Haruki missed her grandmother.
The strength of it caught her off guard at times-it crept up on her when she got home after a long tiring mission and knew no one would have her favorite breakfast prepared in the morning, or nag her to drink the clans holy water, even though every Uchihas did the moment they returned to the clan compound as standard practice.
It's not that her mothers don't care for her. That they don't have their own ways of showing affection-but between the family's workshops and keeping up with all the socializing necessary for good clan intel, her parents had always been a little too busy. It was especially true of her father, who saw them in secret like they were something to be ashamed of. Haruki and her twin had been raised with their grandmother's careful doting and Haruki couldn't walk into her home without feeling the grief of it.
It was different from the way she missed her first mother.
Akemi Uchiha.
The woman she doesn't remember. The one her grandma, her mother, and auntie Akane would tell her about. The woman her father would only mention with empty eyes.
Haruki had known her grandmother her entire life. The only reason she and her twin were alive was because their grandmother had convinced their biological mother to let her look after them that fateful day.
The soft cast of wrinkles around her eyes, for when she'd smile without moving her mouth. The gentle way she'd cup her and Hinata's faces and kiss their forehead in good nights and good byes. The no nonsense look she'd give Haruki and her sister to announce playtime was over.
Her grandmother had been a quiet woman-at least at home, without all of the women that fluttered around her, coming to her for gossip or advice. Outside of the home grandma Ayumi had been a socialite. It was a role her mother was struggling to step into. She didn't have her grandmother's innate calm or half her patience.
Haruki thought half the reason Uncle Akira had moved in was to head off the worst of her mothers temper before it landed them in some awkward social position. Haruki was very careful not to think about what other reasons Uncle Akira had for his timely relocation.
Haruki had gotten good at that over the years, calling her other mother Aunt Emiko her entire life and especially playing dumb about the Susano trying to pull her into their lineage, no doubt to be used as a pawn in their grimy hands. Haruki had never once called her fathers parents grandmother or grandfather and she never planned to start. Even more disgusting was their daughter in law-a woman that made sure to 'run into her' on a regular basis and tutt about what a shame it was that she didn't have a closer relationship with her father.
Of course she'd only begun doing so when Haruki had gotten her Sharingan.
She was still trying not to be too bitter about that. There was a lot of painful irony in being the one with the kekkei genkai when she was the one who had least wanted it. Not that she'd ever share the sentiment with Hinata-her twin had barely gotten over Haruki 'one upping her'. Except that for Haruki it had never been a competition in the first place.
Honestly speaking-Haruki didn't have half of Hinata's drive. Even as the twin with better fire release and knowing she was living up to her family's reputation of excellence with that, if nothing else. When she'd first started taking on missions she'd felt a lot of pressure to live up to that-and even more to learn her aunts deadliest technique, especially since her aunt was actually willing to teach her.
But Haruki could not call flame with the ease her Aunt Akane did-couldn't meld it with chakra and intention until it was purely an extension of her will. Couldn't command it to strike someone and not burn, let alone driving it into a heat so strong all it left in its wake was dust on the wind.
Haruki had watched her Aunt do all of that, and had still found it in herself to give up. Something Hinata and her obsessive nature would have never even considered if only she'd shown a little more talent with fire Jutsu. Her sister was her own harshest critic, something Haruki had loathed as a child, but she could admit it was one of the reasons Hinata had earned the clans respect in her own right. Something that only became stronger when her elder sister was chosen as a Cat summoner.
It was almost funny watching all the people that had snubbed her sister as the lesser twin falling all over themselves to flatter her these days-actually funny was watching Mitsuki Uchiha try to build a relationship between her and the Susano. While Haruki had spread her resentment over her father's abandonment on the Susano as a whole, Hinata had honed in on Mitsuki as the one to detest with every fiber of her being.
At least it was something to laugh about with her twin these days. Haruki knew their relationship would never fully recover back to what it had been when they were wide eyed children with no real differences between them, but at least she felt like Hinata didn't hate her these days-and she wanted to feel like that was something to celebrate. She knew Hinata wasn't taking the new shape of their relationship personally. She'd been the one to cause the rift in the first place, but magically apologizing and owning up to being wrong about the whole thing seemed to be enough for her and she didn't seem to mind the new form of their once solid bond.
It also made it harder to be bitter but somehow Haruki managed to be anyway. It felt so incredibly hypocritical to be so upset with her sister when she stopped trying to distance herself and then start doing it herself.
It made her feel ugly. Confronted all over again with all the ways she wasn't perfect. Wasn't anything like her saintly aunt or even her own biological mother who her grandmother had so adored. Even Hinata, capricious as any of the cats she now summoned-was a better person than Haruki on her worst day. How many people could actually get over their twin having their Sharingan meaning they would never have one of their own? And the hell of it was Hinata was over it-she'd put down all the negative emotions she'd felt and tried to make amends with her, and now she was the one struggling to let her sister close again.
Haruki wanted to be someone graceful, patient, and kind-but she wasn't.
She'd never even wanted the stupid Sharingan. It came with her father finding her more often, offering to train her and give her tips. It came with Uncle Naoya driving her harder and harder in spars, constantly warning her from relying on it too much.
All the stupid pressure she'd once thought she'd weathered with her grandmother's support the first time around, had come back, just as suffocating as before. Now she wasn't meant to be the next Aunt Akane-instead, with the existence of her Sharingan, Haruki was expected to be better. She couldn't even do her aunt's infamous technique but the Uchiha thought of her as the next leader of her family's faction.
She thought the only thing that kept them from trying to set her up as a leader of her generation like her aunt was that the Senju had assassinated most of her and Hinata's generation, so there really wasn't much of a group to lead at all.
At least Haruki wasn't awful enough to be glad her own mother had been assassinated for such a petty reason.
Haruki was trying to not to feel betrayed by Hinata not following along to meet up with her squad and instead staying with their parents for the Konoha festival-even when she hadn't actually invited her sister along, once it would have been a given that they would spend such an important celebration together.
Haruki knew that she was welcome to stay with her family of course, but if she was honest-she hadn't quite forgiven them for not calling in aunt Akane when she and her sister had begun to fall out. She knew it was unreasonable-it wasn't like there was a complete guarantee that her aunts intervention would have healed their relationship to what it once was-but Haruki knew in her bones it would have helped.
Helping was basically aunt Akanes superpower.
But no-even her beloved grandmother had argued against bringing up the family strife to her aunts attention. Not when she was already so busy with what she did for the clan and the village. Haruki had only really begun to put down her anger when even her aunt's husband was subject to the unofficial family policy of keeping anything not life threatening or just beyond their ability to deal with from Aunt Akane.
Sometimes, within the higher echelons of the clan-there we're whispers. Rumors of a curse of hatred among those who had the Sharingan. On her worst days Haruki believed it. About her only hope that wasn't quite true was Uncle Naoya-he was one of the kindest people Haruki had ever known, and he had a Magenkyo-the highest manifestation of their Kekegenkai.
Her father had spoken of it with breathless awe. Izanagi was a revered power. The ability to undo the cruelest act of the world; the loss of a loved one. Uncle Naoya had lost an eye to bring Aunt Akane back from the dead. Could their kekkei genkai truly be a curse when it had spared the most important member of her family? Of the clan even, according to some Uchiha that saw being fire touched as a holy blessing. Which had been a lot more of the clan after the creation of their healing artifact. Not to mention the peace with the Senju or the existence of Konoha.
Most of the time, Haruki could stop resenting her aunt just because of how amazing she was.
Haruki resolved to enjoy the festival regardless. Konoha had existed for five amazing years, and Harukis squad had been created after the third.
They met by the merchants quarter-as neutral a place as Konoha had.
Harukis squad was a small one-only five members, but they were all from important clans. Her team consisted of Itsuki Senju, Isamu Inuzuka, Hiroshi Akimichi, and their newest member, Ren Hatake. Their original squad had been of ten, but even outside of war-ninja lives were brief. Haruki had gained her Sharingan watching a team member, Jun Shimura, die and being too slow to save him. The four of them were all that was left from their original squad-and they were family. Even Ren-and his stupid beautiful distracting face that had only been with them a year. There was nothing quite like depending on each other for survival to deepen warrior bonds.
Haruki had leaned on her squad in the wake of her twins disdain, and they had never turned her away. Haruki loved her family, but she wanted to celebrate Konoha-the wonderful existence that tied them to each other, with her squad.
The village looked amazing covered in lanterns and banners-some of the flashier Uchiha had begun fire dancing and seemed to have inspired the Senju equivalent to move about ribbons of water. The Hokages entourage was kitted out in formal kimono and ceremonial armor. Her aunts husband dutifully at the Uzumaki princess side. The procession through the village didn't last too long-or maybe that was all the sake Isamu had surreptitiously been handing them.
All Haruki knew was that she was having a great time, leaning against Ren and feeling his solid hand steadying her on her hip. Her face was flush with more than alcohol-she still didn't quite know what she wanted from him, but she felt like a kiss might be a good start-once she gathered her courage.
The moon hung over the sky, half full and waning-when Haruki felt a blast of malicious chakra that brought her to her knees. Her Sharingan activated without thought and she felt more than saw the giant fox before their village.
It lashed out viciously-the caustic chakra taking lives where the lashes of its nine tails landed.
Haruki found her feet-she was an Uchiha-and about the only thing about sharing blood with the Susano that she had ever liked was the bloodlines philosophy. She would protect them, her people and her home-she would be their shield.
It might or might not be a curse-but all Haruki knew for certain was that she would use everything in her power to protect her village.
If that meant her death-so be it.
X
Yes even the twin with the Sharingan has an inferiority complex-listen, Akane is just barely not a Mary Sue, anyone would. Also Kyuubi-is that you?
Honestly I tried writing more of that scene, I had plans-but it kept coming out flat and I just don't have the time to craft it properly when I am trying and mostly succeeding in updating every Monday so here we are.
I hope y'all enjoyed-please let me know what you think!!