V.

After the Kyuubi's attack and the subsequent loss of the Fourth Hokage as well as a substantial amount of villagers, Konoha's sentiments towards the Uchiha clan as a whole shifted into the negative. A great many suspected it was our clan that orchestrated the whole shebang thanks to our dear ancestor Madara's history with the beast, and to an extent, well...they were right.

It was because of two Uchihas that such misfortune and destruction fell upon the village. Just—not us.

Relations with other clans and civilians alike had already been, y'know, rocky at best even before this event, but now there was obvious animosity. Not in the apparent, throw-rotten-fruit-at-the-outcasts way, either, but the quiet, simmering kind where people side-eyed us and muttered behind our backs like uppity jerks.

The dislike spread like wildfire.

But, at the very least, old man Third did his best to remain neutral and to continue supporting everyone in his village equally. It was probably thanks to him that the rancor didn't overflow into something disgusting and biased to where the clan was shunned. But he never really did do anything about it.

If things didn't end up getting all FUBAR later on thanks to interlopers like Danzo and Obito, maybe...maybe the clan would have gotten out of this alive.

I didn't like any of it—in fact, I hated it. But it wasn't enough to make me want to change it. Even if it hurt, it was something that I would have to deal with; just grin and bear.

Because, if there was even the smallest chance that I would be returned to my own world when I was killed in the massacre, the payoff would be well worth it. It was only a matter of a few more years. I did care for these people—loved them, in fact. But... they weren't mine.

Sometime after this, around the time I was eight, Emiko and Satoshi pulled me out of the Academy because I wasn't making any outward progress in the shinobi side of life anyway and the teachers were starting to get irritated at my behavior—it might have been because of the ostracism, too, but they never talked about it. Dad became pretty tight-lipped concerning clan meetings and general clan talk after the whole Kyuubi thing went down—and if that wasn't just a bad sign.

Emiko took it upon herself to homeschool me, teaching me the basics in each subject—enough to get by. Most of it was what I already knew but I pretended to be a moron learning new great things just to make her happy. Satoshi still attempted to persuade me with flashy clan techniques, thanks to Kou's testament about my awesome Fireball, but when I stubbornly refused to comply, he finally gave up and let me have my peace as a normal villager. They discussed my future and decided I would follow in Emiko's footsteps and become a seamstress, too. At least, they hoped that would work out—this was me they were dealing with after all.

By this time, Shisui graduated and became a full-fledged genin and our time together became less and less. It was a huge shift, but I actually spent more time around Itachi and his family, because even though I dropped Sasuke once and could have damned (or bettered) his future (like I said before, it was an accident), Mikoto liked having me around to help out every now and then.

Sometimes I wondered if my oh-so lovely, fiery personality reminded her of her late friend Uzumaki Kushina—it would have explained her tolerance for me.

And, when Sasuke was old enough to walk and go outside, I took him along with me to pick up Itachi from the Academy—but that turned out to be only a measly two short times, because the kid was a pint-sized genius who managed to clear the bar in a year and became a genin soon after.

Then, it was just me and Sasuke most of the time.

Who would have thought—I'd somehow landed myself as his babysitter.

It was almost like the world was goading me, all but begging me to dip my hands into this mess of a timeline and break the chain of fate. And I was in the perfect position to, too. Three major players were within my reach and—hell, I'd be an idiot to ignore it if it aligned with my intentions.

Unfortunately, it didn't. If my rebirth here was supposed to have an actual purpose, I was gonna run from it and keep running.

The only purpose I had, as far as I was concerned, was to die at the age of fifteen.

Everything else was just the icing on that cake.

"Oh, it's just you."

"Yeah. Me again. Disappointed?"

Did I ever mention Sasuke didn't actually like me all that much? I didn't know what his deal was—no one told him I dropped him once and, for the last time, it was an accident—but whatever the issue, it was what led to our current stand-off.

All I did was come over to the Head's house to babysit and as soon as I reached the door, the three-year-old brat threw it open with a wide, excited grin that dropped from his face like a stone the moment his eyes landed on me (and it was especially annoying because it really resembled the sour-faced expressions Fugaku made when he caught me causing trouble. Sasuke looked like his mom more than anything, but there were definitely traces of his father there).

He was probably hoping I was Itachi.

But if I had an older brother like that I'd be excited to see him, too. And upset if it wasn't him at the door after all.

The little dark-haired half-pint puffed out his cheeks and leaned his weight moodily against the open door before waving me forward into the home sooo graciously. Then, as soon as I kicked my shoes off in the entryway, he pointedly eyed the large bag I was carrying, curiosity slightly piqued. "What're we doing today, Auntie Rika?"

"Auntie? I'm barely older than your brother. Just call me Rika!"

He shrugged, putting on his best innocent face. "But you're so old."

"Excuse me!?"

"Fiiine. Rika-nee."

"I guess that's better..." Brat.

I dropped the over-stuffed canvas bag on the ground and dug through it, pulling out a small box with a grin. "We're gonna paint today. Emi—I mean, my mom got me some art stuff the other day and I thought you'd wanna try it, too." Surprisingly, fine art was more predominant in this world than I expected. I'd always thought it was just something that cropped up along with Sasori, Deidara and Sai in Shippuden, but it actually had history. Mostly among the civilians, but still.

"Painting? That's so boring, Rika-nee! Why can't we do ninja stuff like my big brother? Didn't you go to the Academy, too? Show me what they teach you there so I can learn some stuff and train with Itachi!" Damn, for a toddler he sure was loquacious. And already so entitled.

There he stood, back straight, chest puffed-out, with his hands set on his hips. There was an imperious frown on his face and the whole thing made him stink of royalty, like a little prince.

Spoiled. Spoiled spoiled spoiled. Rotten. And way too hard to please. How exhausting.

"I'm not a ninja, Sasuke. Just ask Itachi about it when he comes home later." I shook the box in his direction. "Right now just—I dunno. Paint a picture for him until then. Of you two training together or something."

His face immediately brightened up when I mentioned his beloved brother. "Okay!" Then, he snatched the box out of my hands and held it over his head as he scurried down the hallway towards the sitting room.

Not a very lengthy attention span, that one.

"H-hey, I have the paper here! Don't open that 'til I get there, kid!" Last thing I needed was for him to get paint all over Mikoto's nice, clean house.

...Actually, maybe that's exactly what I needed.

Sasuke hadn't ever been disciplined from what I knew, and wouldn't it just be awful if I looked the other way while he splattered paint all across the walls? His mom would lose her shit.

Unfortunately, that wasn't quite how it went. The kid was way too neat with this. His hands were smudged with colors and so was his face, but otherwise he kept the paints on the surface of the paper and off the furniture.

As expected, he didn't seem too happy with the end product. He sighed, deeply, unsatisfied—always one for the dramatics—and puffed out his squirrely cheeks as he held up the picture to observe it in proper lighting. He turned the paper this way and that, held it up over his head, set it down on the table, held it arms' length away from his eyes, eyebrows furrowed together in deep concentration, and this went on for a solid, entire annoying minute before he finally spoke his mind.

"It's too small, Rika-nee."

"Too small?" I held out my hand and he passed it across to me.

...What the hell was I looking at?

Last time I checked—and it wasn't really all that long ago—Itachi didn't look like an abstract, yellowish-peachy version of the squiggly guy from Munch's The Scream dressed up in some weird imaginative ninja clothes. But Sasuke's self-portrait looked pretty accurate—a blob of bratty evil incarnate, complete with the squishy cheeks.

Unlike most kids who would typically draw tiny stick figures or blobs in a concentrated area of the surface, Sasuke actually took up most of the space provided, and even then they barely fit in. No wonder he said it was too small.

"Ah. I see whatcha mean." I felt my lips quirk up into a grin. He wanted more space, did he? Well, the entire compound was surrounded by a wonderful, great expanse of large, blank walls. "Hey, I know what we can do. Let's go and make a huge mural of it outside so Itachi—" and everyone else "—can see it for sure!"

"Eh? We can do that, Rika-nee?" Sasuke's previous disappointment disappeared and he perked up again, all grins.

"Sure can! Not like there's a sign that says we can't! And it'll be so much fun."

Graffiti-ing up a public wall space was a way better idea than dirtying up poor Mikoto's house.

I let Sasuke do most of the work.

"Whoaaa, Rika-nee, you're right! This is so much better than a paper!" Unlike before, the kid was now pretty much covered head-to-toe with paints (they were just cheap, child-safe temperas), and he'd decided to forego the brushes in favor of smushing his hands and fingers along the grey concrete walls instead.

"I'm pretty sure I was right about saying you shouldn't eat so much, too," I grumbled as I struggled to maintain my hold on the kid's waist while I hefted him up to reach the higher areas of the wall. He looked so tiny and I swear all he ever ate was tomatoes and rice but he was damn heavy.

"Huh?"

"Nothing, nothing! Look; you missed a spot! Can't have Itachi's eyes looking two different sizes, now can we?"

"No way! Good catch, Rika-nee." Sasuke smacked his little paint-stained hand against the wall to shape his brother's eye so enthusiastically that the dark paint splattered both of our faces.

In the end, he'd only gone as far as to recreate a portrait of Itachi, and it wasn't much of a step up from his paper painting.

Let me just say—kindly—that he was no da Vinci. Or even close to a Sai.

"Looks good to me," I complimented him regardless and prepared to drop him on the ground, but a sudden shout stopped me mid-action.

"Hey! What do you kids think you're doing?!"

Just a short distance down the street was one of the local police officers—I never cared to remember his name even though I'd gotten yelled at by him before but he was the sorta-young, long-haired, mean-eyed one who was pretty much attached at the hip to Fugaku during patrols. I think he was the one who gave Itachi a hard time after Shisui's death, too.

Oh, and, surprise surprise, I wasn't his favorite person. As soon as he realized it was me defacing the property, he picked up the pace and booked it towards us.

"Rika! Don't move!"

"Oh crap! Run, Sasuke!" I nearly put the kid down, but with those stubby legs, there was no way he'd make it very far. Instead, I hefted him back up and tucked him away safely under one of my arms like a football before taking off and bless him, he didn't complain at all for once.

Even carrying this tubby little kid, I was pretty sure I could outrun a gangly teenager.

"Wait! You're not getting away this time!"

I stuck my tongue out. "Can't catch us! You're the slowest in the whole clan."

"You take that back! And stop already!"

"No way!"

"You little terror. I don't care what Satoshi-san and Fugaku-sama say about you—I know where you live. I know where you both live!"

"Rika-nee, turn here!" Sasuke pointed towards one of the smaller side-streets and I followed the path without thinking twice because it seemed like good advice. In retrospect, though...

We crashed headlong into someone who'd been turning the corner at the same time—with my luck, is it any surprise that it was Fugaku?

The man stared down at us with a vacant expression at first, like he couldn't register that the two multicolored, paint-speckled hellions sprawled out on the ground were his youngest son and resident troublemaker, but as soon as it dawned on him, his jaw unhinged. "What—"

What did you do now, Rika? What is wrong with your head, Rika? What have you done to Sasuke, Rika?

I was pretty sure he would've said any one of the above before his patrolman caught up to us, out of breath, looking furious as he pointed at me rudely. "Fugaku-sama! She was defacing private property!"

While the two men exchanged glances—one confused and exasperated and the other slightly smug and victorious but still upset—I reached over to help Sasuke sit up and did my best to clean the paint off of his face without smearing it too badly. Oh, nope—now he had a brown mustache. Oops.

"Rika-nee, what does 'defacing' mean?" He didn't seem to mind, though, and stared up at me with his wide, curious dark eyes.

"It means they didn't like your painting of Itachi." I made another swipe at the smeared pigment on his face but only made it look like half of a beard. Before I could spit on my sleeve and scrub the paint off, he whipped his head around towards Fugaku.

"What! Dad! No way! You're not gonna make me get rid of it, are you? Me and Rika-nee worked really hard!" Sasuke was up on his feet in an instant, curling his little hands into fists and looking crestfallen.

Then, Fugaku picked him up even though he was covered in paint and held him about arms-length away, studying him (and his paint-mustache) carefully. The other guy, in the meantime, snatched the back of my clan shirt to keep me from running and when I struck my foot out at his shins he decided to plant his hand firmly on my head to keep me in place arm's length away instead. But he was nice enough to not squeeze too hard because, all things considered, the police guys tried not to be too rough—especially after the time I called this guy out on police brutality when I wouldn't go with him willingly to my parent's house and he had to drag me down the street by my arms when he'd caught me graciously delivering all of the village's stray animals into the Nakano shrine.

Fugaku ignored this background scuffle and focused on his son only. "Sasuke...you painted it for Itachi?"

"I did, I did!"

"Why on the outer walls, of all things?"

Sasuke grinned brightly, kicking his feet happily. "Rika-nee said it was 'creative liberty!'"

The patrolman I tried to kick made a disgruntled, disgusted kind of noise when I choked down a poorly-concealed laugh. "It's defacement, is what it is—"

"Inabi." Oh. Right. That was his name. Props to Fugaku, though—with just a simple mention of his name the guy clammed up and looked cowed. I really liked our good old clan leader when he wasn't the one I was in trouble with.

The tiniest Uchiha finally began to understand that, maybe, painting on the walls hadn't been the best idea to follow along with after all. "Am I...am I in trouble?"

Fugaku's strict glance briefly flickered towards me, but then he closed his eyes and shook his head before staring at his youngest sternly. "No. Not this time, you aren't, Sasuke. But drawing on the outside walls is something you absolutely must never do again. It's against the law. Understood?" Sheesh, he spoke to the kid so strictly, like he was a first-time criminal. There was definitely a difference between how he handled me and how he handled his own kids—but I guess I didn't blame him.

Sasuke's eyes drooped low to the ground, excitement extinguished. "...Yes, Dad. Are you gonna tell Mom?"

"Yes, I plan to. You have to take responsibility for your actions. Now, go help your cousin clean everything up."

He set the boy down and Sasuke stood there pouting for a moment before turning and trudging towards me, gripping onto the hem of my shirt once he was close enough. "'Kay."

"Let Rika go, too, Inabi."

"What? But she—"

"I know. She'll have her punishment." Fugaku stated, crossing his arms, and by the severe expression on his face, Inabi was left with little choice but to obey. He dropped his hand away from my head and shrugged, eyeing me nastily before walking away—I'm pretty sure I was his mortal enemy. Then, Fugaku turned his stare to me. "Rika. You'll help Sasuke clean the walls and then, once you're done with that, you'll give him a bath to wash the paint away."

Oh.

Oh no, that was way too cruel, even for Uchiha standards. I felt my jaw drop as the dawning horror overtook my expression, because—

—because Sasuke hated baths. He was a nightmare to get clean.

I knew it. Mikoto knew it. Shisui knew it. Hell, even Emiko and Satoshi knew it. He only behaved for Itachi, wouldn't you guess. And that Fugaku, he was smirking. He knew it was the best punishment he could give me that would actually make the think twice and he was proud that he'd finally discovered something that would do to even slightly keep me in line.

"B-bathe Sasuke?" I repeated, just to be sure he'd made the right decision.

"That's right." He was immovable.

"I...right. C-come on Sasuke, let's go."

I did my best to prolong wiping the Itachi-mural off of the wall for as long as possible, but in the end it didn't help much. I still spent half the night chasing a naked Sasuke through the streets—and seeing more of him than I ever wanted to see.

And the next day, the police department ended up posting another notice that explicitly stated writing, drawing, or otherwise marking in any way, on the district's walls was a misdemeanor.

A/N: Thanks for all reads, faves, and follows, dear readers! I've posted up a little sketch of what Rika looks like on my dreamwidth journal. The link is on my profile for those of you who are curious (but be aware it's not the one that says "character sketches," that's the one for my other fic). Also, I tweaked the summary just a tiny bit because it sounded a smidge too serious before.