Yuka smirked slightly at the ruckus going on around her and her sister, propping her elbows on the desk in-front of her as she twirled her foot, glancing out of the corner of her eye at Yuki who was mumbling softly to herself as she wrote down something in the notebook she always carried with her. Everyone else was worrying over the placement of the new genin teams but Yuka knew that no matter what she would be with Yuki, so she had nothing to worry about. It would be interesting to see who their third member was, but it wasn't like they were going to be close or really working together.

Because she and Yuki were a team that only needed each other.

The teacher walked in and everyone hurried to their seats, leaning forward as he started on some speech about their new lives as genin and what not, all of which Yuka fully ignored. It wasn't that she didn't respect the teacher -she respected everyone who was in the field of knowledge- but that she just wanted to get this over with so they could meet their team leader and new teacher.

The teacher called out the names of the teams, the students eagerly leaning forward and hanging onto the every breath the man took as if it were pure gospel. Even Yuki looked a bit excited and Yuka figured that it must have been for their new teammate. Yuki was always eager to see and learn about new things, so Yuka figured that the same would apply with their team and the dynamics and skills they would acquire.

"Uzumaki Yuki, Kotonami Echo and Mori Nado. You will be team six."

Yuka blinked, sure that she couldn't have heard correctly. "Excuse me?" She gasped, jumping up from her seat to lean over her desk urgently. "What? There must be a mistake."

"I assure you Yuka, there is no mistake. Now please take your seat and stop disrupting my class." Yuka stared at him wide eyed, fisting her hands on top of the desk. This couldn't be happening. They couldn't do this. She and Yuki were a team, a single unified being since conception and they couldn't just callously break them apart. They were two halves to a whole, and what would they be without their completing partners?

"Yuka," Yuki softly murmured, tugging lightly on her shirt, "Sit down." She urged, looking up into her panicked sister's face. Yuka turned her attention to her sister and shook her head frantically.

"No! Don't you see what they're doing? They're trying to break us apart! We can't let this happen Yuki! We need to stay together and fight, or else we'll be-" The sharp sound of flesh hitting flesh caused the room to fall into shocked silence.

Yuka raised a trembling hand to her stinging cheek, turning her head slowly to stare at her twin with wide eyes filled with hurt and pained questions, her lips trembling as she forcefully held in her tears. "Yu-ki?"

The girl stared at her sister coldly, looking down her nose at the girl as the class watched on in silent amazement, delighted and shocked at the scene before them. After all, Yuki was the quiet one, the one who followed her sister around and calmed her, kept her in check. She was never the one to stand up and look at her and do anything like this.

"Stop acting like a child." She said harshly, sitting down to wait for the teacher to finish with the team list. Yuka sank slowly into her seat, deaf and blind to the world around her. She felt Yuki stand up and walk away to her new team -her new life away from her- and reached out for her. But her hand fell short and the girl was suddenly beyond her reach.

And she was alone.

Yuka lay on her bed curled in a ball on her side, her blankets wrapped around her like a cocoon as she stared at the wall and let her tears slip free as she sniffled.

In the life Yuka had always known she would one day lead, there were very few things that she was a hundred percent sure about. She knew her family would love her no matter what, that her father's strength would always protect them until his death, that she would always be able to depend on her friends and be depended on in turn, and she had always believed in what she had thought was the purest truth of them all – that Yuki would always be right at her side no matter what attempted to tear them apart.

But now her entire world had been shaken off of its axis as she was faced with the sudden separation from the one person who had been beside her since birth. It was like she was a new amputee who still felt the tingle of that limb and still looked for it and depended on it.

It hurt.

The door behind her creaked open and she burrowed farther into the blankets, closing her eyes against the cruelty of the world and of those around her. "Go away." She choked out, not caring about what the other person selfishly wanted. Couldn't they see how broken she was?

"Well, it's my room too. I have every right to be here if I want to be." Yuka sniffled, not turning to her twin for comfort like she always had in the past because it was obvious to her that she was going to be just as unsympathetic as she had been during class.

"Why did you slap me? Why didn't you say anything? They're trying to split us up." This final fact was practically sacrilegious to the girl, a blasphemous action if she had ever seen one. Yuki sighed and looked over the figure of her sister covered by her blankets, protecting herself much like a turtle did by receding inside of its shell. She crossed her arms over her chest and sat down on her own bed, staring out the window at the darkening sky.

"I asked for us to be separated." Yuka jerked up, the blankets falling down around her as she stared wide-eyed at her sister, reeling from the sucker punch she had just delivered to her. "What? Yuki-" Yuki looked at her and Yuka stopped, not used to the look in the eyes of her usually calm sister. She looked so fierce, so sadly and intensely fierce, Yuka knew she hadn't just done this on some whim.

"Have you ever listened to how people call us? Yuka and Yuki, Yuka and Yuki, Yuka and Yuki. They say it as if we're one person, they don't even take a breath. They expect to see me going along with you, walking behind you like I'm your shadow." Yuka shook her head, wondering where all this had come from.

"You're not a shadow, Yuki. I've never thought like that."

"That doesn't stop others from doing it, Yuka. I just want to make them see me as more than an extension of you. I want them to see me and not say, 'That's one of the twins', but I want them to look and say 'That's Yuki'. All I want them to do is just take a breath, Yuka."

Yuka looked at her and saw exactly what she was saying. Everyone saw them as one entity, even Yuka, and she had always been happy that they were like that. It had always felt so right, so perfect to be half of a whole, to hear "Yuka and Yuki" when people spoke of them. But she had never thought that Yuki had ever thought any differently.

She had always looked at the two of them as a mirror, reflections of one being that both of them were content to stay as. But Yuki, desperate to separate and find her own self was shattering that mirror and forcing her out of the delusions of them being happy as they were.

It hurt, those jagged shards dragging down her skin and leaving hot streaks of blood that dripped down her flesh like tears, but she knew that the pain in Yuki's eyes was just as hot and just as sharp, and nothing in the world hurt her more than her twin's pain. She roughly rubbed her fallen tears away and sniffed the rest back, sitting up straight as she met Yuki's eyes determinedly.

"You'll tell me next time something like this happens? You won't go behind my back?" Yuki nodded, smiling softly at her sister, her best friend.

"Yeah."

"You'll come to me if someone hurts you?"

"As long as you do the same."

"We'll still stay together? Go down to the library and everything like always?" Yuki blinked, shocked that she would ever consider that she would want to leave her completely.

"Of course! You're my best friend, Yuka. Nothing is ever going to change that." Yuka nodded and sighed, the last of her tears fading away.

"I'm going to be lonely." She said, getting up to walk over to stand in front of the other girl.

"I'm sorry." She said softly, truly regretting every ounce of pain she would cause her. Yuka smirked and held out her hand, jerking the other girl up beside her when she took it.

"You should be. Now I have to make friends with some stupid random boys." They smiled at each other for a minute before Yuka linked her arm with Yuki's. "Come on, let's go get a snack to go and run off to the library to spend some time together. Maybe we can finally figure out the Big Papa scroll."

"When on earth did we decide on that name?"

"We didn't, but it's fitting. That thing is as tall as Dad."

"But the name is ridiculous." Yuki protested as they walked down the stairs and Yuka rolled her eye and prayed that they would still be allowed to be like this in the troublesome times to come.

Because she never wanted to lose that precious other half.

Tada! Okay, to my newest commenters (Hello my precious little cuties! Hello!):

Ninquelot- Do not fear! There is a plan! Dry your tears and smile your beautiful smile! The end of all of this Temari angst will come!

Mizuki-chan Uchiha- I love you! I read your comment and was filled with joy and happiness and I smiled so wonderfully that my family thought I was crazy (I am, but still). Thank you for the comment and here, have a cookie! (And might I say that you have a positively adorable name)

And on my deviantart account (link in profile) I've posted some doodles of my kids and a comic thing to go along with this chapter. I'm not the best drawer, but I just like to doodle the characters and get my thoughts straightened out. I put them up so you can get a better grasp of the designs of the characters in my head if you want to see them.

I love you! You're beautiful and give me as much joy as the free cookies and doughnut twists my local grocery store gives out. (They're delicious)