A boy with a scar across his nose and cheeks looks down at me as soon as I enter the shinobi orphanage. He's sweeping the area just outside of the genkan.

"Are you Kanna?"

"Yeah," I say as I play with a frayed thread on my backpack strap.

"Do you know how to sew?" I blink up at him before shaking my head slowly. He nods to himself once before he leans the broom he was using against the wall. "I'll teach you once you get settled in your room."

"Why?" I ask as I slip off my sandals. I look at the shelves filled with shoes and put mine in an empty cubby that's labeled with my name on a piece of tape.

"Part of being a shinobi is taking care of our tools!" He says and when I turn around I see him watching me with his hands on his hips. "And why are you so late? You were supposed to meet us in the courtyard at the end of the school day!"

"I-I didn't know!" I squeak as I move my hands back and forth in front of me. "Inori said I'm supposed to stop by his family's flower shop on my way home everyday!"

The boy's shoulders drop slightly as he nods again.

"Just let me know when you're going to be late, then."

"Who are you?" I blurt out and he blinks down at me. Red starts to creep up under his dark skin.

"Umino Iruka," he says as he scratches the back of his head. "Yondaime-sama instituted a new rule where us older kids are assigned to the younger ones."

"He's the one who came up with that?"

"You had that at the civilian orphanage?" Iruka looks as shocked as I feel.

"It was more like I had to take care of all the babies," I cross my arms as Iruka looks at me like he's trying to figure something out.

"That's not what this is, here we have a buddy program."

"A buddy program?" I repeat slowly.

"One older kid to one younger kid. The caretakers take care of all of us, but as you're older buddy I'm supposed to help you with the other stuff."

"Other stuff," I nod.

He lets out a breath of air and I smile up at him as his right eye twitches.

"Come on, your room is next to mine," he says as he turns on his heel. His sock covered feet almost slip out from under him and it takes everything in me not to laugh as he flails to stay on his feet.

"You didn't see anything!" He says, his voice a little higher as he looks back at me.

"I didn't see anything," I say as I step out of the genkan to stand beside him. He pats the top of my head.

"Good imouto."

I feel heat flash across my face.

"I'm not a puppy, ya know!"

"I know. You're more like a kitten," he gives a mischievous grin as he pulls on my backpack strap, pulling me forward.

"What does that mean?" I ask as he lets go of my backpack. He starts walking away from me quickly.

"Come on, if we hurry up we should be able to go to bed at a decent time tonight!" He calls over his shoulder.

"What does that mean, Iruka?" I ask louder, running to catch up with him. His laugh follows him up the stairs as he runs and I almost trip on the first step because I'm moving so quickly.

"Umino Iruka!"

"I hate you," I whine as I fall on the small bed in the corner.

"You did well, I didn't think you'd be able to keep up," Iruka says as he puts a bandage over a cut on his ankle.

"So many stairs!" I throw my arms out across the bed and close my eyes. This bed is softer than the one I had in the civilian orphanage. It's even softer than the hospital bed!

"You'll get used to them," Iruka says as he grabs my ankle. I shoot up and cover his hand with my own. He stops trying to pull up my pant leg and looks up at me. "You're bleeding through sweatpants. I need to clean and wrap this."

"I can do it," I shake my head.

"Do you even know what antibiotic ointment is?"

"What?"

"Exactly! Now let me-" his words die in his throat when he sees my leg. My heart starts to beat wildly in my chest. I look down at my lap, unable to look up at him. I feel a wet cloth run over the cut on my leg and I flinch. "I'm sorry, imouto," he murmurs.

"Why are you calling me that?"

"Because Hokage-sama said that even though we don't have blood families anymore, we can have new families through our bonds with our fellow shinobi. That's what the buddy program is for, for us to not be alone anymore."

"Do you still want that? I'm sure they could assign you to someone else, someone who doesn't have, you know," I can't bring myself to talk about the scars that cover my arms and legs. Some look like little dots from needles, while others look darker at different sizes of bite marks from snakes.

"I think that's why the caretakers put us together," Iruka says as he starts to put something on my no longer bleeding cut from a stair. "People have always stared at me because of this," he traces a finger over his scar before he moves back to wrapping my leg with a bandage.

"We might have matching ones now," I say more to myself than to Iruka.

"Even more reason for us to be buddies," Iruka says and I finally look up and meet his eyes.

"Thanks, Iruka nii-san." He blinks once. And then his eyes turn glassy as he starts to put away the medical pouch.

"Don't think that you're getting out of your orientation tonight!" He says before he stands abruptly and leaves the room. I stare at the empty spot for a second as I feel the empty black box in my chest start to feel less cold.

He walks back into the room with a quilt filling his arms.

"The good news is the air conditioning works really well," he says as he drops the quilt on my lap. "The bad news is the air conditioning works really well. This should help if you get cold at night."

I look down at the colorful quilt in my lap. All the stitching is even throughout, the bright gold thread stands out even amongst all the various colored cuts of fabric.

"Where did you get this?" I ask as I look up at him. "None of the blankets in the market look like this."

"My mom made it," he says as he scratches his nose. He busies himself with emptying my backpack on the bed beside me. My few hand-me-down outfits are in a pile in the corner of the bed beside him.

"Iruka-"

"My mom's mom was from Uzushiogakure, they made a lot of quilts, for birthdays, holidays, promotions, starting school-" his voice cuts off for a second and he takes a deep breath. "Mom made me that quilt when I first started at the academy. She made it based on all the stories and pictures my grandma had of the academy in Uzushiogakure."

"Iruka-"

"And since you're like family now, you should have it for starting the academy, too. I think that's what mom would want."

"Iruka-"

"Anyways-"

"Iruka!"

He stops and finally looks up at me.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Did she tell you those stories?" I ask after he starts going through my supplies again. His nose scrunches up as he sees my dull kunai and he throws them into the pile of my clothes from the other orphanage.

"She did," he says as he throws my shuriken into the pile, too.

"Could you tell me some?"

"If you help me carry these to the discards-"

"But-"

"We'll get you some clothes that actually fit you and some weapons that you can actually train with," he says as he stands up. I carefully put the quilt down beside my new pillow and grab the clothes Iruka holds out for me.

"Is there fuinjutsu supplies too?" I ask quietly as we make our way down the stairs.

"Fuinjutsu?" Iruka asks.

"I uh, I don't have any memories from before, it's all black. But I know a lot about fuinjutsu and I wanted to try it. I think I liked it before?"

"We can work on it together. And yeah, there are fuinjutsu supplies. Hokage-sama really wants more people to practice it."

"Why don't they teach it in the academy, then?" I follow Iruka down a hallway at the bottom of the stairs to a large room. There's a huge bin on one side with different dividers. I toss my clothes into one of the dividers while Iruka dumps the weapons into another.

"Because the teachers don't know it. Only a handful of people do."

"Is it because most of the books are in Uzu?" Iruka freezes.

"Who let you handle books like that?"

"I don't know!" I squeak. "I just get flashes of book pages sometimes, I used to read them a lot, I think."

"You know Uzu?" My brain short circuits for a moment. I know I've heard the words somewhere, but I mainly know them from the flashes of books I get in my dreams.

"Kind of?" My pronunciation is rough at best. "I don't know how I know but-" I'm pulled into a warm chest with bony arms wrapped around my back. I carefully move my arms up to wrap them around Iruka's back.

"Aw, look at you two already getting along!" A bright voice says. I turn my head to see a woman with untamed spiky hair and sharp front teeth. "Come get food and then we can get your supplies," she ruffles our hair before she turns out of the room.

"Who was that?"

"The caretaker for our floor, Inuzuka Utano. She helps us with supplies and training."

"Do we really get training outside of the academy?" I feel myself bouncing on my feet as we pull away from our hug.

"We do," Iruka says as he takes my hand. "Come on, it's curry night."

"That's the best food I've ever had," I say as I lean back in my chair. I hold my hands over my stomach. It's also the most food I've ever had.

"You barely ate half of it," Iruka deadpans.

"It's a lot!"

"It's a serving appropriate for an academy student at your age," Utano says as she puts a hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry, Iruka. She'll be eating what she needs to soon enough." The smile on her face is predatory.

And when I look back at Iruka, he wears a matching expression.

"Can you teach me to look that scary?" I ask, tilting my head slightly.

Utano bursts out into laughter as she turns away from the table.

I might be able to get used to this.

It feels like I haven't seen sunlight in years.

The walls are gray. The ceiling is gray. The floor is gray. The bedsheets are gray. The pillow is gray. Even the small dresser is gray.

But it's so, so dark.

I try to walk around the tiny room I'm in. I keep my hand on the wall looking for a door, but I can't find one. The only thing I can feel is a rough texture on one of the walls. I rub my eyes and blink hard as my eyes try to adjust to the darkness.

And when my eyes finally adjust, I see a badly drawn sun on the wall. My fingers run over the drawing, it feels kind of like the drawings I've done with crayons at school. But instead of a smooth background where there's not crayon, there's a rough textured, freezing cold wall.

I start to trace the ocean drawn below the sun when I hear a slam and I'm blinded by a bright white light.

"Kanna-chan, Kanna-chan," a voice says over and over. I force my eyes open as my head pounds.

"Iruka-niisan?" My voice cracks.

"You were having a nightmare," he says quietly. Instead of being in the gray room, I'm in a room with warm walls, in a warm bed with a colorful heavy quilt over me. The small lamp on the bedside table casts a warm light in the otherwise dark room.

"Oh Kanna-chan," Iruka says quietly. He starts to climb into the bed and I shuffle over as he gets comfortable beside me.

And then I'm pulled into his warm chest.

"I'll keep the nightmares away, imouto," he says as he reaches over with his free hand to turn off the light.

"No!"

"Shh, it's okay," Iruka whispers. "We'll keep it on, okay?" I nod slowly, looking up at him. "You're safe here. You're in Konoha."

"In Konoha," I repeat.

"That's right, you're safe."

I lose track of how many times we repeat that before my eyes finally fall shut.

"Well, you look like shit kid." Tsume says as she looks down at me. It's the second time we've met. The first was at "family dinner" last week. Fugaku, Mikoto, and Tsume decided to start having dinners once a week at alternating houses since Itachi, Hana, and I have been attached at the hip at the academy.

I don't pout up at her.

"What's wrong?" She crouches down this time, asking quietly.

"Nightmares," I say as I look down at my feet.

"Kanna-hime," Fugaku says and I feel my shoulders drop.

"I didn't see anything really, I promise!" I say as I look up at him. "Everything was gray. The pillows, the walls, the floors, and it was so dark."

"Easy pup," Tsume drops a hand on one of my shoulders.

"The only thing I saw was someone's drawing of a sun and ocean on the wall," I say, my voice shaking. "And it looked exactly like the ones I draw, but-but I don't remember drawing it. How long was I there?"

I'm pulled into Tsume's arms as Fugaku takes Kiba from her.

"We don't know, but we're going to try to find out, alright?" I nod my head slowly against her shoulder. "Alright, let's get some food in you, alright pup?"

"Pizza?" I ask and Tsume snorts.

"Yes, you four will be making your own pizzas tonight," Fugaku says, his voice warm.

"Kanna-chan!" I hear Hana yell from the kitchen. "If you don't get in here I'm gonna make your pizza look like a monkey!"

"You wouldn't!" I screech, pulling out of Tsume's arms and running through the house. I'd already decided exactly how I was going to decorate my pizza, with extra cheese and ham pieces to look like a cat.

I don't really like ham, but Fuwa Fuwa does and he gives more cuddles after he gets treats.

Pizza and cuddles are exactly what I need after last night.

"So cool!" I say as I look up at the treehouse in front of us. It's high up in a tree that's chakra seems to thrum at my comment. I immediately put my hand out against the bark and it's warm against my palm.

"Kanna-hime~" Shisui says as he skips over. "You're supposed to walk up the tree with your feet, not your hands."

"I don't know how to tree walk yet!" I say as I turn to him. "Feel the tree!"

"Why?"

"Just do it," I say as I cross my arms over my chest. Shisui reaches his hand out and plants it on the tree for a minute before he turns to look at me.

"It's happy!" Shisui just looks confused.

"I don't think trees can think like that, Kanna-hime."

"Its chakra changed when I said it was cool!"

"Maybe we should get you inside instead of up in the treehouse," Itachi says as he walks over to us.

"I'm not crazy," I say as I turn to Itachi.

"I didn't say you were crazy," he says as he crosses his arms. "I just implied that you might have heat sickness."

"Heat sickness?" Fugaku asks as he steps off the back engawa. "I told all of you to drink water regularly."

"I did! I just refilled my bottle," I say as he comes to rest the back of his hand against my forehead. In his other arm, Sasuke blinks down at me. "The tree is happy."

"The tree is happy?" Fugaku asks slowly as he pulls his hand away.

"It's chakra got warmer and it moved more when I said it was cool! I'm not crazy, I felt it!"

"I believe you, Kanna-hime." Fugaku says before he picks me up in his free arm. "I'll tell you all why when we get up there. Can you boys bring the water and snacks up with you?" He asks as he turns to Shisui and Itachi.

The boys look at each other before looking back up to him and nodding. They both look like they think he's crazy too. Fugaku starts walking up the tree and I squeak as I hold onto his arm. His burning chakra feels even brighter as he walks up the tree.

Once we're at the tree house, he lets me climb inside before he crouches inside himself. He sits in the corner by the door as I look around. It didn't look that big from the outside, but it's huge inside. There's a couple of fluffy rugs on the floor, a small storage shelf runs along one of the walls. It's filled with books and games.

"We thought you four could decorate it how you would like as the years go on," Fugaku says as I touch the string lights that run under one of the windows.

"It's so cool ojisan!" I say as I sit down on a small pillow beside him. He pats the top of my head as Sasuke makes grabby hands towards me. I reach out and hold one of his hands as he makes happy noises.

"Here you go, hime," Shisui says. I grab my water bottle from him and put it down on the floor in front of me. I hear a mechanical noise and turn to see Itachi has turned on a fan. I let out a sigh of relief.

It's so hot.

I understand it's fire country, but this isn't fair. It takes a few minutes for the boys to settle down on the floor across from us, but soon we're passing around snacks Mikoto made for us.

"Are you gonna tell us why you think the tree is happy ojisan?" Shisui asks around a piece of dango. Fugaku shoots him a look and Shisui gives him a sheepish smile as he rubs his neck.

"This is a Hashirama tree, one of the many trees created by the Shodaime in Konoha."

"If it was made by him, is it his chakra I feel?"

"Perhaps," Fugaku nods as Sasuke squirms in his arms. "Or it could be the tree's own chakra. Every living being has chakra. Very few can feel the chakra that flows through water, plants, the wind."

"I can't feel those things," I say as my nose scrunches up. "Only some of the trees."

"Trees like this one?" I nod my head at the question.

"They're all around the compound," I say as I pull my legs up to my chest. "The ones around here are almost always happy, but the ones near the orphanage are sad."

"When are the trees around here not happy?" Shisui asks.

"After the long meetings Fugaku-ojisan goes to. And when there's not many people outside. Sometimes they get angry when the elders walk through."

"Really?" Itachi asks, leaning forward. "Why would their emotions change?"

"Perhaps it's related to what the Shodaime valued," Fugaku cuts in. "He valued peace for the village over everything else, it's why he ended up fighting Madara when he left the clan."

"So they're happy when they see the Uchiha clan happy?" I ask as Itachi hands me a small plate of food. "And they're not happy when they can't see them outside anymore?"

"It seems that way," Fugaku says as he pulls a piece of edamame off my plate. I grin up at him. I hate edamame.

"I bet it's cause the Shodaime had a crush on Madara," I say.

"No way!" Shisui yells.

"Oh please, he literally fought to the end for him," I roll my eyes.

"But Hashirama was married to Mito-sama!"

"So? You can totally like two people at once."

"And how would you know that, little hime?" Shisui asks, his eyes filled with mischief. "Do you like two people?"

"Ew no," I say as I shake my head. "Iruka-niisan's friend Genma has a girlfriend and a boyfriend."

"Really?" Shisui asks, practically bouncing in his seat.

"Don't start rumors, Shisui," Fugaku cuts in.

"But why would the Hashirama trees not like it when the elders walk through the district? Isn't it good that they're here?" Itachi asks, bringing us back to where we got started. Shisui pouts.

"The elders are stupid," I say as I take a bite of gyoza.

"None of that," Fugaku says. I try to give him the same look he gives us when we do something funny that he's not supposed to laugh at.

"You know it's true," Shisui says with a mouth full of food.

"Ew," I say as Itachi grimaces.

"Don't talk with food in your mouth, Shisui," Fugaku says. "And while I don't personally like the elders, we must respect them."

"Does sneaking-"

"Don't finish that sentence, Kanna-hime."

Shisui and Itachi snicker across from us as I pout up at Fugaku.

"So mean to me," I say as I hug my legs closer.

"Eat," he says to me.

"Will you tell us some stories about the Shodaime?" I ask in a small voice. Fugaku's lip twitches as he nods. Itachi moves over to sit beside me and rests his head on my shoulder, stealing a piece of dango off my plate.

I don't fight him, instead I just steal a piece of chocolate off his plate instead.

"So cute~" Shisui teases and I throw a grape that hits him in the middle of his forehead. He squawks and I giggle as Itachi hides his face in my shoulder.

Is this what it feels like to have a family?