Chapter Three — Warning: Dying May Stunt Your Growth

Kyoko blinked up at the ceiling. There were a lot of odd parts to that. Mostly, she didn't think she should be able to blink anymore. But she did blink and there was a ceiling and it didn't feel like she was bleeding out on a cold floor. With a sharp inhale, she turned her hands so that she could curl her fingers against the mattress below her. It didn't hurt to move.

She dragged chakra up and the world sharpened as her sharingan turned on. She turned her head to the side, staring at the wall. Then she snapped up, sucking in a breath. She jerked a hand to her chest, twisting it in her shirt.

That was Shisui's chakra. That was impossible. She pulled on her shirt, smothering a whimper. That was Shisui's—

She froze. Kyoko looked down, letting go of her shirt and turning both hands palm up. Then she turned them so she could study the backs. They were tiny. Unblemished. Pale. And missing the marks along her fingertips from years of accidentally pricking herself with kunai and shuriken during training. She threw back her blanket and drew up her right leg, rolling up her pant leg and searching for the jagged cut down her outer calf from when she'd slipped up against an enemy genin a month out of the Academy.

It wasn't there.

Hands shaking, Kyoko reached up to feel her throat. Her intact throat.

"No, no, no," she whispered, trying ignore the fact that her voice came out childish and small. She brought her hands up together. "Kai," she mumbled, flaring her chakra. She was already getting tired. More tired than her sharingan had ever made her. She couldn't see a genjutsu. She could always see the genjutsu. The world's edges softened as she closed her eyes and ended her sharingan. She tightened her hands' grip on each other. "Kai." Another flare of chakra. "Kai. Kai. Kai. Kai. Kai! Kai! Kai!"

Nothing changed.

"No, no, no, no, no. This isn't real. This isn't real." She twisted her grip, moving to hold the index finger on her left hand. Pain. Pain would snap her out of it. She took a deep breath to steel herself.

Her door opened. "Kyoko-chan. What is it?"

Kyoko jerked, looking up. She froze and stared at the impossible man standing at the bedroom's entrance.

"Tousan?" she whispered. He looked so real. The crows feet, the way he leaned just a little more to the right side, the way his sharingan spun counter-clockwise, the— He was missing the scar on his collarbone from his mission to put down an infiltrating Iwa cell during the war.

"Kyoko-chan," he said again, stepping in. His sharingan faded away. "Bad dream?"

"I—" She hadn't broken her finger, but she was holding on so tight that her hands were starting to hurt. She dropped them to her lap, staring at the liar. It wasn't him. Of course it wasn't.

Except, she was missing her scars. Why couldn't he miss one of his own? Her sharingan always saw genjutsu.

"Tousan?" she gasped, eyes starting to burn.

He moved quickly to the bed, already reaching for her as he sat down. "It's okay, Kyoko-chan. It was just a bad dream. C'mere."

She didn't fight as he pulled on her. Instead, she followed the movement desperately and couldn't choke down the sobs that threatened to suffocate her. It couldn't have been a bad dream, because she could still feel the bite of the tanto and the weight of— Kami, Shisui had died. That wasn't a bad dream. It wasn't even a nightmare. It was hell.

"What happened?"

Kyoko looked down so she wouldn't have to look at him because he was supposed to be dead. "Nothing." That was a lie. The right answer was everything. "Nothing happened." Everything wrong that could have ever possibly happened did just that.

He lifted her chin, catching her gaze. "Okay. Okay, then. Nothing happened," he promised. "You're okay and nothing happened." He brushed away her tears. "Take all the time you need. Then you can try to sleep again."

No. She didn't want to sleep ever again. Because if that had been a bad dream, she didn't want to go back.

Itachi was the most beautiful baby she'd ever seen. Naruto was a close second, of course, but she hadn't been allowed to hold him. Love him. Instead, she'd had to watch him through windows and from behind a cold mask and she'd never been allowed to touch.

But Itachi? Itachi settled into her arms like he was supposed to be there, and his hands were far too small and delicate to hold a blade.

"I love you," she whispered to him when Mikoto had stepped away with Shisui. "And I'm sorry I couldn't do more."

Later, when Mikoto had gone inside, Kyoko clutched to Itachi like her life depended on it. "Is this real?" she asked him. "If it is, I'll do better. I promise. You two wouldn't have to protect me again. It would be my job. Just . . . . I need to know. Is this real?"

He didn't answer.

The house was quiet, and Kyoko was standing in the empty hallway. She looked back into the room at where Shisui was sleeping. He wasn't moving. Was he sleeping or was he dead?

Kyoko backtracked into the room and leaned onto the bed, holding her hand in front of his mouth. When she felt his hot breath against her fingers, a sigh of relief shuddered through her body. She leaned her head forward to rest it against his bed. He was okay. He was just sleeping.

It took a while—a few minutes? longer?—for her to force herself up and away. Kyoko closed the door to keep herself away from the temptation of looking back. She slid her feet across the floor to keep herself silent as she moved to the bathroom. She shut that door too and then strained up to reach the light.

She winced when it turned on too bright. The lights were buzzing too loud. She rubbed her eyes to try to clear her vision. When she could finally stand it, she opened her eyes again and reached up for the counter. It took longer than she liked for her to haul herself up, but once she was there she sat with her feet resting in the sink so that she could face the mirror. Kyoko blinked at herself, but she didn't recognize herself. Because this her was only supposed to exist in old photo albums.

"Please, no," she whispered. She reached up and pressed her fingers under her dark eyes. She pulled up her chakra and watched as red bled into her eyes and black swirled into existence.

Kyoko caught her breath and snapped her fist out against the glass. Somewhere else in the house, a baby started screaming. Itachi. She should be worried about Itachi. But she couldn't make herself care. Not about Itachi, not about her bleeding knuckles, and not even about the shattered glass. It was what she could see in the glass that made it hard to breathe. Because when she stared?

Two black eight-point stars stared back.