This chapter is long over due. I apologize.

Romeo and Juliet

Chapter 8

"What happened?" he asked me. I looked up into his dark eyes, searching. My heart felt swollen in my chest. This, I realized, is what it feels like to be happy. He took a step closer to me and inspected my bloodied face.

"I…I got into another fight." He pushed the hair out of my eyes and looked at my bruised eye. Is this what it felt like for Sasuke—this incredibly whole feeling in my gut? I stared at his eyes, my reflection staring back at me. The girl that stood there looked like everything around her was falling apart. She looked like she had just walked through a mine field and barely lived to tell about it. But something about the look on her face left her looking content. For the first time in a long time, that girl that stared back at me in the mirror looked alive.

"Let's get some salve on those cuts." I followed him numbly into the kitchen, surprised at his actions. Why was he being so nice to me? But I was numb with happiness, and could not think straight. He gently cleansed my wounds, dabbing them lightly with an antiseptic. He applied the salve over them, sending a cold numbness into my limbs. Then he covered them with bandages.

His motions were too graceful, too perfect. I found myself fixated on every move he made. We sat outside on the porch leading to the gardens. Neither of us spoke. The sky changed from blue, to pink, and to finally a dark navy. I felt like there was some unspoken understanding between us. Something I would have never thought possible.

"Tsukiko, it is time for you to go to bed." I looked up at the stars and nodded.

"Hai. Good night, father." I pulled myself up and walked with a new bounce in my step. I walked to the door and looked back. Father looked so calm and serene. I liked how we didn't need to speak to each other. It felt so utterly familiar. I liked how he seemed to completely understand me. I smiled at the back of his head before going inside, the door shut behind me.

I was skipping to my room, humming a nursery rhyme to myself. That's why I didn't hear my father's reply. "Goodnight, Tsuki. Sleep tight…and don't let the bitter remarks of our father bite."

Breakfast was different than any other that morning. To my dismay, father had left before the sun had risen for some important issue at the police base. My mother, for the first time in my lifetime, had slept in. Sasuke had already left for the academy. At breakfast, it was just me and my favorite person in the entire world.

Itachi sat across from me, having magically come home during the night. I was embarrassed to get up that morning, sporting my cuts and bruises. None of the signs of my bitter loss mattered as I sat at the table with Itachi. I couldn't help myself from smiling at him with what was probably the biggest grin in Konoha.

"I have so much to tell you! The other day—"

"Tsukiko." The sound of my full name coming out of Itachi's mouth stopped me in my tracks. He had always referred to me as 'Tsuki.'

"Hai?"

"The shinobi world is a dangerous place," I rested my chin on my hands that were clasped in front of me. He talked so rarely about being a ninja and he was the smartest, most clever person I knew. "A place that relies completely on balance. The balance of good and bad, shinobi and civilian, and choices made everyday. Every decision has motive just as every question has an answer. Every choice has a reason, even if that reason is so confusing and complicated that no one can see it." He became quiet and I stared at him with big eyes, waiting for him to continue.

"The choices we make define us as a person. Whether it is as trivial as what clothes to wear, or as important as the future of our village, our choices are significant."

"Brother," I said, completely and utterly confused. I knew deciding to go to a school far away or staying here and becoming a ninja was a big decision, but I did not see how it could affect the entire village. "How could a yes or no question be so important?"

"It's all about balance and maintaining that balance to create peace."

At the time, I thought Itachi was talking about my decision to study far away.

In time, I would realize that he was talking about his decision to slaughter our clan.

I left the house after breakfast, feeling lost and confused. Itachi had been talking in riddles lately. He was the smartest person I knew, but sometimes I wished he were smart enough to dumb it down for those less intelligent, like myself. My thoughts were forced to the back of my mind when I sensed a familiar feel to the air.

"Ryuu!" I turned around and was met with the familiar eyes of my close friend. Over the past months, the two of us had drifted due to his going to the academy and my training with Orochimaru-sens—Orochimaru. I wrapped my arms tightly around him but he did not hug me back. I pulled away, confused and hurt. "Ryuu?"

He took a step back, putting distance between us. His eyes were less lively than they had always been before. There was emptiness about them now that brought sadness to my chest. He lowered his eyes to the ground. "You'll hate me when I tell you."

"I could never hate-!"

"I killed someone."

I felt a kick to my gut, the wind rushing out of my lungs.

"B-but Ryuu, you…you promised…"

"I saw his body stop moving in front of my very eyes and I wondered: why did I do it? How could I do it?"

"If you were doing it to protect someone—"

"I wasn't." His eyes rose to meet mine. There was a new intensity in them that I had never seen before. "I was protecting myself in the long run. I killed my best friend at the academy."

I couldn't even find it in me to speak.

"See, I heard rumors about there being a secret meeting place that told of a whole new stage of sharingan, a stage of sharingan that would make you more powerful than even the adult shinobi. To acquire it, you had to kill the one you called your closest friend."

I felt both terrified that Ryuu was capable of killing another human being and sad that he did not see me as his closest friend.

"I killed him and now I realize that these rumors aren't spread by my peers, they're spread by the adults. The killing of fellow Uchiha has been happening since the beginning of our clan. It's in our blood," he scratched at his skin for emphasis, dark marks lying in his nails' wake. "I'm more powerful than anyone in my class and yet I feel so hollow inside."

This person in front of me…how could he be my childhood friend? How could he be the very friend that had agreed with me in not ever wanting to harm people?

"Show me," I grit out, meeting his eyes once again. "Show me what the eyes of a killer look like."

And he did—he activated his newly developed mangeku sharingan.

I stared into the eyes he had acquired by killing someone.

And I realized…his eyes looked just like Itachi's.

I was fuming when a hand grabbed my sleeve later that day. I looked to my side to see the beautiful Akako that I had become instant friends with. "What's wrong?" She asked me, her dark eyes full of compassion.

What's wrong? My best friend is a killer! My brother is a killer!

"Don't touch me," I pulled away, trying to hide the tears in my eyes with the bitterness in my voice. The Uchiha pride that flowed through me was as strong as in any other member of my clan.

"Tsuki—" She looked scared, her lower lip quivering, her eyes tearing up. She looked so weak and vulnerable, so innocent, so un-Uchiha.

"Don't call me that!" I yelled, hating the sound of Itachi's nickname rolling off of her tongue. I was weak for a Uchiha, I knew that and I accepted that. I couldn't even defeat a genin. Orochimaru had dropped me as his student. But this quivering girl in front of me? She had no right to wear the symbol of pride on her back.

I pushed her—hard—and she just barely managed to stop herself from falling onto the ground. How could someone who went to the academy be so weak? "Tsukiko, what happened to you?"

"What happened to me?" I yelled. "My father and mother hate me! My sensei shoves me away! My brother wishes to always be better than me! And my other brother—I don't even know about him anymore!"

"Tsuk—"

I could suddenly see clearly, like a legally blind person that had put on glasses for the first time, like a blanket had lifted from my eyes. I could see myself hurting Akako, ending her life. It would be simple, she wasn't an accomplished fighter and she was of low status, few would miss her. I would gain a pair of the most powerful eyes in the world. I would beat Sasuke. I would make my father proud.

"Does this mean I will become a murderer?"

"No, Kiko. What you do with your powers is up to you. You can choose to be good or evil, to save or kill…to seek power or reject it. It is your battle and no one else's."

With the memory fresh on my mind, my vision changed to me slumping over a bloody form, a form that I could hardly recognize as the exotic Uchiha I considered my closest friend. I clung to her, sobbing, unabashed by my demeaning behavior. My form was stained with her crimson blood, it flowing in streams around me. My kunai still sat proudly in her chest.

I blinked several times, forcing myself out of my daze. The two visions were fresh on my mind when I noticed that her mouth was still moving, forming words and sounds that refused to reach my ears. They came to me in a sudden rush.

"—that's why I think that fighting isn't the answer! You're better than that, Tsukiko. Where's the girl that is my best friend? Is she still in there?" My vision, dulled to normal, landed on her.

Decisions, whether seemingly big or small, are all important. I looked down at my balled fists, watching as they opened to show my callused palms. If I had killed her for power, I would have become a murderer. I would kill to be able to save…how did that make any sense?

When I wrapped my arms around my sobbing friend, when I cried with her, I threw my Uchiha pride aside and opened a world of completely new possibilities. I had decided to reject power. I had saved instead of killed. I had chosen good over evil.

I was leisurely reading a book when it happened. A terrible, twisting feeling knotted in my stomach. I dropped the book from where I lay on the bed and lifted myself up, looking outside the window. I had just realized how still and eerily calm it was outside. The sun was just beginning to set over the horizon, the sky tinted a bright orange, but I didn't have that happy feeling that it usually brought me. Instead I had a feeling of dread and apprehension of what was to come.

"Mother? Father?" I called as I sprinted from my room, the book long forgotten. I raced into the hallway, running into my mother's side. She put her arms on my shoulders, bending down to my height. The first thing I noticed was the tears in her eyes. The second was that I had missed my mother's touch.

"Tsukiko, all those times you disappeared, when you would come back and say you had been out in the garden—" I had gone to tell her right away that it was under Itachi's bed when she brought a finger to my lips to silence me. "Don't say it aloud. Go there now and don't get out of hiding until the sun rises. No matter who calls for you, no matter what you hear, you stay there…okay?"

"Yes, mother," I said as tears mirroring my mother's found there way to the corner of my eyes. She pulled my close her, pulling my hand into her warm shoulder.

"Forgive me for everything I have done, Tsukiko. Your father and I truly love you and we will never cease in doing so." My father's figure appeared above my mother, an expression on his face that I had never seen before. He was a man of few words, but from the emotion he let show on his face, I could tell that he felt as my mother said.

There was a crash from somewhere outside and my mother pulled away. "Go!" she mouthed as she gave me a push in the other direction. I glanced behind me only once to see my mother sitting beside my father as he pulled a sword from its sheath. I ran down the hall as quietly as I could, ripping open Itachi's door and closing it loudly behind me, childishly turning the lock. I pulled myself under his bed, my most prized possessions still where I had left them. I pulled my teddy bear into my arms, positioning myself in the fetal position.

I cried silent tears into Mr. Fluff 'n' Stuff as I heard screams from all directions.

"You can go into my room anytime you want. When you feel lonely or afraid. Just remember I'll always be in there with you."

Itachi—where was he now, when I needed him most? Where was my comforter? My safety? The room didn't feel nearly as safe as it did when he was in it with me. He was so intelligent, a genius, a prodigy…shouldn't he know that we needed him? Shouldn't he be able to sense it?

That was the second time I doubted Itachi and with good reason, because seconds after I heard my parents' screams, the door creaked open to reveal sandal clad feet. They walked further into the room, stopping only when they were centimeters from the bed.

"Tsuki?"

"Go there now and don't get out of hiding until the sun rises. No matter who calls for you, no matter what you hear, you stay there…okay?"

I didn't respond.

Itachi didn't care.

"I killed them all. Father, Mother, Ryuu, Akako…the entire clan."

I pulled my favorite bear closer to me as a sob threatened to tear through my throat.

"But I have left both you and Sasuke because you could prove valuable to me in the future."

Why, Itachi? Why are you doing this?

"To Sasuke, I will leave my power—my drive to being the best, my skill, and my techniques. To you, Tsuki, I will leave my knowledge. That book you read that was labeled 'Jutsu,' it was an experiment I had been working on for some time. In it was a seal that held everything—my memories, my intelligence, and my genius knowledge. Granted, it was not quite finished when you read it. Pity, that I didn't factor in the possibility of you reading it in sheer anger and negligence."

"Why?" I spoke before I could stop myself, promptly clamping my hands over my mouth.

"Killing the clan was but a stepping stone for me in my quest for power. Just as manipulating you and Sasuke was, only this will be far more rewarding."

I didn't hold back my tears and whimpers this time.

"Tsukiko," Itachi spoke as he turned on his heel to leave. "Don't get in Sasuke's way."

And like that, his dark and sinister presence left the compound. I didn't know how I knew, but I knew. I felt it like a pricks of a needle.

Like that, I knew that when I got up my family would be dead.

I knew I could never compete with Sasuke.

I knew my father would never be proud of me.

I knew that it didn't matter that I had chosen good over evil.

All that mattered was that everything I had ever held dear was gone, and the one person I had loved the most had caused it.

I wonder how many people thought that Tsukiko would kill Akako or Ryuu and get the mangeku sharingan?

This chapter is dedicated solely to xYuzuruRengex who reviewed and changed my whole perspective of this story. I was going to have her go just before the massacre, simply because it was easier. After reading your review, I realized that-to the best of my abilities-I want to keep a nice thick line between my story and other stories. Tsukiko was there for the massacre, she provides a side of it that Sasuke does not. She will never get the mangeku. She will not be Mary Sue. To me, she serves as showing how harsh the ninja world truly is. She shows that no seven year old should witness the death of his/her family. She shows that ninja mature much too fast and that it isn't a walk in the park. Feel free to message me with any questions!

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