Chapter 12: Getting Stronger
...
I needed to get stronger.
By now, the Hokage was aware that I knew the truth. Even if he couldn't kill me outright without raising suspicion, there were other ways to make me disappear. I'd nearly died many times as a child. Who would blame him if I suddenly succumbed to one of my many illnesses? My first priority was making sure that I wasn't easy prey. I knew plenty of healing jutsu. That might be enough to keep me out of the hospital. Maybe I could try constantly cycling healing chakra through my body to simulate a functional immune system? Tsunade had her regeneration technique, but that was an S-rank ability, and it came with the severe downside of rapid aging. But what if I tried a transformation technique instead? A true physical transformation like Orochimaru's neck-extension or the Akimichi Body-expansion jutsu. But on a cellular level. Instead of dividing cells to stimulate healing, I could transform them back into a healthy state.
It was an interesting concept, but one that hadn't been tried before. It would be impossibly complicated and require incredible chakra-control. Still, after all the studying and healing I'd done, I thought that the fundamentals might be there. It would just take time to learn and experiment.
But even if I managed to escape the death-trap that was the hospital, eventually I would graduate from the Academy, and that opened a new realm of danger. Danzo wasn't above assigning Root members to genin teams. One mission-gone-wrong, and it would be over for me. Even if I decided to flunk out of the Academy, there were other dangers too, like the Sand invasion, Pein, and, oh yeah, the Fourth Shinobi War. Becoming a civilian wasn't a guarantee of safety. If I wanted to survive, I had to be strong.
Fortunately, I was farther along on that journey than even I realized.
I just needed Sasuke to point it out.
"Kiyo-chan, how long have you had the Sharingan?" he asked while I prepared dinner.
"Huh?" I asked. "I don't."
But Sasuke shook his head.
"At the shrine," he said. "I saw it."
At the…?
Then I recalled the jolt of energy and seeing red. It was common for Uchiha to see a flash of red when activating the Sharingan for the first time. And the Sharingan was awakened by powerful emotions. I reached up to touch my check just below my eye, and I wondered. I'd been so angry. I hadn't even registered it.
Carefully, I channeled chakra to my eyes, through pathways that hadn't been there before. The world shifted and sharpened. I picked up a spoon and stared at my distorted reflection. Red eyes stared back, each with a single tomoe.
"I…just now, today," I said. "I didn't realize…"
"Do you know how I can awaken it?" Sasuke asked, suddenly very focused.
He should already have it. But I couldn't tell him that. He'd blocked out those memories, and if he remembered them, he might also recall Itachi's tears. That would be dangerous for all of us.
"I don't know," I lied. "I was just...really upset."
Sasuke frowned at the wall with a pinched expression.
"I need to grow stronger," he said, his fists clenched.
Yeah, with what he would face, he would need all the strength he could get. We both would.
"I think it's time for us to go back to the Academy."
I wasn't quite sure what to expect when we arrived in class, but it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. There was an awkward silence as Sasuke and I sat in the empty seats beside Naruto, but it only lasted until Daikoku began the lesson.
During lunch there were a few uncomfortable conversations because kids really didn't know boundaries yet, but surprisingly, Naruto seemed to understand in a way that went beyond the simple, sanitized version of events that I was willing to share. It wasn't something I could explain, just a feeling of deep connection that passed between us like a spark.
So this was the power that would save the world.
Understanding and empathy.
Ninshu.
I just wished it hadn't come too late to save my family.
...
"Back. To. Bed."
As it turned out, wrestling a squirming eight-year-old ninja back into his pajamas wasn't as easy as it sounded, and it hadn't sounded very easy to begin with.
"We habe school," said Sasuke, his voice almost unrecognizable through his stuffed-up, tomato-red nose. "And twaining."
"You're sick," I said. Technically we were both sick, but my healing chakra was currently masking my symptoms. We'd barely been in class long enough to catch up on our assignments before we'd both come down with a cold. "Just rest for a while, and you'll feel better when you wake."
"I'm fine," said Sasuke, twisting out of my grip. I managed to pin his arm with my knee, but he'd gotten his other hand free, and that was enough to let him throw me off.
Or it would have been if he hadn't sneezed.
I seized the momentary opening, shoved him into his pajama top, and pushed him back onto the bed.
"The teachers will just send you home," I said.
"I'm fi…" Sasuke began before devolving into a hacking cough.
"You're not fine," I said, but this was going nowhere. Well, I could understand if he just wanted to make sure he didn't miss anything. That was an easy problem to solve. "I'll give you my notes for today when I come home and we'll review them together."
"No! I need do loog abter you," he said with a stubborn set to his jaw, and I paused.
Ah, right. Maybe the problem wasn't really the training.
"Then I'll stay home too," I said softly. "When you're well again, we'll go back to school together."
To prove my point, I sat on the bed beside him. Sasuke still looked like he wanted to argue, but common sense finally returned and he flopped back onto his mattress. "…Fine."
I let out a small sigh at my victory.
"I'll make some tea," I said, and Sasuke grunted.
Content that he wouldn't try to sneak off without me, I went to the kitchen and put the kettle on. There were various methods for healing colds with chakra, but none were covered in the field medic exam, so I wasn't technically allowed to use them on other people. But I could still prescribe decongestants and I had just about every medicinal herb under the sun so Sasuke wouldn't suffer too much.
When the tea was ready, I opened the door to Sasuke's room and found him splayed out on the covers fast asleep. I set down the tea and draped a wet towel on his feverish forehead before closing the door quietly.
I then tied my hair back and got to work on all the chores that needed to be done. I made pretty good progress, stopping every once in a while to check on Sasuke. He woke once, his eyes bleary as he looked at me.
"Kaa-chan…?" he asked, his voice raspy.
"No, it's just me," I said.
But he was already asleep.
He slept for the rest of the morning while I washed, mopped, and scrubbed. At noon I went to start lunch only to realize that the fridge had stopped working. Sighing, I made a mental note to speak to a repair man when Sasuke was well enough to go out. I'd just have to work through the perishables for lunch and dinner so we wouldn't lose too much to spoilage.
I started on the rice and was chopping the pork into manageable pieces when the mail arrived. There were four letters, and I sat down to read them while waiting for the pot to boil. The first was an offer of purchase for the buildings in the Uchiha district. The sum listed would have been insulting just for the scrap price of the wood, though the prospective buyer made sure to emphasize how kind they were for offering to take the burden off of our hands.
I shredded the letter and moved on to the next.
It was from one of our tenant farmers gently reminding us that I'd missed one of our contracts in the audit. It was currently void due to the departure of the previous clan head. He was letting us know that we had 30 days to meet and renegotiate the contract before the tenancy expired, and he wanted to ensure that his family continued to have a home.
The renegotiation wouldn't be difficult. I'd already retained the services of a contract lawyer to review everything, and Sasuke would be there to sign it. I added it to my mental to-do list. A 30 day time window wouldn't be easy, but it was still manageable.
The next letter was from a former client of my weapon-smith uncle who was dissatisfied with his refund. The letter was dripping with outrage and bemoaned how he had been promised a sword for some formal event. And he'd been so embarrassed to show up with without the promised weapon. Were the Uchiha really so disgraceful, he asked. And how were we planning to compensate him for our broken promises? Or did he need to bring this to the Hokage?
The paper crumpled slightly in my grip, but I made another mental note to write an apology letter. The name wasn't familiar, so I doubted he was anyone powerful, but in a world of ninja, it paid to be polite. The last thing I needed was a wealthy lord putting a price on our heads over something like this. I wondered if he would have been so bold if the rest of the clan was still alive. They might have been relegated to police work for the most part, but the Uchiha had been feared, and people had treated us with the same respect and caution as any other powerful clan.
Well, it didn't matter now.
The last letter was a Final Notice from the electric company. Apparently I'd neglected to cut the power to the Uchiha district and there were still some houses drawing power. And the previous warning letters had been sent to the old house. I'd need to pay the bill for this month and go down to the utility company to arrange for a technician to—
Wait, was something burning?
Oh, I'd forgotten the rice!
I snatched the pot from the stove and turned it off, waving an oven mitt over the slightly charred rice to dispel the smoke.
It wasn't too bad. I could still salvage it as long as the pork tasted good…
…I'd forgotten to put the pork on.
I had raw pork and burned rice. But it wasn't a problem. I could remake the rice and cook the pork.
It was fine.
Simple.
Easy.
For no good reason, I started to cry.
I swept away the tears, but they just kept coming, and soon I was sniffling, and then sobbing. And I couldn't stop.
"Kiyo-chan?"
I looked up to see Sasuke standing in the doorway with a blanket draped around his shoulders. Oh, no, I hadn't meant for him to hear. I marshaled a smile.
"Sorry for the wait, Nii-chan," I said with forced cheer. "L-lunch will be ready soon, so go back to b-bed now, okay?"
I just needed a moment, and I would be fine.
Sasuke padded into the kitchen, looking over the papers on the table, the Final Notice still on top in big bold letters, at the broken fridge, at the burned rice on the counter, and then at me.
He looked…sad.
I'd never felt like more of a failure. Itachi had done everything he could to prepare me. Even Naruto managed to look after himself, and yet this was all I could do?
"…Sorry," I said.
Sasuke bit his lip, unsure, and then he opened one of the cupboards and took out a small box of Uchiha senbei cookies. They were the last batch from Teyaki and Uruchi, and they were probably stale by now, but I didn't want to throw them out. Sasuke took one of the sweet ones and pressed it to my lips. I took a tentative bite, and yeah, it was pretty stale.
But…it still tasted nice. A little bit like home.
"C'mon," said Sasuke, tugging me into his room. "Back to bed. Just rest for a while, and you'll feel better when you wake."
It felt entirely too unfair to have my own words thrown back at me like that. I wanted to protest. I had so many things to do, but he had that stubborn set to his jaw, and I was just too tired to fight.
So I let him tuck me in, and I curled up at his side. One of his small hands grasped loosely at my sleeve, and we drifted off to sleep together.
…
It took time, but things did eventually get easier.
Sasuke and I settled into a routine. I took over most domestic tasks like cooking, cleaning, and laundry. Kunoichi class and my internship at the clinic had prepared me well enough, and Sasuke filled the role of maintenance man as well as he could. When he woke screaming in the night and flung a brace of kunai at the wall, he sheepishly patched the holes the following morning. Apparently shinobi classes had prepared him well too.
Despite my extended absence from school, I found that working through the assignments gave me a strong sense of déjà vu. I already knew the material. In fact, I felt like I knew it even better than the book. I also thought I might have known why.
To test my theory, I convinced Sasuke to go to the local onsen. He didn't want to, didn't like the idea of being separated, but I convinced him by extolling the virtues of mineral water for health, my health specifically. That was enough to make him relent, which was good because Sasuke and I were practically attached at the hip, and I needed a bit more privacy than our bathroom could provide, especially considering how difficult it would be to conceal the tell-tale puffs of ninja smoke.
When Sasuke was safely on the other side of the wall, I stood in front of a mirror in the changing room and ran through the hand-signs for the transformation technique, turning into an exact replica of Sasuke.
So I was right.
Itachi hadn't just taught me about the clan while in Tsukuyomi. He'd included actual jutsu too. I cycled through the Academy three, the transformation, the clone, and the replacement jutsu. I also performed the body-flicker and scaled the wall using the tree-climbing jutsu. When I went out to the actual hot spring, I found that I could walk on water just as easily.
Those weren't the only things he'd taught me either. I knew that if I picked up a kunai, I'd be able to replicate Itachi's trick throwing techniques. The same was true for the clan taijutsu style.
In the grand scheme of ninja abilities, it wasn't much, but right now I was easily at genin-level. It would be enough that I could continue to teach Sasuke in Itachi's stead. I just needed to figure out a way of explaining my inexplicable increase of ability.
But I already had one, didn't I?
I reached up to touch my eyelid.
The Sharingan really was a cheat.
I started by using my Sharingan to memorize our school books. And my medical books. And all of the various items hidden beneath the Uchiha shrine. If Sasuke ever questioned how I knew something, I could always claim that I'd read about it or seen it somewhere.
Memorization with the Sharingan was easy. I simply had to glance at a page, and I would absorb everything I'd seen as if I'd studied it carefully. The downside was that the one-tomoe Sharingan was relatively chakra-intense, and while I had above-average chakra reserves thanks to my Uzumaki heritage, I was still a just kid. An hour was about my limit, but with time my reserves would grow.
Until then, I had to ration my reserves between my experimental healing, my Sharingan memorization, and my training with Sasuke. He was…driven. No, that wasn't quite right. He'd been driven before with his desire to surpass Itachi and gain Fugaku's approval. Now he was obsessed. Every moment that wasn't dedicated to school, eating, or sleeping was spent training.
Our days were split between exercise, kata, shuriken and kunai throwing, and taijutsu. Sasuke pushed his body beyond its breaking point every single day. I quickly lost count of the number of torn tendons, sprains, and burns I had to heal. At least I was here to look after him. I didn't like to think about how he would have fared alone.
Our only respite was school, though that came with its own challenges.
Specifically, Naruto.
I'd been careful to keep him at arm's length before the massacre because I hadn't wanted to draw negative attention on the clan. But that was no longer an issue so there was no reason not to befriend him.
Well, except for one thing…
"You think you're so cool, huh Sasuke-teme?" Naruto barked. I looked up in surprise. I'd been picking unenthusiastically at my lunch and had missed whatever it was that had set him off this time. "I'll beat your ass!"
"You can't even beat the training dummy, idiot," said Sasuke.
"Oh yeah?"
Naruto took a swing at him, and Sasuke leaned back. Naruto's fist met open air, and he tripped over his own feet to land face-first in the dirt. I winced at the painful-sounding thud. Sasuke stood over him with an expression of utter contempt until the bell rang a moment later, calling us all in for class.
"Don't get in my way, dead last," he said, turning around and stalking off. I looked between them before packing up my lunch silently.
It turned out that my plan to help Sasuke and Naruto become friends wasn't going quite as well as I'd hoped…
Naruto was rubbing the smudge of dirt on his cheek when I handed him one of my leftover cookies.
"Heh, thanks," he said, never one to turn down free food.
"Please try to get along," I said as gently as I could.
I wanted them to be friends, I really did. But it seemed like fate had other ideas, and I'd just have to work with that.
Somehow.
The problem was that while Sasuke had been willing to entertain the thought of befriending Naruto initially, they managed to get along about as well as a pair of highly territorial cats. Naruto's constant boasting irritated Sasuke, who already had an inferiority complex thanks to Itachi. And Sasuke's apathetic attitude felt like rejection to Naruto. That would have been bad enough, but Naruto handled rejection by intentionally trying to get a rise out of the person rejecting him.
That never went over well.
Things spiraled downhill rapidly, and I was lucky if I could convince them to tolerate each other for lunch let alone anything else.
Naruto looked away.
"Yeah, okay," he said as he ate the cookie in one bite.
I smiled weakly and retreated to where Sasuke was waiting with a scowl.
"Please be patient," I told him.
Sasuke looked away and gave a half-hearted shrug, which was about as much as I could hope for.
After lunch was taijutsu class. We'd finally reached the point where the teachers were willing to let us face off against one another in actual, supervised combat. With several months of intense training, I was at least fairly comfortable sparing with Sasuke, but I wasn't quite as confident against the other children. You had to trust that they would know when to stop and how to pull punches without doing any real damage.
I had an advantage with my healing chakra, but it could still hurt.
Daikoku flipped through the papers on his clipboard while Mizuki stood off to one side. Mizuki helped during taijutsu training and during shinobi classes where the students required a lower student-to-teacher ratio. By all appearances, he was a kindly man. It was hard to believe that one day he would try to kill Naruto.
"Alright, so the next match will be between Sasuke and…Naruto."
While Sasuke had always been top of the class in taijutsu, lately his fights felt different. He was nearly murderous in the ring, and there was a noticeable apprehension among the students when his name was called. Well, for most people.
"Alright!" shouted Naruto, leaping into the clearing. "You're going down! Don't think I'll go easy on you this time."
"That Naruto is so annoying," muttered Sakura. "Kick his ass, Sasuke-kun!"
The other girls cheered, but Sasuke was focused on Naruto. Despite the clear difference in their abilities, Sasuke took every fight seriously.
"Begin!"
I tracked Naruto's movements easily. He preferred head-on attacks with no subtlety or trickery, but that was the worst way to confront a more skilled opponent. Sasuke caught his attack and flipped him over in one smooth motion.
"Winner-Sasuke!" said Daikoku.
The girls cheered and some of the boys jeered. Naruto's face twisted in anger and embarrassment.
"Hey, I want a rematch!" said Naruto.
"Like the outcome would be any different," said Sasuke.
I winced. At Naruto's current level it was true, but still…
"What did you say?" Naruto shouted, making a grab for Sasuke.
But then Daikoku was there.
"That's enough," he said. "Naruto, go cool down. For the next match we'll have Sasuke and…" He consulted his list and looked up, possibly noting the sudden stillness of trepidation. "…Kiyo."
Huh.
Usually the teachers preferred to pair boys against boys and girls against girls. But obviously we'd need to learn how to fight each other eventually. Now was as good a time as any. I set aside my field guide to the identification of rare medicinal herbs and entered the clearing. Taijutsu against Sasuke was always interesting. He was fast and clever and rarely fell for the same trick twice. Despite the training Itachi had given me with Tsukuyomi, I was still physically very weak. So it was unusual for me to ever score a real victory against him unless I was allowed to use my Sharingan, but since this was a basic taijutsu class, that was usually forbidden.
"Begin!"
Due to my limited strength, my taijutsu style largely consisted of me blocking my opponent's every attack until they dropped from exhaustion. If pushed, I would attempt to attack and end the fight in one hit, but that was only when I had an opening and could not escape.
Also my attacks had…variable success.
Meanwhile Sasuke was good at breaking my defense and cutting off escape routes.
He attacked head on before darting left at the last second with a leg sweep to push me off balance. I dodged right, and he was up again to block my kick at his head. He made a move to grab me, but I had already opened the distance between us. He darted forward again.
We fought like this for almost a minute with him attacking while I counter attacked and retreated. He chased me around the clearing as I waited for an opening he was unwilling to provide. But after months of carefully studying Sasuke's attack patterns, even without the Sharingan active I recognized his pattern of movements.
Jab.
Left hook.
Forward.
Right.
There.
Sasuke dropped his guard for a fraction of a second. Normally I wouldn't have had the physical reaction time to take advantage of it, but I'd been waiting, and my kick landed hard, sending him flying back.
It was a solid blow, but obviously one good kick wasn't enough to take him out. He was back on his feet, bouncing slightly with agitation and pausing to assess the situation. Then he was on me again, attacking faster and harder. One particularly brutal kick to my arm made me wince, and Sasuke froze, his focus momentarily broken with a flash of surprise and…fear?
He stopped at once, relaxing his whole body and shoving his hands into his pockets.
"I give up," he said.
"Eh!?" the class shouted, but Sasuke was watching me carefully.
"Okay, winner—Kiyo!" said Daikoku somewhat dubiously. "The next match is…Shino and Kiba."
"Do you need to go to the hospital?" Sasuke muttered when we were back on the sidelines.
"Oh, I'm fine," I said, waving my hand to demonstrate. He probably wouldn't notice the subtle healing chakra I was running through my forearm. The slight green glow was barely visible, and a hairline fracture was nothing to worry about. "You're getting really strong, Nii-chan!"
Sasuke was silent for a moment and then grunted.
I went back to my guide on herbs, and Sasuke stood over me like a moody gargoyle.
From then on, Daikoku began pairing Sasuke with me on a regular basis. He never gave a reason, but I speculated that it was to stop Sasuke from accidentally going too far and breaking something or someone. It didn't happen often. Sasuke was usually well in control of his power, but he did make mistakes and lose it sometimes. One boy wound up with a broken leg and another had four teeth knocked out. But after the first accident, that was never the case with me. He was always perfectly careful to never, ever hurt me again.
I just wished he was willing to extend that consideration to everyone else.
…
AN: I didn't get quite as far as I wanted to with this chapter. But I really wanted to show the struggle of trying to survive as a child with no support system, something that's glossed over a bit in Naruto's backstory.
