My name is Stain I guess my dad he had the sense of humour
He gamme such a name cause stains they all mix together
If you are red or blue you depend on the trends
but stains is no problem... everywhere you find them

My Name is Stain Shaka Ponk

Chapter 15: Daddy's girl

Itachi-Sama's eyes widened in front of my last words. I had just told him he would never reach me, no matter how much warmth he would engulf me in. I suppose I had always been broken, all the time we'd known each other. Next thing I knew; my mind was rushing towards his.

He let me in.

There's this balloon-like woman sitting near Okaa-Sama again. They're having a tea. Okaa-Sama says she's a cousin of hers, that the woman husband is Kagami-San. I think nothing of this. He's nothing much than a face and ink on paper to me. Actually, the only thing I have in mind are the woman's two annoying sons playing in the yard. I am a genius. I am powerful. I can choose to study instead of playing in the yard. Otou-Sama said it was better. Then again, even though I am the Heir of the Uchiha clan, I never had the chance to play in the yard.

"Itachi, take a break." Okaa-San suggested.

I hesitated. Otou-Sama might get annoyed if I did so. War is coming, and so are the Iwa ninja. I had to get stronger quickly and enrol in the Academy soon. That is my future. Yet, Okaa-San often win her talks to Otou-San. She guesses when I'm not in a mood to work.

I sit down near the unknown lady. She immediately makes a painful face. I freeze, unsure why my presence created such a violent reaction.

"Don't worry Itachi-Sama, that's just my baby girl saying hello." She winces.

I cock my head to the side. Okaa-San seems to like me interact with her friend/relative/whatever. The young woman reaches for my hand, and I'm surprised to realize she is quite young. I frown. Was she like Kagami-San's second wife or what? She puts my hand on her oversized stomach. I feel a light hit from underneath her skin.

"Feel it? It's a hello!" she says. "That's because she already likes you a lot!"

"But she isn't even born!" I blurt.

She was telling nonsense! I put my hands away from her. It was weird seeing a cheerful Uchiha. I didn't know how to react. Okaa-San was still smiling. Obito-San and Shisui-San were still playing in the yard.

"Did you name her already?"

"I thought of naming her Mioko. Child of the water path, it fits, right?"

"It follows your tradition, Shimizu. I hope she becomes a fine Suiton user like yourself."

I remember the laugh of Uchiha Shimizu on that day. I remember her grief when Obito-San, her husband's son died during the war, giving his Sharingan to Hatake Kakashi. I remember Uchiha Kagami-San growing grimmer everyday as his wife died while filling her daughter with life. She died for an unborn child. I couldn't understand why one would do that. The baby wasn't even alive!

In the end Shimizu-San died. I remember her daughter wailing during the wake, looking for warmth her Father and remaining Brother denied her. Oh, how I so understood that girl. They even went to put their resent down to her very name.

The day Uchiha Shimizu was buried, I reached for her baby girl. She kicked me and howled at me with all the strength of her lungs. I held on. She'd eventually warm up to me. After all, she was just saying hello.

I blinked at Itachi-Sama, unsure of what he just showed me. I had just been … him? What a peculiar heir our clan had. But the memory I had just been shown called another in my mind. A painful one I couldn't keep behind my mental barriers. It washed over me, over our intertwined minds.

I was kneeling on the cold tatami inside the Naka shrine. On the altar, surrounded by candles laid Brother. His eyelids were closed over empty ocular globes. They had put marbles inside so they wouldn't look hollow. It didn't change the fact his body had been desecrated. Someone had stolen Brother's Sharingan. That thought had been sending my stomach up and down for days.

It was so wrong.

I didn't move from my seiza. I hadn't cried when I had learned the news. I had just sat down and waited. For what? I couldn't tell. I remember my stepfather mentioning a big meeting within the Uchiha clan, a meeting he wouldn't have able to attend to hadn't he adopted me. I wondered what the man did to make Fugaku-Sama accept the deal. Other families would have been so much better than the one I had been. But I digress.

There was a meeting where Shisui-Nii went, from which Itachi-Sama was absent. And then suddenly there's a suicide letter from Brother and the police accuses Itachi-Sama. Tekka-San tells me every day how much he thinks Itachi-Sama is guilty. I think he's looking for an excuse to discredit him. I suppose he wants me to consider him as a relative, instead of ignoring him and his parents like I had done since the adoption had taken place.

I couldn't tell what I thought of Itachi-Sama. He had been acting weird recently. I used to see him a lot around me, protecting me while competing with Brother. I knew it made Brother react. So I let Itachi-Sama coming near me, I risked dishonouring him by my behaviour, just to keep brother near.

But Brother was dead.

Only Itachi-Sama was left with his warmth I couldn't feel.

The candles around his corpse flickered as someone entered the temple. I didn't look at the visitor. It was probably someone 'caring' for me. Like hell! They just wanted me to pressure Itachi-Sama. But I couldn't do that. Maybe they talked but their voice didn't reach me. They finally left me in my grieving loneliness.

I didn't know what to do of Itachi-Sama anymore.

I wanted to keep Brother alive, to remember all the tiny pieces that were left of him. If it took to believe in Itachi-Sama's words, then I'd believe in him. I just wanted to close the gap Father had left and that Brother had frozen.

I stood up. I walked up to the altar, looking at the offerings in distaste. No flowers, nor coins, nor prayers were going to give me Brother back. It hadn't worked on Father. And I had given him my whole.

There was nothing left for Brother in me.

"How can you smile so peacefully?" I said blandly to his sleeping face.

I wanted to wipe that peaceful expression. It disgusted me.

"You're the lucky one, you know? Being called back by Father, that is…" I said again.

What was I hoping? He wouldn't stand up to look at me.

Father was a selfish one. He took one and every feeling from within my heart, leaving me cold, and dry and empty. And now he called Brother back to him. In fact, Father only liked to make me suffer. He hated me. He hated me for taking Mother's life. He hated me for keeping Brother near me.

"You know; I'm starting to think there is some good in that situation. Father took everything I liked. But there's nothing left anymore! There is nothing he can take from me anymore!"

How wrong had I been in that statement!

Memories were calling other memories, as if connecting our minds had broken a dyke. Memories were pouring through. My mind had been weakened by the exchange with Yamanaka Ino and by this everlasting Genjutsu. I felt Itachi-Sama prodding my mind, but it didn't feel like the Yamanaka clan Jutsu at all. Neither of us were specialized in reading minds after all, even though our Sharingan gave us some insight.

"Please calm down." I heard his voice say, but it was ringing in my mind.

Suddenly he found himself in front of the block. I felt his frowning curiosity as he identified the numbing chakra as Hyuuga. All my mind went suddenly still, cautious as what he'd do. I felt lots of emotions flickering from inside my mind, though I knew I kept my face blank. I was just watching.

The Hyuuga optometrist had said I would need a stronger Sharingan to undo the centre of my problem. Probably. It was worth a shot: the Yamanaka Elder did say she couldn't help me with the main problem.

I felt Itachi-Sama's mind rippling. I think he guessed I wanted a favour from him. I blinked, focusing on his eyes and not in the inside of my head. He was about to strike. I mentally winced. My defences would probably fall if he entered like a brute. I had stirred his curiosity. A girl who had exchanged her mind with the Yamanaka heir, with a Hyuuga block in her mind, pretending she was the person he was looking for… Even though I wasn't her, I was probably the only person with all these elements.

That meant I was important enough to get the attention of two main clans. Given the fact we were thrown inside a political mess; I became even more intriguing.

I had just shown him personal memories. Some I could have had either by stealing, or by being Uchiha Yanagi myself. And no one in their right mind would have sent a messed up girl like me in a mission if she wasn't important to begin with.

What he had doubted was about to be true. He was excited by the answers being at hand.

I relaxed at his contact, showing I was cooperating. Little by little he started unravelling the chakra block. Fear was filling me. Not the rational, logical fear that had bloomed inside of me since Jiraya-Sama had abducted me. It was an old fear from a younger me I had thrashed away to stop being hurt.

I felt both our apprehension. Suddenly everything was…

Black. And red. Oh I hadn't felt that for a while.

I looked at my soaked yukata and the blade piercing me.

"Damn, I had almost missed this." I said.

The dark man in my dream was there as well, fully appearing at the end of the katana. The pain wasn't entirely there, as if Itachi-Sama had only conjured the images.

"Hello again." I said.

Surprisingly, everything was more detailed than usual. I hadn't remembered the warm breeze, the cicadas, or the smell of the night. I hadn't remembered the gurgling body of Tekka-San either. I hadn't remembered the slight bruises my flight had caused, nor the broken bushes.

What I was seeing might be more the memory of the day than the illusion.

Well they were linked, but I had been more focused on the pain.

Everything was getting more and more detailed, to the point it hurt looking at it or touching it. It was so painfully real. And when I meant everything, that meant the pain was almost unbearable. Itachi-Sama was all around me, aware of everything, analysing everything.

I laid, trembling in that puzzle, in that fixed moment of agony, the very moment before I almost died. I had to hold myself together. I had to. I had to! My ears were ringing because of some horrendous buzzing sound and all that whiteness.

Then I realized it was the reverberation of my suffering howls.

"Why?" Itachi-Sama asked softly, and my eyes locked into his, my mind split between illusion and reality.

Why what? Why was I holding? Why was I not allowing myself to stumble?

Images were brought to my mind, a deep feeling I couldn't understand but it was strong and warm. It mixed Sasuke's face, the view of the village from above, the lined tombs, the quietness of the morgue, my team around the campfire, Tenten at the teashop booth…

Maybe that was it…

Itachi-Sama made the equivalent of a mental warm chuckle.

A searing pain pierced my head as my cousin literally shattered my mind. Blood splashed through my nose again, thick blood tears escorting them. Metal taste invaded my mind. Everything went blank and disappeared. Silence fell.

My mind was clearer than it had ever been.

I took a deep breath, amazed, as if it was my first time breathing.

A warm hand was wiping the blood from my face with gentleness. It felt so wonderful… I fell asleep more than I passed out from the anaemia, Itachi-Sama stroking a face that wasn't mine. I resisted. I couldn't fall asleep now! Of all times, I had the man who held all my answers.

I opened my eyes with great difficulty, trying to speak with a sore throat.

"What you saw… What you did… I don't understand…"

"I'm sorry Yanagi-San, but you don't reason well when you're out of your mind." He answered.

"Itachi-San, I doubt this is the moment to be joking around." Jiraya-Sama grumbled. "I'm sure there is a lot to talk with this young lady, but we're running out of time."

I gritted my teeth. If only I had my own body, I wouldn't be so weak. I clutched his coat with frail fingers, thin fingers that hadn't been hardened by hand-to-hand combats or burning flames. Damn! The first time I really wanted something, I was limited by something as futile as an untrained body. But the rough material escaped my hands, just like a river.

"Don't go…" I muttered. "I have questions…"

"Everything will be answered. I promise" He answered.

After a moment of hesitation, he brought his little finger near me. I crossed mine with his, slightly amused. Were we still those two kids hiding from our sticky and jealous brothers?

"I trust you." I muttered.

I felt a light touch against my forehead.

"Wait for me." He answered.

Dark.

I had just learned about Brother. Tekka-San had shown me the body and the suicide letter so I'd formally identify them. The whole operation had thrown me into a daze. The gap. The hole in my chest. The frozen lips of the wound. They had moved. Wrong, worse, wider.

Father that jerk! I had found myself untouchable. I thought dying had been his last punishment for Mother's death. But I still had Brother. He was getting away from me, but I knew he loved me. So Father took him from me, just like he kept me from feeling.

I felt empty.

Tekka-San said it was Itachi-Sama's fault. He said he was lucky to be protected by his father. At least he had a father that loved him. I had nothing left: no Mother, no Father, no Brother. Blaming Itachi-Sama seemed so easy; I could do it on a whim.

After all I had no further use for him. Nor for Sasuke-Chan anymore.

Yet right after he was accused he came to me. We sat on the rooftop, looking as stars like usual, like nothing happened. I could blame him, or I could pretend. What should I do? These were the only two choices I had, right?

But tonight I couldn't tell if he was giving me his warmth or if he was looking for mine.

"What should I do?" I asked.

He was the clan Heir; he could order me around. But he said nothing. He just looked me sad eyes, desperately sad. He was the one who needed help this time. I had always been a mean to an end, the perfect child and bride-to-be. I had never helped anyone before. Maybe it was time to be a little innovative.

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

It wasn't an order, but I dipped my head. He was distraught, it was natural for me to say…

"I want an honest answer, Yanagi-San. Do you trust me?"

Itachi-Sama has always been the first one to help me when Father died. Now that everything accused him of Brother's death, I was the one he came to. I was branded as Kakami's daughter or Shisui's sister; now that there were both dead there was only me. And that was exactly what the teenager saw: me.

"I trust you." I said steadily.

"If I told you I didn't kill your brother; would you still trust me?"

I marked a pause. I looked at Itachi-Sama in awe. What did he want from me? I didn't understand what he was saying. And why, oh Kami why, did it sunk so deep? In what isle of feelings had his words landed? I couldn't tell I had it in me.

He said he hadn't killed my brother. He wanted me to believe something totally different than I was told to believe. They knew Itachi-Sama had been acting weird lately, but even though he had been tired and absent, Itachi-Sama had always been the same to me. They had deemed him guilty of Brother's death, but they had no proof. They wanted me to believe their words, to condemn the boy who had poured his warmth in my frozen heart. In the end, it was their world against his. I was asked to believe either the mob who branded me or Itachi-Sama who saw me as me.

"I trust you" I repeated, a little more firmly.

"If I told you I saw him die, and that it was me who wrote his suicide letter; would you still trust me?" he added then.

I froze again. It was a real leap of faith he was asking me. But how could I prove him I believed in him? He saw me as me. He valued my opinion. I saw him as him. I wanted his version of the story. Brother had always been away from me, Itachi-Sama had always been there.

I put my finger in the air.

"Pinky promise." I said with serious.

For a brief moment of wonder, I was sure Itachi-Sama was about to laugh. He hadn't anticipated that, had he? Pinky promise, the biggest promise between two children. I was willing to believe in him.

I was shaken awake. Immediately I tried to come at the assailant but he immediately lifted his hands in the air.

"Nee-San it's me, Sasuke!" he shouted.

I blinked. What the… I had been laid in a very familiar place. All around me stood what was left of the Uchiha compound. I felt wobbly. The front on my shirt and most of my face were stained with blood.

"But I was…" I started.

"Where the fuck were you?" he yelled. "You've been missing for hours, and your Bunshin at the Academy was totally not credible. Iruka-Sensei send people for Ino-San."

I hung on his shoulder as he lifted me up. I wasn't used to have him taller and stronger than me; it was a really strange feeling. I saw him bleep some walkie-talkie that had been hung around his throat.

"Sasuke here. Over."

"Inomaru speaking. Any lead on your cousin? Over."

"I have her. She's injured. Over."

"I'm fine." I insisted. "Just lightheaded."

"She's delusional as always. Possible heavy blood loss. Over." He added.

"Gotcha. We're coming. Over."

He bleeped it off. I pouted. He was treating me like a child.

Then I realized how clear my mind was. Like without weird dreams or everlasting Genjutsu anymore. I looked at Sasuke, eyes wide awake.

"Before they come, I have something to tell you. I saw your brother." I said quickly.

His hand gripped my shoulder. I could distinctly hear the fabric of my clothes being torn.

"He didn't hurt me, or at least I was injured when he helped me. He saved me from the Genjutsu that was in my head, and he promised he would answer my questions." I informed him.

He stayed silent a while, glowering.

"It can't be him." Sasuke said. "I refuse to believe that."

"I wasn't played, Sasuke. I know I just saw Itachi-Sama, and he had been looking for me. He came to check that I was alive."

Sasuke winced when I said his name. He almost looked jealous that his brother had been looking for me and not for him. Then he frowned.

"Why you? Why now?" he asked. "It doesn't make sense."

I raised my brows.

"You're only noticing now?" I remarked.

Sasuke flushed in anger as I heavily leaned on him when we started walking.

"This… has nothing to do with what he did." He growled. "You're still believing in him."

"Yes." I simply said.

"You're unbelievable!" He scowled.

He dragged me outside the compound and helped me sit against a wall. He handed me dry fruits and a bottle of water. In my weariness, I hadn't noticed I was starving and dehydrated. He helped me while I heard people coming near. I could even feel their chakra.

"Are you angry?" I finally asked. "At me, I mean."

"You're just so reckless, Nee-San. Always looking for answers where there's none."

"How do you know there's none?"

"I just know, okay?"

I looked at him. He finally escaped my gaze, looking away. I noticed I had the exact same behaviour when I was embarrassed. It made me smile, our similarities. I ruffled his hair playfully.

"Don't do that with Ino's body." He complained.

I was carried back to the Uchiha clan where my mind was prodded again and again. Curiously, my mind was still damaged, even though the power of the Sharingan wasn't active against me. I still felt the missing parts of myself, the memory bits that weren't there. It had been so easy to conceal the memories of today behind a closed door.

Itachi-Sama and Jiraya-Sama hadn't erased my memory but left me in my own compound, practically unharmed. They had trusted me not to talk. They were my secret to keep, and Ino-San's body made everything so easy, even though I felt sore and tired.

I thought for a while when I cleaned the girl's body under a hot shower. Itachi-Sama had come near Konoha, even though that seal barrier the Senju had put in place so long ago. I didn't know exactly where it laid, but my cousin hadn't raised the alarm. Whatever the reson was, he went to see Jiraya-Sama, totally ignoring the village where Sasuke and I were supposed to be. Had I not been with Jiraya-Sama, trapped in another's body, would he had come?

And who would he had come for?

He hadn't asked Jiraya-Sama about Sasuke. He hadn't asked me about Sasuke, only felt when I thought of protecting him. In the end, he had only been concerned with me. So why wasn't Sasuke in the picture? He was his own flesh and blood; the little boy he had left traumatized.

I couldn't understand what was so important about me.

Later that night Sasuke told me about his last meeting with his brother. We had checked that everyone was asleep, then snuggled in the same blanket in the patio, watching silently at the stars. He told me about his world crumbling all around him when his gentle brother became that power-thirsty monster. He told again about the murder he was supposed to commit to become as powerful as Itachi-Sama. All in all, he was just a frightened child, afraid that I was going away from him.

I was changing. Little by little, with every answer I found, with every problem I solved, I was changing. He was afraid he might lose me.

I knew what he was feeling. Father had died and my world had shattered. My world had shattered again when Brother died as well. In the end I had made that crazy leap of faith, believing Itachi-Sama would be strong enough to hold my world. Even with him gone and changed into that criminal I didn't understand, my trust in him remained. I wanted to explain to Sasuke that he could trust me as well, just like I believed in his brother. I wanted to explain I'd still keep him whole despite all the changes I could go through.

I wanted to explain things that couldn't reach him. Just like Itachi-Sama's warmth didn't reached me. Yet Itachi-Sama's word had hit me. So maybe something of me could get to Sasuke. Even if it was something futile.

Maybe one day we could share the same dream our brother's had pursued.

"I don't know what to say to you anymore." I said when he had been finished. "We're just growing apart in different directions. You want to set things right, and I want to understand what happened."

"You're not making sense, again."

"Maybe it's not me. Maybe it's just the world all around us that is going the wrong way."

"Then which way should it go?"

I sighed.

"I have no idea, Sasuke."

"You're not adding the 'Chan' anymore."

"That's true. I hadn't noticed."

"I think you haven't done that since when we fought against each other."

I turned my head on the other side, noticing he was doing the same the other way. It made me smile. We were so similar him and I.

"Sorry about exploding like that. I guess we're unable to adopt each other's viewpoint."

"Is that me or you're almost sounding amused?" he said with a weird tone.

I looked at him, raising a brow.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked with a frown.

"It's unusual. You're always either unimpressive, or, angry or slightly sad sometimes, or even obnoxious when there's blokes around, but it's been a while since I heard you express anything else. It's good."

A timid half-smile bloomed on my lips.

"Please don't smile." He said quickly, his eyes wide. "It's creepy."

I pouted. Tenten had said the same a few days earlier.

"I might feel hurt." I said.

He slightly smiled as well.

"Then maybe you're feeling better after all."

"You have your brother to thank for that."

"No way in hell." He growled.

Yeah, maybe one day we could share the same dream Itachi-Sama and Shisui-Nii had. One day when I'll be able to express my feelings properly, not like the empty doll I had become. I checked the red pendant around my neck. Father had offered that to Mother way before I was born. Forgetting and forgiving Father depended on a "one day" as well.

"One day." I muttered to the wind.

"Where did you get that?" Sasuke asked.

"The archives. It was a gift from Father to Mother."

"I always get the feeling you're revering Kami when you talk about them. You're still visiting them every day?"

"Always."

"Want me to tag along tomorrow?"

I remained silent. It was the first time Sasuke suggested we did something of that kind together. It pleased me more than I had expected. I felt a blush creeping on Ino's features, and I bet my own face would have been even worse. I nodded shyly.

"I pray to your parents as well." I muttered. "I've been doing that in your stead. I hope you don't mind me doing this."

"No, it's cool. You've always been very respectful of traditions, Yanagi-Nee."

His hand was twitching near my borrowed body. He suddenly seemed very small near me.

"I think I'm afraid to face them…" he confessed. "I don't want to disappoint them."

"You shouldn't." I said. "Your parents loved you very much."

I couldn't help the crack in my voice. Father had never told me he had been impressed by my Ninjutsu like Sasuke's did, even though I would have loved if he could have seen me blowing blue flames. Mother hadn't had the time to live with me, but Itachi-Sama's memories had transmitted her love to me. As to Brother… I never understood Brother.

"At least your brother loved you." Sasuke grumbled.

"Wanna bet?" I found myself responding.

"Then you have me, and I have you. We love each other, right?" He said.

"Of course we do. I'll always been there for you, Sasuke."

In the garden, a crow took its flight. I wondered if one of his eyes was a Sharingan.


I had a hard time finishing this chapter (even now I dont feel satisfied)

Radiopoisoning: No, the Genjutsu inside her head isn't Kotoamatsukami, sorry :) But nice try

NightsBlackRose13: Yanagi still has room to snap, but yeah she's gone pretty insane last chapter :D #stadisticauthor

Girl-luvs-manga: Well Yanagi's laugh was definitely not just because she realized she had been played too

I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well :)

Don't forget to leave a revie, it's always nice to discuss with my readers :)

See ya!