Suki felt as light as she ever had as she flitted through the infinite bamboo forest. There were random breaks in the long thin stalks, giving way to medows with lush flora where she could finally breathe air that didn't smell of mold or moss. The sun was probably setting, since it seemed darker from when the test began, but she couldn't exactly tell through the thunder and rain. As soon as she plunged back into the maze of bamboo, the light shut off like someone flipped a switch.

She slicked her dark hair from her face and down her neck, ignoring the icy rivulets of water that used it as a trail to invade the back of her wet hoodie.

It was nothing compared to the freezing fear that gripped her heart.

The scroll she was meant to protect felt like a thousand pounds in her white side pouch, like the weight of her very life rested within the soaked paper. She couldn't stop moving. She had to find her teammates, and she couldn't let that ugly mother fucker catch her again. He was right on her trail, like a bloodhound tracking a frightened fox.

Sky blue eyes were almost glowing in the darkness, blinking away the rain as she tried to transcribe the fast fading tracks within the mud, running at the fastest pace her eyes could keep up with. Thankfully Jun and Masao weren't separated. Only her. She sent a pulse of chakra out, trying to both get a responding signal from her teammate and survey her surroundings. Nothing. She dodged a random trap she recognized as Jun's handiwork before realizing it was already triggered. They might have the upper hand then, at this point.

One particularly ragged breath later and a pain stitched her side, almost making her keel over mid-stride. The preteen managed to slow her momentum before she face planted, but only barely.

She dropped to her knees, bracing herself against the sturdiest bamboo shoot she could find under such short notice. She felt like a fish on land, gasping for air greedily. The fear gripping her like a vice increased tenfold as soon as she stopped, only barely managing to avoid another well-hidden trap.

Her vision seemed to pulse with her heartbeat, and Suki had to actively avoid channeling chakra into her eyes to appease the growing headache. She had no clue what would activate her newly discovered dojutsu, or how much chakra it would drain. The Hyuuga jonin Kota-sensei was friends with gave her a crash course on dojutsu the past two days while they were waiting for their turn in the exam, but it didn't feel like enough.

She heard her enemy before she saw him. Rumbling earth was a dead giveaway of an Iwa shinobi. Just as his scruffy blonde hair emerged from the ground she was crawling up her bamboo shoot like it was a rope, her tired legs swinging wildly behind her. When she got high enough she braced herself with a forearm and looked down, locking eyes with the same short Iwa Genin that had given her team a hard time the day they arrived in Ame.

He grinned, reminding Suki of a crooked comb with broken teeth. His brown eyes held a murdurous malice, unbefitting his cheery expression, but matching the killing intent rolling off of his chakra like boulders roll down a hill, slamming and crashing into eachother with true insanity. His high pitched voice cracked with exitement as he called to her, "Here, kitty, kitty! Did you get stuck in a tree? Let me- HELP!"

With a chakra-fueled kick, the bamboo shoot snapped and started toppling. His motion set off the kunai trap, which he wasn't fast enough to completely avoid, although she couldn't tell how much damage was done. She only heard the shlick of metal impacting flesh.

Suki, not wanting to near the ground and become an easier target for his earth jutsu, finally made use of her sore legs and started bunny hopping from stalk to stalk, following the direction she last saw her teammates' tracks in. The muddy prints were long gone now, but hopefully she would find some other sign of them.

The muscles in her calves and thighs were screaming after their second hour straight of running, but at least the test was half over. Almost immediately upon Team 13 entering the testing grounds, Suki had been separated from her boys. The blonde rock ninja immediately took after her, screaming a haphazard "BYE!" over his shoulder. Suki had no choice but to run or to meet him face to face, which in hindsight, she should have done. But when someone starts chasing you, the first instinct is to run.

The Iwa team seemed surprised at their own teammates' actions, apparently they hadn't planned for. They planned an ambush, not to separate both teams, is what she gathered from their shocked expressions. Their head-start was useless now.

Suki would gladly have stopped beat his ass at any point, if he didn't fucking cheat with his taijutsu. Every slide of his foot or flick of his wrist made the earth shake or sent dust into her eyes. Suki, who had been taught nothing but proper taijutsu and had never encountered such underhanded tactics before, was matching up poorly. All she could do was avoid his attacks, like water flowing around stones a child was throwing in a river. She relied heavily on her more flexible taijutsu styles as she analyzed his form, trying to build the kata in her minds eye.

The Uchiha bastard child couldn't possibly keep her balance with the very ground beneath her feet sliding around, and fighting midair was laughable at her skill level. Her (paper) training tessen were useless in the wind and rain, and her kunai were most useful at long range, which was hard to get when he could just pop underground and show up again right behind her. Every genjutsu she landed seemed to wash off with the rain, completely useless. He was far above her skill level, and under these conditions, she had little to no chance of winning a one-on-one fight. She needed her team.

Just then, a familiar sight almost made Suki cry in relief. Out of the very corner of her eye she spotted a small kikaichu big struggling against the wind, wobbling it's way towards her in the air. She reached out a pale hand and palmed it swiftly, allowing it to crawl up her sleeve, away from the harsh weather conditions.

They would find her. She was sure of it, now that she had a bug, though she was unsure of how the rain would effect their pheromone tracking.

Now she could focus on herself. She took out her ninja wire as she ran, slowly decending until she was once again running on the muddy ground. She prepared a few kunai as she scanned with her chakra, trying to find any sign of life. Maybe they had the same sensor jamming technique here?

Suki expected the blonde to come up on her any moment, but it wasn't happening. The tension in her stomach felt like a twisted coil ready to snap as she sat in the shadow of a particularly close cluster of stalks, catching her breath. She could only hear the static like sound of the rain as she sat, still as one of the bamboo shoots that surrounded her. She didn't dare close her pulsing eyes, as she might miss some visual threat her ears may not be sensitive enough to decipher through the buzzing rain.

It had been quiet for too long. She hadn't been counting the seconds, but she should have been, as ones sense of time tends to falter during such occasions. Her breath was almost completely returned to her, and she felt more grounded than she had since she left the underground exam room and found out she had a dojutsu.

She took her time to survey the area before making any sudden movements. It seemed like the rain lightened up, but only slightly. There was a tension in the air though, one Suki recognized as nostalgic but couldn't put her finger on. Her ears started ringing slightly as she strained them, trying to hear everything around her.

And then a scream tore through the static and the ringing, echoing around the dimly lit forest with an eerie bouncing quality.

It was Masao's.

Pulled into action by an invisible force, she started flying wildly towards the original cry, ignoring all the imposters trying to pull her off course. Her eyesight was almost rippling now, red with anger. The burn of her lungs and legs vanished, replaced by the hot tingle of chakra unconsciously boosting the adrenaline burst she just received.

Either she was running faster than she calculated or her sense of time was still off, because she arrived on the scene much faster than she expected. If her blood wasn't boiling before, it was now a roaring fire searing her veins.

Masao lay prone on the ground, kunai sticking out of his body at various angles. His eye was open, but lifeless; staring listlessly at the ground as Jun cried over him. His fat, ugly tears hit her dead teammates' bloodied cheeks along with assaulting rain pellets, leaving trails of pink running into the mud that coated the left side of his face, which was still pressed deeply into the ground. Like he landed harshly and never got up.

She didn't fail to notice the two dead Iwa shinobi, one speared through the stomach (presumably with one of her boys' earth jutsu) and the other pale and rather dehydrated looking, a side effect she recognized as death from rapid chakra drainage. She had seen it in action before and knew what the aftereffect looked like.

The world suddenly stopped vibrating, and snapped into a clarity even better than the one she experienced after the poison wore off after their first test. If she thought time was slow before, it was almost as if someone hit the pause button now. She watched, surprised, as she saw Jun's tears and the rain around them literally floating. The pulsing was now contained behind her eye sockets, faint, but an unignorable pressure.

Almost just as fast, time cranked up speed, but the clarity never faded. Jun finally noticed her presence, looking up to study her new shiny red eyes for the first time.

They somehow looked more natural on her than her blue eyes did, he found himself thinking, surprised. Her ash black hair was slicked back like some sort of shady businessman, keeping the strands from her eyes. It gave him a clearer view.

They were almost a purple, like there was a red film over her eyes mixing with the blue, causing the off-red coloring. Two commas were spinning rapidly in each eye, almost indecipherable. If she weren't so close, he would have just thought the light was shining off her eyes oddly.

She looked beautiful. He knows Masao would've wanted to see. But he won't wake up. Jun felt hot guilt press into his eyes, causing another bout of tears to fall free. He had been so jealous. So blinded by envy. Angry at Suki over something she had no control of, and as of the moment, something she didn't even want.

And now their numbers were even. Iwa had the advantage, to begin with, but the coin was flipped in their favor as soon as Suki broke off with the "Crazy One" as his teammates called him.

They played cat and mouse for a while, but then the crazy one showed up again out of nowhere, injured but still capable of taking Masao's life like taking candy from a baby. He wanted to tell Suki all of this. He wanted to explain. But the pain in his heart and the grief constricting his throat only let him cry out sobs of despair, mourning his lost brother.

Suki started crying too, but her tears were of blood. It burred and reddened her vision, but she paid no mind. She turned, quickly finding the tracks left in the mushy earth. She didn't know if it was her eyes that made it easier or if it was because the rain was letting up more and more every moment.

It didn't take long for her to come up on his rear. The ugly blonde was slowed down by a kunai sticking out of his thigh, suspiciously close to an artery. Suki fished for her previously prepared a kunai, throwing it with a deadly accuracy. It hit the top of his calf, the opposite leg of his other injury. He fell without even a grunt, and melted halfway into the goopy mud that blended in with the soaked forest floor. The blonde Iwa ninja still had a wild smile on his face as he tried to scramble away on his arms, like an elderly dog with a lame backside.

It was okay though, because Suki would show him something really funny.

She gave chase, this time being the bloodhound that hunted the sly fox. A rocky spire jumped in her view but with her new eyes she could react at the very moments notice, dodging easily. She easily caught him in a rough tumble, tackling him like she had done in a sport called Football in another life. He pulled her into a grapple, trying to take a chunk of her throat out with his teeth, but in this, she was superior. If only she could get her arm around his neck, but he wasn't giving her a chance. He couldn't use his earth jutsu when they were so close together, and she had more pure muscle than him. He couldn't take his eyes off hers, shocked at the sight of her sharingan. And that's when Suki remembered not only was the Sharingan good for copying jutsu, it also made genjustsu unordinarily strong.

She dug her chakra into his like tendrils, delving haphazardly, slapping him with the first genjutsu she thought of. It felt different, like it was barbed now, sticking to him instead of sliding off whatever defense he had prepared. She couldn't see whatever the Hell Viewing Technique showed him, but she could intensify it by the amount of chakra and killing intent she used. When he finally stopped with his grapple and fell limp enough, she quickly twisted her arm around his neck, ignoring his high pitched gurgles and far away eyes as she snapped it like a glow stick. Blood and spit bubbled out of his mouth, dripping over her pale arm.

As she looked down on his body, she didn't feel like it was enough. Not nearly enough. Using the genjutsu felt cheap.

She gave the corpse a couple of good kicks, before sticking an active explosive tag on the underside. Whoever tried to recover his body would hopefully get blown up along with the filthy mutt. She made her way back to Jun Jun, trying to ignore the way her limbs were shaking. The adrenaline was draining from her and mixed with her emotional and physical exhaustion, leaving her feeling like she belonged in the geriatric ward of Konoha Hospice.

Only, when she found him again, the last Iwa ninja was there with a swollen face and head, stabbing wildly at Juns' back with whatever energy he had left. He was panting, barely able to scream as he thrusted his whole body forward in a frenzy, "YOU... KILLED... MY... BROTHERS... YOU... BASTARD!"

Jun was gone now too. There wasn't any doubt. She took too long, or didn't analyze the situation well enough, and both of her teammates suffered.

The Iwa demon didn't look any older than Masao and Jun. She might've considered him cute if his face wasn't swollen and pockmarked with bug bites.

He didn't notice her approach, through his grief or injuries, she didn't know which. She kicked him to the side, off of her pulverized teammate, who didn't stand half a chance against such a brute without her or Masao by his side.

He fell harshly, sliding a few feet in the mud. They were both already caked in it though, so it didn't make much difference.

He laid there, sobbing. She noticed then one of his arms was broken. He probably had a few broken ribs too, and one of his ankles was bent at a 90 degree angle. He had a blooming bruise where his neck met his collarbone, which might've even been internal bleeding. The image burned itself in her mind, like everything else she saw that day inevitably would. She walked over, straddled his wide chest with her hips and locked his arms in place with her legs. He cried out, but she ignored it.

She took her time, making sure her hands were wrapped properly around his throat before slowly starting to squeeze. Blood dripped onto his face, and she realized she was once again crying. She squeezed harder, trying hard to ignore the shudder of grief that struck her.

The strange clarity started to fade from her vision, leaving the world dark and dulled around the edges. The soft static of rain was all she could hear over the sound of the child below her choking for air.

She looked into his one eye, the one that wasn't swollen shut. It was a stormy grey, matching the clouds that thundered above them. With a final squeeze, she crushed his trachea, and watched the stricken horror in his grey orbs fade into a glassy sheen.

She removed the scroll from her pocket, the soaking wet one that lost all meaning to her as soon as she heard Masao's death cry, shoved it past his swollen lips, and down his mangled throat.

She ambled her way slowly towards the exit of the forest, where a giant flare had been lit to guide her through the fog and mist that resulted from the rain.

She heard a "BOOM" go off behind her, and she wondered in the back of her mind if her admittedly petty plan was at all effective.

As the ground shook from her explosion, she realized she was also shaking. And sobbing. She only just noticed that she was crying so hard she could barely breathe, her lungs burning with a pain that didn't come near to matching the fresh wound in her heart. Her heart was racing so fast it was skipping beats.

Fuck whoever came up with this test. Hopefully he was the one who had to clean the bodies up.

Suki noticed the black ink swarming her vision, but kept walking forward. She blinked her blue eyes that felt like hot coal, and suddenly the ground was rushing towards her. And then the world went black for a while.

She didn't know for how long, or why she even fell asleep, but she knew she was being carried. She almost felt like a toddler again, being held against the beautiful Aki's shoulder.

Aki. She died the day of the Kyuubi attack, trying to protect her favorite child, the one people often said could've been hers, if you went by looks alone. Suki added her onto the list of "people to grieve".

When she awoke, she was being carried, but not from room to room in an orphanage. She was was riding something large through a wet, grassy field. Sounds of battle ripped her out of her slumber with a shock, and she gripped the first familiar thing she saw, which was Buro. He had her on his side, carrying her small small body like a mother would carry her toddler. When he saw she was awake, he practically threw her into a piggyback position.

"Good morning, child. It's taken you long enough to rouse." His deep voice rumbled. Suki gripped onto his white fur tighter and wrapped her legs securely around his waist as far as they would go, not wanting to slip. Her raspy voice could barely be heard over the rushing wind as they flew by fields of lush green scenery, and she had to clear her throat after she spoke. "What's going on?! Where are we?!"

She chanced a sky blue glance behind them only to panic. Kotaro sensei and the Hyuuga woman she had been calling Tohru-senpai were behind them, fending off unmarked enemies that seemed to drop from above out of nowhere or rip from the ground below like particularly determined mole rats, all aiming for her.

"We had to flee. I don't know the whole story myself. When Mako and I were summoned, there was a squad of Ame shinobi trying to take you to some hospital. Kotaro wouldn't allow it, he ordered us to take you and flee back to the village. They gave chase, and-" he was cut off by a feminine scream. Suki's muddy hair had dried, hitting her hard in the face as she whipped her head to see Tohru-sempai fall, a kunai jutting out the back of her knee. She had a hand outstretched towards Kota-sensei, who's lips were pulled back into a feral snarl, making him look more like Buro than Kotaro. Time suddenly stopped. Except it didn't.

Buro continued to flee with Suki on his back, so she was able to watch as her sensei slaughtered all of the rogue ninja he had frozen in place with his shadow. He hadn't quite left her sight, so she could still make out his form as he picked up his fallen comrade.

And also watch him get pulled underground in a classic Head Hunter trap, dropping the graceful Hyuuga next to him. Suki watched in mortified horror as a man crawled from the ground. She was only able to see a glint of black metal before Tohru was slaughtered in front of her sensei (she was his lover, they were lovers-) by a man who by all accounts should have fallen long ago, judging by the amount of blood leaking from the slash on his thigh.

She watched as sensei was knocked out cold. The man with the injured leg turned in her direction, and she had just enough time to meet his eyes as he raised his hand to the air and shot out a bright yellow flare.

Her grip on Buro must have become painful, but he didn't admonish her. They had long entered grass country in her sleep, so it had stopped raining, but she could still feel water hitting the arms that wrapped around his thick muscled neck. His choked voice made her finally turn around and loosen her grip. "He has not fallen. I would have been sent back to the summoning realm. I assume they have taken him prisoner. If I disappear before we reach Konoha, know he is gone. I won't stay longer than that though, I don't want to drain his strength."

He paused, before conintuing. "I don't think they will pursue any longer." The young girl only nodded, placing her filthy face against his course white fur. She felt embarrassed about getting him dirty, as she knew he hated to be unclean, but felt he would understand, given the circumstances.

She would have fallen asleep, but couldn't. Instead she spread out her chakra (in the way sensei taught her) and kept on alert for threats as she rested her still-pulsing eyes. She was tempted to try and activate them again, but the pain behind her eyelids and the warnings that Tohru gave her rattled her enough to suppress the urge.

The next week and a half on the way back to the village went much faster than the month it took to arrive with the caravan of merchants.

They only stopped for Suki to eat (berries or whatever roots Buro dug up for her, she even resorted to eating a rather juicy grub on a rainy day where they couldn't find anything edible) and use the restroom. Buro was running off chakra alone, and seemed exhausted by her measurements, so she followed whatever order he gave to her without question, and slept when she could on his bouncing back.

Which was admittedly difficult. She instead spent her time stretching her senses, trying to detect any approaching danger.

They stayed mostly silent, both still processing their loss. At one point Buro expressed to her how he had a newfound respect for some of the females of his tribe, as he didn't realize how much work such things were. And she wasn't even a real baby. At some point Suki confessed of how she wished she never discovered her sharingan. How she wished she could have stayed Suki Cho, instead of becoming Suki Cho the Bastard. Buro tried to figure out why the thought of being a bastard child bothered her so much, but she didn't quite know herself.

The small girl was being piggy backed when they finally arrived back at the village. Buro disappeared with a poof and a cloud of smoke enveloped her as she fell to her feet with a wince, already missing his presence. Her arms were positively singing with pain from holding onto his broad shoulders for so long, but she had no choice, particularly when the primate took to swinging in the trees (once they entered the Great Konoha Forest) to go faster.

She stumbled, falling to her knees. She almost felt like throwing up from the sudden dizziness she felt. She held back a sob, not wanting to cry in front of the gatekeepers that were now rushing towards her.

Oh good, one was a Nara. He would have recognized sensei-

...Sensei's summon. Suki felt a pang in her chest and submerged her grief under her exhaustion like she had been doing all week, trying to ignore the faces of her team flashing through her mind. Her whole body started shaking again, unable to hold back the physical manifestation of her frustration.

She was immediately swarmed by shinobi, before being whisked to the hospital. One of the woman at the gates she recognized at Masao's mother, holding a baby boy on one hip. She remembered the bug that had crawled into her sleeve and stayed there during the exam. It had bee too weak to move without the chakra of his master. She had managed to feed it some of her own over the trip, enough for it to live, but it seemed like the small creature needed Masao to survive much longer.

Even as she was being carted away, she outstretched a disgustingly muddy hand, and then a finger. She nudged the small insect with her chakra, urging him in their direction. She watched as it unsteadily flew, landing on the Aubrame's outstretched palm. She was probably unrecognizable under the grime she was coated with, but hopefully the bug could be recognized. Suki didn't manage to see the look on her face before one of the medics carrying her sent a burst of chakra through her system, effectively shutting down the exhausted part of her mind that had been keeping her awake and alive practically since she arrived in Ame.

She enjoyed the sleep. She floated in it for a while, enjoying the black void that consumed her.

When she woke up (she had been doing a lot of waking up in strange places lately), she was reminded of the hospital room she woke up in as a child, after the Kyuubi attack. There was a beeping monitor to her left, and a stack of warm blankets resting on her legs, making her sweat. Her first order of business was kicking them off, letting the cool air chill her sweaty legs.

She laid her head back into her pillow, letting the events of the past month and a half invade her memories.

The grief of losing her team, of sensei being captured because of her, the grief that came with the knowledge that they'd all still be alive and in Konoha if Suki had just been patient and graduated on time all hit her at once.

The shakes returned, and then the sobbing, and then she was all but screaming into her hands, ignoring the way her IV tore uncomfortably at her arm. Her heart rate monitor was screaming with her, as if it were joining her symphony of pain. Her eyes burned, and she couldn't tell if it was from the tears, from just waking up, or if she activated her sharingan again.

Two nurses rushed in, and from the looks on their faces, her dojutsu had been activated. They both looked like they had seen ghosts. Not wanting to look disheveled in front of complete strangers, Suki quickly tried to calm herself, embarrassed of her outburst, but she couldn't stop the silent tears streaming down her face. They quickly left once she was comfortable again, announcing that someone would be by soon to speak with her, and someone would be waiting outside her door if she needed anything.

She didn't wanna talk. The thought made her stomach curl. But they had to know what happened. Every piece of info was important when it could help them retrieve Sensei.

She fell asleep before they arrived, still exhausted, emotionally and physically. She was surprised when she woke up to see the Hokage himself sitting at the edge of her bed, with a blonde man with blue eyes she recognized as a Yamanaka sitting on a chair to her right.

She flinched at first, not expecting the company. The adults immediately plastered on fake smiles and sugary voices, trying to placate the injured girl they frightened. The Hokage's deep voice adopted a grandfatherly tone, one she was sure he didn't use with the rest of his shinobi. The fake tones set her on edge. She expected sugary tones and fake smiles from the adults in her previous life, but in this reality, they seemed to dislike "babying" children. "Sorry to give you a fright! Good afternoon, Suki. I'm sure you are aware of who I am,"

He sent her a wink, one that made her push down a smile that threatened to emerge against her will despite her horrible mood. She felt a flash of hot anger at herself, the prospect of being able to find humor at such a time was insulting.

"And this is Inotsu Yamanaka. Have you two met?" He questioned. At her silence, the blonde man answered. His voice was much more feminine than she expected. "No, Choko and I have not had the pleasure of meeting Kotaro's team yet."

For a Yamanaka, he didn't seem to have much tact. Both the mention of her missing sensei and dead teammates in the same second, and coming from someone else's mouth, was like a punch to her gut. It literally left her breathless.

She had been grieving all week, but she never had time to really process.

But she would not cry, not in front of the Hokage, and not in front of the blonde man who she now suspected was Kota-sensei's genin teammate. Suki held her breath and didn't blink until the tear that welled up in her icy blue left eye was reabsorbed. The Hokage continued the conversation, ignoring her reaction, if he noticed any. She was sure he had.

"I do apologize, as this must be hard. But we only have part of the story. We need to know what happened, from the minute you left Konoha. Can you do this for us?"

Suki hesistated only a second before launching into a full report, similar to ones she practiced with sensei. It was pretty uneventful up until they arrived at the Ame village gates. The room tensed when she mentioned Iwa's arrival and the taunts they were throwing, but it was nothing compared to the deafening silence after she described everyone's death. She caught a look exchanged between the adults.

Suki let her sensing loose for the first time since she arrived back in Konoha, just for a quick check of her surroundings, like she had been doing for the past week and a half to reassure both herself and Buro. She was surprised to note an ANBU, hidden behind a lazy genjutsu in the ceiling.

One she could easily break while the Hokage and Inotsu were distracted.

While the adults were silently communicating, she broke the genjutsu without even a handsign. The ANBU, which she could now see wearing a Cat mask, seemed like she shocked him stiff. He was looking down at her, and she was looking up at him, with wide, oceanic eyes.

Conversation forgotten, the Yamanaka rolled his eyes. "I told you to hide better."

Another ANBU with a wolf mask melted from the shadows behind her, making her jump once again. She couldn't sense that one. He had apparently given up on hiding since his counterpart was already revealed. They took different positions in the room now that they were visible, probably just to put her at ease.

The wolf was stationed in front of the window and the cat in front of the door. The Hokage smiled down at her. "What one could expect, from an Uchiha."

The satisfaction of being underestimated by an ANBU member was immediately dashed. She met his eye, for the first time, she realized. "With all due respect, Hokage-sama, I'm not good at breaking genjutsu because I'm the bastard of some Uchiha. I'm good because I practiced."

She felt the whole room deadpan, including the Hokage, at her words. He sighed. "I guess I should have broken the subject with more tact. It's been brought to my attention, Miss Cho, that you have developed an ocular kekkei genkai, one previously thought to be endangered."

His eyes glinted, but Suki was unable to tell what emotion flickered behind his perfect poker face. "Do you understand what this means?"

I stared at him, still trying to decipher whatever emotion danced around his chakra. "No, not really. I don't even want this."

She felt the wolf by the window's chakra for the first time, but only for a moment. She must have caught him by surprise. The Yamanaka next to her was confused, and rather unashamed. "What do you mean? Most people would kill for this ability. Shouldn't you be excited?"

Her blue glare froze him to his seat as she turned his gaze towards him. "Why should I be? It won't be long before people are knocking down Konoha's gates to get the surviving two Uchiha, both with Sharingan, which coincidentally happen to be male and female. Do you really think Ame would keep quiet about this? They might have even gotten the impression we have more Uchiha, that the clan wasn't as defunct as we made everyone think."

Her eyesight was pulsing with her heartbeat once again, and her voice had started cracking at the end, but she didn't stop. She brought her shaking hands to her head, trying to calm herself. "I just went from a nameless orphan to some freak Uchiha bastard child-"

"Enough." The Hokage's voice cut her off, taking on a more commanding tone, one she expected from a military leader. "It seems you understand more than you think."

Suki closed her eyes and took a deep breath, ashamed of her outburst. She forgot these people probably worked with Uchiha, and saw their abilities in action. It was very possible she did resemble or even act like them. But contributing all of her accomplishments to her DNA instead of her hard work was insulting.

"Here's what's to happen. You're to be given the standard recovery time. When that's over you will be placed on an apprenticeship to help train your new ability. Maybe when graduation comes around, we can place you on a new team. During this, please be patient while we figure out what to do about your sensei."

Hot anger flashed through her, but instead of making her feel strong, it drained whatever energy she had left. She simply nodded her ascent, and waited quietly as the shinobi left her room single file. She tried to keep her eyes closed, because she knew if they were open, she would be glaring at them all the way out.

She didn't want a new fucking sensei. She didn't want a new fucking team. But she wasn't about to give up on being a kunoichi either.

Inotsu, which she still wasn't completely aware of his relation to the subject at hand, was the last to leave, casting her a pitying glance that Suki resented.

Once they were finally gone, a nurse brought her some fish and soup, which she ate thankfully, even if she couldn't quite taste it. When her leftovers were carted away, she laid back into her comfortable pillow, trying to remember the last time she ever felt "normal".

Suki ignored the tears that occasionally fell as she drifted to sleep. Eventually her wet pillow became too uncomfortable, and she had to flip it to the dry side.

She doesn't think she slept, not really, but she rested her mind, meditating her emotions away. She wasn't a fan of meditation, but she could use a little inner-peace at the moment.

—————

A/N

I want to apologize for all the typos and misspellings. And the longer update times. I'm typing and uploading this all on the iPhone FanFiction app, so please take this into consideration.

Previous chapters will be edited progressively! Feel free to point out any typos or PM me if you're interested in Beta Reading.

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