Cosmetic author's note, to get the first few lines away from the chapter index:D

Whoop for cosmetic formatting!

New chapter, here you go:

She doesn't know her parents, and nobody dares to ask her about them, so that all kind of works out. She doesn't know Japanese manners very well either, but she is a child so they only gently correct her.

She doesn't know how long she's supposed to have been to the Academy, but when she tries to get into a combat stance she easily slips into a series of rudimentary katas. Her body knows how to do them.

At the end of the third day a tiny head pokes into her room.

"Hisa-nee-san …"

Sasuke shuffles into her room. He looks deeply uncomfortable, shifting from one foot to the other as if he has to pee really badly. She scrutinizes him. He looks nothing like she expected. He is cute, yes. His hair is just as dark as hers, his eyes the same huge, shiny jewels that blink at her every time she looks into the mirror. There are still bruises on his jaw and neck and with those sad, sad eyes and the pathetic trembling lip he looks like something out of a child abuse awareness add.

She doesn't know when he is supposed to turn so bitter. Maybe he still will, maybe the mere fact that he isn't entirely alone now is enough to keep at least a little of his innocence. Finally she takes pity on him and tentatively opens her arms. He looks at her for a second, eyes going even bigger. Is she doing it wrong? Isn't that what you are supposed to do with sad children, offer a hug?

Before she can doubt herself any more, the little boy jumps at her, throwing her off balance and tumbling them both to the floor. The impact forces the wind out of her, but she is too surprised to be angry. Sasuke clings to her like a lifeline and she thinks maybe she deserves this. For all the times she did the same to Marie.

After his little episode Sasuke returns to being painfully shy.

She strongly suspects that they aren't related very closely. She mentions this offhandedly to him and he flushes brightly and admits that he doesn't know how they are related and that the nurse told him her name. They never interacted before the Massacre. One of the nurses is nice enough to look into it for her and apparently they are related through an entirely female line; their grandmothers having been sisters and their mothers cousins.

Sasuke seems happy about it, glad to know that they are closer related than they could have been. The Uchiha clan was vast; their lines could have intersected last during the First Hokage's time.

The doctor clears them to go after another week. They are traumatized orphans, but they are physically fine and, no matter how much the nurses may protest, the hospital doesn't have enough beds and no staff to care for them.

The day they leave Hisana meets the Hokage. Sasuke clings to her the whole time, as the kindly looking old man puffs his pipe, looking at them worriedly from behind his desk.

"You have the village's support, of course," he assures; his voice is kindly and creaky, the way old people sometimes sound. "It might not mean much to you right now, but your clan was much loved and admired and, beside the stipends from the Uchiha money and the Orphan Fund, very many good people have volunteered to assist you in any way you request."

She nods slowly but doesn't say a word. She isn't sure if the Hokage's words are deliberate, if he expects her to understand, but what she hears is 'They are scrambling to use you' and 'You are your name and your money'. Whatever the old shinobi reads on her face however, it seems to satisfy him.

"I have arranged for an apartment for you two. It's a good neighborhood and all other tenants are ninjas. You are not alone."

'I am watching over you.'

She likes him, she decides.

In terms of difficulty, caring for Sasuke falls somewhere between parenting a kitten and watching paint dry, depending on his mood. For a little boy, especially for an Uchiha, he is surprisingly cuddly, constantly grabbing at her and occasionally knocking things over when they are in the way of it. He doesn't talk much, but she doesn't either. It might be a genetic thing.

The apartment is nice. It's smaller than she expected when hearing 'apartment', but this world is so very different from her old one that maybe it shouldn't be that surprising. It's not a bad thing, because, as she finds out, her body tires quickly and so cleaning more than one room a day is completely out of the question.

Sasuke insists on helping, which is of course more of a hindrance than help, but it seems to satisfy him. So she occasionally pushes a duster into his chubby hands and shoos him along. And if he breaks some of the ugly vases that came with the place, well, she won't be losing sleep over it.

Another few days pass before someone who can only be Umino Iruka knocks at their door. He is a surprisingly short man, stout and dark skinned. In reality his pony tail looks far less ridiculous. The vicious looking scar on his nose, in turn, looks far nastier than she expected, nearly bisecting his nose and making his breathing sound a little funny. He nervously scratches at it and smiles at her with a mixture of sympathy and awkwardness.

"Hisana-chan, good morning."

Smiling he looks more like someone who teaches children, less intimidating.

She bows a little, like the nurses at the hospital told her to.

"Can I come in?"

She steps aside for him and guides him to the sofa in what she hopes to be an acceptable manner. He doesn't seem unhappy with her, so maybe she'll be fine.

"Sensei," she ventures, the title tasting strange on her tongue, like every new word she tries. "I suppose it concerns the Academy?"

"Yes. Hokage-sama thinks it is … time for you and Sasuke-kun to join class again, so you can be with your friends."

As far as she knows Naruto would be Sasuke's first friend and if Uchiha Hisana had friends outside of the clan, they would surely not be her friends. Instead of voicing any of this though, she only nods. She isn't sure if he picks up on her skepticism but his brow furrows in a way that suggests he does.

"In any case, you haven't missed much of the course work yet, or at least nothing that you can't catch up on."

He pulls a binder out of the grey satchel slung over his shoulder.

"The first part is yours; everything after the marker is Sasuke-kun's."

All awkwardness vanishes from his face as he looks at her earnestly.

"It's ok if you and Sasuke-kun come in a little later on Monday. I will make sure nobody bothers you before or between classes."

She nods again. This is probably more important to Sasuke than to her. The thought of girls following him around, trying to comfort 'their Sasuke-kun' makes her stomach churn unpleasantly. She doesn't generally hit little girls, but she would make an exception for this. "Hisa-nee-san?"

Sasuke's head pokes into the room.

"Oh. Iruka-sensei."

He does the ridiculous little pee shuffle again and she sighs.

"Come here Sasuke. Say hello properly."

He straightens visibly, before marching towards his teacher.

"Good morning, Iruka-sensei." A polite little bow follows and Iruka laughs.

"Good morning, Sasuke-kun. I came to bring a little homework for you two. I hope I will see you on Monday."

With that he excuses himself. The moment he is out of the door both Sasuke and Hisana deflate.

"I don't want to go to the Academy," Sasuke pouts. "I don't want to see anyone yet."

"I know," she chides, "but if we want to become good ninjas we'll have to go back."

He nods, but there's still something stubborn to the set of his jaw. Hisana hesitates to bring up the Uchiha name to motivate him. Sasuke hasn't said a word about revenge yet, much less about his brother. She isn't sure if that is because in this universe he has no idea, or if he is purposely keeping it to himself.

Neither option sounds very convincing, as she doesn't remember Sasuke keeping his noble goal to himself at any point in the manga but, apart from losing his entire family, he doesn't seem any more traumatized than he should be. There is nothing that might indicate heart break or anger over his brother's betrayal. Didn't Itachi confront him, use Tsukuyomi on him? In that case he should have been bed ridden much longer than her, shouldn't he? There is still a good while before the Main Story is supposed to start and already things don't make sense.

She considers making a list of events, while pulling Sasuke up on the couch, fingers tugging through his ridiculous hair in what she hopes to be a comforting manner. 'Naruto' used to be a much loved part of her life at one point, but it had only been maybe three years since she last touched a manga and already she is forgetting things. Maybe it is a side effect of her death?

But then again, maybe not. The way it seems right now, she would have to stick around for quite a while and letting the memories of what might be her own future slip away would be plain stupid. She resolves to buy a notebook as soon as possible, maybe even today. All of their possessions are still in the Uchiha compound, which is probably still being scrubbed down by a bunch of incredibly unfortunate genin. They would need pen and paper for Monday, as well as probably a whole bunch of things she didn't know about yet.

"Sasuke-kun, do you want to go shopping with me?"

He looks up at her curiously.

"Shopping? We were grocery shopping yesterday."

"Shopping for the Academy."

"…Aah."

He doesn't look very excited, but she'd take what she could get.

Konoha is truly beautiful. The black-white of the manga and the sloppy anime didn't do it justice in the least. It's a network of topsy-turvy structures, colorful and full of cheery people. The village terrifies her. Up until now she's only been to the tiny grocer around the corner, little Sasuke valiantly leading the way. Even now she relies on him to navigate the endlessly confusing streets, all the while holding her hand. He doesn't even seem to notice that she has no idea where to go, even though she is supposed to be a native. It's a disconcerting feeling to walk among the villagers, watching them go about their daily business in a way that is much more familiar to her than what she is doing right now and knowing she'd never be one of them.

Instead she'll be one of the ninjas, flitting in and out of her periphery vision like particularly badly dressed ghosts. Sasuke tugs at her hand excitedly, the happy buzz of the market affecting even him. She has no idea where to buy supplies of the scholarly kind in this world and for a few moments she contemplates the possibility of having to lug scrolls and inkpots around with her. She doesn't think that writing, even with a brush, would be too difficult for her. Reading seems to be possible after all.

Iruka's notes were very illuminating. Apart from the fact that their course work didn't look much more difficult than high school material, she also found that reading Kanji reminds her very strongly of reading a picture book. The only difference is that the pictures encode much more complex information and aren't nearly as colorful.

Another tug, as Sasuke directs her into a side street. They end up in a rather small store, as she had come to realize are most stores in Konoha, stuffed to the brim with paper of all kinds. They walk past a shelf of scrolls in varying sizes, another one full of official looking papers of all sorts, rows of seals, stamps, inks in different colors and a whole wall depicting different brush strokes and the serial number of the corresponding brush model.

It looks like a store Uchihas frequented. With their budget cut, at least until she graduated from the Academy, she isn't sure if maybe they should look into something cheaper. The prices on everything seem terribly high to her, but her grasp on the local currency is tentative at best, so she could be wrong. Sasuke, in turn, simply seems delighted to spot a familiar face in the vendor, who greets him with a smile and a pat on the head.

"Hello Sasuke-kun, I figured you'd be by. After all, proper ninja never let themselves get short of paper."

The boy preens under his approving look.

She'd find other ways to save money, just for now.

In the end they didn't need much. The owner fetched two neatly tied packages from the backroom; Academy sets, free for students and paid for by the Hokage. She keept the surprise off her face by forcefully projecting gratitude at the man. Maybe she shouldn't have been so intense about it; he seemed a little uncomfortable towards the end.

Now, with their bags packed with writing material and Iruka-sensei's notes, she doesn't feel prepared in the least. It's obvious that Sasuke feels the same, if for different reasons. She only caught a glimpse at the Academy during their brief visit to the Hokage, but she can already tell that the building is far bigger than the manga led her to believe. Of course she's known, in theory, that the Rookie Nine weren't the only graduates of their year.

Even now she vaguely recalls a trio of girls that liked to bully Sakura. No, the Rookie Nine were only the best of them that took the Chuunin Exams. But she still never had a concept of how big one year was supposed to be. What exactly would the classes be like? Would she know the teachers? Probably not. She would recognize some of the students though.

She worried about them the most. No matter what Iruka-sensei promised, if there is one thing she remembers about being a kid, it is that if you wanted to know something, you asked – teachers be damned. They would get to her, asking questions, expecting things from her. Sleeping is difficult that night. Only when Sasuke crawls into the bed next to her she can finally relax. He looks even more anxious, but also stubborn. She stifles a snort as he determinedly turns around but then shuffles towards her, bumping their backs together.

If Sasuke has to do it, she can do it too.

After a while his breathing evens out; hers follows shortly after.