Out of the Ashes

Chapter 3

Kid Problems, Ew

The first two months of the academy passed by and I was pleasantly surprised by how Sasuke and Naruto's friendship went. Around halfway through the second month the clan kids started to spar with the civilian kids. Despite the fact Sasuke's taijutsu became superior to Naruto's in that time due to him also seeking clan training he and Naruto went at it. Naruto never stood a chance, not at this point in time, but they would always make the reconciliation seal after their match which was a difference from the anime.

Sidenote, I could destroy the civilian kids very easily. It was great. Clan kids, while I had much better motor control and a more mature mind, were a force to be reckoned with. They were more durable than me and already much more conditioned to this life than me.

I myself spent those two months managing to con Itachi into training me once each time he was home. I soon became decent with throwing shuriken and kunai and I trained that when I got home. I also took to spending an hour at the library every few days. I would sit down, find an interesting scroll or book, grab a pile of dictionaries that was as tall as my midget frame, and start reading. I didn't really focus on conditioning my body outside of the academy.

The start of the third month brought the beginning of learning chakra basics. The first month was chakra theory and Iruka-sensei telling us to leave our chakra alone unless we're supervised or else we'll all die. He of course worded it much nicer but that was the basic meaning of what he said. Chakra basics really began halfway through that month where we spent a good amount of time meditating to find our chakra. I hated meditating, if you were wondering.

The real curriculum for chakra didn't really begin until we were seven because our coils would be developing for a long time. But chakra control exercises like the leaf exercise could only help make them bigger and there were many more exercises that followed that one. Iruka-sensei stuck several papers to himself to gain our interest.

"Alright, I want you to each focus on the leaf in your hand and try and channel chakra there so that it sticks to your hand." Iruka-sensei ordered us after demonstrating on the first day of actual trying to use chakra late in month four. I was hypersensitive to chakra and could quite easily grab at it. For me chakra was foreign and burning and I could easily direct this foreign object since I could differentiate it.

I pushed my chakra to my hand and stared intently at the leaf. I maneuvered my chakra and grasped at the leaf before waving my hand around rapidly for the leaf to not come off. Pleased with myself I grinned and tried to layer more chakra, hoping to see what I could do.

I think my screaming was what caught Iruka-sensei's attention first. I wasn't expecting my leaf to spontaneously combust. I had flailed my arm around rapidly, shrieking because there was a FIRE OH MY GOD ON MY HAND. Once the burning leaf was off my hand I stomped on it on the floor to put it out and took a deep breath. I froze when I noticed everyone was staring at me and Iruka-sensei was walking over at a faster than normal pace.

Iruka-sensei frowned at me, "Fushicho-chan don't practice your clan Jutsu here. Work on the exercise I assigned." I tried to explain I had no idea what happened and I was doing the exercise but I got scolded for back talking. As it turns out each time after that even when I put the slightest bit of chakra on the leaf my chakra would suddenly "spark" as it felt to me, and then my leaf would be on fire and I'd flail about until it was on the floor so I could smother it with my sandals.

Iruka-sensei got fed up with me and my spontaneously combusting leaves so he wrote a note for me to give to Momma and shoved me out the door with orders to go home and think about what I'd done. I stomped home to the Uchiha compound and sulked by walking around the compound. Momma was home but I definitely wouldn't be showing up there any time soon.

I ended up sulking by the training grounds where I found Itachi training. I sat off to the side and watched him go through various hand signs so quickly I couldn't make any of them out. After a few minutes he finally noticed my presence and turned to look at me, "Shicho-chan?"

"Ita." I replied evenly. He asked me why I was home early and I answered by shoving the note at him. He looked over the note and then with a muted look of surprise he seemed to read it over again.

"What were you doing to Iruka-san?" Itachi questioned me.

I pouted, "Nothing to him. My leaf was randomly catching fire."

"Show me what you were doing." Itachi's sharingan spun to his irises and I jumped, spooked. That was something that would take getting used to.

This world took getting used to actually. Young children walking around by themselves, weapons lying everywhere, death being common and killing being part of everyday life. People jumping from roof to roof and spewing fire and their eyes changing... It took a few years to get rid of my logic that people shouldn't be able to do those things.

Itachi ignored my jump and plucked an innocent victim from the tree. I took the leaf and did exactly as I had in class.

"Eeeeyah!" The leaf went up with a cloud of smoke and I tossed the flames to the ground while holding my burnt hand to my chest. Itachi frowned and I think he would have made me do it again had I not looked like I was ready to run.

Itachi knelt down so he was eye level with my midget self and he ruffled my hair, "I didn't see you doing anything wrong. I can ask father if you'd like." I shook my head rapidly at that. No way did I want Father finding out about this.

Itachi checked my palms over and found only minor burns that I hardly felt. Itachi wanted to bandage them but I had waved him off while distractedly murmuring, "-it's nothing compared to the burning."

Oh, shit. That wasn't supposed to be said out loud.

Itachi seemed to know I wasn't talking about the burns from the spontaneously combusting leaves and I couldn't fix my slip up. Itachi stared me down until I relented and explained, "My hyper-sensi-tivity," my lisp didn't like that word, "is bad. Chakra burns me, I can feel burning all around me and inside me." I didn't mention how I sense or how my taste buds seemed to be permanently burned.

Itachi leaned back to ponder this for a few moments. I could almost see the gears turning in his head for the seconds he was no doubt scouring his mind for an answer. Then he smiled at me and asked if I wanted to go get dango with him.

I mentally got whiplash from that abrupt U-turn in conversation. Ignoring the sudden topic change as I doubted he'd do anything with my information of how things burned I accepted and we went to get dango. I told him about Naruto and Sasuke's friendship and I asked him how his missions were. It was casual talk but the bonding between us it was doing was very much worth it. We munched on dango and returned home for Itachi.

It was actually then that Itachi was able to witness first hand my extreme fear of fire. As I had interrupted his training after waiting half an hour for his dango to digest he started training again. I followed behind him slowly, working on his stretches in a more laid back way. I couldn't follow his hand signs nor could I try and keep up with his speedy kunai and shuriken.

"Katon, Gōkakyū no Jutsu!" As soon as I heard the Jutsu name I was nearly hyperventilating as a fireball that was about the size of a car was spit out of Itachi's mouth. My body froze up in my fear at seeing the fire and I put my hands to my head and collapsed into a ball. Suddenly I was back in my bedroom desperately trying to find a way out.

I was clawing at the window. Why couldn't I fit? Why was I so big? Why did my brother do this to me? Was it on purpose? An accident? Was I going to die? I needed a way out. I had to get out. Get away from the fire.

But there was no way out. There was never a way out.

Itachi took notice of my condition after doing the technique a second time to spew out a flamethrower.

"Shicho-chan?" I probably looked as traumatized as I was, my eyes wide and my mouth tight in a fine line as my teeth grit together. Itachi asked me if i was alright, then shook my shoulder when I didn't answer.

I sat up after a moment and looked at Itachi but couldn't meet his eyes, "Will I be a bad ninja because I'm afraid of fire?"

"Everyone has fears, you learn to overcome them."

Something told me death was something you could never overcome.

That night Itachi didn't bring up my getting sent home at dinner. Sasuke sure did though.

"Ne, don't be mad at Shicho-chan," Sasuke spoke up through a mouthful of pork, "She didn't mean to."

"Mean to what?" Momma asked and Sasuke shared a sharp look with me. His face screamed "Oh shit" as he realized I hadn't given her the note.

"Nothing!" Sasuke and I both squeaked and Father looked up with interest while Momma narrowed her eyes at us. Itachi continued to eat but he watched with not a single flash of emotion in his dark eyes.

Itachi spoke up when Momma asked again and me and Sasuke exchanged a series of looks that meant I was going to kill him and that he was so very sorry and that he wanted to stay alive, "She brought home a note. She was having chakra issues due to her hypersensitivity."

The lie was brilliant. Father looked down at his food and Momma gave me and Sasuke another look before she went back to eating. After all, Itachi wouldn't lie to them, or so they thought. Itachi was also an excellent liar. I nearly sighed in relief. After dinner I hugged Itachi and thanked him for covering for me. Itachi gave me a smile in return.

That issue continued for the longest time. When the class moved onto heavier objects almost two months later I still couldn't stop bursting leaves into flames. Iruka-sensei didn't want me to light myself on fire so I wasn't allowed to try anything else or on any parts of my body other than my hand. Of course I also had no desire to light myself on fire so I actually listened for once. I had already died that way once and didn't want to try again.

As there was the sounds of frustrated groaning around me (Turns out sticking a paperclip to your foot (even bare feet) was pretty difficult) I was trying my hardest to not set the leaf on fire. I saw Hyuuga Hinata eyeing me from the corners of her pearly eyes and biting her lip while poking her pointer fingers together. Hinata, as she was a Hyuuga, could already do every single chakra control excercise they threw at us. Until we started Jutsu in our seventh year she wouldn't have much to do. At this point we were developing our chakra control and chakra coils enough so that we could perform Jutsu and Hinata didn't have the coils to perform a Jutsu yet. She could walk on the wall for about five seconds though which was actually really cool. She fainted after doing that though because Naruto bounced over to her and interrogated her on how she was doing it.

Naruto hadn't joined us for chakra control until around the middle of the leaf exercise. Naruto had boasted to Sasuke and I about how the Hokage was teaching him chakra control. And it made absolute sense. Why would you let a kid unaware he had a chakra demon inside of him try and access chakra in a building full of kids? What if Naruto accidentally unleashed Kurama upon us all? Giant chakra demon in the village for round two and this time there wouldn't be Kushina with her chakra chains and Minato. That event would kill a lot of people before someone could stop the fox.

I think that happening would honestly just kill me from the intensity of that burning chakra, but shush.

Background aside, back to reality.

"Uchiha-san," Hinata finally found the courage to talk to me, "Do you, um, need help?"

"Do you know what's wrong with my chakra?" I replied evenly. She frowned and to my surprise she activated her byakugan. I hadn't been aware that she was able to use it yet. Although it was to be expected of a main house member and she no doubt had the best control of the class currently. She concentrated in silence for a few moments before politely and quietly asking me to try with the leaf again. When I did she blinked in surprise.

"Your chakra is... sparking with chakra it's pulling from, um, the air."

I blinked and thought about it for a few moments. Then I made a hideous shrieking noise from the back of my throat that made Hinata jump and me sound like a pterodactyl, "I'm using naaaaa-ture chakra?"

For the rest of class I didn't touch chakra and immediately after the academy was over I hightailed it over to the library where I researched nature chakra so severely that Itachi had to come find me when I didn't show up for dinner.

"Shicho-chan, the library's closing."

"Shh, I'm reading." I replied instinctively as I turned from the textbook I was reading to flip through the dictionary I had beside me. Vocabulary was still a bitch for me in reading. Fuck kanji. Itachi looked over my shoulder and scanned what I was reading.

"Nature chakra?" he questioned. I slammed the book shut and found that I really didn't want Itachi to know that I was accidentally pulling extremely dangerous chakra out of the air on accident.

I gave him a big smile that we both knew was absolutely meant to distract him from the books, "Dinner, you said?"

And then we returned home. Unfortunately chakra wasn't the least of my childhood worries at that time. Momma noticed that I hadn't made any friends at the academy (Naruto was Sasuke's friend in her eyes). My anti-social behavior wasn't allowed, evidently. Momma had a sudden passion for trying to make friends for me since I couldn't and wouldn't do it myself. I fought this at every turn. All the other Uchihas my age I had zero interest in and when she tried throwing me at a few other girls my age I denied them similarly.

Then we met my childhood mortal enemy, or at least in his eyes I was his mortal enemy. His name was Bakuhatsu Obu and we clicked like water and oil. He was the son of a successful kunoichi (My Momma's old friend from her Chunin days) who used Genjutsu, fire Ninjutsu, and explosives. She also ran the seduction classes for the older girls. I would be enrolled in her class eventually. Seduction classes followed kunoichi classes and I found it odd that as young as ten years old I could learn to seduce. I wouldn't even have boobs at that point so seduction would be pointless.

"My name's Bakuhatsu Obu." he had greeted begrudgingly while his mother, who was an exact clone of him with their shared dark pink hair and orange eyes, glared daggers at him. He was a year ahead of me in the academy and you could tell he had about as much interest in meeting me as I did meeting him.

I had hardly given him a glance and I saw Momma almost wither at my snub, "Uchiha Fushicho."

Obu definitely noticed my snub and he seemed to be offended. His first thought rather than to call me out on my snub was to grab me by my hair and pull me to meet his eyes. Then he laughed at me.

"Ha, what's wrong with your eyes?" His laughter didn't stop and I looked at Momma once before I dutifully kneed upwards and down the six year old went with a cry. I flipped my hair over my shoulder as if to taunt him and I pulled one eye lid down while sticking my tongue out at him.

"What's the matter, getting beat by a girl, Bu?" When his face turned scarlet red at me missing the O in pronouncing his name I was pleasantly pleased to find that Obu's new name was Bu. Momma smiled when she saw the grin that game over my lips at his annoyance and after that day of meeting Bu, he became my most seen playmate.

"Why doesn't Sasu have to come?" I grumbled to myself one day when we were going to meet Bu and his mother, Onna, for the spring festival. Momma had wrestled me into a kimono for the festival and much to my chagrin it was a light yellow with pink cherry blossoms and a darker pink obi. When we met with Onna and Bu Momma happily shoved me forwards and Bu wasn't able to look down on me. His mother had most likely wrangled him into his yukata, it was a deep green with a manlier gold floral design (He was wearing a girl's yukata, I found out later but he swore the floral design was the manliest possible). His obi was a deep pink-red that matched his hair and my own obi.

I snickered, "At least I'm a girl and get away with being cute." Bu's pink hair was pulled back into a stubby ponytail as it was long enough to dust his shoulders.

"At least I am cute." Bu replied with animosity I hadn't expected. Momma blinked at it and Onna sighed before yanking Momma away and exclaiming that we'd make up. Bu gave me a nasty glare.

"I could have been home. Training. But nooooo, my mom wants me to come play with you." Bu huffed and I narrowed my eyes at him.

"You think I want to be here?" I returned his snark, "I could be home. Training."

Bu continued to give me his nasty look before he sighed and seemed to fix his yukata before he reached forward with his much tanner than my own hands and wrapped it around my wrist. I blinked in shock as he looked away from me, "My mom wants us to have fun. So c'mon."

I ended up actually having fun at the festival. Bu ate more food than I thought humanly possible while I ate things that were sweeter than I'd have liked in my past life. After all, I had my permanent burned taste buds. Bu was bored by my inability to win at the fish catching game and we both won prizes at a throwing game after we denied being academy students. I passed as a non-Uchiha because of my eyes.

"You're not so bad, I guess." Bu had told me as we sat down on a bench in the park.

I looked at him, "I know I'm great."

Bu rolled his eyes but didn't say anything in regards to that.

I don't want to bore you with my day to day life of my fifth year of living (Being that young is boring) so I'll just give you the statistics. My lisp didn't get any better, when break came for the academy I was about average, and I continued with my chakra issues. I had the lowest possible score for chakra control (We didn't learn the three E ranks until third year) but my grades in everything else kept me from failing. Father wasn't too pleased about this but my hypersensitivity couldn't be helped.

My sixth year of living as Uchiha Fushicho was probably one of the most important years of my childhood. My sixth year was the year I put my second plan into effect.

Plan Don't Get Murdered By Itachi is a go.

AN

School started for me. Ugh. Let's not think about how busy I am going to be. AP classes, pre-college course on Sundays, out of school sport, driver's ed. I'm going to die.

Also ew, filler chapter that has been sitting on my laptop for a month with me forgetting it's done.

Fun Fact- I just wanted Fushicho to have a friend she could call Bu. He does have plot relevance though.

Thanks to the following for reviewing:

EverRose808
PurpleRawan
Thomas Drovin