrong, he's tense. Something has happened.

His eye twitches in amusement, probably at how perceptive I was. "Of course Hatake-san, I'm curious to see how my brother and his team are doing." I watch for the subtle hand signs, and nod my head when I get a response to my silent question.

When we are out of the crowded village street and in what I will label the Jonin longue at the Tower and only then does the sole Hatake man take me to the side. "There has been a breach in security, your shishou, teammate and a few others have gone to investigate." So the sannin had made his slimy appearance.

Slowly I nod my head at his words. Playing the part of a concerned chunin well. "A breach? Is that was that huge wave a slithering chakra was earlier?" I watch as his whole body tensed up. His visible eye narrowed on me.

"You could feel it?" It was so potent that even from my position miles away from Training Ground Forty-four I could feel it. It also helped that I had been looking for it. I nod my head again.

"It was suffocating, kind of like when a large snake is crushing your lungs before devouring its meal." My tone was panicked as if the feeling of that chakra had scared me, it's a perfect performance. If they hadn't pieced together that the Snake sannin was here then maybe that would push them in the right direction.

He sighs, it's forced. I can see the edges of a different mask pulling over his face. I noticed the deception of someone trying to calm a child. That kind of act was always so clear to me, it was the first mask that I ever learned how to put on.

I watch with concealed satisfaction as my brother's teacher makes subtle hand signs to another jonin in the room. Good, maybe they'd be more prepared to deal with the snake sannin this time around.

I was a lair, so deception and mass manipulation had always come to me like second nature.

It was easy to deceive when your deception were based out of truth and facts.

You couldn't trick truths and facts, they didn't bend to your will. Manipulating them was another story all together.

The best deception, the deception that gets you the results that you desire. That deception is the one no one sees coming. It is the one where no one realizes that they have even been deceived.

That deception, that perfect art of manipulation?

Well it was when the person doing the deceiving believed the deception themselves. Whole heartedly as the truth.

It was not easy to deceive other without first deceiving yourself.

The best deceptions after all are those based out of facts that you already believe to be true.

Facts, like people, do not change.

The fact?

I was a lair.

Or I was deceiving myself. It didn't matter.

XOXOX

Sorry about how long this took! I have been super busy with work, I work two jobs so I didn't have much time to write the last few days.

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed and favorited this story! Your guys are awesome! And this wouldn't be possible without you!

Please let me know what you all think! I cannot wait to hear from you!

On another note please forgive any misspellings of characters names or clan names. It might have been typo, it might be the fact that I wasn't sure or a billion other things. Do let me know about it, but don't find any offense in it okay?

I'm trying my best! : )

I hope you all have a great and lovely day!

Sincerely, La'Rae