When Meika was five, it was decided that she was old enough to attend the Shinobi Academy.

She was quietly horrified.

The thing was, nobody had asked her. They'd asked Mikoto, who was still her primary caregiver in the eyes of the adults. They'd asked Fugaku, who was actually her father in this life, no matter how hard she tried to deny it, and her Clan Head besides. They'd even asked the Clan Elders, who she had never met, but who seemed to enjoy sticking their noses in other people's business immensely.

Nobody had asked her.

It was demeaning, disrespectful, and simply appalling.

Never mind that she would have said yes even if they had – she refused to remain defenceless on principle. The fact was, they hadn't, and even if she was not actually five years old, they didn't know that, and it hadn't stopped them from signing her in for the future full of blood and death.

It… made her realise some truly uncomfortable things about her Clan. About her parents.

About Mikoto.

Meika… didn't like it. She hadn't even realised that she had managed to turn her new mother in some kind of saintly figure until Mikoto happened to completely disregard her opinion. No, not disregard. It was even worse. She did not care enough – or did not think her smart enough – to even ask for it.

It hurt. It wounded something deep inside her chest, the part of herself she remembered always bleeding whenever she found a body of a friend, left for dead after a battle. It reminded her uncomfortably of the life she had left behind, of always being disappointed by the adults, of only ever trusting her friends completely. In her last life, adults did nothing. Children supported her, children fought with her, children died for her. Adults… They simply failed her.

Mikoto disappointed her, and since she had lowered her guard in this new universe, she had not been ready.

She would not make the same mistake again. Never again. Itachi depended on her.

Still, she dutifully went to school – and got some truly disturbing flashbacks of her time in Hogwarts, both good and bad – and didn't raise hell for them, if only because she actually wanted to attend. To be left helpless, powerless, in this new and strange world while she had Itachi to protect was unacceptable.

Especially now when her Clan revealed its true colours.

At least Shisui was excited.

He was two years older than her, in this new body of hers, and already attending the Academy. He was expected to graduate at the top of his class in a year or so, and everyone was gratingly smug about the fact that the Uchiha Clan produced such a prodigy. And he was clever, with a weird combination of Hermione's sheer brilliance, and the twins' effortless creativity that made the Elders go mad when he decided to start another pranking spree. Meika, despite her general dislike of immaturity and, you know, small children, did actually like him and considered him a true friend.

She had a feeling that the twins would have approved. Kushina certainly did.

The Academy, though, was not as fun as advertised. In fact, it was almost deadly boring. Partially, it was because she was mentally older than most of the teachers and the childishness of her classmates rubbed her the wrong way, and partially because she knew most of the material by heart.

Taijutsu was, admittedly, interesting, but they covered only the Academy basics, most of which she had already gone through with Mikoto and Shisui. Ninjutsu was only available to the older years, and even then only the three fundamental justus. And the basic genjutsu… It was so pathetically easy that Meika wondered how no one else in the whole class – most of them at least a year or two older than her – couldn't do it.

Shouta-sensei claimed that it was because she had exceptional chakra control. And she supposed she could understand that. Chakra was not something she had had in her first body, was not even similar to magic by the way it felt, so its presence was easy to detect for her, and easy to manipulate. For others, who did not know any other existence, feeling chakra at this stage of training was probably a bit like trying to feel your blood flow – impossible.

Kunoichi classes, though, were waste of her time. They were useless, hilarious in the way the teachers took themselves so seriously, and demeaning; because, according to the Academy curriculum, only girls were being trained for infiltration and seduction. She would have refused to go on principle, but if she wanted to skip a few years and join Shisui when he graduated, she had to be the best at everything. Even something as stupid as flower arranging. (Meika understood the need to blend in, she did, but really? Flower arranging?)

And Meika would. Skip a few years, that was. If she didn't, if she allowed a seven years old kid to finish a school before her, her pride – what was left of it after the goddamned nappies – would never survive.

Not to mention that Hermione would find a way to cheat death and cross dimensions just to kill her.

Her best friend was scary like that.


"Aneki?"

Meika looked up from the scroll she was reading and met Itachi's eyes with her own strange green orbs. "Yes, Ita-chan?"

Itachi refused to blush at the affectionate nickname, but he did look down at his feet, shuffling closer to his sister. Meika, sharp and clever in the ways of three years old geniuses, caught his hesitation immediately and scooted down the boulder she was sitting on, patting the empty space beside her.

He sat and placed his pale hands in his lap despite wanting to wring them. Father said that the Uchiha did not wring their hands. "When will the war end?" he said quietly, asking the only person that answered all of his questions. He could not go to Otou-san, because he was distracted with Clan business and would not have time to answer. He could not even ask Okaa-san, who was very good at answering questions, because she was out there, fighting, with Kushina-san at her side.

Meika looked at him, her eyes filled with understanding. "Is this about yesterday?"

Itachi nodded.

Yesterday, a convoy from the warfront came back, carrying the wounded and the dead. Itachi had never before seen anything like that, and it hurt something deep in his chest every time he remembered. There had been an Inuzuka boy at the gates, waiting, and when he had seen one of his clansmen dead on a stretcher, his agonized howl had made Itachi want to cry. There had been many more corpses. Some of them only a year of two older than Aneki.

Itachi fought off a shudder.

Meika, sensing his mood, slung a slender hand over his shoulder and drew him closer. He tried not to bury his nose in her neck like a baby. "I don't know when the war will end, but I heard that Suna is slowly lagging behind. With the defection of Akasuna no Sasori they've lost their best fighter. Kumo is going as strong as ever, but Kaa-chan and Kushina especially are successfully fighting off Iwa."

Itachi relaxed into her side even more. "How do you know all that?" he asked, because he'd always wondered. Meika knew the bet gossip, more than most of the adults did, in fact, and she always shared with him and Shisui when they asked.

Aneki's smile was wicked. "I'm a five year old girl, Ita-chan. Nobody notices if someone so young listens in on important conversations. And even if they do, they don't think I understand."

Itachi frowned. Meika understood everything. "But you're a prodigy."

Meika giggled, the sound vibrating through Itachi's ribs. "A five year old prodigy. Most of the adults will only ever see your age. Use it to your advantage."

Itachi obediently nodded his understanding. It made sense. Like when some of her older classmates thought she was weak because she was a girl and small, and then Aneki always surprised them and beat them up easily.

They sat together for a few minutes, surrounded by comfortable silence. Itachi listened Meika's steady breathing while his older sister went through the scroll at steady pace. She frowned occasionally, dissatisfied, and Itachi was willing to bet that the material did not offer enough explanation for Meika.

It rarely did.

When he felt that the silence had gone on long enough, Itachi shifted hesitatingly. "Aneki…"

She glanced at him, green eyes attentive. "Yes?"

Itachi looked away and refused to meet her eyes. "Are you going to fight in the war?" he asked, rushing, because this question had been nagging at him ever since he saw those small, small corpses and crying families.

"Ita-chan," Meika sighed, but Itachi was careful not to catch her gaze and she sighed again. "Itachi," she said, determinedly. The use of his full name startled him, and his gaze skittered to her face, before he looked away just as fast. "Look at me." There was a pale, calloused hand at his cheek, turning his head gently and Itachi met the green depths of Meika's eyes.

They were sad, just as he had been afraid of when he'd asked the question, but they were also filled with some sort of understanding and not a trace of pity, and something in Itachi relaxed.

Her lips were thinned as she obviously thought over his question. "Listen to me carefully now, Itachi," she said, and even though she never ever ordered him to do anything, not really, Itachi knew when to obey. He listened. "I don't know if I will be sent to fight," she said, and his eyes dropped down as he tried to ward off tears. "Listen," Aneki repeated. "I don't know. But I know that they're letting the genin graduate early so that they can free the more experienced fighters. I know that Shisui-kun and I are prodigies, and that Shisui-kun will graduate soon. And I know that I'm not letting him go out there alone."

Itachi nodded and buried his face in her chest. Meika fisted a hand in his hair. "Do you understand why I want to fight, Itachi?"

"To protect Shisui?"

He could feel the inky strands of her hear drag across his skin as she nodded. "And to protect you, and Kaa-chan, and even Konoha to some extent."

Itachi scooted away just enough to meet her eyes, his own filled with worry. "But isn't Konoha meant to come first?"

Meika lifted one dark eyebrow. "They certainly try to teach us that, don't they?" she said, and there was something wry in her voice as she did.

Itachi's throat tightened. Treason. He was smart enough to know that it was treason Meika was talking about, that putting anything before the village was just not done.

He was also smart enough to understand where she was coming from. And to agree.

He re-buried his face in the familiar, comforting warmth of Aneki's body. "But what if you get hurt?" he asked, because he couldn't force himself to voice the real question. But what if you die?

Meika's hum was knowing and her hands tightened around him. "Then I get hurt fighting for something I believe in. It's a better fate than many others." She paused as she placed a warm hand at his back for support. "But I'm not likely to get hurt. Even if they send me out there, it's not likely that they're going to trust a fresh genin with anything dangerous or important."

Itachi let out a breath he did not know he was holding. "Good."

They stayed like that for a long while.


So, I gave Itachi a sister complex. Tell me, is anyone out there really surprised?