XI.

For the next few months, I continued to work at the hospital and learned a few more handy life skills—I mean, knowing how to handle panicking patients and having to hold them down the proper way for them to get an immediate amputation was pretty important.

Only joking. They used anaesthetic for that.

(Who would hack off someone's limb without proper preparations, anyway? Actually, scratch that—some of the patients who came in with just bloody stumps had been victims of that. Shinobi didn't always have access to a sterile, safe environment and the tools needed for that type of thing, and sort of...just did it.)

Itachi was a part of ANBU, by now. Things continued to spiral downward with the clan and everyone was stressed out and worried, as usual. Sometimes I felt a little guilty about having all of this useful information but no way to really apply it and help out.

My goal was still to die—as morbid as that was—and see if it was at all possible to be reborn back into my own world. My own home. For all I knew, it was like some luck-of-the-draw lottery or Russian roulette where my little wayward soul was shot into another universe at random. I mean, I didn't exactly pick this world, to begin with. My hands were sort of tied in the matter.

I could only hope.

Working at the hospital kept me from causing too much trouble, much to everyone's relief. There wasn't really time to start up another bug-fighting betting circle, or even to try fishing in the canal again—the police department finally took down the signs, but I had a feeling it was still prohibited.

Itachi and Shisui were busy, like—super busy. I figured it would be a long, long while before I got to see either of them again. It was even rare to see Sasuke these days, because I couldn't snag another day off.

The longer I worked in the hospital, though, the less the patients around my age professed their undying affection for me. Apparently word got around and I'd been given quite a bad reputation as an ice-cold heartbreaker that would reject everyone. No idea where the "ice cold" part came from—I was always super affable with everyone! Even when I was crushing their hearts to pieces (hey, it's called a crush for a reason).

I managed to make a name for myself no matter where I went. But, it always worked out in my favor.

"Hey, Junichi."

It was an unusually boring day in the building, with a lull in the number of incoming patients and a dwindling number that were currently under our care. Halfway through the day, I'd already taken care of most of my duties and Junichi had, too, so all we were left with was free time to sit around doing...well, nothing. Until one of the patients called for us or a new one was rushed in. If the head nurse or medics happened to walk by, naturally we pretended to take care of paperwork and all that fun stuff, but otherwise time was filled with idle games of tic-tac-toe and bland pharmaceutical magazine browsing.

I would have looked for something fun to do in the hospital, but the first—and last—time I'd tried anything (surfing on the nurses' carts through the hallways) I almost got a concussion.

I almost got fired, too.

Talking to Junichi was all I had left to do.

Well, teasing him, really. He was sort of boring for an older teenager and there was a lot to criticize.

"Um, what?" He looked up from the mirror he was fawning over, fixing up his short, brown bangs and trying to find a new dorky hairstyle or something, and half-grimaced with uncertainty. We got along—we did—but he wasn't used to my bullying yet.

It was just how I showed affection.

"What the heck are you doing? Primping for a date tonight?"

Junichi shoved the mirror aside and set his arms on the desk, sighing. "No. I just thought I should cut it—it's getting a little long."

Long? His bangs barely passed his eyebrows! Maybe he was the type who tended to go with crew cuts. I liked to keep mine relatively short, too, because it was a nightmare to deal with long, always whipping into my face when the police chased after me…

Frankly, I didn't know how some shinobi kept their hair long. Even Itachi, who kept his back in a low ponytail. It just didn't seem like the most convenient thing to have to handle while fighting and running and all that. If it were me, I would probably catch it on fire or get it tangled in tree branches and the rest would be history!

"Hey, there're some scissors here—want me to take care of it for you? I'm kind of a pro." Lie. It was a bald-faced lie. The last time I was let anywhere near scissors, Sasuke's hair paid the price. But, in my defense, he really looked better without the weird long bangs in the front. And it grew back!

"No thank you. I have a feeling that would be a bad idea." Junichi was pretty good at catching lies.

"Then, wanna go on a date or something?"

He sputtered for a moment and, bless his spazzy heart, nearly toppled out of the chair he sat in, before fixing me with the weirdest look I'd ever been looked-upon with—considering all I'd done in my short life and all those I'd annoyed and offended, that was quite the feat. "Wh—What? Rika, you're twelve."

"Thirteen." I smirked proudly. I mean, at least I was finally a teenager again and not still a whiny little preteen—maybe still a little whiny, though.

"That's beside the point! I'm eighteen—you're not supposed to ask me things like that."

"So is that a yes or a no?" He squinted and opened his mouth to reply—to shoot me down again, obviously—and I interrupted him with a grin. "Come on, I'm not an idiot. It's a friend-date. And probably the only date you'll get all week."

His brown eyes widened as he considered the offer, and he only looked mildly offended by my words. "I dunno, I mean...isn't it still kind of weird?"

"Weird? No way! We're coworkers. Plus, you're way too young for me." I rolled my eyes.

"Too young?"

"That's what I said."

"Right. You're into guys who are, what, mid-twenties?"

"And up." I raised my index finger towards the ceiling emphatically, smiling.

Junichi eyed me steadily for a moment, then sighed. "For some reason, Rika, I'm a little afraid of you. And for you."

"Now you're starting to sound like Shisui. So, is that a yes or no? After our shift ends we can go do something not-so-boring."

"And what would you consider 'not-so-boring?'"

Oh, and wasn't that the question? I crossed my legs and stared up at the ceiling in thought, spinning in the wheeled office chair. With the clan in the state it was in and the police on edge, it was better not to cause too much trouble. For my own well-being, of course. But...well, what they never knew about wouldn't hurt 'em.

I cracked another grin and sent Junichi a sly glance, lowering my voice. "I'm so glad you asked. Ever heard of cow tipping...?"

Not a good idea.

I repeat, not a good idea.

The heifers in Konoha were downright mean and awful targets for mischief—well, actually, it was the bull that was mixed in among the herd that caught us off-guard, but whatever it was, messing with the livestock around the village was a god awful idea and one I'd never attempt again.

I mean, I thought it would be totally amusing and hilarious, but I ended up getting a couple of broken ribs when the bull knocked me sky high to the moon and Junichi came out of it a little more fortunate, with just a fractured wrist, because he was smart enough to stay out of the animal's way.

And he swore never to hang out with me ever again because I wasn't right in the head.

At the very least, he had the decency to drop me off at the hospital for treatment. If I wasn't busy working in the place, I was bedridden there.

I didn't even get my own private room! So much for employee benefits.

My roommate was a little girl, probably around Sasuke's age, with pink hair that sort of resembled Sakura's, but the style was all wrong. I mean, Sakura's bangs didn't hang in front of her face so much, did they? Not only that, but the kid was pretty ill with a cold or the flu or something (I'd received an immunization, being one of the hospital workers...actually, I'd been given quite a few shots and I didn't want to see a needle near me again for a very long time) and wasn't looking too peppy.

I felt sort of bad for her. My inner, carefully-groomed, caretaker wanted me to leap from the bed and see if she needed anything for comfort, but broken ribs hurt. Like, worse than the worst bad case of gas that made moving your torso painful—it was about that feeling times twenty, like a million shards of broken glass pressing in from all angles. Thank all that is good for painkillers. It was the first time I'd ever experienced broken anything and I was comfortable saying I never wanted to feel it again.

Once, her parents came in to visit her—I pretended to be asleep the entire time just to avoid the awkwardness of the situation, even if the curtain was drawn between our beds.

Lucky kid! I didn't get any visitors. Satoshi was busy with the police, Emiko was busy stockpiling a new set of clothes for the clan because the seasons were changing and they knew I was safe where I was so they just left me, and Shisui was occupied with his ninja work. I didn't even bother thinking about Itachi or Sasuke, who'd started attending the Academy recently.

Sure, I could brush it all off and shrug it away, but it did kind of make me upset! It would have been nice to at least get a flower delivery or something. Maybe even a visit from a former admirer. Ha!

On the second day, the little girl had recovered enough to actually wake up and look around, read a few books her parents brought her and eat the food the nice nurses brought in (they were nice to me, too, but gave me dirty looks because they somehow knew I'd done this to myself and left them to take care of all of the busywork).

I (carefully and painstakingly) reached over and pushed the ugly, lime-green partition aside to get a better look at the girl when she started humming a cute tune under her breath—and the sudden swishy, clinking noise startled her into glancing up, large, childlike eyes wide, just barely visible beneath her long pink bangs. Actually, my bangs were pretty much the same length. I really wasn't one to talk.

Her eyes were a bright but gentle green—whoa. She really looked like a mini Haruno Sakura. Only one way to find out.

"Hi." I smiled and waved with the hand I'd just used to move the curtains out of the way. "What're you in for?"

She looked away shyly before eyeing me curiously and then turning to face me, gripping her blankets and tensing her shoulders. Not a social one. "M-me? Um. A really bad cold."

"Looks like you're doing better already though, hmm?"

"Yeah, it's—it's getting better." Her brow furrowed as she continued to let her eyes flick from my face to other areas around the room. What a shy kid.

"Great! I'm Uchiha Rika, by the way. I'm in for broken ribs! Ah—ow." Using anything above my inside-level voice (which I barely even ever used) was definitely a bad and painful idea while I was still mending. I prodded at my wrapped-up torso and felt the tender areas prickle in protest. What a pain. I wonder what would happen if I applied pressure—

Not a good idea. Leave broken bones alone. But on the other hand, I could have used some more painkillers.

The girl watched me with wide-eyes, unsure of just what to think, probably, before a small smile rose to her lips. "Ha-Haruno Sakura. Nice to meet you. Rika-san."

Well I'll be damned, it was Sakura. Couldn't remember much at all about what she was supposed to be like as a child, but it must have been sometime before she garnered up all of that courage and developed her violent, inner personality. Now she was just an adorably shy, chubby-cheeked baby. Six-or seven-year-old baby, that is.

"Nice to meet you, too! Looks like we'll be cellmates for a little while longer, so if you need anything or just wanna talk, feel free to. Oh, and just 'Rika' is fine."

Sakura took up the offer instantly. "Um—you said Uchiha? Do you..." She fidgeted with the hem of the white hospital blanket again. "Do you, maybe, know a... Sasuke-kun?"

Of course.

Little Sasuke was already popular with the girls even though he wasn't cute at all at this age.

I decided to play dumb and tease her a little. "Hmm... Sasuke-kun, was it? Sasuke-kun... Sasuke...?" I tapped my lip with my index finger and hummed, taking some sort of sadistic enjoyment in the way she squirmed nervously, looking as if she regretted asking it at all. Well, maybe that was a bit cruel. "Oh! Sasuke! I do know a Sasuke, who happens to be my, uh," he was related to me somehow, through Satoshi, who was Fugaku's...first cousin once removed? Second cousin once removed? It was a huge tangled up mess and I was surprised anyone knew how they were related in that huge clan. Worse than the Pureblood family tree in Harry Potter, it was.

"Cousin," I finished lamely, because it was some kind of truth. "And he's about your age, too! But..." a grin spread across my face. "I'm not so sure he's the one you're talking about."

"H-huh? But why?"

"Well, the Sasuke I know is a little tomato-loving brat with a bad haircut who likes to chase some people around with bugs they hate and pretty much only has eyes for his older brother—definitely not the type to catch others' eyes and have them asking about him. So, maybe there's more than one Uchiha Sasuke around. What do you think?"

"I—um. Wh-what?" Her eyebrows drew together and there was a shiny moisture to her eyes that wasn't there before, but I shrugged and continued on.

"Like, say, maybe he has an evil twin who just so happens to be the more suave and appealing of the two and—"

"Rika."

"—the one everyone likes better, because I'll never, for the life of me, understand why—"

"Rika."

"—anyone would willingly choose to—ow!"

A semi-painful weight whopped me on the top of the head, pulling me out of my ranting mode, and I whirled around—bad idea bad idea!—to come face-to-face with a frowning Emiko, Mom Face present full-force and, boy, if I haven't seen that expression in a few years. Didn't even know when she'd managed to sneak in.

Once I gathered my bearings long enough to quite writhing in pain and grumbled out an apology, I looked back to see how Sakura was responding to my careless words. Ah. Her lips were trembling. Her eyes were shiny with overflowing, unshed tears.

Then, the damn holding it all back burst open and fat, heavy crocodile tears dripped from her eyes along with snot from her tiny nose.

"Rika, you apologize right now! And don't speak of the Clan Head's son like that!"

Of course, I was the one to get in trouble. And I made Haruno Sakura cry.

A day after that, Emiko brought me home from the hospital to continue my recovery—I wasn't sure if it was because of the state of the clan and wanting to keep me nearby or just because she was my mom and wanted me back under her own roof. Or because I made young children cry if I was around them for too long.

Probably the latter.

Whatever her reasons were, it was just as boring at home as it was at the hospital—and I'd be here for quite a few weeks. Being in a state of healing, I was unable to run around or even do chores, but Mother Dearest was kind enough to run up a tab of what tasks I owed and would complete once I was healthy again. I'm pretty sure she threw in about a dozen extra things as punishment, too.

Two weeks went by just like that and it was boring as hell.

"Oh, Rika. You just can't help that reckless nature of yours, can you?" Emiko was quick to point out my flaws, as always, even when she was bringing me dinner and doing her best to keep me comfortable and at ease while healing. I was getting mixed signals, here. She set the food tray down on my bedside table before sitting on the edge of my mattress and watching me carefully, a little sadly, and then leaning over to smooth my hair—mainly, my ridiculously long bangs—away from my face. "I really hoped working at the hospital would help you get over your rebellious phase, but it seems like you just like it too much to part."

Whoa. Ominous words. I grinned, uneasily, and shifted slightly against the pillows behind my back to reach for the fruit juice she'd set down just out of my reach. "Uh, nope. It's not a phase. That's just one-hundred-percent me. It's my personality, so why would I wanna change it?" I was just surprised she was still harping on about that. "Just accept me already!"

She pushed the cup towards my grabby fingers and sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that. But, being a part of this clan, there are certain...responsibilities you'll have to conform to as you get older."

"Oh no, you're not bringing up the marriage thing again, are you?"

"Well—"

"Mommmm! I can't believe this! Who is it now? That short, squat guy named Akira or whatever who lives down by the bakery?" I stuck out my tongue, then grimaced as it dawned on me that, maybe, she'd looked into the whole age pool and picked someone way older. "Don't tell me it's Inabi!" Or younger. "Itachi!? Sasuke?!"

"Well," she tried again, "since Kou's passed away and—"

Oh, god no.

"It's Shisui?! Mom, I thought you said you were kidding about that! He's my cousin—we're way too closely related for marriage! He's your nephew!" If I'd been drinking the juice then, I would have spit it out everywhere. And, thankfully my ribs were starting to feel better or else the strain, yelling and overall bitch slap of it all would have done me more harm than good. It still hurt a little.

Both my ribs and her absolutely wonderful news. Even if cousin marriages were technically a thing, especially among clans, it didn't make it any less weird.

Emiko held up her index finger to make a point. "Kou and I were only half-siblings, to be perfectly accurate. Kagami was our father but we had different mothers. It isn't something we liked to disclose."

"Oh, doesn't that just make this all better!"

She closed her eyes and gave a quiet, almost imperceptible sigh in reaction to my attitude—she wanted to yell, I could tell, or to tell me to calm down and listen, but held herself back in order to explain her reasons. "When we considered an arranged marriage for you the first time, there was...some talk about setting up you and Shisui since you two get along so well. Kou was for it. I was for it. Only Satoshi had some misgivings about it initially, so we decided to drop the idea. But then Kou passed away, and with Shisui alone... we started to think maybe it would be best to bring him into our family. Officially."

"Just admit you always wanted Shisui as your kid and this is the perfect opportunity to do it." I was bitter. I couldn't help it—I always knew dad wanted a kid like Shisui and if this wasn't just a golden chance.

"That isn't what this is about, Rika." Emiko sighed and pressed her hands against her face before sighing, shoulders drooping. "It's for you, too. And of course, it won't happen until you're sixteen—"

"Have you even asked Shisui how he feels about this?"

"Rika you have got to stop interrupting me. Where are your manners?"

"I dunno, where's your common decency?"

"Rika..." Oh, the warning tone. I was starting to grate on her nerves—just as much as she was getting on mine.

She wasn't going to stop me.

"Don't tell me this is some sort of political move pushing for more clan unity." I glanced at her sharply, noting the surprise on her face, and scowled. "I'm not an idiot, Mom. I have ears and eyes that work perfectly fine and people talk."

At that, she looked a bit guilty. But then the irritation was set back into place and she straightened her back, holding her shoulders high. "This doesn't concern that. And I have discussed the matter with Shisui."

I scoffed. "What? Really? Tell me he refused, too, because this is just—"

"He agreed to it."

Oh shit. "B-but, come on, he's only fourteen, what does he know about these things? He didn't—think it through. That's all!"

"He's as good as an adult, with his current ranking. And you know he's always been mature for his age, Rika. Don't belittle his decisions."

"But...marriage? Marriage with Shisui?"

"That's the idea. We can discuss this more—with Shisui—once you're back on your feet."

I nodded dumbly as Emiko smoothed my hair back once more and left the room without another word.

If I knew boredom would bring something like this back around, I never would have complained.