Chapter 3: Consequences
When she came to, she gasped for air, taking stock of her surroundings. The air smelled of antiseptic, and she could hear muffled bustling from a distance.
She couldn't see anything though. Bandages were wrapped tightly around her eyes. Her eyelids twitched against the bindings, and briefly she was able to see splotchy lights probably from whatever made it through the fabric before the sensory input became too much.
She heard someone scramble from within the room.
"Kenma," the voice said. She recognized it as her brother. He sounded as panicked as she felt, and without explaining anything to her, he said, "I'll call mom."
Fast footsteps, a door opened, a door closed. And after several beats of silence, she realized he was gone. He left his practically blind sister alone, smart move.
She wanted to be angry, anger was easy. Right now she couldn't even manage that.
Shisui. Was he dead?
Itachi's last words to her was that he was safe, but she had seen him get hit by the kumo-nin's lightning release. Did he survive that? She reached for her bandages, confident now that her eyes were in no pain, but a hand gently held her wrist. A weight settled to her side. "Don't mess with your bandages," he said.
This familiar monotone. "Itachi, I didn't hear the door open."
"I came through the window," he explained. She took a breath, listening again, and hearing the gentle wind rustle through the open window. He wasn't lying
There were a lot of things she wanted to ask him. She didn't remember anything after Shisui. They had retrieved the Hyuga heir, and then he-
"What happened? Where's Shisui?"
"He's alive. Hiashi-sama arrived shortly after he'd been struck. The kumo-nin is dead."
It was factual. The sky the was blue, the kumo-nin was dead. Shisui was alive.
She relaxed, releasing a breath she didn't realize she was holding and reached out in Itachi's general direction. Even though she could feel his weight by her side, she had to make sure he was there. He didn't stop her, as her fingertips brushed against the fabric of his shirt, and she pulled away.
Focus.
"Is he awake?"
"Not yet."
"But he will be?"
"Yes."
"And the Hyuga?"
"She's well. She visited you when you were out."
"When you were out," she repeated aloud thoughtfully. She couldn't ignore it any longer. She was sitting in the hospital, bandages around her eyes, and Itachi sounded… He sounded wrong.
"How long have I been here?" She struggled, trying to find the words. "What's wrong with me?"
"It's been three days…" he trailed. He didn't answer for a beat, "You've activated your sharingan."
But. She could hear it in his tone. "But," she pushed.
"But it's draining you. The day you awakened it, you used so much chakra that you passed out. Your sharingan hasn't been deactivated since. There hasn't been a case where an Uchiha has died from chakra exhaustion while unconsciously using their dojutsu, but…" He trailed off.
"Normally, your sharingan would deactivate on its own. Yours did not. Even with your eyes closed, your chakra is being consumed. The medic-nins aren't sure what's causing this. There aren't enough cases, but it's possible now that you're awake you can turn it off. The chances-"
She cut him off. "It's fine, I get it. So the blindfold?"
Abruptly the door burst open, before Itachi could answer anymore of her questions.
"What are you doing here?" The feminine voice yelled. It was her mother. She was mad.
The weight by her side vanished instantly. "I was just visiting. I'm sorry to disturb you."
She can't see what's going on, but she can imagine Itachi bowing. Footsteps. She thought her mother was getting closer, and-
A slap. The sound echoed.
"Get out."
"I'm sorry," Itachi said again. He definitely bowed this time, she could see it now. And she had never been more confused in her life. Her mom was angry at Itachi, the future of the Uchiha clan. Two months ago this would have been epic, but now she felt… Bad. What had happened?
His hand rested on her back briefly to let her know he was talking to her, quietly Itachi said, "I'll see you later."
When she heard the door close behind him, she asked, "Why are you so mad at him?" She was more confused than she was offended on Itachi's behalf.
"He did this," she explained. "When you came back from the hospital that day, he said it was his fault you were even out of Konoha. He knew about the kidnapping."
"I decided to go, mom."
"You would have never done this."
She wondered if she was right. If she hadn't met Shisui, if she hadn't made a deal with Itachi. But then if not for them, she wouldn't be alive. She felt so tired.
"Baby," Kenma hated when she called her baby. It always accompanied some pitiful or terrible news, especially the way she said it. Kenma flinched against the sudden touch as her mom fixed her hair, a familiar weight settling at her side, closer than what Itachi had dared. "You can't be a kunoichi anymore."
"What do you mean?" Her voice sounded choked, confused before it became louder and insistent. "I activated the Sharingan-" it was a great thing, the way she said it- "This is a temporary problem, whatever this is."
Her mom stayed silent, and she wanted nothing more than to see the look on her face. She felt angrier now. Frustrated by being unable to see, frustrated by her mom's pity, by her words. By the finality of them.
"Explain," she said through gritted teeth, trying to stay calm.
"If you can't deactivate your Sharingan," her mother said. "The bandages can't come off. You don't have the chakra reserves to keep them active. You'll pass out again. And if you keep that up, you could die."
She let the words settle and then continued just as empathetic and as sincere as before. "How can you be a kunoichi if you can't see?"
"Then I can just deactivate them," Kenma replied. She pushed the hand trying to comfort her away. "Why are you talking like I can't, like it's over."
Her mom didn't reply, and Kenma pushed. "Please. Let me take off my bandages. I can learn. I swear."
She sounded desperate to her own ears, but when her mother replied, she was cold.
"The doctors were hopeful that maybe, maybe, when you woke up you could do something. But our bloodline is something that comes naturally to us. When we awaken it, using it or not is as natural as choosing to breathe or not. Do you teach a fish how to swim?"
It was a cruel thing to say, designed to drill in how hopeless her situation was, but Kenma wasn't going to back down
How could she believe her mother's cruel words when everything she had ever wanted was in arms reach. The respect of the clan, the power the Sharingan offered. It hurt that her mom was writing her off just as easily as the Uchiha clan had.
Everything she had been working for her whole life.
She trailed her fingers around her until she could feel where the knot was. Nobody stopped her this time, and she undid the bandages, practically ripping them in the process.
"I can do it," she said.
She opened her eyes and information flooded her brain. It was as if she was seeing for the first time. The clarity and the detail. It was overwhelming.
Her brother was in the corner of the room. He had been there the entire time, his expression was full of pity. She could see the number of breaths her brother took in 10 seconds, two.
At the same time, the wrinkles on her mom's sleeves moved as her arms did. And she saw where her arms and hands were going before they actually landed on her shoulders, grounding her in place.
Her mom had blinked three times since Kenma had taken off her blind fold. She had breathed three times, one time more than her brother. The number of stitches on her clothes, she could count them if she wanted to.
The muscles of her face began to move, she was going to say something. Ants were crawling on the windowsill, three, no four, a dead moth had attracted them.
"Kenma. Focus," she said, and she stared at her mom's sharingan. Three tomoe spun lazily. "I'm going to place a genjutsu on you, okay?"
She took a moment, watching the ants tear apart the dried moth. They had torn a part of its wing apart, destroying the beautiful pattern.
"Pay attention," she repeated, and Kenma nodded.
The was the only consent she gave before the room went black. Only her and her mom, were in the illusion she casted. She could see beyond the genjutsu if she focused, and if she prodded it a little more, it would break.
But she didn't, happy to be relieved of the information dump.
"I've changed the room and your perception of time. Being able to filter through relevant info takes practice which we don't have time for," her mom explained.
Kenma sometimes forgot that her mom had been a shinobi before the war ended, before her father died, and she was deemed unfit to serve. Kenma was reminded of this now. Her collected demeanor, screamed shinobi.
"I'll try to walk you through the feeling, okay?"
"Okay, I'm ready."
"Activating the sharingan can only be described as a rush. You see the difference, right, between your vision before and now?" Kenma nods. "Try to remember how that rush felt. For me, I don't have to think about this, just like how I don't have to think about flexing my fingers. I just do it. But maybe if you can isolate that feeling, you can shut it off."
Kenma tried to bring herself back to that day. But she could only remember Shisui screaming, the look on his face. Like it was all in slow motion. She could see the sparks that crackled through his body, the number of wrinkles that had marred his forehead. She could count the amount of spasms, map out the progression of his burn marks. And the look in the Kumo-nin's eyes, she could see the exact moment he exhaled and released the jutsu. She-
"Stop," her mom said, bringing her back down to reality. "Don't remember the scene-"
"How, how do I not remember?" She made it sound so easy, but-
"I'm trying to help. Don't focus on the scene, focus on the feeling right before it, right before you could see everything."
She tried, again, and again and again. And every time, she failed. She couldn't pinpoint that rush her mom was talking about. Everything was too fresh. Why couldn't she just will it? Like flexing a finger.
She failed that attempt too.
And the next and the next and the next. If her mom had any reaction to her failures, she didn't show it. Her eyes stayed steady on her face, the tomoe where her pupils used to be spinning with no emotion.
Eventually, the genjutsu ended, and as the info dumped into her head in an instant, her eyes closed naturally. She took the bandages that were wrapped over her eyes like a person welcoming a death sentence.
"Think about it, we'll withdraw you from the academy when you're ready" her mom said. "It's for your own good."
She left the room then, probably sensing that Kenma needed the space. Her brother did not leave though. She could hear his faint breaths, the ones he would take every five seconds.
He had been quiet the entire time. It was unlike him, and the look on his face that was now seared into her brain made her angry. Angrier than she should be because he didn't deserve it. She knew that, somewhere in her heart if she took the moment to breath, but she didn't feel like it.
"Why are you still here? You think so too right? That I can't be a kunoichi."
"No," he said, the words were heavy on his tongue and it sounded like a lie.
"You're lying, you feel sorry for me. "
"That's not-" he struggled with his words. He sounded stupid. "God, I'm worried about you, Kenma."
"I don't need your worry! Get out!"
There were no footsteps. And she grabbed her pillow, throwing it randomly in the direction she remembered he was in. She couldn't be sure it hit him, but she hoped it did. "Leave!"
"You're so aggressive," he said. Then the pillow landed at the end of her bed, and she heard his footsteps leave. The door closed behind them.
Finally, she could breath. But just in case, she asked, "Is anyone there?"
Nobody replied.
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘ ༓ ∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
Her family came back to eat a late lunch with her.
Kenma didn't know if they were actually there to keep her company or because they wanted to break her spirit while she was weak. Her mom talked about all the other things she could do as a civilian, emphasized the danger of being a ninja in a way she had never done before because at that point, her mom still believed in her.
Whatever protentional she had seen in Kenma, was all gone, replaced by suffocating worry.
Kenma wasn't actually blind. She told her this, but it didn't make a difference. As long as she couldn't shut off her sharingan, as long as her chakra reserves couldn't maintain her eyes, she might as well be. That is what her mom told her.
Her mom drilled down that Kenma would be a liability on the field if she couldn't pull her own weight, if her team had to worry about her passing out from chakra exhaustion because she had no way of regulating the very thing that was causing it.
When that's over, she thinks for a long time, all the time in the world it seemed, only interrupted when the nurse came to check on her.
Why, why was it important for her to be a ninja?
Then Itachi comes, in the middle of night—she was wide awake when he knocked politely on the window and slipped in as he did earlier that day. He asked how she was doing now, and she answered.
"They want to keep me another day. To monitor that my chakra levels are fine. They said it might be too taxing now that I'm also conscious. The bandages prevent any light from passing through to my eyes which keeps the drain to a minimum. I can't take them off."
Itachi listened silently, though he probably knew some of the information already. She hated the silence about him, now more than ever because she couldn't see if he was actually listening. She listened for his breathing, matching her own to his. Inhale and exhale.
"Are you listening?"
He grunted in affirmation.
"We only have two days now," she said thoughtfully. He didn't answer so she clarified. "Before our agreement ends."
He didn't answer again.
Inhale and exhale.
He was still there, somewhere in the corner of the room. She's not sure, she only heard him enter through the window and take a couple of steps.
It was easier to hear his entrance now that it was nighttime and there wasn't as much noise.
"Are you listening?" she asked again.
"Yes," he answered.
She preferred when he answered instead of when he grunted because then he seemed more human. She let him know that, and he didn't respond. But, this time she expected, and she wondered if he made a face. That seemed like him.
She moved on. "Will you stop training me? We still have two days, you know. You can't cheat me out of that."
"I won't stop," he said.
"Just for the two days?"
"No. We can train together like usual."
She smiled at his words, but wondered if he really meant them. Had he ever said something just to be nice? No. She liked that about him. It was important now.
"You'll be out of the academy though. You'll train with your team, and you won't have as much time."
Again, he didn't respond, and she waited before she gestured at where she thought his voice was coming from.
"Can you come here? I want to make sure you're there because sometimes you don't answer."
Surprisingly he complied, walking four paces to her bedside, and she could feel the body heat radiating off of him. "Sit down."
He does, the bed dipped slightly where he sat. "My mom told me, I can't be a kunoichi anymore. You knew that right, when you told me this morning?"
"I thought your voice sounded more dire than usual. You kept explaining too. I'd never seen you do that before."
He didn't respond, but she knew he was there, she could feel the comforting weight by her side. She didn't have to listen for his breathing anymore, though it hitched a little at her words.
"But I'm going to keep training. I want to be a legendary ninja. I don't care if I'm blind or if I die from chakra exhaustion. That's life. I'm going to-" she didn't know what she wanted to say then, she was mostly just vomiting words, to convince herself or Itachi she wasn't sure. Maybe it was both.
"I'm going to prove them wrong."
Then she waited, waited for Itachi to say something. To acknowledge her dream, to give his dream. To say something.
He didn't.
She wished she could see him. Why wasn't he saying anything, and she reached out.
To his credit, he only flinched slightly as her hand landed on his shoulder and then dragged its way up to his face.
She felt the arch of his brows and the curve of his lips. He was frowning.
She didn't have a chance to ask why, when she felt his jaw move slightly.
"I believe you."
She pursed her lips into a thin line. She felt like crying.
