Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sachiko wasn’t fond of how her day was going so far.

Well, she didn’t particularly like her days at the academy in general, if she were to be honest.

The necessity to socialize and the connections she eventually had to make were too significant for her to throw away merely because of her discomfort. But she hated the academy despite her reasoning, the cool air on her back only a reminder of her surroundings, the murmur of her classmates too loud.

The other kids didn’t like her all that much. She had tried her best to get along with them– She really had. Her parents seemed to think otherwise, but she knew Sadahiro believed her when she had told him they avoided her, animosity poorly hidden. It wasn’t her fault. Was she just supposed to let them pick on her?

Hitsuno often told her the village was too traditional. Sadahiro often argued with her. They were squabbles between oldest and the middle child over the dramatics of village politics. Sachiko thought it was stupid, really, that she was being picked on for not being from an established clan; For being different, even if it wasn’t by a lot. Maybe she did have issues with her chakra. So what?

Sachiko could feel herself getting worked up at the mere thought of it, and she quelled the brewing storm away. She decided she would focus on a different aspect of school she hated.

They were packed into stiff desks, made to sit and stare into the nothingness of a chalkboard for hours at a time. It was painful, really.

They read, on occassion. Sachiko liked that more, but the classrooms were still dull, quiet, and almost always either too hot or too cold. It seemed that most of her classmates thought the same, too, as they fidgeted for what she could say was… all of indoor classtime.

The windows had the most ineffective blinds to ever exist. Ever. She had been considering investing into a decent pair of sunglasses to at least try to put up a fight against the brightness.

She had requested to change her window seat a week ago, she remembered. The gaze of her teacher remained perplexed, even after she had explained her predicament. They had suggested maybe seeing a doctor for possibly sensitive skin.

She thought about it for maybe around a minute before deciding she definitely would not do as such. But she nodded, as if she were going to.

Sachiko’s seat had never been changed.

Maybe that was another thing that irked her: She wished they would just listen. It was far too loud in the classroom now. It seemed that Kenji had lost control of their students. She could hear the sharp tone of their voice behind her ears, like a faint memory.

Sachiko’s eyes glazed over, blank and fixating themselves onto the analog clock above the chalkboard. To her dismay, it still read a dull 11:16, and it had only been two minutes since she had last checked at the time.

Eagerness crumpled, she tried to tune back into their sensei’s lesson, to no avail. Static, background noise lingered in her ears as she shifted uncomfortably in the stiff benches that served as their desks. with her chin in her hands, not retaining a single word spilled from the teacher’s lips.

She was beginning to feel bad for her sensei. Even a little guilty. She was typically more attentive. Sachiko let her brows furrow; huffed from her nose and regrettably thought that she was off her game today.

Any other day, she would have been relatively attentive, especially so early in the day. She prided herself in her grades, but, it wasn't like that this time. It was like she wasn’t really there, like her drowsiness had consumed the rest of her senses and dulled her nerves.

She checked the time again. 11:18. Another two minutes.

Bitterly, Sachiko noted that the school day truly felt neverending, as if time had slowed just to torment her. Her limbs ached in her seat, sore from the mysteriously poor sleep she had gotten the night before, spent thrashing about her bed.

Thinking back on it, the moment she had stepped into the school building, she had immediately become glum. If only she could skip, she mused, woozy, drained, heavy with exhaustion. It was hard to pry her eyes back open every time they mistakenly fluttered shut.

The rest of the students around her were at their typical energy levels, hyper and distinctively loud, ten-years-old and bright and cheery. A couple stand out classmates were remaining serious –she tried not to wonder if she was one of the ‘stand out’– but as the lesson dragged on, the light buzz of conversation soon died out. It was nearly lunch, and as the time approached, Sachiko couldn't find it in her to be excited.

She just really, really wanted to go home.

But unfortunately, the dreadful school day was only around halfway done.

Sachiko hung her head and sighed, taking a moment to just close her eyes, let her shoulders relax. The darkness of her eyelids soothed her sight for just a moment from the perpetually shining sun. Definitely needed some sunglasses. Maybe she would ask an Aburame about where they–

A rush of pain, a jolt that had gone through her skull, behind her eyes. She winced at the sudden overwhelming sting, shaking her head as if to dispel the hot flash.

A moment passed, the pain slowly began to subside, leaving a burning ache on her temples as she pried her eyes open. There was a moment of stillness, where she gathered her thoughts and sat there perplexed. She could see her desk mate staring at her as if she were some sort of alien, but she paid him no mind.

She blinked. Slowly.

These things had happened before. Well, they had been happening, since three months after her third birthday– The day the sky turned black and dirt turned red and the clouds were cut by nine blurs of orange. The tenth of October, she recalled, was the day she began to have sudden pains. She had told Sadahiro, and as the oldest, she supposed, he had told their parents. Although perturbed by having her secret tattled so quickly, she was glad to visit their doctor. He was a nice man, by the name of Miyo and belonging to the Uchiha family.

Yet as skilled as he was, he could only conclude that there was nothing wrong.

So Sachiko had been living like this, with these strange migraine episodes.

For the past seven years.

Her eyes lingered on the blank notebook beneath her, just as empty as the last time she had checked. What just happened? She blinked. Static blurred her vision, a buzz filled her chest. A hive.

Kikaichu.

Aburame.

Sachiko snapped her hand eyes back open, quickly placing a hand to her chest. Something was missing.

There was no buzzing, no presence. Just an ache along with an unusual absence. Sachiko took her hand from her chest and let her head hang.

There was something off about today. She just knew it.

Forty minutes later, and the bell had rang. Sachiko grumbled beneath her breath, slipping out of her seat to allow her desk mate to wander off wherever they pleased. It was noon.

Most of her classmates had scrambled to leave the classroom. The few that remained were quiet. She liked it; the quiet.

Kenji had reached up to the high windows, as Sachiko had been their devoted observer, and popped open the glass panes. A comfortable breeze settled into the classroom, now empty, besides Sachiko and a handful of other kids whose names she cannot bear to remember.

They all minded to their own business, busied within their own thoughts. Sachiko reveled in the feeling of being invisible, even if it wasn’t a particularly rare occurrence.

She reached beneath her to pull her bento from the dark of the shadow of her seat. No classmate batted an eye. Her chest swelled with unusual warmth at the feeling of being simply ignored, being in the background. She could vaguely remember a time of when she wasn’t— But the thought entered her head, and pain swarmed her like a cloud of bees.

Her bento clattered to her desk. Some classmates were looking her way now, and her hand shot up to clutch at her burning scalp, brain seizing and pounding within her skull. Dark spots began to cloud her vision, and she fought for sight, pressing her palms into her eyelids as if it would calm the withering hurt.

Her throat felt like it was closing up in its most dire time of need. She gasped. She could hear her classmates now, murmuring voices behind her ears, calling for their teacher.

Light peeked through her fingers. Sachiko pried her eyes open, allowed her irises to be greeted with her fringe and blurry vision.

Dark hair oozed away and revealed a sickening blonde. She choked, blinked rapidly.

Her mind slipping into the shell of someone else— Was this what it felt like to be a Yamanaka?

A snake, blinding white. A man sharing its eyes. A man in robes, broken promises.

Blonde.

A voice murmured, too close for comfort, too dark for someone she knew now, but too familiar to be a stranger.

Big, blue eyes. She is looking at her own brain inside of a glass jar.

Sachiko pried her eyes back open, tore her fingers from around her eyes, her struggle accompanied by a dull, numbing pain protruding through her limbs. Her hair— Dark, a thick, mouse-y tangle of deep brown. Eyes— Last time she had checked, black, or dark enough to look so.

Sachiko Sasaki.

Sachiko is…

Sachiko had experienced strange bouts of pain before. But never had she felt a buzzing in her chest, never had she heard the voice of serpent.

Sachiko is not blonde.

Sensei stood in front of her, fingers digging painfully into her shoulders, thrashing her back and forth. Their voice fades into her ears, trailed by a never-ending ringing, a buzz that seemed to haunt her. It was never truly silent.

“Sachiko?”

Sachiko woke up to the sound of murmuring, a buzzing behind her ears instead of where it should be within her chest. She kept her eyes closed, a gentle plea to the world to let her relish in the quiet, a guilty admission of her ever so present desire to be anywhere else but… here?

Where was she?

It was dark. She wished she could sense anything outside of the enveloping fastness of black.

It was quiet for a long while. Maybe she wasn’t as fond of the quiet as she thought she was.

In an instant, light flooded her vision. Memories flickered decisively, and she remembered being in fourth grade, watching a blonde boy on a big screen. Her mother was at her side, tucked beneath the same blanket over her lap. Sachiko looked up from the cloth, the moment inexplicably surreal.

The blonde boy was a ninja.

…She was a ninja. Wasn’t she?

No, no. She wasn’t. But the blonde girl was a ninja. The Aburame girl was a ninja. Sachiko is a ninja. Was? Where was she?

Sachiko thought that she might throw up. She could feel sunlight behind her eyelids, and could hear faint voices in a place behind her ears, somewhere far beneath her skull. Was that a breeze?

Naruto. A name flooded her thoughts, suddenly and violently. A vision of a fox, orange tails swishing around it in a ring of flaming destruction.

She could fear quiet murmurs, which slowly began to fade, growing more urgent as her fingers twitched, muscles spasmed lightly.

She had to be dead. She had to be. She was not ten-years-old. Her name was not Sachiko. Konohagakure was not real.

Panic settled into her bones. The whispers were loud, racing constant of where she really was: A place that truly, honestly, wasn’t home.

Her tongue was dry, her throat was tight, her chest was shot with pain. An excruciating headache, as if someone had bashed their fists against her skull.

This was not real.

Suffocating. She was suffocating.

The voices stopped.

She was in silence, and then it was over. She was… Dead. She had to be.

She had never been so cold.

Sachiko’s head shot up from her notebook at the sharp call of her name. It took a moment for her to remember where she was, where she really was. Kenji stood at the front of the classroom. The other students giggled, and she could feel a hot flash of embarrassment travel up to her cheeks as she wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth.

“Sasaki? Are you listening to me?” they sighed.

It took a moment for Sachiko to drag her gaze up to meet their own.

“Yes, sensei. Continue with the lesson?”

Chapter Text

Ten-year-old Sachiko remembers quite vividly that she did die that day in class. In fact, the moment after she had uttered such words to Kenji, her heart had immediately stopped. She owed her life to Umino Iruka’s emergency training that allowed him to resuscitate her, keep her steady for a long enough time for the paramedics to arrive and haul her off to the clinic.

At least she is alive now. There is blood in her veins, her heart continues to pump, she continues to breathe.

Sachiko is alive.

Sachiko feels… Different. She is still a Sasaki. While still plagued by the haunting buzz of kikaichu from when her name was Kaiya, still plagued by the vision of snakes and blonde hair, when her life was different, there is something else. There’s something unfamiliar in the pit of her stomach, like a little ball of warmth beneath her skin.

She can feel the earth hum around her. She can feel the trees breathe. Hitsuno would tell her as such when they were kids, that once she could use her chakra, she would be able to hear them whisper.

Sachiko had never believed her until now, even as she sits in the uncomfortably sterile smelling cot of her hospital room. It had been two whole months since her admission into the clinic, and they still refused to discharge her, despite her family’s pleading. The staff insisted that she needed treatment for what seemed to be underdeveloped chakra pathways, and the Sasaki had no influence in order to alter mandated care.

And… that was that. She’s at least grateful that she can skip most of her spring exams, even if the days passing by are meticulous, and even when she can’t bear to see her irritating little cousin again, despite how much he seems to enjoy visiting. She knows that his visits are probably over-enthusiastically encouraged by his parents, and as three years her junior, he most likely just doesn’t want to bother with disobeying them.

Sadahiro rarely visits, even though Sachiko knows that he really wants to. He’s just… Busy. An important shinobi has bigger responsibilities than a little sister, who’s health condition honestly isn’t that serious.

Hitsuno doesn’t stop by that often, either, but Sachiko thinks she’s just like that. She doesn’t seem to like her all that much, but Sachiko supposes that Hitsuno hasn’t really liked anyone since she became a chunin anyways.

Today is Sachiko’s sixty second day in the hospital. She can’t do much besides look longing through her window until her nurse comes to walk her around, as if she needed some kind of supervision to perform basic tasks. She really didn’t. At least, she hoped not. She hadn’t done much of anything besides eat, poop, and sleep, for the past month or so. She wasn’t really sure if her peculiar diagnosis was going to change, anyways. Chakra pathways weren’t something that you could just… Fix, even if she felt like they had already been fixed when she died. She remembers a quiet warmth in her stomach.

“Sasaki? You have a visitor,” the pleasant voice of her nurse calls. Sachiko drags her gaze away from the window and lets it linger over the door instead.

“They can come in.” Sachiko watches the door handle click.

“Hey hey hey, Sachi,” her brother greets, and Sachiko feels her chest bloom with affection. He holds a small bundle of flowers in his hands– Messily picked, judging by the smears of green and yellow over his fingertips, leaves in his hair.

Sachiko smiles. “Hi, Hiro. Hi, Shisui.”

Sadahiro shuffles over to her bedside, his best friend following alongside him, and reaches out to replace the vase of lotuses on her nightstand. “Hitsuno bring you these?” he asks, a weary glint in his eye that makes Sachiko’s nod falter. “Mm, I’ll leave it then. You got another vase?”

Sachiko shrugs. “I’d have to ask the nurse.”

“Then ask away,” Shisui grins, Uchiha crest dazzling bright on his back as he nods his head in the direction of the door. Sachiko tries not to grow bitter at the sign.

After a reluctant call, Sachiko’s nurse brings in a vase of fresh water. Sadahiro clicks his tongue, the green of his jounin vest pale in the sun streaming through the open window as he slots the flowers into place. Sachiko notices a smear of yellow over Shisui’s nose, an unfamiliar streak of brown in his black hair.

“You two fight for the flowers, or what?” Sachiko huffs, outstretching a hand to tug a leaf from Sadahiro’s hair. He suddenly begins to look awfully pink.

“Don’t be stupid,” Sadahiro grumbles, swatting her hand away and carefully avoiding Shisui’s gaze. “Be glad we brought you any at all.”

Shisui reaches out with a hand, ruffles Sachiko’s hair fondly. “Don’t listen to your brother, Sachi,” he beams, smile catching Sadahiro’s line of sight. Sachiko feels like something is different, but she can’t put her finger on it. He leans close to whisper to her, but it’s clearly loud enough for Sadahiro to hear, anyways. “He acts tough, but he was actually talking about how he was finally going to visit you the whole shift.”

Sachiko can hear a quiet huff of Sadahiro’s gentle laughter. She feels oddly tender as she smiles and shakes her head as Shisui backs away, and offers her a wink.

“No need to tell her what goes on during missions, Shisui,” Sadahiro snorts, leaning back against the open window, gaze out towards the sun. Sachiko can hear Shisui’s breath catch in his throat. “You don’t want to get us kicked out of our squad now, do you?”

“I didn’t tell her anything about the missions,” Shisui replies indignantly. Sadahiro puts his weight onto his elbows, which lay behind him on the windowsill, and snorts.

“Yeah, yeah.” Sadahiro turns to Sachiko again, who sits quietly, contemplatively, watching the interaction with eyes that seem to almost rattle him. “So.. Academy still hasn’t given you any school work?”

Sachiko scrunches up her nose at the mere thought. “Well, not really. I don’t think they expect me to go back to school,” she admits, ducking her head softly and picking at the seam of her bedsheets. “I mean, not like this. I think they thought this would happen either way.”

“I mean, since the Sasaki, uh…” It goes quiet. Sachiko doesn’t look up from her fingers, too afraid to face the inevitable pity in the eyes of her older brother and his friend, too afraid that she’s already said too much. “...Miyo has been dropping me some worksheets to do, though.”

“That’s good,” Sadahiro says, only replying to her last statement, something she notices when she wishes she could ignore it. Shisui hums along in agreement. Sachiko nods and does not brave to meet their gazes, even when she feels them on her.

“Just keep working. Things will get better,” Shisui offers. “Miyo’s a good doctor.”

Sachiko nods again. “Miyo isn’t my doctor, though.”

“Well, still.”

“Alright,” she sighs. “I’ll keep working.” She can feel their stares, poignant on her scalp, which she faces to them instead of her own expression. She wonders if they can smell her fear, sense her worry through the mere sight of her.

She feels too small for comfort as Shisui ruffles her hair and laughs, an out of place sound in the sudden quiet of the room. “Attagirl,” he chimes, and Sachiko finally looks up to meet his toothy grin. She offers him a small smile, thinking it’d be better than to worry him with seriousness. He and Sadahiro already act too old for fifteen, and she wonders if she had something to do with it, too.

Shisui straightens, and looks to the two siblings. “Well, I should probably go.”

“I should too,” Sadahiro says, maybe a little too quickly. Sachiko ignores the sting of hurt, and feels a strange combination of gratitude and spite when she realizes neither of them notice the wince of her eyes. The two are looking at each other again. It’s weird, Sachiko thinks. She’s the sick one, isn’t she? She’s starting to think she likes it more when they visit separately instead of together.

They leave with a quiet goodbye. Sachiko looks to the flowers at her bedside– There’s only two vases, with one kind of flower in each. The sunflowers and lotuses stare at each other, a challenge.

Sachiko settles down back into her cot and rolls onto her side. Maybe she could sleep the weird feeling off. Distantly, she wonders how many times she’s told herself that in the past seven years.

“Sasaki?” The nurse calls again. Sachiko groans, peels her eyes open from the consolation of her slumber. “Your cousin is here to see you.”

Sachiko tries not to regret that she hadn’t pretended to be asleep for any longer. “Alright. Let him in.”

Her door opens, almost a slam, and a bundle of deep brown hair and tan skin comes stumbling to her bedside. Nobunari lays himself over her sheets and Sachiko withholds a wince, feeling her eye twitch. “Hi, Sachi!” Nobunari cheers, sitting dutifully between her stretched out legs and throwing his arms around her middle in a tight squeeze.

“Hi, Nobu,” she wheezes, returning his embrace with a quiet sigh. “You come to visit me again? You don’t have any academy work?”

“Nope! I finished it all!” he replies, release her, yet still sitting in the spot between her thighs with a beaming grin that she can’t help but smile back at.

“No training to do?” she offers. He laughs gleefully.

“I already trained with Papa earlier today.”

“Uncle Sota trains you hard. You weren’t too tired to visit?”

“Not at all! I think I’m getting stronger– Look!” Nobunari pretends to flex, patting his small, undefined bicep, and Sachiko tries and fails to hold back a little bit of laughter. He seems unbothered by her laughter, and smiles a little wider, a giggle escaping his lips. “Right?”

Sachiko pokes at his arm with a grin she can’t seem to wipe off of her face anymore. So, maybe her cousin wasn’t that bad. “Looking good, little man,” she snickers.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” a voice muses.

Sachiko quickly looks to her doorway, relaxing at the sight of the familiar scar across Miyo’s left cheek. “Hi, Miyo,” she smiles.

“Hey, Sachi. Hey, kid,” Miyo hums, walking closer and notching his hands beneath the crook of Nobunari’s arms, who squeals in protest. He halls him up and places him carefully back onto the floor of the room. “No crawling over your cousin, Nobunari. She’s still injured.”

Sachiko can feel her mouth grow dry, her gaze grow sour, and she blinks hard and slow as if it would clear her bitterness. “I’m fine, Miyo,” she insists.

He scoffs. “Can you even walk right now?”

Sachiko can feel the heat drain from her face.

“I’m not that heavy, so it’s fine,” Nobunari argues, looking up at Miyo with a glare so recognizably from his father and her own father, and maybe her siblings, too, Sachiko thinks. She ignores a pointed stare of apology from the doctor and nods.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” she adds, watching as Nobunari struggles against Miyo’s grip on the collar of his shirt. “Let him go.”

Miyo rubs at the bridge of his nose with his free hand, and begrudgingly releases the seven-year-old from his grasp. Freed, he immediately springs back up on Sachiko’s cot, where she shuffles over to make room for him to sit beside her.

“Okay, bye,” Nobunari huffs. Sachiko snorts.

“Don’t be rude, Nobu.”

“Well, he can go now. Can’t he?” Nobunari looks up at her with wide eyes, green as the grass outside her window.

“Not if you want to go outside to the fountain. You want to, right? I have to have a doctor with me,” Sachiko replies.

“....Fine.”

Sachiko likes to ignore that she’s limping all the way to the gardens of the hospital, ignore that she can’t keep up with Nobunari’s hyperactivity anymore, and that she needs Miyo to lean on the whole way. He offers her a wheelchair, insists, really. Sachiko refuses as stubbornly as she possibly can.

There are other people out on the grounds. Sachiko tries to keep Nobunari from staring from where they sit on a nearby bench, but she’s not always successful, as he suddenly points to a young man and dastardly announces: “What’s wrong with that guy, Sachi?”

Sachiko can feel cold seeping into her face as she tugs at Nobunari’s arm, and as Miyo laughs behind her. Not very proper behavior from a doctor, to her dismay.

“Nobunari,” she starts carefully, eying the man he had pointed to with an apologetic glance before turning back to her cousin, who sits with eyes wide with innocence and curiosity. She bites her tongue. “...There are better ways to ask that, okay? You could’ve hurt that nice man’s feelings,” she says.

Nobunari squints his eyes in thought. “And don’t point, because it could make him feel like you’re being mean to him, even if you’re not trying to be. Here, how about you go up to him?” she offers. “You say, ‘I’m sorry for being rude. Can you tell me about your arm?’”

Miyo seems to be laughing harder. Sachiko casts him a glare, and Nobunari seems to ponder her suggestion. Yet he’s too slow to make a decision, as it seems that the young man he had said such to was coming their way, anyways.

“Kids can be cruel, Itachi,” Miyo grins, stepping up to the young man –who Sachiko can now properly see isn’t really a young man, probably the age of her sister– and patting him on the back.

Wait. What was his name again?

Sachiko’s head snaps up as the teenager, who she can now properly see is Itachi of the Uchiha clan, greets Miyo back politely. She tries to conceal her panic as she nudges Nobunari’s shoulder with her own, gestures to the younger Uchiha in front of them with her eyes. “Say what I told you to,” Sachiko whispers.

Nobunari glances at her wearily before looking up to the boy in front of him. “Um, excuse me, mister…”

“Itachi?” Miyo offers, jabbing his thumb in the younger boy’s direction.

“Mister ‘tachi, um, I am… Sorry for being rude,” he says slowly, and Sachiko can tell he’s trying to remember what she had told him. “Can you tell me about what happened to your arm?”

Itachi smiled, just barely, and Sachiko felt a swell of pride. “Hello. What’s your name?”

“Nobunari.”

Miyo snorts, rests his forearm against Itachi’s shoulder, which is wrapped in bandages, but the younger man does not break his poker face. “I got injured on a mission.”

“How do you know Old Man Miyo?”

“Hey,” Miyo grumbles. “Shuddap, kid. I’m not that old, really.”

Itachi and Nobunari ignore him. Sachiko reaches out to pat his arm mock-sympathetically. “I’m in the same clan as him.”

“So… What happened to your arm?”

“I got injured on a mission.”

“Why’s the whole thing bandaged?”

“It was a particularly nasty fire-style jutsu.”

“ You of all people got injured?” Sachiko blurts, before she can stop herself. “Sorry. It’s just, um…”

Itachi turns to her, expression full of neutral understanding. “I’m aware of my reputation,” he murmurs. “But I am still only thirteen.”

Sachiko nods, wordlessly.

“Hey, I’m seven! That's twice my age!”

Sachiko ruffles Nobunari’s hair and hums. “Not quite, kid.”

“My little brother is of that age, too. His name is Sasuke. Do you know him?”

“Oh, the one who’s always brooding? I hate that guy!”

Sachiko can feel her third moment of cold, nervous sweat building on her face, growing pale. She desperately ignores that she was the one to teach Nobunari what brooding meant. Miyo laughs at the deadpan on Itachi’s features, and for a moment, everything feels alright.

Chapter Text

Everything is not alright, because it’s Sachiko’s seventieth day in the hospital. Nobunari brings Sachiko flowers the next time he sees her, and tells her that his mother said it was only proper, since; “I’m always bothering you.”

“You don’t bother me,” Sachiko says, and she finds herself meaning it.

A day later, Sachiko is finally moved to a different ward, where she’s evaluated for the health of her chakra pathways. She is happy in a way she’s never really been before when Miyo comes in to give her the big news.

“You can officially start rehabilitation training.”

Okay, maybe it isn’t the news she was looking forward to. “So, I’m not discharged yet?” she asks.

“Hell no, Sach. You can’t do a single thing without your chakra, so if they want to send you out to be a productive member of society, you have to be able use it better.”

“I’m a kid. Why do I have to be productive?” she grumbles.

‘There are kids on the battlefield. We all have to do our part.”

She thinks it’s a little silly that there are kids on the battlefield, but that’s just how it’s always been. She’s much too preoccupied with the fire in her stomach than to consider the morals of the village and the world around her, how she had been raised up to become a soldier, just as her family had been before her. The thought is uncomfortable, so she ignores it.

Sachiko spends the next month in training, a painstakingly disciplined process that sucks away the rest of her free time. If she’s not practicing her use of chakra, she’s asleep, entirely drained by the slowest road to recovery she’s ever experienced.

“Your heart stopped. A shinobi’s body is made to destroy itself after death, because of their powers. Their secrets.”

“So, they started deteriorating immediately?”

“Basically. But, I mean, you’re alive now. It’ll be painful, because you’re stretching the pathways back out now.”

“...So, I’m shit out of luck?”

On Sachiko’s hundreth day in the hospital, she’s released back into school. She is not the happiest to meet the awkward gazes of her peers and Kenji, and most of all, pities Nobunari for being so proud of someone he shouldn’t be proud of. He sees her in the halls and lingers around her for most of the day, considering she wasn’t exactly friends with the other students in her own class, of her own age.

Sachiko is useless.

She sits out during school training, and is immediately escorted back to the hospital after classes. Despite how hard she works, she is undeniably and incredibly behind the others her age. She tries not to think about, buries her insecurities in exercising her flow of chakra through her body, pushes her worries deep down and is consumed by school work. She can imagine everything bad now– Every condescending whisper of the clan children, every dejected look from her parents, every piting stare, being crumpled into a little ball of back, stuffed into her stomach until she can no longer see it.

Hitsuno doesn’t really visit anymore. She’s too busy now, being sent away on mundane errands as a chunin that don’t really make her busy at all.

Sachiko doesn’t think about how her mother and father don’t bother with her anymore. They’re too focused on Sadahiro’s achievements as he advances up the hierarchy within the ANBU.

Sadahiro is too busy. The sunflowers at her bedside died days ago, and she’s yet to replace them. A part of her hopes that Sadahiro will return to replace them himself.

Miyo grows buried in work as tensions rise between the Uchiha and the village. He doesn’t tell her, but Sachiko hears him when he thinks she’s asleep. Sometimes, she hears him praying at her bedside, hands clutched together and knees against the tile. She worries for him, for Shisui, at the sight of bags beneath their eyes and tired smiles, hiding too much.

Nobunari is preoccupied with the nagging of his parents, as he’s blessed with the recent awakening of his Wood Release. She knew they were trying to keep their discovery under wraps, but it was hard as he began to excel even more so than before.

When did the world forget about her? Sachiko thinks.

She wills herself to bury that thought deep, and spends the next month recuperating.

On Sachiko’s 131st day in the hospital, she’s checked by the doctors. She cries when they tell her that her progress is looking good, and if anything, she would be released in the next couple of weeks. She cannot tell if her tears are of happiness or fear of returning back to the world that seemed to move on past her.

On Sachiko’s 158th day in the hospital, she is discharged.

HItsuno, her mom, and dad, don’t show up. The only one who does is Sadahiro.

Sadahiro takes her by the hand and leads her home, without Shisui for the first time in months. Sachiko thinks they may have argued, because he’s gravely quiet in a way that dampers the hope of seeing at least someone happy about her return.

The house is quiet. The sky is a particular grey, sun clouded and air chilled.

Sachiko cries, and she feels like a kid again for the first time in a long time when Sadahiro kneels in front of her and tugs her into a tight hug.

Sachiko is purposeless when she returns back to her normal life. Or, however normal her life could return to when everyone around her seemed ten feet further away than they had ever been.

“Remember when we would eat dinner together? Remember our game nights, with that stupid game Dad would make us bet chores on?”

“Mahjong?” Sadahiro chuckles, a quiet sound beneath his breath. Sachiko watches his eyes glaze over and she looks away, unable to bear the sight of him so sad. “Yeah, I do.”

“I miss when this house wasn’t so empty.”

Sachiko needs a purpose, she realizes. She is ten years old, and has basically accomplished nothing. Uchiha Itachi, three years her senior, is a top ranked ANBU member. Shisui made her swear not to tell anyone of his identity when she overheard his conversation with her brother.

She determines that in the next three years, she will catch back up with the rest of her class.

And what did that start with? Well, asking the inspiration himself.

Sachiko is grateful at the sight of Shisui and Sadahiro in her brother’s bedroom, lounging lazily upon his couch in the autumn afternoon. “Shisui!” she announces, standing eagerly in the doorframe, ignoring the awkward flush on her brother’s face as she appears.

Shisui looks up from what seems to be a manga in front of him. “Hey, when you’d get home?”

“Right now.”

He sighs, but is without bite as he offers her a smile. “What’s up? You need something from me?”

Sadahiro seems to recognize her hesitance. “Come here,” he beckons, waving his hand in her direction and gesturing to the spot in front of his bed, beside where him and his companion lie on their stomachs over his duvet.

Sachiko pauses before them and feels her face grow warm. “So, you know Itachi, right?”

Shisui and Sadahiro exchange a glance. “Well, yeah. He’s like my cousin, really.” He looks to her wearily. “…Why?”

Sachiko scoffs. “Don’t be so weird.” Shisui holds his hands up in surrender. “I just want some guidance, you know…” she admits, bashfully avoiding their eyes. “He’s well known. I need to catch up.”

“You don’t trust us to train you?” Sadahiro asks, feigning offense and rolling his eyes.

“You’re too busy,” she points out.

“Itachi will be busy, too,” Shisui says with a shrug. “I don’t know, Sachi… He’s not the ‘mentoring’ kind of guy, really. Too young, I think.”

“You’re only, like, a couple years older than him.”

“Hey, I didn’t say anything about me training you. That was all Hiro. Maybe ask your sister. They’re the same age, no?”

“I don’t want to.” Sachiko groans, sinks to the floor and finds herself just lying there. “I’m gonna try anyways,” she murmurs meekly. She can feel Shisui’s sympathetic gaze on her as she lets her eyes flutter shut.

Sadahiro snorts. “Good luck with that. Now get out of my room.”

Sachiko groans, and slinks bitterly out of his room, ignoring the giggles that follow her.

Her sister’s room is quiet. It always is; She’s always either away, or hidden in the thoughts too loud in her head for others to hear. Sachiko doesn’t know what happened to her sister between her graduation and the chunin exams, but she was never the same again. Maybe it’s best if she doesn’t know, wedged between her bipolar bouts and always caught in an argument.

Maybe she’d catch her on a good day.

Sachiko raps her knuckles against the wooden seam of Hitsuno’s door. Was she even home?

“Who is it?” Hitsuno’s voice calls defensively, muffled.

“It’s me, Sachi..”

There’s a moment of silence. For a moment, Sachiko believes that she’ll be turned away. She misses her sister, she realizes, as the door slides open and her eyes meet the tall frame of the middle child of the Sasaki. “Why do you have your lights off?”

“Don’t ask questions,” Hitsuno says sharply, backing away from the door, and for a moment, Sachiko can feel anger rolling off her tense shoulders in waves of red. And in an instant, it’s gone. A good day, then? “What do you want?”

Sachiko can feel the shame rise in her now. Oh, it was a stupid idea, she’ll say. I just wanted to talk to you. I never see you anymore. How come you didn’t come get me when I was released? How come you never visited? Do you hate me that much? Are you that ashamed of me? Sachiko gulps, recognizes the slick bile over her throat. “I- Uh, well…”

Hitsuno takes a seat on her bed and doesn’t look her in the eyes, glasses perched neatly over the bridge of her nose. She seems to be reading a book. “What are you reading?” Sachiko asks instead.

“Spit it out. I know you’re not interested in that,” Hitsuno snorts.

Sachiko recoils, face pink in shame. “I’m perfectly proficient in reading, thank you,” she says, a desperate attempt to pick her discarded dignity from the floor.

“Uh huh. Your point?”

Sachiko feels embarrassment flood her face warmer. “Are you close to Uchiha Itachi?” she asks, all too quickly, words jumbled and flopping from her lips like a fish out of water.

Hitsuno spares her a glance. “How do you know that?”

“Oh, you are?” Sachiko squeaks in surprise.

Hitsuno sighs, and Sachiko tries not to hang on her every word, like she would when she was younger. So obsessed with affection, with pride. Sachiko supposes that’s just what being a kid is, anyways. “Anyways, um, do you– Can you ask him, uhh.. Is he free to train anyone right now?”

“I don’t know.”

Sachiko still looks to her with starry vision; as if Hitsuno had hung the stars in the sky herself, as Sachi does with anyone she admires. “Oh, well, want to ask him for me?”

“Not really.”

“...Okay… Do you know where I can find him?”

“Probably that God-forsaken dango shop. He needs to slow down on the sweets before he gets fat,” Hitsuno grumbles beneath her breath. Sachiko goes pink again. All she eats are sweets.

Sachiko settles for: “Thanks.” She then promptly leaves the room, scrambling to the genkan to tug on her sandals and pulling a scarf around her neck.

The chill of the wind makes her tense as she pries open the front door, shivering as she steps out onto the barren street. The Sasaki live in a small area, off the right shoulder of the Senju compound, which lies quiet and untouched.

The journey to the Uchiha compound is far now, but Sadahiro used to tell Sachiko stories of when the village was founded, and the only two clans were the Senju and the Uchiha. The clouds greet her with the gentle rumble of the grey sky, and she relishes in the calm of the streets– Not too busy, yet not eerily empty.

She passes the academy, the Hokage’s office, past T&I and eventually crosses into the main marketplace near the entrance gates.

The Uchiha compound is large and looming in the distance. Sachiko hopes she won’t have to traverse through past their gates, even when she knows Miyo woud be there to back her up.

She reaches the dango shop with a flutter of hope.

There, her target sits.

He was quiet amidst the friendly atmosphere beneath the valences. She coud only see his back, but she knew for certain it was him– If it weren’t for the familiarity of his hair, or the dignified slope of his shoulders she was all too familiar with from afar from her long visit to the hospital, then it would be for the sight of his little brother who sits happiy across from him.

Sasuke, she recalls. That was his name. Nobunari’s age.

Sasuke giggles at something his brother says, and jealousy seeths Sachiko’s chest, a tight cord of scalding heat over her lungs. What she would give to have a connection with her sister, or perhaps, to be a boy and share particular brotherhood with Sadahiro where she cannot as a girl.

She marches forward, stuffing her hands into her pockets and shrinking into the fluff of her scarf, which was a dingy green she was all too familiar with inside her house. She stops in front of their table, feeling small beneath the gaze of a boy younger than herself, yet most likely more powerful than herself already. Damned those prodegies. What she would give to have any scrap of her talent back. At least then she wouldn’t be shameful.

The conversation between brothers quells into silence. The older boy doesn’t even spare her a glance, and for some reason, it simultaneously irks and embarrasses Sachiko. “Uchiha Itachi, right?” she says.

“We met at the hospital,” Itachi replies, something Sachiko finds cryptic. She can feel something bubbling again, a scalding sort of heat in her stomach that she can only recognize as jealousy. Maybe it just wasn’t her day. She admires this boy, doesn’t she?

He turns to her, as if sensing her anger, and she tenses beneath his gaze. She cannot meet his gaze, and feels her face warm in shame. He was only three years her senior, and yet he commanded the respect of a man ancient and known to time.

“And who’re you, talking to my big brother?” Sasuke huffs. Sachiko has half the mind to ignore him, at least.

A smile spreads across Itachi’s face, and the sight is so bewildering that Sachiko cannot help but show her shock on her face. “Now, don’t be discourteous, Sasuke.” Oh, that was a big word. A smart word. “Sasaki, right? Is there something you need?”

His presence was something strange. Stoic, yet warm, yet so cold and guarded it made her shiver. An air of power. Respect. It was something she craved to have more than anything. Jealousy came back to her now, and Sachiko resists the urge to let her expression fall into a scowl. Sachiko opens her mouth and a question from her heart spills before she can stop it.

Chapter Text

“Can you teach me?”

Sachiko had never been a strong speaker. At least, not where it really mattered. She stammers over her words, cannot fathom speaking the words she thoughtfully plans in her head in imaginary conversations.

For first time since she’s approached them, Itachi looks surprised.

But it’s not the sort of surprised that ordinary people so easily display on their faces. No, Sachiko reminds herself, this is a man of the age of thirteen who has slaughtered more than she could ever count. He is not ordinary. He is a prodigy, a shinobi of the ages. That is why she’s here, after all.

Instead, his surprise is accounted for by the halt of his calm exhale, the brief pause in his movement. His eyes don’t even widen at her request, nor did they widen when she first arrived. He didn’t even have to look at her when she approached, because he already knew she was there.

Jealousy returned, but ambition accompanied it this time in Sachiko’s heart.

Before he can reply, Sasuke starts to laugh. Sachiko feels her face burn, but stands her ground, indignantly glancing away at the sight of Itachi’s gaze. He’s too hard to read. She would search for a sight of something– Maybe pity, maybe refusal, maybe compassion. But she would never find anything like that, would never catch a slip up from someone so composed.

Itachi opens his mouth. “Wait.” His lips seal, perfectly stoic. “Just– Can you just listen, for a moment? Please. Let me–” Sachiko stammers, grateful that the side conversations of the store can at least cover her public humiliation. “Let me, just…”

Itachi is too stoic, too patient, and remains wordless. Sasuke is too amused, snickering beneath his breath and casting Sachiko weird looks. Sachiko feels her face grow impossibly warmer.

There’s a moment of silence between the three. Sachiko starts, slower. “My name is Sasaki Sachiko. I.. Um, I think you were classmates with my sister, but that’s… Besides the point.”

“You saw me at the hospital, like you said. With, um, Mister Miyo.” Itachi seems to soften at that, a barely perceptible relaxation of his eyes. “You talked about Sasuke. I’m guessing this is him?”

“What’s it to you, lady?” Sasuke bleats. Sachiko decides that it’d be better to ignore him, even as Itachi casts him a smile. Then, Sasuke pauses, turns pink. “Big Brother Itachi talked about me?”

“He did. Very fondly,” Sachiko murmurs, and Sasuke ruffles up in pride, looking to Itachi, he plays it off with a smile and a shrug. She looks away. “I was in the hospital for 158 days.”

Itachi looks expectant, like he assumed that she would tell him why. Sachiko waits, just to see if he would ask her, eyes wide. After a moment of silence, he nods. “Were you going to continue?” he suggests, and his voice is just as soft as she remembered, even as she blazes pink.

“Um, well, I just got out recently. Around last month or so. And, to be honest, I’ve…” Sasuke looks at her, scrutinizing. All she can feel is shame. “I’ve fallen behind. Really. And, and I don’t… The Sasaki aren’t a very large clan. Or well renowned, at that. But I’m sure you knew that. The total opposite of you, really. I mean, you’re only three years older than me, but you’ve accomplished more than I could ever hope to achieve in my lifetime.”

Itachi looks unimpressed. Sachiko can feel the sweat building on her upper lip. “Or… well, everyone talks about you. Everyone knows your name. You’re more skilled than people thrice your age, really.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Itachi muses, without any bite. “But I appreciate your kind words.”

“I just– How do you do it? I… I can’t.” Sachiko hesitates. “I don’t think I can. I’ve been working so hard for the past six months, really. My…”

She stops herself before she can admit how little her family seems to care, too embarrassed to admit how forgotten she really is. “No one else can teach me.”

She cannot read Itachi’s expression. “I sympathize with your situation, truly,” he starts, and Sachiko can already feel the rejection, deep in her gut. “But I’m sure a girl as smart as you can understand that with prestige, comes responsibility. I simply cannot be handing out random favors to kunoichi from inferior clans.” Sachiko bristles at that, but she knows he speaks nothing but the truth.

“Especially when you and I are certainly not in any sort of courtship, or have any sort of familial connection. And truthfully, I would not have the free time to do such anyways. Our clans have completely different Kekkei Genkai, not to mention would have our heads for indulging in such happenings. The answer is no. Now, I must ask you to leave, before any more rumors spread.”

Sachiko visibly crumples. “But–” She pauses, seems to bite her tongue. Itachi turns away from her. The conversation is over, his shoulders seem to tell her. “But sir, please. I want to learn from you. I want to learn from the best.”

“Then I suggest you find someone else. Do not be fooled. I am still only thirteen.”

Sachiko shudders at the familiarity. He must’ve said such to her before. “But, Mister Itachi–”

“He said leave him alone, lady!” Sasuke blurts, face squished into a scowl Sachiko otherwise would’ve found funny. “Itachi, why won’t she go away?” he whines.

Sachiko turns pink. “Have some decorum, will you?” she hisses beneath her breath, a mumble Sasuke can barely hear.

Itachi stands, an abrupt motion that makes Sachiko stagger back. If she were taller than him while they were sitting, he was much taller than her while standing. “I suggest you leave now,” he repeats. His eyes are cold, but his warning is a hot slap across her face.

Sachiko knows that this time, it’s not a suggestion. “I’m not going to give up,” she announces, a frown tugged over her lips. “I’m going to keep asking you until you say yes.”

“You’re wasting your time,” he replies smoothly.

“No, I’m not,” she answers, defensive, impulsive, even when she thinks that he’s probably right. “I’ll convince you. You’ll see.”

But Sachiko is unsure of the statement. Sasuke laughs in her face. She tries not to consider herself as someone who hates, but when his disrespect is so blatant, so justified, she feels hate behind her eyes and hot in her chest. Does she deserve it?

She bites down on the skin inside her cheek as she turns on her heel and marches away, face alight as the store whispers behind her, as the sky seems to laugh at her despair.

“It’s useless,” Sachiko proclaims, sun beating down on her face, neck dripping with sweat and her chest tight. Shisui sits beside her on the bench, conveniently in the shade that covers only half of the seat.

“Sorry, Sachi,” he sighs, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. A plate of dango lies between them, growing sticky with heat, untouched by both. “I don’t mean to say I told you so, but, did you really think giving him some dango was going to work?”

Sachiko flushes deep with shame, unable to respond.

They fall into silence. The cicadas buzz, loud– The village continues around them, even with the ground sizzling with heat. There is sweat dampening Sachiko’s collar, and she envies how composed Shisui seems, even in the blazing heat, even after most likely embarrassing himself just by being around her. She can feel her face warm further and she lets her eyes close, tilting her head back.

He’s in the shade, anyways. He will always be in a different league than her, she supposes.

“Thanks for trying, at least,” she says, fanning herself, eyes still closed. “Even if you and Hiro, are…” She falls quiet, mouth drying instantly. He looks at her, questioningly, and even while she doesn’t look his way, she can feel the lingering question. “Fighting…? Or… something.”

She cannot see the expression on his face, but she hopes it is not as gut twisting as she assumes it might be. She opens her eyes, and looks to him.

He is perfectly normal. Not a single sign of distress on his body. “Yeah,” he finally says.

Sachiko looks back up to the sky, which is cloudlessly bright. “Don’t be upset,” she says, reaching out as if to pat his hand softly. Before making contact, she tugs it away, as if scared of herself without looking in his direction. It’s the first time she’s felt like this in the presence of someone she would call her friend. She didn’t think about her and Shisui’s friendship that much before, not in terms of status and power.

“Everyone fights. That’s what friends do.” Friends, she thinks, Shisui was friends with her family, her clan.

“Yeah,” he repeats. “Friends.”

“…Yeah.” He was friends with them, even when they were so much… lesser. They were lesser. Oh, God, Sachiko was so much lesser. She could feel her hands build precipitation, as if she grew more nervous just thinking about it.

They fall into silence, briefly, but Sachiko knows he doesn’t even have to think about their friendship like she does. She tries not to grow more red, more ashamed of herself, sweating like a pig in the sun.

“C’mon,” Shisui says suddenly, lifting from his seat, stretching his arms out into the sunny sky. “Let’s go get some ice cream. We’ll share a popsicle.”

Sachiko smiles, even if it’s shaky, following suit. She disregards the sweat on her hairline as she trails after him, trying her best to look composed. “Twin pops?” she suggests.

Shisui laughs a little, and when he does, she can’t help but miss Sadahiro. It’s like she can see a flicker of Sadahiro’s soul in his eyes, like they were so intertwined they were practically becoming each other in her head. “I’ve never heard anyone call them that,” he snorts. “Except you, and…”

He trails off, smile falling. Sachiko sighs. His gaze flickers to her and she can feel herself stiffen, clammy and cold like she had just set fire to hay. “Hey,” Shisui starts, quiet, as they walk. His steps are silent. Her’s are loud. “Is there something wrong? What’s up with you?”

Sachiko is still stiff. They are friends, aren’t they? Even if Sachiko wasn’t even a genin yet? Even when Sachiko was a Sasaki, a distant line from a noble family tainted by an illegitimate child? Her chest grows tighter, and she must’ve stopped walking without knowing it— Shisui stands in front of her, looking back in what she thinks is concern.

Or is it pity? Does he pity her?

Itachi was right. How could she be friends with an Uchiha? How could an Uchiha be friends with her?

“Did Itachi tell you something?” Shisui asks, and Sachiko can see him now, crouched in front of her, even in the heat. It is something so distinctly like her brother that she can feel her stomach ache in his absence.

“Why do you think that?” She replies, eyes unable to meet his, where she fiddles at her nails. Shisui reaches out, places his hands over hers to still the fidgeting.

Shisui grumbles beneath his breath, and stands. “That kid, I swear…” He murmurs, turning his back to her, gesturing for her to follow. She follows. Of course she does. “Ya know, don’t take anything he says to heart. He’s really a sweet boy, I promise.”

Sachiko walks behind him, timid. “He didn’t tell me anything.”

Shisui says nothing, but she can feel his doubt. “He’s real logical. He thinks everything through, and is really considerate. But he’s mature. Everything he does has… Purpose. If he said something to hurt your feelings…” Shisui hesitates.

Sachiko hangs her head, not enough to sulk (something too indignant, in her mind), but enough to be noticeable.

“Try not to take it personally. He doesn’t do stuff to be mean. He knows what he’s doing.”

Sachiko pauses as Shisui stops in front of her, at the door of the nearby convenience store. “Wait here,” he says, and she listens.

Sachiko settles on the steps of the convenience store, her arms folded over her knees, her chin on her forearms. Cicadas buzz ambiently, a hot breeze blows by her ankles. Maybe it was about time for her to learn a lesson, anyways.

Sachiko always knew about clan hierarchy. Hell, Nobunari would always be the priority over her, even if he was three years her junior, even if Sachiko always had to respect everyone older than her. But Nobunari belonged to the main family. It was just… Different. The Sasaki genes ran stronger in him. It was merely fact. It would always be fact, even if she secretly thought it a little unfair.

Sachiko always knew her life revolved around how powerful she was— And usually physically. After the Third Great War, the land was torn apart. In school, she was taught that only the strong survived. Konohagakure needed defense that could only be built by strong shinobi.

Who wouldn’t want to serve their country?

Sachiko swallows, glances up through the heat, where she can see its waves reflecting off the dirt ground.

Children laugh in the shade, share toys and nudge each other with joy. Their laughter is so free. Sachiko looks back down at her feet.

The Sasaki clan just.. Wasn’t as strong as the others. That’s how life worked; The strongest always won, and the strongest always survived. The other clans were treated better because they were stronger. They could protect the village in ways her family could not.

She was… Lesser than?

Shisui stands beside her, brows furrowed softly. Wordlessly, he sinks down to where she sits and takes a seat beside her. He splits the popsicle, blue and already dripping down onto his fingers. “Take it, before it melts,” he insists.

Sachiko takes it. There are so many things she wants to ask him.

“How did you and Sadahiro meet?”

Shisui almost chokes, and Sachiko smiles. “Is that what’s been bothering you?” he says, incredulous.

She shakes her head. “No, but I want to hear it anyways.”

Shisui’s lips split into a grin, and he laughs, even with melted ice cream over his knuckles, sticking his skin to itself. “Maybe when you’re older.”

He’s still laughing with himself as she bites into her half of the ice pop. They fall into soft silence.

Sachiko glances at him. In the distance, a group of children are laughing, singing. “Shisui?”

He looks to her from where he’s taken a bite from his popsicle.

“Are we still friends?” He looks quizzicle. Sachiko looks too earnest for him to poke fun at her, for once. “Even if The Sasaki Clan isn’t…” She hesitates. “Isn’t as.. good as you guys? Even if you and Sadahiro fight?”

Shisui’s lips are pressed into a thin line, and he nods. “We’ll always be friends, Sachi.” He looks like he has more to say, but Sachiko beats him to it.

“Promise?”

“I promise.”