Out of the Ashes

Chapter 7

Childhood

The days passed by quickly when I made up with Bu. We began walking to the academy together even when I was a brat to Bu and every Sunday I ate with Onna and Bu. It was... dare I say nice? I suppose it was. I continued to eat lunch with Kyuketsu though even when Bu would glare daggers at me when I denied having lunch with him. Also, I found out who Bu's crush was.

Oh yes.

Now this is a good one.

It was the day before our day off (See, what sucked about the academy was you only got Sundays off) and I was leaving the academy without Bu. I liked to be able to visit Sasuke on Saturdays for longer periods of time because we had off the next day and if Bu wasn't at the gate waiting for me then I was leaving him behind. As such it was one of these days.

I was about a block away when Bu, red faced and breathing heavy, caught up to me. Before I could get in my usual sardonic comment Bu had grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into an alley way where he pulled me with him to the floor behind a dumpster. I pinched my nose and glared at him while demanding he explain.

Bu, out of breath, gasped, "I'm an idiot."

"And this is news to you?" I retorted. Bu didn't rise at my comment like he normally would. Instead he leaned back against the wall and stuck his head in his knees.

"Fushicho, I hate your brother."

I bristled, "How come?"

"Because Sakura-chan likes him!" Bu sniffed.

I blinked. Then I thought about it for a moment. Then I connected the dots. I was dead silent while Bu stared at me from the corner of his eye for a good minute before I burst into laughter. It felt good to genuinely laugh that hard and I had to clutch my stomach and I ended up wheezing and snorting after awhile. Bu looked so taken aback when I was done that I had to take another minute to stop laughing from looking at his stupid face.

"Goddamn it Bu." I cackled, "Haruno Sakura? With the bubblegum pink hair?"

"It's more of a rose pink, Fushicho." huffed Bu. That set me into a fit of more cackling but I managed to calm myself back to my usual self after this one.

"Alright, I'll bite." I said while rubbing my eyes to make sure there were no tears from my fit, "What about her could you possibly like?"

"What isn't there to like? She's smart and pretty and amazing!" Bu gushed. I blinked at the odd sight and Bu straightened his back and he stared up at the sky between the roofs above us.

Bu, grinning, confided to me, "But I really like her hair."

I gave a pointed look to his hair, "Yours is pink too."

Bu returned the look, "No not the color! Idiot, it's really nice and long and well cared for and soft!"

At this we both took a look at my own hair. My hair was still that dark blue color from Momma and it was long and unruly. I didn't really take such good care of it so there were a lot of split ends and damaged hair that I didn't bother doing anything about. I had a hard time brushing it so half the time I gave up and I probably looked more like an Inuzuka than an Uchiha with how grungy I always appeared.

"Obviously," Bu chuckled haughtily, "You wouldn't know anything about hair."

"At least mine isn't hot pink and girly, Bu." I snapped, standing up. Bu scrambled up beside me and clung to my arm.

"Don't tell anyone Fushicho!" Bu cried, then, added as an afterthought, "Especially my mom..."

"How about I agree not to tell if you'll stop pissing off Aburame-san." I offered. It took Bu a few moments to realize I was talking about Kyuketsu.

With a pained groan he moaned, "Fiiiiine, I'll leave the false Aburame alone."

I smacked the back of his head and freed myself from his clutches. Bu walked with me to the hospital where we parted ways. The usual nurses gave me cheerful waves as I walked to Sasuke's room and I met one of the biggest surprises of my life when I slid open the door and entered. Beside my brother's bed was the Third Hokage and beside him were the two boring elders and my enemy, Shimura Danzo.

They probably heard me when I choked upon seeing them and they turned around. I immediately looked to the Hokage with wide eyes and I avoided eye contact with Danzo. The Hokage smiled cheerfully when he saw me, "Fushicho-chan, good afternoon. How was your day at the academy?"

"Um, good afternoon. And it was... fine." I said cautiously, sneaking a look at the other two elders.

"Shicho?" Sasuke asked from the bed, "They said I can see again soon!"

"How soon?" I immediately inquired.

"Next week." the Hokage supplied helpfully, "But there's a small problem."

I tried my hardest not to look at Danzo as I demanded what problem there was. The Hokage gestured to myself, "You aren't old enough to take charge of him medically and until you become a Genin you cannot. So there is no one who can authorize the surgery."

I almost called bullshit but then I remembered who else was in the room with us. Danzo must not have liked me flunking out of Kakashi's apprenticeship immediately.

"However," The Hokage's eyes twinkled, "If you apprentice under Kakashi then you can technically be treated as a ninja and an adult."

"He-" I was cut off by motherfucking Danzo.

"Hatake-san has agreed to take you under his wing again and to train you, as he should have the first time." Danzo's voice commanded authority and sent shivers down my spine. He was old and wrinkled and his voice crackled and lashed about in the air like lightning. To say the least he sounded like an authoritarian dictator. He could have given Hitler a run for his money I bet.

"Ah, okay." I said pretty meekly.

The Hokage smiled, "Kakashi will meet up with you soon."

Fuck my life, man.

.

I didn't hear from Kakashi that day so the next morning I went about my normal routine. It was around noon when I was finishing my shopping that Kakashi stopped by my home. He was waiting outside when I arrived home and I pointedly ignored him when I went inside but he followed me.

"How rude, I didn't even invite you in." I drawled as I set my basket down on the counter and began to unpack.

Kakashi blatantly ignored my comment, "Can you use your sharingan yet?"

"Of course not." I retorted, "I need training for that kind of thing."

"I'm sure you know the theory behind it, you should have been able to activate it by now." Kakashi told me, "It's been a few weeks but it wasn't meant to be that long. You failed your first test, by the way."

I sighed, "I have a problem with my chakra."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow and I explained, "Sometimes my chakra sparks and lights whatever I was focusing my chakra on or in on fire. Obviously I don't want that to happen to my eyes."

Kakashi actually rolled his eye at me and ordered, "Channel your chakra to your eyes."

"But-"

"Now."

"Can-"

"Now."

I bristled and, out of my anger, easily channeled my chakra to my eyes and then glared at Kakashi. He suddenly became much clearer and I could see blue lines running through his body. Kakashi crinkled his eye at me, "Was that so hard?"

"Let me put my fu-er-freaking groceries away." then I turned around and started putting my food away. A few minutes later and I was crossing my arms in my yard with Kakashi standing in front of me. He looked very smug and I was highly disgruntled.

I really don't want to admit how stupid I was but, "How do I turn it off?"

That was my first lesson with Kakashi and man, is he absolutely shit at teaching. Well, it might have been me. Either way, me and Kakashi just couldn't click at first. Sure he was an alright character but as an actual person he was annoying. He was always late, always had those stupid excuses, and he often did things to rile me up and enjoyed replying with eye crinkles and shrugs. And in the beginning he made fun of my fucking lisp. I had gotten a lot better with it but it was still pretty noticeable. It hadn't affected my speech drastically where I actually stuttered or the word just completely got away from me. But there was just the sound of my voice where you had to pause when hearing my voice for the first time because you knew there was something wrong with my voice.

Long story short though in regards to Kakashi, I hated him for that portion of my childhood.

While I say he was shit at teaching, that's a bit of an extreme. He's really shit at teaching about the sharingan. His sharingan and mine differed in the fact his wasn't actually his and mine could be turned on and off. After he taught me how to turn the stupid thing off we got to the basics of being a ninja. We really had to work on my speed because sure I can predict and see things clearly with my sharingan but I need the physical ability to keep up with it. So we really trained speed and I hated it because I was slow.

Oh, and we started me on tree walking. It is really cool to be able to walk up and down walls and I felt like spider man when I first started because I cheated and used my hands and feet to get a hang of it.

But that poor, poor tree. That tree, the one in my backyard, is now forever scarred. See, I had a similar problem to the leaf when I first started. I set my sandals on fire a couple times and the tree more than a couple times. So there's a permanent burned indent on that tree. At least I have a story to tell when people ask why that tree is a charred mess.

We also worked on my three academy Jutsu. We refined my replacement technique and now I could substitute with some smaller objects but the problem stayed in my henges and clones. Those goddamn eyes. While Kakashi hounded me to perfection that stayed. The eyes from my previous life still stared at me from every single clone and every single henge I made. Kakashi was just as stumped as I was on why that was happening but he figured we could leave it for now since I was still a Genin and it was changing something about me.

But I'm sure you're all curious about what happened with Sasuke. As promised Sasuke was released and came back to live with me but he will be forever scarred. The bandages came off his eyes and it was a shocker when I saw them. His irises were a bit lighter and his pupil looked like they were sightless. But he could see perfectly fine except they wanted him to wear glasses. My brother looked adorkable in glasses, just saying. And now he looked a bit more like me.

And his body would continue to have the scar tissue from where his body was shredded and his right leg had a scar that would never fade from where they had to reattach and regrow his leg. The rest of his scars would fade and shrink, never gone but they would become lighter and less noticeable. It didn't lessen his little fan club though, that remained as strong as ever.

Oh, Bu tried to get the last laugh on the crush thing by the way.

"How's your brother doing?" Bu questioned me at lunch one day when Kyuketsu was absent so I was actually eating with Bu. Sasuke, who had been back at the academy for a few days and was steadily catching up in the school work, was off with the guys. He had picked up his friendship with Naruto right from where they had left it and it was only blossoming stronger. Now that Sasuke was also an orphan he could relate to Naruto so there was one less hurdle in their relationship.

I looked up to where Sasuke was playing ninja and watched him get Naruto right in the back of the head with one of the toy shurikens, "Sasu is right back where he left off. It's surprising actually."

Bu hummed, "Even though he got pretty roughed up he still has his fans."

We both looked to where the majority of Sasuke's fan girls hung out. They took a seat by the building and would giggle and watch the boys, specifically Sasuke. Sakura was currently among them but she was distinctly separated from Yamanaka Ino.

"Oh yeah, your precious Sakura-chan likes Sasu." I snickered. Bu jumped at that and frantically made sure no one was around to hear it.

Bu narrowed his eyes at me, "Oh yeah? Well what about your fan club?"

I blinked at him, "Uh, what?"

Bu, in what was supposed to be a discreet motion, jerked his head to the side and I peered around him. A group of boys who had been playing a different game were sitting in a group. They didn't seem to be eyeing Bu and I so I told Bu he was a liar.

"I'm not lying, they're just smarter than the girls who love your brother. Besides, you hiss and claw at anyone who gets near you so they prefer to watch from afar." Bu huffed.

I put a hand to my chest and dramatically gaped at Bu, "Me? Hiss and claw at people?"

Bu rolled his eyes at my sarcasm and returned to his lunch. I did the same. But what I hadn't realized was that group of boys had noticed me looking at them. They had murmured among each other before electing one of them to come over and talk to me.

"Excuse me? Fushicho-chan?"

My head swiveled around at the boy's familiar way of addressing me. Typically I was Fushicho-san to everyone in school or maybe even Uchiha-san because of how distinctly anti-social I was. He was an average boy, I didn't recognize him so he wasn't important. Nothing about him was striking, no odd coloring like Bu or a rumor about him like Kyuketsu.

"Yeah?" I tilted my head and Bu was shooting me a look that screamed 'I told you so!'.

The boy looked back at his group briefly and then looked at me, "Um, are you... interested in anyone?"

I blinked. Bu was turning a shade of red from holding in his laughter and I was a bit flabbergasted that this random kid had just come up to ask me this. Also, I was eight. I was not dating an eight year old. Maybe when I reached puberty the teenagers could appease me but definitely not an eight year old.

"No." I stated so there was no room for argument. He looked a bit put off but had the courage to further ask, "Is there anything you uh, look for in a guy?"

"Nope." I went back to my lunch. The kid looked a bit heartbroken by my treatment but shuffled back to his group. Bu finally let out his laughter.

Bu chortled, "How do you have fanboys when that's how you treat people?"

"Obviously I'm adorable." I quipped. This allowed Bu to laugh for another minute before he tried to take a bite of his octopus shaped hot dog and he almost choked on it.

"Yeah right, with that hair?" Bu wiped his mouth on his arm and allowed himself to calm down before taking a sip of his bottle of green tea.

With an innocent smile I inquired, "Ne, Bu, you said Sakura-chan's hair is soft when you said you liked her... how would you know?"

And how glorious was the spray of tea that came out of Bu's mouth as he sputtered and tried to explain that he certainly hadn't purposely (For that reason) grabbed it during a sparring match (That he had gone easy on her in but still won).

Exasperated I took a bite of my pickled daikon radish and through my crunching I mumbled, "I can't wait for puberty hormones to make this so much worse."

"What?" Bu looked at me oddly.

"Nothing, nothing." and to end the conversation I chugged my own bottle of green tea.

That Sunday, Onna invited Sasuke to come with me for dinner. While Sasuke was disgruntled because he held a grudge against Bu for calling him Sasuke-chan along with his mother he still came.

"Onna-san's food is better than yours." grumbled Sasuke as we walked to Bu's.

"Hey, I make a mean pickled-"

Sasuke cut me off immediately, "That's all you can make."

"Don't be mean Sasu. I try." I pouted at him.

"I want to live to make Genin, Shicho." Sasuke retorted with an eye roll behind his adorable square framed glasses. He looked like an absolute dork but he was an adorable dork and had Momma been around she would no doubt have to beat girls off him with a stick when he was a teenager.

When we reached Onna's Sasuke puffed his chest up when greeting Bu and Bu did basically the same thing. I don't really understand ninja boys so don't ask me. Were they marking their territory or something? Was it a boy thing? Was it because they didn't like each other?

Either way, dinner was a pleasant affair. Sasuke, somehow, ended up with Onna promising to show him some fire Jutsu because she was had a fire affinity and Bu had nearly died when he thought she was going to show him her explosive Jutsu. Bu wanted to show off the fact he could make explosions already but Onna shut down the idea even though even I wanted to see that.

"They're being boys, Fushicho-chan." Onna told me quietly as Sasuke and Bu both argued over whether Bu's explosions would be better than Sasuke's fire.

I made a disgruntled noise in the back of my throat, "I have to deal with this twenty-four hours a day. I get your son at the academy and Sasu at home."

Onna smiled, "Then you should be used to it."

I just sighed at her. But those times were good. And in the future, I would look back on them and smile.

AN

This chapter was almost 6k words. I just looked at my word count and literally cut out half the chapter and boom, two chapters done. Well, almost two chapters. There's a time skip next chapter because nothing happens for awhile. Childhood is boring.

Fun Fact- I decided I liked the style of using a . for spaces in stories. I saw an author I like do it and was like "Ay that looks good" (On mobile anyway...)

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