One autumn night
It wasn't important what the reborn woman thought before and how probable it was or wasn't - nothing changed the fact that Uchiha Fugaku wasn't a jerk, or at least it seemed so. He was a bit emotionally crippled and a variety of his facial expressions for sure could use some work; but the moment the man rolled his hopelessly tired body into Itachi's room, just to wish him good night and manly clasp the boy's shoulder (Uchiha men don't do affectionate gestures like kissing or cuddling), Shiori knew he truly loved his son. She saw it in his eyes, it was the same kind of warm gaze with which Minato looked at her a few short seconds just before nestling her to sleep.
The red-haired girl hugged her favorite toy Sannin, now labeled lovingly as Orochi-cchi and snuggled into a pillow purring. To her relief, the two Uchiha boys soundly went to sleep; without additional chattering and pillow-fights typical for all sleepovers in her previous life. After the day she just had, the young Uzumaki couldn't be more happy because of it. She eyed the dark-haired children lying on the other side of the room and couldn't understand the purpose for which served such a distance, because if those two of the most adorable and innocent boys in existence wanted to do something improper the few feet of additional space between them wouldn't do any difference. Truth be told, with her lazy person it was a totally different matter. The reborn woman was wholeheartedly against getting up from bed for whatever reason, even if she was pulled out of it by pair of particularly burly oxen.
Nonetheless, no matter how much her sluggishness and mental wellbeing demanded sleep, her bladder knew better, waking her a few hours later and forcing her to take a night stroll to a loo. Apparently, the big supper they had wasn't only her personal undoing because Shisui's futon also was empty. If the girl wasn't so sleepy she would be fuming that not only she had to go to the completely different part of the house to use a bathroom, because more than one would be superfluous luxury even for a clan head; she apparently also had to get in a line! But since the reincarnated soul couldn't function properly right after waking up without a cup of coffee, regardless of the incarnation, the world was safe and mostly asleep.
The redhead put Orochi-cchi in a collar of her pajama, so no one would even think that she had some evil intentions and the girl moved ahead. There was no sound beside the tapping of her feet on the hard floor. The night was starless and the moon was covered by murky clouds that blended in with the rest of the sky. The relentless downpour of the day had since tapered off into a softly falling mist which managed to paint the area in a strangely bizarre light when the street lamps caught on the tiny droplets of water granting each lantern a delicate golden aura.
It was quite probable that in other circumstances Shiori would stop and spent a while contemplating this scene heralding the upcoming change in the weather, but when a child's bladder was clutching as if thrown into an extruder, there was no time for any nonsense. The only thing that managed to halt her determined march was a bunch of voices - agitated male voices, that were coming from behind a closed door.
"Tekka-san, it really isn't…"
"What? They're doing it with premeditation and you know it! The Village is sending Uchiha to the most dangerous areas. We have more causalities than any other clan."
"Hokage-sama believes in our power, that is why he entrusts us the most delicate tasks. Uchiha was one of the main foundations of Konoha right from the start."
"Fugaku-sama, with all respect I've to agree with Tekka and it isn't only the two of us who think like that. There're others, some're even talking about the incident when you've become the head. They're calling you usurper who committed a coup and now is hiding behind Konoha's elders. They're…"
Shiori stopped listening, forcefully blocking her ears with her hands. She was in enough shit as it was, she wasn't in need for any more nor did she sought it. The girl wanted to get back on track and soundlessly slipped through this hellish corridor but as if sent by Satan himself, near a half-open shoji panel leading to a garden, was sitting a young cat - the black and white ball of fur was ready to pounce on a flock of moths surrounding the lantern which illuminated the entrance. The girl held her breath and shut her eyes. She couldn't watch how her doom unfolded!
After a second survived in blissful ignorance, one poll of gold glanced at surrounding her world, encountering two black eyes from which a disbelief peered out, slightly dulled by the sizeable dose of resignation. The meaningful gaze belonged to Uchiha Handa, Itachi's uncle she encountered before; whereupon the man was left with a broken leg, that even now was still in a cast.
The unlucky male sighed and pushed the girl to a corner with his crutches.
"It was only a cat but we should save this conversation for another time. There are children in the house. It would be unfortunate if they heard us."
Three pompous men walked out of the room. Shiori couldn't see them fully, hidden behind Handa's legs but what was more important they couldn't see her. The reborn woman was frightened out of her wits. Her legs trembled, her chubby hands were sweaty like a long-tailed cat in an apartment full of rocking chairs; and what was the worse – she went totally numb and dumb.
The girl had no idea how she entered the dreadful room and was now standing in front of Fugaku.
"Uzumaki-san," Itachi's father didn't seem too surprised by her presence anchoring his attention on her trembling figure. "For how long have you been standing there and what have you heard?"
"If I tell you I heard nothing, you won't believe me, right?" His gaze told here everything. "I thought so."
"Then?"
"I heard nothing significant, really. Just about some malcontents that don't like how the things are - but that's normal. Everywhere has always been and always will be one unhappy bunch or the other. No to mention they're a horde of idiots. Your clan is bigger than any other in Konoha, it's obvious you're going to have more causalities – at least directly; looking at it as a percentage Uchiha probably won't differ from the norm."
The girl's uncontrolled word cap ended with the lack of air in her lungs. The moment of silence in which she needed to catch a breath seized Fugaku's younger brother.
"And about the presumptuous coup?"
Shiori answered before the oh so needed air managed to reach her brain.
"As far as I know Madara was the last legitimate Uchiha's head. After he eloped a new chain of command needed to be developed and in a shinobi clan it must involve some fighting. That's all for me; no takeover, just a simple bloody evolution of governing system." Seeing their faces, she hurriedly added: "Of course that's my humble opinion but what may I know? I've the political awareness of a lemming."
The horrified child watched with dread as the rock, commonly known as Uchiha's clan head, moved to cover his face with his hands - no longer able to even look at her, and that could mean only one thing. She was going to be brainwashed! One look into those cursed crimson eyes and her memories would be gone. They couldn't do it, they just couldn't! Her precious brain wasn't something anyone should mess-up with. Fugaku was going to… quiver?
It was odd but it was precisely what was happening. Fugaku was trying to stop the upcoming mirth so much his whole body was shaking. The redhead glanced at the other man, who tried in vain not to crack a smile.
"What's so funny?" asked the girl, not seeing anything comical in her own terror. She clutched her Orochi-cchi so hard as if she could squeeze the true Sannin out of this toy.
"I was just thinking about my son's infatuation in your person."
" Infatuation? He isn't infatuated in me! He's just, he's…"
"Obsessed?" Handa suggested.
"Interested. He's interested. And I'd like to mention it's all his doing. I had nothing to do with it, I swear!"
Fugaku's black eyes, so typical for the Uchiha, studied her with piercing scrutiny.
"You're a very interesting person, Uzumaki-san, therefore Itachi's interest. Also, he is my son and so he has a good taste."
"Thank you?" Shiori was dumbfounded. The best solution seemed to be flowing with the tide, regardless to where it would take her. It couldn't be worse than looming over her brainwash. In the end, they couldn't just kill her, right? At least the probability of it was significantly lower than the present danger of spontaneous combustion from shame, when her poor bladder wouldn't last in the end and it'd be going to let up.
She really, really had to go to a bathroom – and so she needed to deal with everything at once.
"By the way, Fugaku-sama, you meant it when you told me that Uchiha owe me?"
The man looked at her as if she was a radio, not a person who is there to be interacted with. At first glance his pleasant demeanor hadn't changed but in his posture was rigidness absent a few seconds ago.
"You saved my son and brother. We are indeed indebted to you, Uzumaki-san."
With his every word the child was nervously stepping from one foot to the other as if dreading that he might confirm it. When he did she bit her lips.
"So, if I'd ask for the possibility of Hatake-san keeping Obito's properly functioning eye, you have to agree?"
"What?" The younger man wasn't sure he heard her right. "You are asking for what?"
"For granting Obito's request. He died as a hero and his last wish was for Hatake-san to use his sharingan's potential."
"It's a matter between the clan and the Village." Stated a clearly agitated Handa.
"Exactly, and relations between those two are now just great. Fulfilling my request not only would let you banish a potentially risky obligation to a child, but also have an excuse to do as Obi-nii wanted. No one would dare to imply that life of the Uchiha heir is less important than a single sharingan, especially one that has been freely given away. Fugaku-sama, sleep on this thought and give me your answer, preferably before Mini-nii will come for me. Now, excuse me but I've to go, I really need to pee. Good night."
And she was gone, leaving two flabbergasted men behind. Their usual superiority fled faster than a gambler from a bookie, with no intention of returning all too soon. Handa hesitantly looked away from the door behind which the girl just disappeared, and eyed his older brother.
"Minato mentioned that Kushina's little cousin is a slightly peculiar kid. I really doubt he knows exactly how peculiar she is."
"You know what is the most peculiar?" asked Fugaku. "That she has a point."
Meanwhile Shiori was threatened by an impeding flood of truly biblical magnitude. She was running as fast as she could without any excessive movements of her thighs; visualizing every dry thing she could think of: deserts, hot summer weeks, dry-cleaning. Nothing even slightly wet, especially if it was related to any kind of gulping, slurping or other watery inclined noises.
As often was the case (or more likely always), her thoughts about not thinking about such things brought exactly the opposite effect. Luckily only one corridor was left, then half of it, just a few feet.
Shiori pounced at her Holy Grail, in the flight untying her bottoms and then she bathed in surrounding her catharsis. The girl closed her eyes in delight and when she opened them again her golden pools at first were not able to register what they were seeing.
Itachi's little stool, which the boy used to reach higher, stood before the sink supporting Shisui's feet. The curly-haired lad was gawking at her or rather her reflection in the mirror in front of which he froze with a hand outstretched as if to gouge out his eye. His red eye.
Both children stilled, assessing each other with the silent accompaniment of falling liquid. Shisui was first to rejoin the semi-coherent world.
"I… you… I'm going outside." And he was gone faster than she could close her mouth with a click, not even thinking about formulating an answer.
The reborn woman blinked. Was that sharingan or just her imagination? Shisui was only eight but… oh, fuck it. She hoped he would ignore it and just go to sleep as any other embarrassed eight-year-old boy would do, after seeing a pissing girl. She already dealt with enough Uchiha drama for one night. She wanted to be back in Morpheus's kingdom, nothing more.
Walking out from the bathroom Shiori carefully opened the door. It was clear. At least she thought so until she looked down. Shisui was crouching, supporting a wall and judging by his face also a weight of the world. The boy's hands hung limply over his knees, his eyes were hollow, blankly staring before him. The only thing his appearance lacked were two wet paths of tears.
"Can we, you know, talk?"
A very firm NO sprung to her lips but she couldn't utter it. Instead she just sighed.
"Do I really look like someone who wants to hear your life story?"
"No," he admitted. "And that's why I want to tell it to you."
The redhead girl was simply dumbfounded or her brain's capability exceptionally dropped alongside the pressure in her bladder.
"Shisui-san, I really doubt that I understand you correctly. You're trying to tell me, you want to unburden your conscience by telling me your dirty secrets since I don't want to hear them? That I've been doing everything totally wrong? Should I be some overemotional, sweet and caring moron, then I'd be left in peace?"
"You don't care so you won't judge." The statement came out rushed, wrapped in a tone that was hardly audible. It was a unique hollow sound, empty and practiced. Like an echo, a voice that could never quite claim itself to be something of its own.
The reborn woman headed to a small crack in the panels leading to a porch outside without another word. The downpour was slowly but unmistakable ending. Now, rain was falling like it simply couldn't think of anything better to do. There was a laziness in it, as if it could barely be bothered to obey the will of gravity.
The girl sat on the veranda and held her bare foot out so the droplets splattered on it. They were large and soft, not like the crazy heavy shower earlier. She bent her legs under her chin and watched the remnants of the drops run downwards between her toes like tiny rivers. Shisui crouched down next to the redhead, also looking at her feet as if they were a treasure map hiding way to an unimaginable wealth.
The steady drumming on the roof was eventually interrupted by the boy's tale, spoken with detached coldness.
"Due to the lack of capable shinobi in the Village, it was decided that the best of students from the academy are going to deliver messages between checkpoints inside our territory. Iwao and I were sent to a camp near the north border. We reached it and left the scrolls without any problem. There wasn't any feedback message so we weren't as alert as we should on the way back. It was a surprise attack. It was patrol from the Rock. I don't even know how many of them were there. The situation was bad but out of blue it changed for worse. The combat attracted another shinobi, they were from the Mist.
We tried to slip away and regroup using the commotion. Those two fractions were killing each other rather quickly and finally there was almost no one left. And then at the end we were again attacked directly. A rock kunoichi buried Iwao and an injured mist-nin under a stone slope and attacked me. I reacted without thinking, killing her. After that everything went silent. I was the last one standing.
At least until I heard Iwao calling for help. He was trapped underground with the enemy and apparently, none of them could use earth ninjutsu.
After a while he stopped shouting and was just banging his fists against the wall, and I stood there among the corpses. I wanted to help him but more than that I wanted him to die, so that the noise would stop, but ... but once it subsided, it still echoed in my ears, because I could, I could, I could try to help him but I was too afraid it wasn't him but the other ninja. I was just standing there. I… I killed him. I killed my friend, my best friend."
At the end his voice cracked and what his appearance lacked a moment ago, appeared with a surplus flowing down like a cascade on the boy's cheeks. The curly-haired kid hurried to brush the tears from his face. He knew it would lead to sympathy, and sympathy would lead to more tears.
He glanced at the little Uzumaki sitting next to him but she wasn't looking at him with sympathy, pity nor concern. It was bewilderment and then shock. The moment the expression on the girl's face changed she pounced at him. Shisui, more thanks to reflex than clear thinking, ducked and ended crouched on his tiny assailant, who stared to hit his face with the toy.
"What are you doing, Shiori-san?"
"What I'm doing?" She angrily whispered through clenched teeth. "What are you doing flashing that thing around? You don't know who is looking, you dumbass."
Shisui flinched away and deactivated his crimson eyes.
"So you know what it is."
"Apparently." Huffed the girl. At the beginning of his tale she saw his eyes go red; it was astonishing seeing a fully developed sharingan on someone so young but Shisui supposed to be a prodigy, so she shouldn't be too surprised. However, when his three tomoes started to spin around, changing shape, she nearly had a heart attack seeing a true mangekyou. "Seriously, you shouldn't show them to anyone. If someone knew…"
"But I don't want them! Those eyes are cursed. I shouldn't have them."
The reborn woman regarded him as one would a child in the middle of a tantrum.
"You know it wasn't your fault, right?"
"Of course, it was. This… only someone who kills his best friend can unlock that." He mumbled, once more hearing this damn banging, coming from the bottom of his memory.
"You truly are a dumbass." It was what? Two, three in the morning? She really wasn't in the mood to such conversation but it seemed she didn't have a choice. "You think that some god is sitting up there, monitoring every Uchiha deed and when necessary giving you… these? It's connected with a specific brain function. I suppose an extreme self-loathing is the factor causing some sort of unique chakra that wakes it. That's why those eyes are so rare. Otherwise your every power-hungry clansmen would have them."
"But…"
"It wasn't your fault. You just think it was, that's more than enough."
That was everything she intended to tell him. The counseling session for the distraught Uchiha was over. The world might end nonetheless she was going back to bed. The girl stood up but before she managed to make a step, she was grabbed by a strong hand.
"Who are you?" asked Shisui. His dark eyes searching her golden pools. "No five-year-old can be like that."
"I'm an alien from another dimension, that tries to change your future because it sucks." The reborn woman told him the truth, at least to some extent, and as she suspected, he believed none of it.
"You're odd."
"And in addition sleepy, so can we go back?"
The boy agreed and the two children strolled back to Itachi's room, where Shiori slumped into her futon, ready to forget about the damn night. However, it was rather hard when someone loomed over her like an executioner over some unfortunate soul.
There was almost no light but Shisui's outline looked embarrassed enough.
"Can I… you know?"
Shiori only sighed lifting the covers.
"Just get in."
They had to be really tired because the next moment both kids were sleeping. Contrary to the other small shape that dug out of the bed sheets and silently snuck to the girl's cot. The figure had to emanate a significant portion of confusion and displeasure to actually wake up the little Uzumaki.
Itachi was making quite an impression of Edward Cullen, watching her sleep, and no matter how she hated that (Lord have mercy) book, she couldn't just ignore his hurt vibe. The rose-haired girl decided that she preferred to be squeezed between two little boys rather than be starred at the rest of the night. She made him some room and when he delightedly scrambled under the covers, still careful not touching her, Shiori snuggled him to her side. She only hoped none of them would drool on her.
OMAKE
(An hour after Shiori's and Orochimaru's visit in a toy store- Namikaze's kitchen)
"Give it back.!"
"No way!"
"Kushina-nee-chan, please."
"Good try kid but NO."
"This isn't fair."
"Someone once told me that life isn't fair. Oh, wait. It was you."
Shiori's brows knitted in a frown. Her insane cousin was dangling her new toy over the girl's head and making fun not only of her but also of the Snake Sannin (both the stuffed and the real one). It was going for over twenty minutes and the little Uzumaki had already tried everything: polite asking, no so polite asking, crying and even flattery; nothing worked. That left only one option.
"Give it back or I'll tell Mini-nii I heard you two making really funny noises last night and that something was banging against a wall for a reeeally long time. I'm going to add that if you had some kind of fun and left me out of it, I'm very sad and disappointed. Of course it'll include teary eyes and quivering lips." Her singsong voice turned smug. "He'll be so mortified you won't get laid at least a month."
Kushina reddened, paled and at the and her jaw dropped.
"You wouldn't dare, dattebane."
"Try me."
"Try you what?" The exact moment the blond man walked into the kitchen, sunny smile, golden locks and all.
"Nothing!" Cried the taller redhead and threw the toy back to Shiori as if it was a burning coal.
The very pleased child presented her newest property.
"Mini-nii, look what I've got from Orochimaru-sama. Isn't it cute?"
"Rather disturbing." Mumbled Kushina but closed her mouth with a click when the little girl mouthed something very similar to celibacy.
"It's interesting." The man replied diplomatically, as befitted the next Hokage. "How are you going to name it?"
"Name it? It's Orochimaru-sama."
"Yes, but when you'll be talking about Orochimaru, we won't know which one you mean."
Shiori pouted. Not only Minato was way too adorable for his own good and her mental wellbeing but he was right.
"How am I going to name my Orochimaru-sama, hmm…?"
"What do you say about Orochi-cchi?"
Kushina face-palmed. The love of her life had many admirable qualities and skills but naming things wasn't one of them. Shiori was going to…
"I love it!"
The kunoichi drilled the bouncing kid with dubious look but both adults said nothing until the girl happily left the room. Then the woman comfortingly patted Minato on the shoulder.
"Orochimaru is going to be mad. Really mad."
"He won't hurt Shiori's feelings. He adores her; no matter how insane it sounds."
"You're right. Her he won't hurt."
The second the man understood he went completely blank.
"I'm so dead."
"Yeap."
Happy New Year my beloved readers! I hope you all had brilliant time last night. Thanks for sticking with me all this year. I wish you many great stories and chapters ahead of you (I'm kind of wishing it for myself and my stories, aren't I?).
Also I was a little bored during Christmas and made an illustration for this fic. So if any of you want to see how Shiori, Minato and Orochi-cchi looks like in my head you're welcome to check it. Here's the link (just delete spaces): seriel-drake. Devian tart /art/ Shiori-and-Minato-654533679
Oh, I also made a short animation for Christmas. It's more Star Wars than Naruto oriented but if you want you can check it too.
www. you tube watch? v=dSJnIqNWscI&ab _ channel =SerielDrake
And as always thank you, mrsmiawallace88. You, my lovely beta, are the best ^^