Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto/Naruto Shippuden. And that is why I write fanfiction instead.

Chapter 8:

Secrets Revealed: The Past Part 5

The first day of school at the ninja academy marked the day Tonbo and Sasuke were finally being emerged into the shinobi world. Although Tonbo was in a class with students much older than herself, she still ate lunch with Sasuke. And of course, they would walk home together after school.

As soon as the bell rang, signaling the end of school, Tonbo grabbed her stack of homework and left the building quickly to find Sasuke. She kept her gaze at the ground and she waited under the tree they decided to meet at.

Other students walked past her, and she didn't know whether they were staring at her or not, but she didn't want to look up to find out.

"Hey," Sasuke said causally as he walked up to her.

"Sasuke," she looked up at him and immediately noticed that people were watching the two of them as they walked by. "Let's go home now," she turned to rush off towards their house.

Sasuke caught her arm and made her turn back to look at him. "What's wrong? You don't have to be in such a hurry you know."

She looked around them uneasily. Sasuke hadn't let go of her arm. "Sasuke, I just want to get out of here, okay?"

"What's gotten you so worked up? Did something happen today?" Tonbo looked him in the eye and then looked down at his hand clasped around her wrist. As if he hadn't realized he was still holding her arm, he suddenly let go of her.

"Alright, tell me what happened," Sasuke pressed.

Tonbo looked back at the ground. "Nothing happened really. It's just that everyone hates me."

"What do you mean hates you?"

"The kids in my class are all a lot older than me, so none of them will even talk to me. And I can't make any friends my age either."

"Why not?"

"Because..." Tonbo shifted her eyes sideways. "...because I ate lunch with you."

Sasuke grew a very smug smile across his face. He knew exactly what she was getting at, and he found it amusing.

"Don't smirk, this is your fault! If you were ugly, they wouldn't hate me so much!" Tonbo yelled in frustration.

Sasuke stifled his laugh. "Fine, then let's go home." Sasuke grabbed Tonbo's hand and started pulling her forward.

"Wait," Tonbo tried pulling her hand back but Sasuke didn't let go. "I don't want them to hate me even more."

Sasuke kept walking, "Relax, I'm your brother aren't I?"

"Well yeah but-" Sasuke cut her off.

"I have to look out for my little sister, so don't freak out so much. Besides, if there isn't anything you can do about them hating you, you might as well have a little fun before they find out I'm your brother."

Tonbo knew Sasuke was stronger than her, so struggling would just make her look like an idiot. She relaxed her pull and started walking next to him. "For the record, your argument was terrible, and I'm less than three months younger than you."

Sasuke smirked, "I don't expect you to understand," Sasuke's smirk faded and turned into a softer smile. "But I'll always do my best to protect you. So don't worry about what other people think about you. Just focus on being Tonbo, because I know that Tonbo isn't this self-conscious."

It was then Tonbo realized that Sasuke had grabbed her hand just to prove that to her. Now she felt embarrassed because she knew he was right. "Fine... you win," she whispered.

Sasuke knew that rubbing it in would ruin his victory, as she would take back her admit of defeat. So he stayed quite and they both resumed their roles as brother and sister walking hand in hand.

"Hinashou!" And Tonbo's hand left Sasuke's as she ran up to greet Hinashou.

Sasuke shoved his hands in his pockets before walking over to Hinashou as well.

"Hey," Hinashou grinned.

"What are you doing here?" Tonbo asked him.

"Sorry, I'm a little late. I was planning on meeting you two by the school but I started walking about the time school ended," he rubbed the back of his neck.

"You didn't have to come, we would still see each other when we got home."

Hinashou grinned again, "Well it isn't like I have anything better to do. It's boring without both of you around."

"Come on, we have to get home," Sasuke started walking. "By the looks of it, Tonbo has a lot of work to do."

Hinashou and Tonbo both looked at all the papers in Tonbo's hand. "What's all of that?" asked Hinashou.

"Since I'm in an upper level class I have to catch up on all the things they learned that I haven't yet," she explained.

"Well that sounds boring. Are you still going to be able to play today?"

"If I finish in time," they both sped up their pace to catch up to Sasuke. "Oh yeah, before I forget, my sensei told me to stay late after school tomorrow."

"You got in trouble on the first day? I didn't expect that from you," Hinashou gave her a look.

"I didn't get in trouble. Since I can't use jutsu, my sensei told me he would teach me something that I can do with the amount of chakra that I have. He said that the other students don't know how to do it."

"What is he going to teach you?" Sasuke asked.

"I don't know, he didn't say. But I'll tell you about it tomorrow."

"If it's anything cool, you better show us how to do it too," Hinashou told her.

They walked the rest of the way home mostly listening to Hinashou go on and on about anything he could think of. He hadn't gotten to talk to either of them all day.

After school the next day, Hinashou met with Sasuke under the tree outside the school grounds and they walked home without Tonbo. She got home only 15 minutes after they had.

Tonbo knocked on the door and waited. When Sasuke and Hinashou opened the door they found themselves looking up.

Tonbo was upside down with her feet on the ceiling of the porch. "T-tonbo? Whoa that is so cool! How are you doing that?" Hinashou was excited.

"Sorry, can't tell you. This gives me the advantage of always having the high ground. Maybe this will even things out between us for now. I'm not going to keep losing to the two of you in our sparing matches," Tonbo gave them a smug look.

The boys were both too short to reach her, but from inside the house, Itachi noticed her long hair hanging down. He heard Sasuke and Hinashou trying to talk her into coming down. He walked to the door.

"Tonbo," Itachi's voice got everyone's attention. "Come down, you don't gain anything of value by taunting your brothers. You wanted me to tutor you so that you can get your homework done faster, didn't you?"

Tonbo walked down the side of the wall, "Yes of course. Sorry." She followed Itachi inside.

Itachi had always been tough on her and distant, but Tonbo admired everything about him. She sought his approval more than anyone's. He always looked after her and she knew he had to care about her, even though he didn't always show it.

One Month Later

It happened for the first time about a month into school. Late at night, when everyone was asleep, Tonbo's symbols appeared on her body. She was cast away into a different time. Every heartbeat wasn't just her own. Every breath didn't just fill her own lungs. Every thought and every moment didn't just belong to her.

Mikoto burst through the door to Tonbo's bedroom to see her lying in bed motionless. Her symbols soon faded from her body and Mikoto took a hesitant step into her room.

"Tonbo?" came Mikoto's weak and shaken voice.

Tonbo opened her eyes and sat up at the sound of her voice being called. She had blood dripping down the corners of her mouth.

"Mother? My dream... it felt so real." Tonbo then collapsed.

Mikoto rushed to her side to see that she was no longer conscious. She picked her up and carried her out of the room. "Fugaku! Come quick! Take Tonbo to the hospital right now!" she called out.

Fugaku heard his wife and came running to her side. Upon seeing Tonbo in Mikoto's arms, he took the girl from Mikoto and immediately took off to the hospital.

Mikoto ran over to Itachi's room and slid open the door. "Itachi, I need you to stay here with Sasuke. I'll be back later."

She didn't wait for a response, but instead slid the door closed again and took off out the front door.

Fugaku burst through the hospital doors and a nurse came running over to his side to see what was wrong. "What happened?" she asked calmly but quickly.

"I don't know, but she needs help, she was unconscious just a minute ago and she's bleeding somewhere!" Fugaku sputtered out.

Tonbo's eyes were now open but she was completely limp and didn't blink. "She appears to be in shock," the nurse turned back toward the hospital staff who were now moving into action. "We don't have time for customary methods, we need medical ninja in here now!" she ordered without hesitation.

Some of the hospital staff took Tonbo away on a gurney. The nurse stayed with Fugaku. "I'm sure she'll be okay, please come with me," she ushered him out of the emergency room to a waiting area.

"Will you tell me what's going on? Do you know what happened to her?" Fugaku was frantic.

"Please calm down, I'll tell you everything I know as soon as I get reported to. I need you to fill out some paperwork in the mean time. Can you do that for me?"

Fugaku was looking over her shoulder the whole time. "Sir," the woman looked him in the eyes intently, beckoning his attention back on to her. When Fugaku's eyes had refocused on the nurse in front of him, she continued. "She will be okay. Konoha's doctors are beyond excellent, and they will figure out what's wrong in order to save her. She will still be here tomorrow, I promise you that."

In the nursing profession, is was risky to promise anything. That was the first rule when dealing with a patient's loved ones, never make a promise you can't be certain of. Although the nurse had gotten Fugaku to calm down and fill out the paperwork, she still broke the most essential rule.

"Alright, I'll be back when I know anything. Wait here," she walked off when Fugaku nodded.

She came back a few hours later. Fugaku stood up from his seat when he saw the nurse coming. "Sorry to make you wait. She's fine, but she's sleeping right now."

Fugaku let out a sigh of relief, "Thank you. Do you know what happened?"

Mikoto was sitting in the chair next to Fugaku, she was on the edge of her seat. She wasn't sure what had happened, but she was nervous for the answer to come.

"Well not really. She suffered from damage to most, if not all of her internal organs. The doctors couldn't explain how the damage was inflicted, but there are hints."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Fugaku.

"The areas affected made a perfect map of where her chakra network lines her organs. This suggests that this has something to do with her chakra network. Although, we've never seen anything like this before. So we can't tell you anything specific," the nurse then looked down at the clipboard in her hand. "You put down the name "Tonbo Uchiha", is that correct?"

Fugaku nodded, "Yes that is correct."

"Alright, and you put down "father" for your relationship with her?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry, but I must ask, are you her biological father?"

"No, I'm not. Is that a problem?" Fugaku was a bit uneasy, but he hid it well.

"No, it isn't a problem. But I heard that someone has been trying to adopt a girl by the name of Tonbo Uchiha for almost year, but both her biological parents are still alive and well. I don't mean to pry, but is that the reason you haven't been able to adopt her?"

Mikoto rose from her seat, "That isn't any of your business!"

"Oh, right. A thousand pardons," she bowed her head low to both Mikoto and Fugaku.

"Just tell us what's relevant and leave out the rest," came Mikoto's reply through gritted teeth. Mikoto was rarely angry, but this was one of the few topics she had grown especially sensitive to.

"Alright then," the nurse straightened herself and regain composure. "It's early in the morning and she won't be discharged from the hospital until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. I suggest you go home and get as much sleep as you can before coming back." The nurse started to turn to leave, but stopped herself as if she had just remembered something crucial. "Oh, and one more thing. The Hokage order that if Tonbo Uchiha was to ever turn up in the hospital, that it be reported to him immediately. So he said he would be coming as soon as she wakes up."

"The Hokage? Why does he want to know when she ends up in the hospital?" Fugaku's suspicions were ever growing. He had suspected for a while now that information about the clans plans had been leaking out to the old man. And now, Fugaku felt like that might be confirmed. But he still couldn't be sure of the Hokage's intentions with Tonbo. What could he want to know?

"You're not asking the right person. I'm just a nurse, I wouldn't know a thing like that."

"Fine," Mikoto had her arms crossed and you could still see the suppressed anger on her face. Fugaku turned to look at his wife. "We'll come back when it's light out. Fugaku, we should go home. There isn't anything we can do right now. Sasuke has school in the morning and you have work with the police force. There's no sense in staying for now."

"Very well then," he turned to say his last words to the nurse. "We will be leaving." And with that, he walked past the nurse and out the doors. Mikoto followed.

A couple hours later, the third Hokage showed up at the hospital at first light. The first thing he did was go over the findings with the doctors. They explained to him about as much as the nurse had explained to Fugaku and Mikoto.

"Hm, this is all very intriguing. Did you search her entire body?" Hiruzen Sarutobi asked while stroking his beard.

"Yes, we did not find anything out of the ordinary," one of the doctors informed. "But Lord Hokage, may I ask, what were you looking for?"

"Now that I couldn't tell you. But I think I know the man that could answer that question." The Hokage seemed to think for a moment as he drew in a long breath as he smoked his pipe. "Have her brought to the council chamber as soon as she wakes up. That is, if she's well enough. I need to go and round up some people for a meeting. We will await her arrival. Please keep me informed on her progress."

"Yes my Lord!" the doctor bowed low at the waist. The Hokage departed to gather the people that he deemed would need to be present.

Tonbo didn't wake up until well past four in the afternoon. Fugaku and Mikoto had visited earlier in the day but left since she wasn't awake at the time. Even Itachi came by and he sat beside her for several hours before returning home.

The doctors checked her and found that she was in perfect health. She told them that she felt fine, so they brought her to the council chamber as ordered by the Hokage.

Once they had arrived, the doctors only opened the door for Tonbo and told her to go inside, but refused to go in themselves.

She entered the room and saw that there were only five other people in the room.

"Welcome young one," the third Hokage motioned for her to come further into the room.

The door was shut behind her. "Why did you want me to come here?" she asked him.

"Well you see, no one seems to know what happened to you, and I'm curious as to what occurred. Tell me, do you remember what happened to you?"

Tonbo thought for a minute. "I was asleep and I had a dream."

"A dream, hm? What was it like?"

"I remember everything about it. It wasn't like the dreams I've had before, it was so real. I could feel everything as if I were there..." she trailed off after that.

The Hokage clutched his chin with his thumb and forefinger. "Were you awakened from your dream by something?"

"No, not by something. I just woke up, and I was in my bed like usual. But I hurt all over, and that's when I heard my mother call my name from the doorway. I remember that I looked at her, but after that, I was in the hospital. I don't remember anything clearly until I woke up in the hospital a half hour ago."

"I see, so you don't know what happened to yourself either." He then turned to the man standing off to the side. "Yakuni, I'm sure you know why I asked you to come here. Do you have anything to say on the matter?"

Tonbo looked over at the man the third was addressing, and to her surprise, it was Mikoto's father. "Mikoto told me that she felt the same feeling as when she had first met Tonbo. And when she entered the room, there was green light, lighting up the room. Although she said she wasn't sure where it was coming from because it vanished too quickly. She also said that it looked familiar to her, but she doesn't remember seeing anything like it before." He stopped talking as if Tonbo wasn't in the room when he turned towards her. "But I think I know what happened."

"Grandfather?" Tonbo said in a small voice.

Yakuni narrowed his eyes at her ever so slightly. "I am not your grandfather, and no matter what Mikoto tells you, my daughter is not your mother."

Tonbo's eyes widened at the surprise of his words. Her eyes blurred as she fought back her tears.

"Yakuni, I suggest you get to the point," came the voice of a very bandaged Danzo.

Yakuni gave him a glance, "Very well then. This child has power you wouldn't believe. A power you can feel emanate from her. The day she was brought to me, I attempted to seal away her chakra."

There was a gasp heard from one of the village elders, Koharu. Yakuni continued anyway, "However, I now believe that it may not have worked the way I had intended. I believe that she has a way of accessing her chakra, but I doubt she is aware of this. I know that the seal is currently preventing her from using her chakra, as I cannot feel it. So if she does have a way to access her chakra, she would have to force it to separate from the seal, which would cause great tension in her chakra network. This would explain why she had internal bleeding around her chakra network. But even more than that, I believe this would explain what happened to the Leaf shinobi a year ago."

Tonbo suddenly had fear strike her heart. What did he mean by that?

"The doctors noted that she had scar tissue in the exact same places on her internal organs, which is what prevented the damage from being serious this time."

Everyone in the room was dead silent. Everyone was still processing Yakuni's words through their heads. Tonbo was frozen in place and too afraid to move.

It was Danzo that spoke up first, "Can you prove this?"

The third Hokage seemed to concur, "Yes, this is all very intriguing, but we can't take this seriously if there is no way to prove its accuracy."

"I've already thought about that. She has to have some way of focusing her chakra to forcibly separate it from the seal, and in order to do that, my guess is that she would have to use a hand seal." He turned to Tonbo, "As I understand it, you don't use hand seals in school because you don't have enough able chakra to preform jutsu, am I correct?"

"Well... yes," Tonbo avoided eye-contact.

"Do you still know the different hand seals?"

She nodded. "Good, I'd like to ask you to go through each of them, one at a time. Can you do that?"

"Well, I've never practiced them before... but yes." Tonbo looked to the others in the room. They all seemed to be anticipating her following through with her agreement.

She spread her legs apart and bent her knees in the stance she had been taught. She took in a deep breath and began to form hand seals one after another. As she expected, nothing was happening each time she formed a hand seal.

But when she put her hand in the hand seal with her index finger and her middle finger pointed upward together in front of her chest, her symbols began to glow.

Everyone seated was now out of their chairs looking at Tonbo intently. Tonbo quickly released the hand seal and gasped sharply. The symbols didn't fade from her.

Her mind was soon flooded with information. She understood everything that was going on around her, she could feel everything.

She suddenly remembered how this all felt, and what it all meant. She could sense everything. She could hear people's thoughts, she could feel every movement they made. It was as if she could see in every direction, even if her eyes were closed. She could "hear" things being said yards away. Suddenly everything felt simple, but Tonbo was still afraid of what was happening. This meant that Yakuni might be right.

"How do I make it stop?!" she screeched in terror.

"Focus your mind on the way you felt before you formed the hand seal," came Yakuni's voice.

Tonbo realized that she was hyperventilating, so she took in some slower but shaky breaths and tried to do as Yakuni had told her. Once she was calm, she was able to stop her flow of chakra, and her symbols disappeared.

"She certainly is different," Homura, the other village elder remarked.

"I believe I've seen all I needed," stated the Hokage. "Tonbo, you may leave. There is someone outside the doors waiting to escort you home."

Tonbo was very unsure of what they would do now, but all that she could do, was do as she was told and leave. She knew that it was Itachi who was waiting for her. She had felt his presence earlier. She went home with him.

The council chamber was silent for a while until none of them could sense Tonbo and Itachi's presence any longer. They all knew that each of them were thinking some of the same things: was Tonbo a threat, what does this mean for the village, and what should they do about her?

"Lord Hokage, if I may," Yakuni began again. "She is very dangerous, and the way she's being raised, my fear is that she will grow to hate the Uchiha clan, and the village. With her power, I don't believe there is anyone in the village who could stop her."

"What do you mean by that? What ability could she possess that could really be that powerful?" asked Koharu with serious concern on her face.

"It's because of the type of power she possesses." He went on to explain about how she can use her chakra not only to sense everything, but how she can also use it as a weapon. He also suggested that she was the one who killed the Leaf shinobi a year ago and that it was no accident.

"Even if she did kill the man, we don't know what happened that would have provoked her into killing him. She could have had probable cause to kill him," said Homura.

"I can agree with that, but there are always other options besides taking someone's life. She didn't seem to hesitate to do so. That is what concerns me the most. The time between when the neighbors reported to have heard the screams and the time Itachi reported to have entered the house was different by less than minutes. I know that she is just a child, but we have to do something," Yakuni spoke warningly.

"If she is as powerful as you claim she is, we could put that power to use for us. She's still young enough to enter into the ROOT program. We could train her to be loyal only to the Leaf, she would follow all orders without question or hesitation," Danzo offered.

"No, turning her into an emotionless assassin would probably only make matters worse," said the third.

"I agree, as long as she holds herself morally responsible for her actions, she'll be less likely to do something rash," said Homura.

"The problem with that is that we can't choose her morals for her," argued Koharu.

"She may be young, but she's already been through more hardships than many adults. Her mind as well as her resolve are unstable," injected Yakuni.

"Well than what can we do? It isn't like we can lock her up," Koharu thought out loud.

"Or can we?" asked Homura.

The Hokage simply sat quietly and listened as the other four began to formulate a plan on how they could get away with keeping her somewhere far away from the village.

"Hiruzen, what do you think?" Koharu asked once she realized he hadn't said anything on the subject.

"Taking a child away from her family, away from her friends and locking her up with former ANBU members to make sure she doesn't escape, is out of the question. That, if anything, would turn her against the Leaf."

"Lord Hokage, you must also realize that this will be a way to protect the child as well. If word gets out that she has such unbelievable power, you can be certain that people will come looking for her. If not to kidnap her, then to kill her. You can't get around that fact," Danzo's composure was unmatched.

Hiruzen thought for a while. He looked up at all of them once he had reached his decision. "I care about every member of the Leaf village, and if this is the only way we can ensure her safety, then for the time being... I will allow it."

Once everything had been set up, the third Hokage approached Tonbo about the subject first. The news shattered all of Tonbo's plans for her future. She no longer had everything planned out and she was afraid of where this future would take her.

She made a request to the Hokage to leave the village for a short while. When he asked her why she wanted to leave the village, she told him about her dream. Her reasoning intrigued the Hokage, so he agreed to let her go. But she would be accompanied by two ANBU members.

The Hokage told her that she could leave once he got permission from the Kage of the village she described, for her to enter their village. Tonbo told him that if she didn't leave immediately, she wouldn't make it in time and she would miss what she was looking for.

Sarutobi eventually let her go but then he had to explain everything to Fugaku and Mikoto. When he informed them of where Tonbo had run off to, their reaction was the same: "Suna?!"

It took the usual three days to get to the Sand village. They were stopped by Sand shinobi at the village entrance for obvious reasons.

"If we may speak to the Kazekage, we can explain. The Hokage did send out word that we would be coming and we would like permission to spend the day here," said on of the ANBU members.

"We may have a treaty with Konoha, but that doesn't mean that we aren't still suspicions of two ANBU members showing up without warning. I'm sure you understand, Sand shinobi must protect their Kazekage," the man at the entrance grinned in an almost taunting manner.

"But I have to go look, there isn't much time left!" Tonbo shouted up at the Sand shinobi who previously hadn't acknowledged her existence.

"Oh so we have a difficult, little urchin here as well? Sorry, but I can't allow you to pass."

"Tonbo glared up at the man, "If I don't go now, I might not make it."

"I don't know what you're talking about, but unfortunately for you, I don't care eith-"

He was interrupted by a hand on his shoulder. The person looked middle-aged, and he had fiery red hair.

"Lord Kazekage," the man immediately bowed and stepped aside.

The Kazekage looked over the ANBU members and then Tonbo. "Tell me, what brings you to my village? The Hokage was very unspecific, I must know the nature of your mission."

"Lord Kazekage," one of the ANBU members bowed. "This isn't what we would call a mission. The Hokage asked us to escort this child here, she says she has to find something."

"Oh," he turned to Tonbo. "And what might you be looking for?"

Tonbo thought that she would have to be careful about what she said, but she still wanted to tell the truth. "I'm looking for a person I saw in a dream. I know it must sound silly, but I just want to see if they're where I saw them. If not, then I'll just go home. I just have to know."

The Kazekage seemed to think it over. He didn't see harm in letting a little girl with no power to be sensed into the village for a day. He was curious about the child. But he didn't want the ANBU members snooping around.

"Alright, you can look for this person from your dream, but you have to leave before the sun sets tonight." He looked at the ANBU members, "You two have to stay out here, I'm sure you understand why."

"Yes Lord Kazekage," the both bowed.

The Kazekage began to walk off, so Tonbo went past the guards and into the city. She began to run as she recognized all the buildings. The people walking by were in sync with how she remembered her dream.

As she neared the building she was aiming for, she saw him. There, in front of the very edifice so clearly engraved into her memory was a little boy with messy red hair and dark rings around his eyes, looking down at his feet as he walked.

"Hey!" she called out to him waving as she ran.

The boy looked up at her.

A/N: For those of you who freaked out during the first scene of this chapter, I assure you, Sasuke and Tonbo do NOT like each other like that. And I finally gave you the name of Mikoto's father... the truth is that i just couldn't come up with a name for him until now. Read and Review!