Thank you, for choosing to read this.
The Story.
What defines a story is not how it ends, but what happens to get to the end.
She lived in a townhouse inside the Uchiha complex.
Nearly seven years ago, a nine-tailed fox demon attacked the village. Two months later, the Uchiha complex had been build –to reinforce the community bonds of the clan- and all those who were Uchiha were asked to move into the complex. It had been Fugaku, the clan leader who had urged the clan to do it. He insisted that the privacy of the complex would ensure the clan's long lasting bonds with one another.
Following the words of the clan leader, Hisaki and all the other Uchiha packed up their stuff without question and moved. Back then, she'd only been ten, and her grandmother had still been alive. Hisaki's grandmother had not been pleased to relocate, insisting that if they moved, all of the history of their household, of Hisaki's parents, would be forgotten.
Hisaki secretly thought that their household had already been forgotten, but she didn't make her grandmother feel even more displaced by stating it. Instead, she told her grandmother with words more wise than a ten year old's that material didn't make memories, people do and that as long as they wouldn't forget, Hisaki's parents would not be forgotten. And so the grandmother took word from her grandchild and allowed herself to be moved.
Hisaki's grandmother had died years ago. Hisaki's last memories of her grandmother were not pleasant ones. She'd always wandered the complex, walked aimlessly around the village in a bad mood. In her old age, she was bitter and unhappy. She hated living in the complex, being given only a townhouse in which to reside (the clan members had reasoned that one old lady and her granddaughter would need no more) and constantly went on about feeling betrayed by the clan.
After Hisaki's parents had died and after Hisaki had decided to so stubbornly decided not to pursue becoming a shinobi, the clan had stopped acknowledge their household and they'd stopped respecting Hisaki's grandmother. Her grandmother was miserable, and then she passed away.
After she passed away, Hisaki lived alone.
What makes a happy ending?
In a fairy tale, the protagonists overcome adversity, marry their love interests and live happily ever after. It was as if after facing the adversity, all characters just forgot about that which they'd overcome. Cinderella forgot the torturous years of living like a slave to her step-mother. Snow White forgot about all those attempts on her life. The Little Mermaid happily left behind her previous life, her family and her friends. They'd all moved on, and they were happy.
Happy endings, crafted so aptly in fairy tales were not nearly the case with reality. In the fairy tale version of events, the war would end and everyone would live happily after. But happily ever after did not constitute in real life. The war left Hisaki without parents, and that was not something she could just forget about when the war ended. After her grandmother left her too, Hisaki had no one. It was hardly, 'and she lived happily ever after.'
"Hey onee-chan," said a six year old Uzumaki Naruto through his meal. When he ate, he was sloppy and almost animalistic in his actions. More often than not, he gulped down his food with little inhibition. Perhaps it was the demon inside him that prompted such characteristics. "Do you remember a lot about my parents?"
It was characteristics of kids who hadn't known their parents to be a bit over-obsessed with their lineage. We all want what we don't have. Thus, orphans want families. Hisaki too, could remember asking her grandmother and Shisui about her parents so often they'd get annoyed and tell her off.
Onee-chan, he'd called her. The title made her sad.
Hisaki thought about what she remembered of Naruto's parents. They had been friends with her parents. Hisaki's grandmother had often boasted that Hisaki's parents were held in such high esteem, they were even close friends with the Hokage and his wife. She couldn't recall any of that though, Hisaki hadn't been born yet. The funnier thing was that she recalled Naruto's parents with more clarity than she could her own.
"They were very strong, and very kind," Hisaki told the eager six year old. She remembered revering them as a child. The Hokage and his wife seemed to be legendary, and unapproachable yet, every time she needed them, they'd been there. They used to visit Hisaki and her grandmother. She even remembered Kushina Uzumaki's pregnancy and asking to touch her belly. "And they were respected by everyone in the village."
She'd expected Naruto to be proud, to beam and remark how he knew his parents were really great. Instead, he looked sad, lowering his eyes, surely hoping to hide the fact that he was on the brink of tears. "If that's true, then why does everyone hate me?"
Hisaki was unsure of how to answer this question. She was stricken by the desperate longing of a child to be loved. Children need love, thought Hisaki. That's why their parents shouldn't be forced to leave them. Since she'd been thirteen, the third Hokage had paid her to babysit Naruto.
"Those who did not know Minato and Kushina like you and I did cannot love Naruto as we can," Hiruzen Sarutobi had explained to her when she'd asked him why he'd picked her to care for Naruto when it should have been everyone's honour to do so. In the years past, Hisaki had come to realize it was more than that. Of all the people in the village, she was the one who could empathize most closely with Naruto because she too had lost her parents at a young age.
At times like the present, Hisaki felt a pang of sadness at the slight déjà vu of knowing yet another child whose childhood had been so despairingly tainted by the death of his parents. Seeing him so sad brought water to her eyes too.
"Oh, Naruto," she said picking him up and letting him rest his head against her shoulder as he shed tears.
He was small for his age and light in Hisaki's arms, but he stood out with his shocking blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Even at six he looked so much like the fourth Hokage. And his face bore markings of whiskers. It was cruel that every time someone looked at him, they would be reminded of what he harboured. And they would ostracize him, act as harshly as children who hadn't learned better. How could people be so cruel? To a child, no less.
"People resent what they can't measure up to," Hisaki explained. "Everyone in the village knows that you are going to grow up and be great. They are just envious because even though your parents aren't here, there are so many people who still love and care for you."
"Then why do I feel like no one likes me?" asked Naruto through his runny nose and sniffles.
"You cannot doubt that there are people who love you, Naruto," said Hisaki, echoing the words of Naruto's own parents. "Doubt can eat through all of our hopes and dreams. So don't be sad for those who treat you unkindly. Be happy for those who don't, okay?"
She carried Naruto around the house until her arms got numb and he'd cried himself to sleep.
When Naruto thought of the Uchiha, he could not recall nearly half of what Sasuke could. While Sasuke could very distinctly remember the entire village, where each person lived, how they interacted and such; Naruto's knowledge of the Uchiha clan was limited to two people, Sasuke being one of them. The other was Hisaki.
When he saw the Uchiha struggling he was reminded of himself. He would remember Hisaki, who told him she knew the feelings he harboured and of course he wouldn't believe her because no one could possibly know how he felt. Then Sasuke threw Naruto into her shoes and he felt that he knew exactly how she must have felt.
Sasuke had known Hisaki too, that was something Naruto always knew. Often, she'd speak of Sasuke. She would say that he was Naruto's age and that she would have loved it if they became friends.
In his later years, he tried so hard to sway Sasuke out of his ending mourning. He tried to befriend the younger Uchiha because Naruto was sure that, if Hisaki could come through and be there for him, he could do the same for Sasuke. That was the way that kindness travelled. You get it, and then you pass it on.
As an afterthought, when Naruto found out about the heinous crimes of Itachi Uchiha, he could hardly believe that the girl he'd called 'onee-chan', the one who was so kind and understanding and pure, had loved him.