- 7 years old -
It was Sunday afternoon, and I was helping Sasuke with his Sharingan. This wasn't the first time he'd asked me to tag along on his day-long training sessions, and I had gotten quite sick of it. As much as I admired his willpower, I didn't want to spend all my days with him just throwing Kunai and Shuriken at trees or targets. Whenever we weren't doing target practice, he'd always be trying his hardest to somehow activate the Uchiha clan's special technique, but he'd never been able to accomplish his goal.
I shifted my gaze towards the horizon. We were in the middle of a beautiful green forest, and the sun was starting to set in the orange and red tainted sky. I let Sasuke try once more to activate his Sharingan before I told him we had to head in.
“Sasuke, we have to get back to your house,” I told him, after seeing his millionth attempt at activating the Sharingan. “I’ve got to get going.”
Sasuke’s eyes were a deep black color that I could only envy. His black hair reminded me of some birds' tail, and I had made fun of it many times before. He never took it the wrong way, though. He would just smile at me. He was also had a great sense of humor. He'd sometimes call me his personal jester. Whenever we trained, he'd help me on my throws. Sadly, I didn't have the best aim. It never seemed to bother him, though. To me, he was the perfect best friend.
As he jogged to my side, he sighed sadly, “Are you sure you’ve got to leave so soon, Oroshii? You’ve only been here for two days.”
I lived in the Village Hidden in the Clouds, but my family was great friends with the Uchiha clan. We'd come and visit them almost every weekend. My mother and father were great shinobi who were always ready to protect our city. Even though there had been some conflicts between our village and Konoha, my father and Sasuke's father were both very close friends.
Father was also one of the few to study the Uchiha's unique Sharingan. He had always found it to be an interesting technique, and he was somewhat envious of it. He'd sometimes ask Sasuke's father about it, or ask him to use it so he could understand how it worked. I was curious about it the first time I saw him writing notes for his studies at home about it. He willingly taught me what he knew and, frankly, he was surprised I even understood it. But Mother always said I was an intelligent and beautiful little girl.
I sighed. “I know. I don’t want to leave either…”
Sasuke was my only friend and I was his only friend. Whenever I wasn’t with him, I felt desperately alone. It was a feeling I couldn't stand to bear. We were like pencil and paper. Without paper, the pencil wouldn’t have anything to write on and without a pencil, the paper could never be written on. The purpose of the two would be, in the end, complete uselessness. In this case, he was the pencil and I was the paper.
Suddenly, Sasuke smiled, “Race you.” With that, he bolted off. I laughed and ran after him. When we reached his house, I saw my parents walking out the front door.
“Hey, were you guys planning on leaving me behind?” I asked jokingly.
“Actually we were,” Father smiled.
I stared at them, confused. “W-what?” I asked, not believing what I had just heard.
“Oh, don’t scare her!” Mother said with a smile. “Oroshii, you’re going to be staying with the Uchihas for a few days.” She quickly stroked my sleek black hair.
“Really?” I asked incredulously, my icy blue eyes sparkling with delight.
“Yes,” Sasuke’s father replied. “Your parents are going on a...mission.”
I saw my parents' expression change. I knew immediately that this was no ordinary mission. As I studied my parents' faces to figure out what was wrong, Sasuke grabbed my arm and pulled me inside, a smile plastered on his eager face. I decided not to think about my parents anymore and have some fun with my best friend.
The next morning, Sasuke invited me to go to school with him. Of course, I accepted. Once we left the house, I began to feel excited. The fact that I got to see Sasuke's school really made me anxious. *What kind of students are they?* As we walked down the street, I stared into the beautiful blue, cloud-less sky. It was a warm day and the sun shined all over the village. Birds danced across the sky; a soft wind blew my hair into my face. Stores were beginning to open as kids left for school. Adult shinobi were saying their last good-byes to their loved ones before going on their missions.
"Sasuke, I can't wait until we become shinobi like our parents! I'm going to be one of the greatest there ever was and..." I smirked evilly at Sasuke. "I'll even become more powerful than you! That's a promise!"
"Psha," Sasuke said sarcastically. "You? Better than me?! In your dreams..."
"I sure hope so!" I laughed.
While we were walking down the half-empty road, an old woman stopped us. It was Sasuke’s aunt. She kept going on and on about how great Sasuke’s brother, Itachi, was, which annoyed me like heck. To everyone else, Itachi seemed to be a well-mannered gentleman. He was to grow up and be the 'great one' everyone looked up to. I would never see him that way. Ever since I met my best friend’s brother, I never liked him nor trusted him. I didn't know why I didn't trust him, but I definetaly hated him because he never spent time with Sasuke, or very little at the most. His father never seemed to really care about him either, only his beloved son Itachi - that's what it looked like to me, anyway.
The day passed by quickly. After school, Sasuke and I went to the park to play.
"There's no time to play," Sasuke complained as I pulled him down the street. "I've got training to do!"
"You trained all day yesterday! Come on, please go to the park with me? At least do this one thing for me. I promise that tomorrow we can go back to training."
Reluctantly, he gave up and nodded. As we were sitting on the swings and laughing about our past experiences, I noticed that someone was carefully watching us from behind a bush. Her blonde hair just barely sticking out from the dark green leaves.
“Who’s that?” I asked Sasuke, pointing to the bush the person was hiding behind. Sasuke analyzed the bush for a moment, then sighed.
“It’s Ino…”
“Ino?” I asked, trying to remember the kids I had seen at the school. “Oh! Now I remember! Isn’t she that one blonde girl that gloats over you all the time?”
At that moment, Ino charged out of her hiding spot and punched me in the stomach, knocking me off my swing. As I struggled to breath, Ino grabbed me by my shirt collar and yelled at me angrily. “What do you mean by ‘gloats over you’!? Don’t you know that someday Sasuke and I will get married!? I don’t need anyone getting in the way of…”
Suddenly her words weren’t clear to me anymore.
“M-married?” I asked, a laugh about to escape my mouth.
Just then, Sasuke punched Ino, sending her flying across the park. I watched as she struggled to get up and start to cry.
“Sasuke…” she wept, running away.
I heard Sasuke chuckle, then he held out his hand to help me up. “You okay? Ino’s such a pig.”
“Pig?” I snickered, while getting up.
“I heard it from the guys,” he explained.
"Honestly, I didn't expect a person like her could cry. Not from what I saw today at least. She honestly seems like the big deal. Especially the way she acts around all those girls. It seems she'd rip their heads off if any of them got near you."
"Eh, I don't care about her. Or any of the other girls for that matter."
“Sasuke?” I asked.
“What?”
“Speaking of girls, have you ever noticed how many of them stare at you in class? I mean…it's not just Ino.”
“So?”
“Well…I don’t know…doesn’t it bother you or something?”
Sasuke thought about it for a bit then answered. “No. Not at all.” He smiled. I looked at him confused. “Well….it doesn’t bother me cause they’re just girls. They’ll get over me sooner or later. There are plenty of other guys in the class, it’s not like they’re all still going to like me when we’re older. And plus, since when have you ever known me to care about what the other kids think?”
“Oh.” I said. “Your right....but, is there a girl you like though?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Like…uhm…one you’d want to kiss.”
Sasuke looked away disgusted. “You kidding!? I’ve got other matters to worry about and I swear I will never kiss a girl!”
“Harsh”, I joked.
“Oh well.” He looked up at the darkened sky. “Crap. It’s getting late. We’ve got to head back.”
I smiled and nodded. Then we were off, blazing past closed stores and sleepy faces of tired merchants. As we rounded a corner, we stopped dead in our tracks. The wooden gates outlining the road were completely splattered with blood. Silence enveloped the once crowded road which led to the Uchiha residence. Dead bodies Uchiha clan members were strewn across the dirt road. I stared at them, terrorized and confused.
I could tell that Sasuke was tearing up when he spoke. “What happened here?”
He charged towards his house while I remained behind, frozen with fear. Somehow I could tell that whatever had killed them was still here and I was not ready to die yet. No way.
I stared at the lifeless bodies, partially regretting staying with the Uchihas without my parents around. I fell to the ground and started to cry silently to myself until I heard Sasuke yelling at someone. “Don’t kill me!” he screamed.
Still extremely scared, I forced myself to tiptoe over to the corner of the road. Sasuke needed help, and I couldn't deny it. As I reached the corner, I heard Sasuke let out a blood-curdling scream. The scream made me jump back physically, but mentally made me take a large step forward, which resulted in an odd sort of tumble. I untangled myself and got to my knees, only to look onto the abandoned road and see Sasuke holding his head in between his legs with his brother, Itachi, standing over him.
Itachi's eyes had a strange symbol in them and it took a while for me to understand what it meant. I stared in horror when I finally understood that Itachi was using his Mangekyou Sharingan.
~~~~~~~~Flashback~~~~~~~
"What is this, father?" I asked, looking at a scrap of paper. "What is a Mangekyou Sharingan?"
Father rushed over to me and snatched the paper from my hands.
"It's nothing, Oroshii," he nervously smiled. "Please forget all about it."
"Father..." I said sternly. "You can't expect me to just forget about it. It's obviously something important, or even secret since you won't tell me about it."
Father sighed.
"Please tell me what it is!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Father decided to tell me only a few things about the Mangekyou Sharingan. He told me it was an advanced form of the Sharingan and could only be activated under a certain circumstance. He also told me what it looked like and if I ever saw it, which was a very slim chance, how to try and protect myself. It was a technique not even Sasuke knew. I wanted to tell him about it, but Father said it wasn't time yet- whatever that meant.
I refocused on the image that lay in front of me. My poor friend caught in the horrific trance and his only brother standing over him, ready to kill him. The moment I saw Itachi begin to shift his glance in my direction, I hid my face in my hands, afraid I might fall into the mental torture of the Mangekyou. I waited for a good number of minutes, too afraid of the consequences if I did meet Itachi's eyes. When I had finally built up my courage and peeked out from behind my fingers, Itachi had disappeared.
Only Sasuke was left in front of me. His body sprwaled face down on the ground.
But you're wrong, the paper always has the...pen! ^_~
(Actually, I don't know...how much have you read/watched Naruto?) But good job on adding this in here.
