The nightmares started when she was five, right after her mom was killed. She would wake up crying almost every night, until her Nana came to wake her and comfort her. After her Nana passed away from an illness, it was Kara who would wake and soothe her when her nightmares would come. They stopped for a while when she was 11, but two years later they returned. Now she had to deal with them on her own. Maya had woken her the past few nights, but ever since the attack she tried to sleep as little as possible, because she knew what was coming.
There was no resisting the sleep medication though, what ever it was, was strong, and it only took a few minutes to kick in before she was pulled into the darkness. Her dreams were never about one specific thing, and when she woke she could never remember what the dream was about. she would just wake up scared and crying.
She slept until about 2 a.m. before the dreams came, everything was on fire in the dream, and in the fire she could see the faces of her family trying to pull her in as she ran away. In her dream it felt like she was running for hours, but in reality her dream had only lasted about a minute. Then she felt someone shaking her and she bolted up wide awake. She could tell she had been crying by the dampness on her cheeks, her eyes darted around the dark room, until she found Shikamaru who was staring at her wide eyed and mouth open. Then she felt it. The slight tingling sensation she felt whenever her eyes changed color. The one time she wasn't in control was when she was asleep, and now he had seen it. Her sharingan.
"Don't" she pleaded "don't tell them." She was scared, he could see it in her body language. He had to decide right then and there if he should go and get Tsunade, or hear the girl out. "Tell me everything." he demanded "Why you don't want to be here, what village you're from and why it was attacked." "You aren't going to tell them?" she asked in a shaky voice. Shikamaru shook his head, "No, you are going to tell them, I'm just going to decide if you tell them now or if it can wait till the morning." Marianna nodded her "Alright, but just tell me one thing." "What?" Shikamaru snapped losing his patience, "Is...is he here, in the village?" It took him a moment for him to figure out who she was talking about, and the it hit him. "You mean Sauske? Yes he's here, he was here in the hospital when you were brought in. Why?" She slowly took off the silver rectangle locket that hung around her neck and handed it to him. He took it, it was a simple locket a bit larger then most but still something she could easily hide under her shirt. "Open it." she said. He did as he was told, and when he saw what was in it, he almost dropped it. There in the tiny frame was an even smaller picture of her at about four years old, sitting on the lap of a young Itachi Uchiha.
"Why do you have this?" he demanded "Itachi he...he's my brother." Shikamaru didn't know what to say. This whole thing was impossible wasn't it? Sauske was the last Uchiha, everyone else had died. "After the nine tails attack," she continued "My mom was devastated about losing her husband, it took her a long time to pull herself together, but she was never the same. About two years later she met a man in a bar, they talked for a while, got drunk, and one thing led to another. She didn't ask what his name was, she didn't know he was from the Uchiha clan, and once she found out he had a family she never spoke to him again. Until she found out she was pregnant. He made it very clear he didn't want me, and that he didn't want his wife to find out, so my mom decided enough was enough and she and my family moved to a town not far from here. She wrote to him when i was born but she never heard back from him. When Itachi was ten he showed up at my house, saying that he had found the letter my mom had sent Fugaku, I was only two so i don't remember much. He visited a lot though, up until he died."
He was left speechless, what she was saying didn't make any sense. She might have been only two when she first met Itachi but it was obvious they had a relationship after that. After the massacre everyone knew who Itachi Uchiha was, even civilians, there was no way her family hadn't heard. "You know what happened to your...to his clan right? Your mom just let him come around after it happened?" he asked. Even though he now knew why Itachi had killed his own family, he grew up thinking he was a ruthless killer. So how did she have a relationship with him? "He told my grandmother what happened. He was hurting so much and he just old her, she believed him after a while. He told her that he wanted to still see me, to protect us. No one knew who my father was, and after the massacre it was decided that i would grow up safer if it was kept a secret. Besides, no one knew if i would even inherit the sharingan, why reveal who my dad was if it wasn't necessary?" "But you did inherit it." Shikamaru said. She nodded "When i was five my mom was murdered, to this day we still don't know who did it. My Nana and sisters had gone into town and I was playing outside. I walked into the house and she was just laying on the floor. We moved after that and Itachi was around a lot more that year, teaching me how to control my eyes."
"So I take it you know it was Sauske that killed him? Is that why you asked about him earlier, because you didn't want to see him?" Shikamaru asked trying to put the pieces together. "Yes," she said "Itachi filled me in on what Sauske was doing. My not wanting to see him has nothing to do with Itachi's death. Itachi chose that, and i've learned to live with it." "So why don't you want to see him? He's technically your brother-" "NO." she said cutting him off. "We may share a father but i don't consider him my brother. Itachi was, IS my brother, he took care of me, made sure i was safe. Sauske went back on everything Itachi wanted for this village, he put his own anger over his brother's love, and tried to destroy what Itachi tried to save. Itachi gave everything up to save him, and Sauske grew up throwing all of it away." Shikamaru could see her shoulders shaking with anger, this was obviously a touchy subject for her.
"So explain how and why your village was attacked." he continued. She took a deep breath, controlling herself, "After my Nana passed we didn't have any one left to take care of us, Itachi obviously couldn't. The village I've been living in for the past ten years, is secret to everyone but the 5 Kage, and its located outside of the Fire country. This village takes in orphans from all the lands, civilians and shinobi children. Its called the village Hidden in Shadows, and they take in village orphans and train them to become ninjas." "Hold on, how is it that no one has heard of, or seen this village?" "I told you, it was created in secret and only the five Kage know about it. Its only been around for about 30 years or so. Its in a pretty secluded area and we have some pretty powerful genjutsu users to hide the village. If you've never seen the village you won't find it." Shikamaru wasn't buying the story just yet.
"So you're telling me that the Kage just allow a secret village to take it orphans and train kids, like there own personal army?" She shook her head "No, the village isn't very large, in fact its smaller than all of the other hidden villages. Its also mostly made up of younger kids, when we turn 21 we are given the option to go back to our native village, join the civilian life, or you can stay and guard the village and help train the other kids. Villages can't always take care of every single orphan, especially after a war, so they take the kids that won't be missed. Our village was funded by the five villages, we had our own council and everything, but because most of us were from different lands, so we each had someone to represent our native village. As for why our village was attacked, I don't know. Nothing like this has ever happened, in the ten years that I've lived there, we never even had a breach in security. We ran drills and things like that, but this came out of no where, it was complete chaos."
He believed her. He was crazy but he believed her. Shikamaru was trying his best to process everything he was just told, he didn't think Marianna was a threat, but he knew that this information had to be shared with the Hokage. And Sauske. "You're going to have to tell the Hokage everything," he said "And not just about the attack, you're going to have to tell him who your father is. I can't keep that from him, and he isn't going to be able to keep it from Sauske either." "I know" she said "I'm mad at him though. Its silly but i can't help but be angry with him. I know Itachi never told him about me but i can't help being mad at him for never being around. I can't help but think that if he had given up on his revenge and moved on, then maybe Itachi could have told him the truth. To be honest Sauske scares me." Shikamaru snickered "Sauske scares you? You ran around and trained with a S-ranked criminal, with no proof of what the council made him do, and Sauske is the one who scares you."
She nodded "Yes he does. Everything Itachi did he did out of love for his family. He sacrificed everything he had for love. Sauske was willing to sacrifice everything for power, including love. That kind of determination is ten times scarier then Itachi ever was." "Thats all in the past now though, Sauske changed after the war." "I know that" she said "I understand what he's trying to do, and I'm glad that you see a change in him, but you have to understand that I don't know that changed man, I only know the one that killed Itachi out of hatred."
Shikamaru's head hurt, he didn't think this was something he needed to report this instant, but the moment Kakashi got back they needed to see him. "Get some rest" he told her "We're going to see the Hokage first thing in the morning." She smiled at him "Thank you." "For what?" he asked. "For not running off and telling everyone just yet." "It would've been to troublesome to wake Tsunade, only to have to tell Kakashi all over again anyways." he said laying back on his pillow. He turned to look at Marianna who was laying down facing him, with her eyes closed, trying to go back to sleep.
This whole thing was becoming a drag. He was more worried about how Sauske was gonna react to this more than anything. In fact he was 99% positive that Sauske wasn't going to be pleased about having a little sister who was the result of a one night stand his father had. No, he wasn't going to take this very well at all.