Sorry it took so long, but here's the next installment for Child of Uchiha. I hope you continue reading!

Chapter 2

Dealings of Devils

Paralyzed at the familiar name, I could only stare stupidly at the woman who must have known my father. An erratic bump against my ribs forced a painful whine to escape my lips. My heart, it hurt. It hurt so much. I gripped my chest with a linen wrapped fist, eyes clenched in the unexpected pain.

"Sasuke, Sasuke you've come back."

The pure hope in her voice…

"N-no," I whimpered.

I could hear the woman come closer, her presence hovering over me. I could practically feel her intentions.

"I knew it. I knew you would come back."

Her voice wavered at the last part of her sentence; small bursts of wetness fell on my uncovered arm.

"Stop," I grunted in some semblance of an order.

Strong, comforting arms wrapped around my neck, pulling me close. My body stiffened at the unfamiliar contact. I had never been hugged before in my twelve years. This…closeness was foreign. Yet, I felt loved, even cared for. A moment was all I allowed before realizing the truth.

It was a lie. She wasn't embracing me, this monster in a girl's skin, she was sobbing onto my father's shoulder. Not mine.

Coal eyes hardened at the fluorescent pink hair shaking underneath my chin. Icicles pierced my fragile heart, the intense pain lasting for only a moment until the numbing cold engulfed the weak, useless organ.

"Let go."

Frost fell like mist from my lips. The icy words seeped into the bones of the crying nurse, stiffening her movements and freezing her tears. Hands clenched around my body, then slowly released. Her torso, stretched across my legs, lifted itself up as the arms withdrew.

Watery jade eyes looked through the fogged windows of my soul. I turned away, afraid of what she might see.

"I…I am not who you think I am," I said when I gathered my thoughts.

The words were deafening in the silence.

"W-What?" She started, a nervous twitch shaking her entire body. Food spilled onto the floor when her elbow upset the metal tray, the sharp clang reverberated throughout-

-the forest. The clash of kunai knives awoke me from my stupor. The intense melody of battle mimicked a lethal waltz. From my youth I danced to this ancient beat, never forgetting a step, never forgetting the consequence of missing a note, never stopping.

All at once my senses awakened. I was face down in the dirt, my right arm pinned beneath my body. From my chest down no feeling occurred. Panic invaded my mind. Why couldn't I move? No matter how much I struggled my legs remained on the forest floor, leaves tickling my thighs. My breathing came faster, my lungs thankfully not paralyzed. I didn't understand. What was going on? Who was fighting? Why couldn't I move?!

A grunt in effort turned into a cry of pain as my pinned arm slid the tiniest bit. My hand had been applying pressure to the hole in my chest, saving me from bleeding out. I would have been more thankful if I didn't hurt so much. But I've had worse. I've had to endure hours of grueling training with my dad. A little scratch like this meant nothing.

My dad!

Slowly, I lifted my head, scraping my chin on the packed dirt. I couldn't see much, the two fighters were moving too fast for me to accurately track. Sharp sunlight blinded my left eye suddenly. Squinting, I turned my head a little and saw that I was wrong before at what had awoken me. Father's sword stabbed the earth, its razor edge faced towards me. Light danced hypnotically across the silver blade, my face a horrid mess in the reflected glow. The enemy shinobi must have disarmed dad just a moment ago. It was an amazing feat. He never let his sword out of his sight. I couldn't even manage to steal it when he was sleeping.

In shock at the graveness of our situation, I stared openmouthed at the battle in front of me. The two had finally ceased moving at high speeds and stood across from each other in defensive stances. Father's sleeve was torn, blood staining the edges of the cut pink. Little nicks decorated his body, but from my vantage point, I couldn't see anything serious. His opponent sported a charred pant leg.

Neither shinobi moved, just cautiously watched one another until two pale fingers rested before my father's face in the sign of Tora. No other signs followed this single one. My heart skipped a beat as I recognized the stance; the movements a nightmare that accompanied me on dark nights.

"No," I breathed. My voice refused to carry any further. It was as if there was no air left in my lungs for me to speak, only to keep me alive for a little longer.

Violet chakra bled from Sasuke's body, swirling above him in a rapid tornado.

"Stop," I exhaled.

Black flames erupted from his shoulder, claiming every inch of skin. They crawled across his face. Burning with the mark of the devil he made a pact with so many years ago. But still it haunted him. The snake still had his fingers embedded within him. He controlled him from beyond his desecrated grave; to make him into a demon was the devil's goal. He succeeded every time dad unsealed the mark. The curse branded onto his flesh.

Calloused fingers embedded themselves into the earth in a fierce hold, leaving small furrows behind. Breathing in deeply, I screamed with everything I had left in my small body. I had to make him stop.

"Her pulse is shooting through the roof!"

A flash of light blinded me for a moment before clicking off. "Eyes are dilated, she's going into shock. Where's Tsunade-sama?"

I…I didn't understand. What was going on? Where did all these people come from? Limbs flailing, heart racing, I fought with everything I had left in my bruised body. Get away! Let go! Stop! Dad!

"Dad where are you?!" I was desperate. I had to stop him before he hurt himself again. That technique, I hated it so much. "Stop! Stop, please!" Every time he unleashed that forbidden technique it hurt him. And it scared me. That was the only thing that I would admit to being scared of.

"Calm down," a voice shouted from my right side, trying wildly to stop my arm from crashing into their face. "We're not going to hurt you!"

I clenched my eyes shut, not believing their lies. My chest it hurt. It felt like it was caving in on itself. Breathe, I can't breathe. I can't breathe.

"At least she stopped screaming. Now I can finally hear myself think."

"Tsunade-sama!"

The woman who sounded like she was in charge barked an order that I didn't hear and the restraining arms tightened around me. No, I have to go. Let go, I have to…

"My…dad…he…" I gasped out.

"Save your breath, kid. I'm about to send a chakra bolt into your heart that could kill you."

Opening in shock, my eyes stared shockingly into smirking brown orbs. Later, it was made known to me that she only said that to keep my "skinny ass still" as the good doctor put it. It worked, although I think she said it for her own sick amusement and not for my health.

"This will hurt like hell."

It was my only warning before a pair of fingers forcefully jammed two inches below my collarbone where my heart beat weakly in my chest. Akin to a wildfire raging beneath my skin, the sensation flooded my veins with its potent feral blaze, spreading rapidly throughout my entire body. After a few moments of the brutal torture, my consciousness fled, leaving me in a comforting black embrace.

To only awaken five minutes later. Blurry eyes focused on my savior; my drunk…half-dressed savior with blonde hair down partway in a pigtail and the smell of alcohol staining her breath. She gave me a goofy smile, took my bandaged wrist into her hand, and checked my pulse with two forefingers.

"Can't have you dying on me," she said. "I've got a reputation to keep."

Breathy laughter escaped my throat. "Wouldn't…want to…spoil…that."

"Kid, I've got two-hundred ryuu and a free drink on you to walk out of here with a full recovery. Don't think that you can ruin an easy bet for me by kicking the bucket. Sorry, but you're going to have to live. Well at least until I collect my money. After that you can throw yourself off a cliff."

She released my wrist. "Normal. Take a deep breath for me." I sucked in a big gulp of air. "Hold, one…two…three release. Alright you're breathing and your heart rate is steady so I assume that you're not going to die on me. Well, at least not right away. Now maybe we can get some questions answered."

Immediately, I felt my face settle into an intimately familiar mask, shielding my thoughts from the woman in front of me. Nothing was betrayed by my facial expressions. I was stone. Everything was still. I took upon me my father's character.

Tsunade-sama smirked at my blank features in amusement. "Five ribs injured; three broken and two cracked. A large stab wound made by a kunai to the right shoulder due to the dislodged tip embedded in the infected flesh. Collapsed right lung. Broken arm with a sprained wrist complete with scorch marks. Multiple lacerations, bruises painted on nearly every inch of skin. And to top it all off, a mild concussion."

I gave no inkling of understanding. Stone, I am stone.

Ignoring my lack of conversation, she explained the reason for her impressive list of injuries.

"If you had been found even a moment later, you would have died in your pathetic condition in your own blood."

"Do you expect gratitude?" My voice a drawling monotone.

She shook her head. "Oh no," a large smirk invaded her expression. "I expect an explanation."

Waving her hand absently, Tsunade sent out the faceless nurses. I looked up for a moment, watching the women in starched, white uniforms exit. Pink hair caught my attention and I felt my body freeze up. As if she could feel my gaze, the woman turned. Remorseful emerald eyes, filled to the brim with an unresolved inner sorrow, swept over my bedraggled appearance. A single shake of her head followed her disappearance through the doorway; its lock clicking in place to signify that I was left alone with my interrogator.

The sharp grating of a chair sliding none too delicately across the tiled floor drew my gaze back to Tsunade's figure settling comfortably in a rickety wooden chair that had most definitely seen better days. She pushed her knee length jacket away from her legs before she crossed them and set her hands on top.

"Alright, let's start. What's your name?"

I raised an eyebrow at her straightforward question and her assumption that she thought I would give her information that easily. I wasn't stupid or ignorant. I had been in an interrogation before. I knew the tricks; jousting with words was a game for me and one that I rarely lost.

When I decided to play the silent card, Tsunade heaved a tired sigh. Her thumb and forefinger circled soothingly on her temples, a headache most likely forming.

"Look kid, I've got a huge pile of paperwork on my desk that I unfortunately have to get back to sooner or later. If you don't want to cooperate, that's fine. I'll just set up a meeting with Ibiki, our head of interrogation, and you can talk to him them. So what's it going to be? Either way we're going to know who you are."

"…What if I say that I don't remember?"

"Concussion was on the wrong part of the brain, sweetie. Try again."

Anticipation of a good match made a small smile bloom on my face.

"Amaya," I ceded.

"Surname?"

I shook my head. "Not claimed."

"Orphan?"

"…My father's dead," oh it hurt, it hurt so much! "I never knew my mother."

"I'm sorry," came her automatic response.

I shrugged.

"Age," she continued.

"I think around twelve."

"You don't know your own age?"

"I don't even know my own birthday," I answered dryly.

A smirk grew on her lips, acknowledging my emerging sense of humor. I blame my mother's side of the family. Kami knows that the stoic Uchiha never laughed in his entire life.

Tsunade made a motion that suggested that she was checking off a mental list. "Alright, we've got the basics down. Now we come to the part of the questioning where I decide if you're a threat or not. This is my favorite part," she admitted with a Cheshire cat grin.

"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself."

"Oh, don't I know it," the woman said and a muscle in her face twitched, flushing her earlier carefree attitude away. Instead it was replaced with a solemn, sober look that reminded me of dad. Here came the difficult part, but fun. The trick was to not lie. I only had to answer with a partial truth to not be caught in a trap of words. Try me, I challenged mentally.

"How did you enter the village in your condition without alerting the perimeter guards?"

Guards? I questioned in my mind. There wouldn't be any- everything that I had pushed to the back of my mind, came before me all at once. Tsunade…I've heard that name before. Dad talked about her once.

He knew her.

That nurse with the pink hair, she mistakenly called me Sasuke in a voice that betrayed her knowledge of him.

She knew him.

All the ignored questions; the forlorn look in his eyes when he gazed into the distance as if remembering something, remembering something dear to his heart. The place he grew up.

Konoha. I was in the Village Hidden in the Leaves, the place of my father's childhood. I was in the hospital of the village that branded Sasuke as a traitor. And I was his daughter.

But I had to confirm it.

Looking at the Hokage of Konohagakure, I asked her what village I was in, without any of the thoughts that I had been thinking before, appear on my face.

She tilted her head. "You don't know where you are?"

"Enlighten me, please."

After a moment of silence, she answered. "Konoha."

I let out a breath that I hadn't even been aware I'd been holding. My suspicions verified, I told the response to her inquiry. "I don't know," I said simply. And it was the truth. I had no earthly clue how I had gotten here. A notion? Yes. Was I going to tell her? No.

Tsunade made a non-committal noise that sounded like a grunt. There wasn't a hint on her face that told me if she believed me or not. I thought that she was just annoyed. My assumption was proven when she finally leaned towards me, eyes slanted and tense shoulders. Before I could move away, her perfectly manicured hand snapped from its coil like a viper. Caught in its deadly grasp was my wrist, fingers splayed helpless under the woman's scrutiny.

"Funny thing chakra is," the Hokage of the village hidden in the leaves commented idly. "It exists in every single person. Some have an unimaginable quantity of the physical and spiritual energy stored, making them able to perform Ninjutsu and Genjutsu. It's amazing and yet it is always easy to tell whether someone has a large amount or not."

She didn't look away from my hand, her eyes roving over the fingertips. What she was looking for, I didn't know. I also didn't know why Tsunade decided to give me a basic lesson in chakra history. It was one I knew by heart and one that my father only had to repeat once when he began the lesson on chakra control. At about that time, I was maybe three years old. Hard work, it was. But I never hated him for not giving me a normal childhood. It was either learn to defend myself or die. There were no other choices when one's parent was a nuke-nin.

I drew out of my thoughts when Tsuande continued her little seminar.

"They have this…aura about them, you could say. A mystical ambiance that heightens their deadly personae. These men and women become shinobi, learning the ancient arts to control their boundless energy and protect their home."

I felt my fingers become cold as my spine stiffened. But still, the doctor refused to glance at me. She knew. She knew who I was. That had to be the only explanation. There were ninja waiting just outside that door, ready to kill me on their Hokage's mark because they knew my secret. I felt my throat constrict, my body's self-defense mechanism that closed off any words that might betray me. Any moment, the door would burst open. The glass would shatter at the window, death in the blank masks as a kunai slashed across my throat.

Tsunade continued, relentlessly. "I felt the same aura around you, although drained as it was. Even standing before Shinigami your chakra rebelled against death, using every last drop to heal your wounds until there was only a small ember left." She paused. "It was only enough to keep your heart pumping. Every major organ, failing. There was blood," a shiver disrupted her words, "so much blood pouring out of your tiny body. Then, your heart stopped. It was like you were giving up. But then, that tiny, little cinder flared and your heart started to beat again."

Her words enraptured me.

"However, we weren't sure if a girl like you could heal from all your massive injuries. You were young, your body malnourished, but you held on with the strength of a shinobi. And that thought got me thinking…"

"And what were your thoughts?" I asked, appearing unconcerned.

A smirk formed on her thin lips and I realized too late that the Hokage saw underneath my mask. She still held my wrist, my pulse beating erratically underneath her calloused fingertips, a tell-tale sign of my nervousness.

"I'll tell you," she practically purred. "What I was thinking was that if this little girl had the heart of a shinobi warrior, why not the skills of one?"

I tried to interject, but pressure exerted on my wrist forced my words back.

"Don't say anything until I've finished explaining the deal that I hope to make with you."

A deal? What? Wasn't she going to have me executed? I didn't know anything of value that she might want. Dad…Dad's dead, so I couldn't be used against him. Also, even if she tried to turn me against my father, I would sooner die than betray the only family I ever had. He was everything to me: a friend, an ally, a parent. What did this insane, drunken woman want?

Tsunade turned brown orbs toward me, the inebriated haze dissipated. "Am I right to assume that you have had some training in the shinobi arts?"

My small nod could have been seen as a muscle spasm. "I've never been to school, though. I was taught generally theory." Which was mostly true, if not a borderline lie. Whenever dad spoke, theories on control and finesse poured from his lips. His more intense lessons were hands on and physical. He always told me that knowing and doing were on complete opposites of the spectrum. My body should know what to do before my mind did. Thinking was too slow; instinct was faster and would save my life better than nonessential thoughts.

But, if I ever had a question, he would stop whatever he was doing to thoroughly answer. Ignorance could kill me just as fast as a kunai to the heart could. He had taught me a great deal; even the game of words.

Tsunade nodded. "I thought as much. So here's what I'm going to offer you, kid. In exchange for saving your life, you will attend the Ninja Academy here in Konoha with other brats the same age as you until you complete your training. Now, it is up to you whether or not you want to continue your education past the Genin stage, but it is not your choice to learn up to that point. With your half-assed training, you'd be a danger to yourself as well as to others around you."

I was so amazed that I didn't even bother to comment on her last sentence.

She continued. "Also with your education I will provide you with a place to live and a monthly allowance to buy food and stuff." She waved her free hand in the air to explain the wide variety of 'stuff'. "Food, shelter, the chance to learn; a lot to gain in our little bargain."

"A bargain is made so that both sides come out equally. I see no benefit for you," I pointed out, greatly confused as to why I was being offered so many gifts.

I've never had a home before. Dad and I were always on the move. It was too risky to stay in one place for very long because our hunters never seemed to tire, sleep, or lose track of their prey.

Spots of starlight twinkled in the older woman's eyes as her hand released my wrist and settled lightly on the bandages covering my right shoulder. "If I play my cards right in this deal of ours, I believe it is I who will come out of this with a full house. So, do you agree?"

I didn't understand and I told her as much.

"It's simple," she explained. "Just say 'yes' and –

"That's not what I meant! I mean that I don't understand why you are doing this!" I exclaimed. "I'm an orphan, a nobody who you scraped off the street! I'm not some pity case assigned to ease guilt! What do you want? Why are you doing this?!"

I turned my face away, ashamed of the tears that built up without my consent. Hot streaks of sorrow raced down flushed cheeks, I being unable to stop their course. Tsunade didn't say a word as I struggled to control myself. Shinobi do not cry. Shinobi show no emotion. Stone, I am stone.

When I locked away my emotions into a box, latched with chains, I looked back at the silent Hokage. She peered at my face for a moment before speaking.

"It may seem that I ask nothing in return, but I truly am receiving things far greater than the simple gifts I give to you."

A home is not a simple gift, I thought, it is a priceless treasure.

"Some time ago, a young boy stood before me with the very same look in his eyes that you bear. A past wreathed in pain, an invisible responsibility that weighed down heavily on his shoulders, and a will so strong that he could move mountains. You remind me so much of that boy and I will not fail you as I did him."

Her voice was quiet when she reached the end of her explanation. And I wanted this. I wanted this opportunity so badly.

"I won't accept charity," I whispered.

"Fine," she acquiesced. Her hand trailed up to gently cradle my chin. "I will ask three favors from you. No more, no less. I will not tell you these favors until I ask them of you. But I'll tell you the first one."

My back straightened at her words, ready for anything she would ask of me.

"You will attend the Academy, make friends, and have a semblance of a normal life. That is all."

"What?"

Tsunade quickly coughed and released my face before standing up.

"I don't have time to answer all your silly questions. I'm a very busy woman with a full schedule ahead of me and I can't spend all day here waiting for you to agree. So, if you'll excuse me?"

When she turned to open the door and step out into the hallway, I made my decision.

"We have a deal."

The Hokage didn't turn around, but nodded to show that she heard me and left with the parting words of "get some rest".

My eyes closed without my permission and I drifted off to sleep in an ocean full of dreams. I never saw my silver haired visitor with a dog shaped mask place a handful of flowers in the vase next to my bedside.