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[hazusreaderinserts]

Legacy [Naruto Reader-Insert]

You’re definitely a Yamanaka, aren’t you?

Family and Village secrets run rampant. All you wanna do is survive long enough to see Naruto become Hokage and to find out who you really are.

[Fem! Reader x Various]

Warnings: Long plot. Slow-burn. The slowest of the burn.

Crossposted on Wattpad and Quotev. Masterlist

Chapter 9 Trouble in Paradise

A/N: Gave up on formatting.

You wake up to the sensation of several somethings hitting and tickling a few parts of your face. You grunt and try to brush whatever that's hitting your face away but they just kept bouncing back to tickle you.

Then you hear someone groan beside you. It is a very familiar voice, with a particular timbre to it that you recognize. Hound? Your mind went into overdrive. What is he doing here? Where am I?

You quickly roused to consciousness and your bleary eyes finally recognized the room that you're in. There's no mistake. It's Brother's hospital room.

Hound's head lolls onto your shoulder and from your angle you could see a peek of his features underneath his mask. He definitely looks younger when he's sleeping.

Your opinion of his features have not changed since 3 years ago, you still think he's quite attractive despite half of his face and eyes are hidden by a face-cloth (mask? You didn't really know what to call it anymore). You still don't know why he hides his face.

To be honest, he still has that sort of child-like purity about him, but only while he is asleep.

You reach out with your fingers to brush his hair out from his eye but he stops you.

You jump in your seat.

"Uhh. Good morning?" You say with a hint of nervousness in your voice.

"Mm. Morning." Hound looks up at you with bleary eyes. You don't think his brain is functioning yet

He's speaking in that 'super-sexy-i-just-woke-up-drawl'. It sends small shivers down your spine and you don't really know why that elicits a reaction out of you. 

Maybe you had a thing for deep voices.

"Move, your hair is tickling me." You nudge his head back to the opposite side of his chair. Hound's head rolls back and he just makes some noncommittal grunts when he realizes that it's just you. Pushing his head away. Like he is a pest or something (yes, yes he is).

You've never gotten this intimate with anyone before. Or at least been in this intimate position where you wake up to see someone else's face the first thing in the morning. Mother or Brother hasn't slept beside you ever since you were two or three.

The thought is kinda nice, waking up to someone you like but uh. Hound is much, much older than you and he'd be considered a cradle robber (also not family, not age appropriate)

You actually have looked through his files after you vowed to investigate Brother's chaperone. In one of the bingo books the Yamanaka got from a nin from Kiri, they call him Konoha's Loyal Dog ( Seems pretty fitting since his handle is Hound and he handles hounds (ninja-dogs)). You snigger softly at your own joke.

You also refuse to call him by his actual name, at least for now.

You think it's ironic. Dog summoner with a dog-like ANBU handle, who is also suitably monikered as Konoha's Loyal Dog, with capitals. Capitals! The bingo books from other Hidden Villages aren't a joke.

And he's probably going to be assigned to you as your guard dog. Hah!

You hope not. He got pulled out of ANBU to do teaching gigs as a Jounin but he hasn't passed any of his teams yet ( or so you read, in his dossier. Also yes the Yamanaka's keep dossiers on everyone. His is particularly thick.).

He half-opens his eye to give you a tired look and adjusted his body to a more comfortable position. And promptly fell back asleep. You're half laughing internally and half nervous as hell at the absurdity of the situation.

But one question, how on earth is he so comfortable with sleeping in room that has so many vulnerable spots? Then something hits you. This is his home village, he should be able to just relax. Just because he's one of the strongest ninja, doesn't mean he has to be on guard all the time.

This is something that you needed more time ponder on.

You slide out of the chair and give Brother a kiss on the forehead, whispering a soft good morning against his cold skin and ran as fast as you could to the Nara compound.

It's barely dawn so you think you can make it before he wakes up. He's an early sleeper and an early riser, but you think he just likes procrastinating on the bed with his favourite novel before sleeping and he likes the feeling of lying down in bed for a while to watch the clouds and the sky as the sun rises.                                                             ____

Shikamaru gets startled awake by a dull thud by his window. Even though he likes sleeping a lot, he's kinda a light sleeper. He's only pretending to sleep in the academy, what he's really doing with his eyes closed is thinking about random things (and Ino, sometimes).

He grabs the kunai he keeps his pillow and angled it defensively. Unfortunately, he's also quite prepared for situations ( read, paranoid).

The thought that this is a Shinobi village doesn't really cross his mind so the only thing this protects him from is you. And rogue ninja, but he trusts Konoha security. So mostly just you.

He sees you tumbling through his window in a less than graceful way. You land on your feet noiselessly and you strike a pose, like nobody is looking at you. Nobody would if Shikamaru is still asleep. 

He isn't. He's wide awake.

You stare at the Nara boy with widened eyes, looking like he's just caught you staring at one of the older Uchiha boys (back when they were a thing, they are certainly not a thing anymore because you know, Itachi) with an expression of curiosity and infatuation.

In your defense, Uchiha boys are all quite handsome in a traditional way.

And Shikamaru stares back, with an equally shocked expression.

"Uhh, I thought you were asleep." You deadpan, still frozen in that silly pose you decided to strike when you rolled in.

Shikamaru lowers his kunai and gives you the stinkiest eyes he can muster with his half-asleep cognitive functions, "You're really something, you know that mouse? Why didn't you come over to talk yesterday? Choji and I had a big fucking bribe, which you don't get now by the way, laid out for you to make you talk."

"Yeah. Yeah, of course," Your voice got all choked up. "Sorry I couldn't make it, I caught a cold and had to stay in."

It feels nice when your friends worry about you and heck, Shikamaru is a worrier. The biggest worrier you know. And a complainer. You appreciate everything he says because he tells it to you straight. When he's not being the laziest person around.

What you really mean is that you got cornered into a room filled with oppressive people and they had to Intimidate you into reciting the oath under some sort of influence. Mind, body and soul. The same mantra that the Yamanaka Shinobi recite when they're learning how to transfer their soul into someone else via Shintenshin.

Was that the essence of what they wanted to do with the oath and the drink? Hokage's Balls.

Your mind, body and soul belongs to the Yamanaka now since you accepted the oath and you'd have to swear another blood oath to the village once you graduate and become genin.

You were basically trapped into something you couldn't refuse. You can't tell Shikamaru anything though, it's an oath of silence and besides, Keirai probably had someone watching you day and night.

Maybe he is watching you right now.

Shikamaru rolls his eyes and voices out his usual complaint, "Ugh how troublesome. You know I can tell when you're lying right?" Yes he totally can, but he doesn't call you out on it unless it is important. And this is important.

You 'hm'ed and give him a noncommittal shrug, plopping yourself on the foot of Shikamaru's bed. Sometimes you think that the Nara boy would prefer the futon since he has pretty traditional tastes but then again he got a really cushy mattress and it's much more thicker than the fluffiest futon.

You like the futon better. It reminds you not to get complacent and you like sleeping on hard-ish ground.

Shikamaru swings out of his covers in his cotton jammies with little clouds printed on them and sits up. You give him a pointed look and raise an eyebrow, to which he responds with red on his cheeks and an indignant half-shout, "They're my favourite okay? They're really comfy."

You didn't doubt that, but still. An amused giggle escapes from your lips before you know it and he turns bright red again.

"Hey, what did you wanna tell me?" You make yourself comfy on the bed, pulling both your legs up to cross them. The obi sits a little tight on your waist, but you didn't mind.

"Choji and I are worried about you, you idiot mouse. We know something happened all those years ago and you seemed like you were fine until recently when everything friggin' crashed and burned for you like a fireball jutsu gone wrong." He looks at you with those eyes that make you think he is begging you to wake up and see that you can rely on him.

You can. But you don't really wanna talk about how you are being watched 24/7 like you have a camera following your every move and listening to your every word.

The Nara clan has always traditionally been the head of the the Shinobi Counter Intelligence and with Shikamaru's father actually being the head, you don't want to take any chances. See, the difference between the T&I Bureau and SCI is that T&I is mostly an internal affair and SCI handles everything that is external to the village, although both of them will send teams outside to collect intelligence (SCI collects and prevents).

You remember what Shisui had said. Your chakra is different. Noticeable. Every sensor in a 100 mile radius of Konoha will be able to find you. Good for you that you're stuck in a clan specializing in sensors.

You feel really bitter about the whole thing.

"I uh, don't want to talk about it." You look at your lap with sheepish smile.

Shikamaru continues like he didn't hear you say that you don't want to talk about it. "And then Ino comes to me, crying about what you said to her and that's not very nice of you."

It's no secret between Choji and you that Shikamaru has a soft spot for Ino. Maybe a bit more than a soft spot but it's not really a secret anymore. It's been an unrequited crush for more than three years and Ino only has Sasuke Uchiha in her eyes. So uhh. An impasse. Ino doesn't know about Shikamaru's feelings.

You roll your eyes. You're still a little upset at Ino about how insensitive she's been. Just like Father. Mother practically lives at the hospital now. You know that Father has something to do with that. Isolate you, so you don't have anyone to talk to about this.

"I'll deal with her when I've calmed down. Don't you think I deserve some slack after the things that actually happened to me?" You say, plainly. You really didn't come here to be yelled at. Shikamaru will always take Ino's side. He always does.

Would it kill him to take your side sometimes?

Shikamaru sees the expression on your face and he bites back whatever he is going to say next. You look like you are about to cry. 

The sun is about to rise and he's still in his cloud jammies. He throws the covers over you completely, "What a drag, you should stay in there until you apologize to Ino." Shikamaru scratches the back of his head.

"Get out. I'm going to change and I don't want you in the room when I do." Shikamaru finally says after like five minutes of continuous scratching. You're not deaf, you can hear perfectly fine under the blanket.

"Yeah. Yeah, I should go. I'll see you in class, maybe." Your voice comes out a little more choked than you'd like and you proceed to throw the covers over him entirely and focusing your chakra to bring you to the place you haven't visited in two years.

                                                           ____

It's a blur of colours again and you land on your feet in a clearing near the Naka River. You've gotten used to Shisui's brand of Shunshin and you finally figure out how it actually works.

The afterimage is actually a chakra shell the shape of you. As in, you flicker forward so fast that it leaves a thin chakra shell that has your likeness and that's probably how Shisui has the illusion of moving so fast that he is able to make 'clones' of himself.

You slowly trudge towards the roundest rock in the cleaning, a ray of light filtering through the grassy canopy of trees that seem to function as a soft spotlight shining directly over it. It's the only reason why you picked that spot.

You hop up to sit on it, eyes closed to enjoy the gentle warmth that the ray of light brings.

"Hey, Shisui. It's been a while. I know I haven't visited you in a year..." You whisper under your breath and you start talking about the various things that happened to you so far. Like your initiation. And how you don't know how to bring up the Uchiha Massacre to Sasuke.

You had read that he had thrown himself into the Naka River, but his body was never found. You think it's a fitting spot to make a honorary grave for him. youtrynottothinkaboutthefactthattheydidntfindabodythereisnobodyhecouldbealivesomewherehesstillalivethereisnobody

Sasuke became really withdrawn and more broody after the incident to the point where you couldn't say he is fully sane anymore. Sometimes he trains himself so hard that he's on the verge of killing himself.

You know him well enough that every action of his leads up to a singular conclusion. And it's very disconcerting. It honestly worries you a lot. He was broken for a long period of time but that grief turned into anger. He doesn't talk about it nor does he want to.

That was his coping mechanism and you don't know if it's healthy or not (not that your own way of coping is healthy either, but you didn't want to kill yourself constantly. Wait, maybe you did).

You don't expect him to be okay really, his entire family was killed by his brother and he saw. He saw Itachi drive the sword into his mother's body. He saw the bloodthirsty expression Itachi had as he did it. And something in him changed. But mostly, you just want to talk to him about it to really understand what he's thinking about.

You tell Shisui that you really miss him. Even this little glade reminds you of him. You miss the way he smiles at you when you finally got something right. The way his eyes crinkle when you show him some inane thing that you did just because. The way he says your name when he wants to wake you up from a nap.

Yeah, those things you missed. And you couldn't see them anymore.

You're also confused by what Itachi did that night, he was loyal to the Village, loyal to Hound and loyal to the Hokage. His motives confounded you and kept you up at nights mostly. And in those late hours of the night, you see Sasuke ambling around with that look on his face. You know that face that he has when he's brooding.

You spend half your morning catching Shisui up with everything recent about your life and you end up being late to class, which Iruka-sensei doesn't find particularly amusing.

[hazusreaderinserts]

Legacy [Naruto Reader-Insert]

You’re definitely a Yamanaka, aren’t you?

Family and Village secrets run rampant. All you wanna do is survive long enough to see Naruto become Hokage and to find out who you really are.

[Fem! Reader x Various]

Warnings: Long plot. Slow-burn. The slowest of the burn.

Crossposted on Wattpad and Quotev. Masterlist

Chapter 8 Family Secrets

You, uh, end up not meeting with the boys after classes and instead attended a summons by Father which he sent slightly before class ended. Delivered via Yamanaka Express (which meant various other Shinobi under Yamanaka employment).

You shift your weight a little on the uncomfortable cushion that they provided you. It's a little bit lumpy in all the wrong places and it itched. The material is rough and scratchy. Yamanaka Inoichi called you for an audience in the Main house and the first thought that came into your mind when you got the summons scroll is that they are suspicious of you. Brother no longer possesses the sword and is currently in a coma so their attentions now turned to you, the next in line.

You scan your surroundings, another thing Shisui taught you. Always have an escape plan ready. Or two. Or four. Doesn't matter how many, but you must always have a plan to get out of any situation that you're in. Four Chunin at all corners of the room, armed and ready to subdue you if anything gets out of hand. Yamanaka Inoichi, current head of the clan and the head of T&I sits before you, his expression deep in thought. Beside him is another man that you don't recognize. A younger, more youthful, more pleasant looking man. His eyes look cold, despite the smile on his face. As per usual, of the Yamanaka branch members. All of the Yamanaka shinobi are trained not to show expression on their faces. Ino is an exception. Father loves to spoil her.

You only manage to find one possible point of escape, although it is very slim. You'd probably have to take down one of the Chunin guarding the corner closest to the window as quick as possible and break free. Only if the rest didn't react fast enough, or if Inoichi and the other man didn't snare you with the Shintenshin first. You place your hands neatly into your lap and adopt a passive expression. You aren't going to show weakness in front of them. The collar of your altered Kimono presses against your neck and the belt around your waist sits a little tight on your waist. You don't adjust them of course, signs of any discomfort are also considered signs of weakness.

You see the way that Inoichi's hair falls over his eyes and the way his eyes cloud in thought, you know that he's trying to formulate words to say to you. After all, he hasn't greeted you at all for the past five years. Even though he said he would... "Father." You say to break the silence, acknowledging both him and the man beside with a formal bow, with your forehead touching the tatami, whilst seated. Acting first is a sign of subservient behavior. You'll work to get on his good side. Both the men's expressions didn't change but you faintly saw a look of approval flit over Father's face before it returns to his normal impassive one. "So, you have the sword now." Inoichi props his chin up with an arm on his knee. He's sitting with his legs crossed. Not in seiza, which you are in. He's assuming the dominant position. The man beside him stands straight, shoulders wide and feet apart. His muscles are tense. They're expecting something to happen. "Yes, she chose me. I'm not bound to her yet. " You keep your head lowered. The candle flames beside him flicker. "Hmm," Inoichi lets out a grunt of approval. He's still thinking. "It seems like it's time for you be initiated. Keirai, give her the tea. You, drink." The latter is meant for you. The commanding tone he uses as he said it is proof of that. Keirai-the other man, serves you a cup of tea. You actually don't know what it is, but you saw some stuff in the cup that looked like leaf bits.  You look up at Inoichi again as if to ask him, your expression is still blank. "Drink." He commands. And you do. You put the cup to your lips and swallow. The tea has a strong, earthy smell. Reminds you of the scent of a pine cone that Brother brought home for you once. All the trees around Konoha are a special kind of tree made from Hashirama's Wood Release so they didn't really have a strong scent? Not that you were smelling trees or anything, it's something that you notice when you're outside training. The taste however stings your mouth. It's nasty sort of bitter that stays at the back of your throat. This would be the taste of earth and herbs mushed together, you think. It doesn't show on your face. "Mind, body and soul. My mind, body and soul belong to the Yamanaka Clan." You recite, you remember the words to the pledge and you memorized it religiously. But it feels like the voice coming out of your mouth was not your own. What did they make you drink? You feel lightheaded. A flicker of discomfort broke through your otherwise emotionless mask. You could hear the metal of your blade whistling in the air and there is a dull thudding in your head. "You'll have our full support. Keirai will be mentoring you in clan techniques. He will be reporting back to me on your progress." Inoichi gestures to the man beside him with a fatherly smile, "Make me proud, daughter." Keirai merely nods at your direction when his name is mentioned. Bullshit. You call bullshit.  "Thank you Father. I will uphold the pride of the Yamanaka." You bend from the waist to give him a deep bow. You grit your teeth and squash the feelings that are rising from your chest to your throat. The concoction makes you feel a little woozy, like you couldn't say otherwise. "Don't forget to send my regards to Hakunetsu. It's a shame that he's in the hospital. He's a very skilled shinobi." The head of the Yamanaka clan lifts himself up from the cushion in one swift motion and walks out of the door. You didn't miss the weight of his palm on your shoulder as he passes you. The other four Chunin follow him out of the shoji door and the last one slides it close as he exits. Your fingernails are painfully digging into your palm at this point and your forehead still touched the surface of the tatami. Did he just attempt to blackmail you into submission by bringing up Brother?

Shit, shit, SHIT. He had outmaneuvered you. It isn't like you stood a chance anyway, your family is still under his protection and provision. But at least you were aware.

Was this what brother had to go through too?

It took you a couple of minutes to prevent the tears from overflowing. Your chest hurts at the thought.

Father also basically told you to your face that he is openly spying on you and Keirai will report your every move back to him if you do something out of the ordinary.  "Report to me at 1800 hours next Monday. We'll start your training then." Keirai says, then you hear him exit the room. You are left alone in that dark room, your body still bent in that bow. The sharp zzzzing of the sword still ringing in your ears.

                                                            ____

Your muscles feels extra sore. You sit there in the room, seething until your emotions subsides. It is already dusk by the time you leave. You squeeze the area between your neck and shoulder in a feeble attempt to massage the soreness away. The sword hangs by your sore waist, her weight a little heavy for you. Ino ambushes you with a big, teary hug from behind. "Oh my god, we haven't talked in ages! I saw Sasuke coming over for dinner the other night. Did he talk to you? What did he say? Did he say anything about me? I'm so sorry for bombarding you with questions but I need to know!" Ino babbles on and on, tears still shining in her eyes.

She gives you a quick once-over to examine your body for anything out of the ordinary but the only thing that concerns her is the creases in between your brows. "H-hey, what's wrong...?" Your entire body shook. She calls him papa. Papa. That's the difference. They both shared the same hair and eye colours. You don't. Yours didn't even resemble Mother's or Brother's. They're all lying to you. All the adults are lying to you and you don't know why. "We can ask papa if there's anything wrong with you, he'd hel-"  "You can. I can't." You just say, plainly. Your voice is shaking and the muscles in your throat are not cooperating. The fine string that is your patience for the shit the clan has given you, snaps. "B-but we-" "He spoils you rotten and he does almost anything you say! He gives you everything! OF COURSE, you'd immediately go to him." The volume of your voice is raised but strained. It's louder than you usually speak. Your fists clench again by your side. You are sure that your palms have little bleeding indents in the middle. Ino lets out a soft gasp and her expression is a one of wide-eyed shock. Her arms around your body drop to her sides and she takes a step back, "Wh-what do you-" "I had nobody! Nobody to teach me how to meld my chakra. Nobody to teach me basic jutsu. I had to learn everything by myself. Mother is busy in the hospital and Brother always had to do missions! Always! I had nobody and once I had somebody, they leave! ALL of them do!" You scream. Your eyes are hot and there is a wetness coming down from your cheeks. Your fingers immediately go towards the hilt of your sword and clenches tightly. You aren't going to draw your sword, not on Ino. You just needed something to squeeze or else your emotions will go out of control.

Well further than now. "Shisui is dead and Brother is in a coma! And all you ever had to care about is Sasuke! SASUKE! A BOY! While I had to struggle all alone, by myself. MYSELF! Father gave you everything! You didn't have to worry about anything in your life! He never cared about me!" Your throat is hoarse and your vision is blurry to the point where you couldn't even see the expression on the other girl's face. You hear a choked sob come from Ino's direction. "I c-care about y-you..." Ino's voice is thick with tears and snot. "When is the last time you ever really asked me before talking about yourself or asking about Sasuke?" You sneer at her over your shoulder, pushing past her roughly and you leave the Clan compound behind.

You run and run and you don't stop until you reach the hospital. Your heart hurts a little at the thought of shouting at Ino like that, but you just couldn't take it anymore. The hurt. The expectations. The Loneliness. Shisui's death. You can't cope. You just couldn't anymore. Not when you feel so, so alone. You pull up by Brother's side in a rickety, plastic chair, curling up with a spare blanket that you grabbed from one of the cabinets in the room. Hound is there, reading his book in silence but he doesn't question the fat globs of tears running down your face. You don't miss the gentle touch on your cheek as you cry yourself to sleep.

[hazusreaderinserts]

Legacy [Naruto Reader-Insert]

You’re definitely a Yamanaka, aren’t you?

Family and Village secrets run rampant. All you wanna do is survive long enough to see Naruto become Hokage and to find out who you really are.

[Fem! Reader x Various]

Warnings: Long plot. Slow-burn. The slowest of the burn.

Crossposted on Wattpad and Quotev. Masterlist

Chapter 7 The curtain rises.

It's been three years since the Uchiha massacre, since the events that made your life crumble apart like a cookie crumbling in milk. You will gladly use another simile to summarize those three years but it had seemed so easy, you know? How a couple of events could just dismantle the life you knew in the span of a several months. Human life is just so fragile. 

You never found out the cause of Shisui's death and after you confronted Itachi about his death that one time, he massacred his entire clan. You heard news. The entire Uchiha District, completely wiped out. Civvies and shinobi alike. Dead. His parents too.

The village shook at the news, but it was just swept under the rug. And people didn't seem to make a big deal out of it. Just a snap of a finger, and the main civvie population of the village just forgot that the Uchiha clan ever existed. The genin kids from civilian backgrounds never even knew the details behind the Uchiha, just that they were once a powerful clan in Konoha and one day, they were gone. Like you said, the big, pink elephant in the room was swept under the rug with relative ease. 

In three years, all that the Uchiha clan stood for was forgotten. Their holiday stamped out from the map and renamed into the Festival of Fireflies. Their Clan grounds burnt to the ground, all that's left is just a shadow of the grandeur of the district that it used to have. All that is left of the Uchiha is a boy, a broken shell of what he used to be. The younger brother of the butcher himself, Uchiha Sasuke.

All the other clans panicked after realizing it was the prized prodigy of the Uchiha clan that lead them into their misfortune. You don't really know what the other clans did, but the Yamanaka reeled in the leashes of all the shinobi in service under their clan banner. You were not exempt from this. One of father's close aides shadows you around everywhere, and you couldn't skip Kunoichi class anymore. So you've been obedient in attending all your classes.

Everyone; the clan-sponsored orphans, kids of the branch families, staff of the Torture & Intel Bureau (it's a fact that everyone in there is in the palm and pockets of the Yamanaka Clan) and you, had to go under various psyche and mental health evaluations, provided by the Clan's best doctors and researches. Since the Yamanaka clan specializes in the mind and psyche, it makes sense that they have their own private research facility.

Beneficial pieces of research do trickle down to the General hospitals but most of the stuff that they are researching aren't really appropriate for medical use.                                                              ____

You sit there, by the side of brother's hospital bed, his meticulously bandaged up hand in yours. It wasn't as big as you remembered anymore, it was only half as big as it used to be. Your hands were no longer small and child-like, instead they are full of callouses and scarred knuckles.

The short sword that Shisui gifted to you is no longer in use, now a decoration. A reminder. A trinket of the past. You possess the hands of a fighter now, the hands of a shinobi. Your copious use of hand cream doesn't prevent the roughness of your palms.

Mother had to pry the white sword from his cold, clammy grasp when he checked in, courtesy of Hound. It now sits on a worn out weapon display beside the front door. You hear that it didn't want to leave brother's hand until Mother separated the cord-string from the hilt. Suddenly you are reminded of that time at the Deer Festival a couple years ago. You remember Brother's bright smile.

He's in a coma. Has been ever since Hound brought him back from the incident with the bright white light. He tells you that Brother skirmished with someone during the Uchiha Massacre.

Tears pool in your eyes as you tighten your grip on Brother's fingers. There is no trace of white in his hair anymore. And it's much more longer now.

The doctors and Mother says that there's no hope of him recovering. Your eyes grow hot and prickly at the thought.

You hear a rustle on your right and you wipe your hot, prickly eyes with one swift motion. Hound moves in his seat, turning a page of his orange novel. Three years is enough to change your perception of this man.

"Hound, stop reading your ero novels in front of a minor." You say, giving him a disapproving look.

"Stop calling me Hound then." He retorts with a lazy drawl. He looks tired. Like, you know. Tired. Like he’s aged a lot more than the amount of time that actually passed.

You just let out a sigh and turn your attention back to Brother.

Hound was a cold, effective and ruthless shinobi in the past and he showed it. This Hound however (he insists that you call him by his name) is lazy, tired, gives pathetic reasons whenever he's late (which is always) and a huge weirdo with a kink of reading dirty novels in public. 

This Hound still has the qualities of his old self but he carries himself in a different way now.

"Hey Hound? "

"Don't call me that. What is it?"

"How long have you known Brother?"

Hound pauses to think, an eye veering to the upper left as he searches his memories. "About seven years, give or take." He counts down with his gloved hands, "Yeah seven."

Hound now wears his hitai-ate to cover his scarred eye and a Konoha-style flak jacket, instead of his ANBU clothing. Everything else is black or a dark navy blue. The wrinkles around his eyes are more noticeable now. When you say wrinkles you meant the creases. Not actual wrinkles. Though his silvery hair does give him an illusion of being an old fogey (if Hound knew you call him that sometimes in your head, he'd probably not be very amused).

Or maybe he's just tired, you can't tell.

You count mentally in your head if it all lined up and it did. Seven years huh. He stayed in Brother's shadow for seven years because of the sword. Seven long years.

Will he be your shadow you once the sword is yours? You didn't want to think about that. It's way too soon.

You know Hound visits your brother during the weekends and sometimes during his free time, which made him a good guy in your book. You also see him visiting the memorial stone if he's not there by Brother. You'd need to search it up later. His name. You kinda hate not knowing the identity of your future guard dog. And his abilities.

Hound audibly flips another page. Then the silence settles and the both of you just sit there. By Brother's bed.                                                            ____

Sasuke Uchiha is a completely different person now, you think as you observe his shurikenjutsu from the trees. He is no longer the bright, outgoing little boy with a very competitive streak. He is, however, still competitive.

Ting! Ting! Ting!

The shuriken bounces off each other and they change their trajectory to hit the square targets, all queued up in a straight line, one behind another. It's a pretty impressive feat to be able to bend all those stars and make all of them hit.

Sasuke lets out a breath of air that he had been holding and throws one in your direction.

You narrowly dodge it and jump down to a clear area beside him. Sasuke's expression turns unto a guarded one and you immediately put both of your arms up in a mock surrender. He looks into your eyes.

"Not here to ambush you, just wanted to ask you if you'd like to come over for dinner." This is the nth time that you asked him. You throw a punch at him and he catches it with his fist.

You are ambushing him, He thinks.

"How is your brother?" Sasuke asks after minutes of contemplation. He's deflecting, you notice. Two can play at that game. His grip on your clenched knuckles tightens and he twists hard, flipping you over to your side.

You press the issue even more, "I'll make your favourite." Your eyes show him how determined you are to get him to eat dinner at your place. You were more calm than Sasuke anticipated and your form flickers from his vision, only for you to appear behind him with a blade to his neck. Ah, you've gotten better at shunshin, he notes. The blade you're using isn't your family heirloom. Its Shisui's ninjato. His gift to you. 

"No." His tone is flat and uninterested. Sasuke holds his breath. He didn't even hear the tachikaze. You've gotten faster. Sasuke holds out the handsign for Kawarimi and feels a pull on his entire body, his body pops out from a distance away. He replaces himself with a nearby boulder.

"Tomato pasta." Your tone is equally flat and uninterested. You focused as much chakra as you can in bursts with each step you take, angling your blade to pierce him.

"No." Sasuke deflects your blow with a kunai he pulls out from his pouch.

"Curry with tomatoes. Lots of tomato-" You swing again.

"No." He blocks. He drops his kunai and grabs your wrist with both of his hands. And uses the leverage he has to throw you over his shoulder. 

"Grilled salmon with lots of tomatoes in your miso soup." You twist your body in the air and land on your feet, holding your blade up in a defensive stance.

He pauses for a second. Just a second. You know that you're getting to him. "Wrong type of fish. No."

"Onigiri with bonito flakes, sun-dried cherry tomatoes and grilled tuna with a large serving of tomatoes."

Sasuke's stomach let out a loud growl and you know you have him in the palm of your hand. "Y-yeah? I don't need your pity." He crosses his arms against his chest and you feel his hostility drop.

You just give him a sad smile, sliding your blade back into the sheath behind you. "He's fine, thanks for asking. Let's spar again after, okay? You can use that fireball jutsu you've been practicing."

Ah there it is, your true intention of inviting him over. You want him to help you out with chakra control, his is much more better than yours. At least this is much better than your other plans that involved threatening to let Ino loose on him.

"Heh, you've gotten better mouse." Sasuke's face transforms into a cynical smile. He catches on pretty fast. This time it held no condescending tone, not like that time he beat you down at the academy. He turns around and catches you off-guard when he knocks you to your back with his forearm pressed onto your neck.

And you did get better. All the books you studied about the psyche helped. And you knew his favourite foods. And what makes him tick. Or at least you think. Sasuke sees that you have that same look that you had back when you ran from him before the massacre. He caves in easy when it came to you.

"If I can't beat you in taijutsu, why not something that I'm good at?" You smile. It doesn't reach your eyes. The pressure of his arm is choking you.

Sasuke just lets out a soft heh and sighs, he gets up and drags you too your feet. He's known you for this long that he could pick up on your tells. And you made him feel somewhat normal, like the massacre didn't happen. For a while. The only person he has good associations with of his past.

"You're a big idiot. You'll never get better at taijutsu, you don't have the strength to parry most of my hits." He says. You know exactly what he's talking about.

He sticks his hands into his pockets and walks toward the direction of your house. You follow him wordlessly.

Sasuke finishes all the food that you cook for him, right down to the last morsel and lingers at your place a little longer after your spar (he uses the neck grab thing on you again, that bastard.)

                                                           ____

You wake up with your hand outstretched towards the hilt of that blade in your house and you hear it sing. The sharp vibrato of the metal blade sings. It rings in your ears loudly, making you fall into a deep trance.

Then Mother's hand is around your wrist. She wakes you up by calling your name.

"It's happening again, " Mother lets out a shaky breath, "It's happening." The light from the moon shines on Mother in such a way that she looks more aged and tired than you last remember.

This isn't the first time it's happened. It started the night right after Brother checks into the hospital and the blade. You wake up all confused just standing there. Right before the sword.

She's mounted right up there, paper seals littering the outside of her wooden sheathe. And she sings, just like how she's singing now. Like she's calling out to you. To reach forward. To touch her.

Mother puts both her eyes around you and embraces you in tight hug. The one time she shows you motherly affection is after she made it sound like you were going to die. It's ironic.

"She's going to choose you. Of course she is. You're the only one left." Mother whispers under her breath. You aren't sure if she is talking to you or to herself.

"What's going to happen to me...?" All you could do is narrow your eyes into small slits, they were burning.. The helpless feeling from before bubbles up in your throat. You didn't have a choice then and you didn't have a choice now. There is never one, you realize that only now. For you, choice was always an illusion. Mother sits you down to tell you everything. And you are in for a long night. Finally you know why Mother and Brother both refer to the sword as Her.

                                                           ____

You’re the last one to arrive in your class, with a large, white sword that’s way too big for you. The moment you enter the classroom, all eyes are on you. Ino sits at the middle-top row, mouthing angrily at you about 'Sasuke' something, something. Shikamaru and Choji are beside her. The Nara boy mouths something else at you, then shakes his head angrily before signing and gesturing at you with hasty hand motions. Talk later. Important.

Shikamaru had caved in and just learnt sign-language from his father because he was tired of whenever you weave your fingers in signs when you're angry and you didn't want to talk.

​​​​​​Choji just nods and gestures as if to say, what he said. The long talk from Mother still weighs heavily in your head so you just nod at their direction and you just slide into the nearest seat. Which happens to be in between Naruto and Inuzuka Kiba. Kiba wolf-whistles as you slide past, "Heyyyy Mousey, lookin' good." Akamaru, his dog, barks in affirmation. You choke audibly as your eyes widen. You are ten. He is ten. Everyone is ten. How on earth did he think that wolf-whistling a little girl is appropriate?! Granted that he is a dog boy, but that doesn't mean he has to behave like one. A blush rises to your cheeks as you hasten your movements. Naruto just greets you with a loud smile and wave. How can a smile be so loud? But that's just Naruto, everything about him is loud. Like his orange jumpsuit. "I meant your sword! Your sword!" Kiba emphasizes on the sword part in a whisper-shout and gestures at the blade by your hip, then turning away to the shy-looking girl beside him to chatter away, with a hint of pink on his cheeks. You just settle into your seat and ignore the two noisy boys beside you, one of them is trying to get your attention. Naruto chatters on about his dream of becoming the Hokage, which you doubt at this point, but you hold your tongue. Just smiling and nodding when appropriate. You don't think Naruto notices that you are kinda zoning out at this point.

You feel sorry that you aren't listening to the Uzumaki boy as much but you needed to think about the things that Mother finally revealed to you about the sword. which is yours now. Her weight is heavy by your waist, but you'll grow into her soon. The Uchiha boy sitting in front of you just smirks audibly with a loud heh. You know this is his way of laughing at you.

Iruka-sensei steps into the classroom five minutes later and begins his lesson. You sneak Akamaru a few pets before concentrating your focus on Iruka's particularly interesting lecture about chakra transformation.

[hazusreaderinserts]

Legacy [Naruto Reader-Insert]

You’re a definitely Yamanaka, aren’t you?

Family and Village secrets run rampant. All you wanna do is survive long enough to see Naruto become Hokage and to find out who you really are.

[Fem! Reader x Various]

Warnings: Long plot, Slow-burn, the slowest of the burns.

Crossposted on Wattpad and Quotev Masterlist

Chapter 6 [STS Arc Ends]

Ino worries about you. You were quiet lately, talking only when spoken to. Father seemed worried about you too. He would ask her about you and why you seemed more out of it compared to your usual drive to improve your skills.

 Ino didn't know that father was watching you closely. Father seems indifferent when you visit him in her home.

 Anyways, you didn't even boast about how you can visit Sasuke freely without consequence?

 It is definitely not something the normal you would pass up to do. You'd usually bait her with a couple of items you nicked from Sasuke's room so that she wouldn't stay angry at you. But zilch. Nada. Nothing.

"Ne, Shikamaru, Choji." She half-whispers to her cohorts sitting with her at the back of Iruka-sensei’s lectures about chakra and chakra points. Ino has learnt this back at home with some supplementary teamwork classes with the boys. Their fathers had been a team before them and they are going to be the next generation of Ino-Shika-Cho.

"Don't you think something is up with her lately?" She looks at the back of your head. You currently have an unfocused expression on your face, from what Ino could see. Like, you were looking at Iruka-sensei speak, but not really looking at him.

Both the boys know that she is talking about you.

 Shikamaru doesn't lift his head from the comfortable position he had in the nook of one of his folded arms. He shuffles closer to Ino's side instead, "Women are so troublesome. I dunno, maybe she confessed to Sasuke and he turned her down, brutally." He touches Ino's elbow with his own. You haven't been coming over to pester him about shogi for a couple of months. While not unusual, it had been alarming.

 He'll never say it but yes, he did indeed miss the girl you used to be before all this happened. He doesn't know what this is but he'd find out.

 From a few rows down, Sasuke shuffles closer to the edge of the bench.

 "No," Choji disagrees, popping a chip into his mouth, "She likes Itachi. Remember the time after the Festival? The part where she ambushed us after in your room and started gushing about how handsome he is?"

 Sasuke straightens his back and moves back to his original position. Naruto notices the moving and turns around to make faces at the Uchiha boy.

 Ino harrumphs at this point, "Yeah, she better not be stealing Sasuke away from me." She lets out a big sigh, well as big as she can without alerting Iruka-sensei that they're not paying attention to him.

 Shikamaru's knuckles pop at the mention of Sasuke from Ino.

 Sasuke and Naruto are already engaging in an all-out tussle in front of them. Naruto probably goaded Sasuke into a fight, the Nara boy deduces. His head is still down, but he could hear the confrontation go down.

 Shikamaru isn't annoyed at their audible rivalry, however he thinks that they should pick a better place to do this.

 "HORA, Naruto! Don't fight in my class!" The chalk flies from Iruka-sensei's hands so fast that it made an imprint on Naruto's forehead. The whole class sniggers and laughs at the Uzumaki's expense.

 Shikamaru visualises Sasuke with that god-awful smug grin of his and it took every bone in his body not to stand up and sock him right then and there.

                                                           ____ 

"Your performance in class has been slipping recently, "Iruka gently calls out your name. Your focus in class dropped and you didn't feel like you were altogether present when he was teaching. 

 The look in your eyes is something that he recognizes. He remembers looking like that when he looked into the mirror after his parents died. His fists tighten in his lap. 

 You just felt grim. And tired. Nothing is exciting to you anymore. You haven't eaten more than a handful of rice. You haven't been training as usual. Your grades are suffering and you don't know how they've managed to stay afloat even without much effort. Your hair is messy and unkempt and you barely paid attention to your personal hygiene, only dumping your body in the bath every couple of days.

 You intercepted Shisui's suicide report from one of the Uchiha's messenger crows by accident a couple of days after that meeting and it broke you.  

Suicide. It was suicide. They found a letter. He said somebody was going to kill him. Did he lie about his own death? That's not possible. Shisui had no tells. But then again you couldn't tell if he lied to you. Not then, not ever. Liar.

 It had been... how many months since?

 Oh, three- no, four months since. Time just passes by and you aren't in the right state of mind to keep track of menial things like those anymore. You remember the feeling in your heart when you got the report like it was yesterday. Your mind has been reliving the memory like it was your lifeline to whatever connection you had left to him.

 You remember the one sentence that you thought of repeatedly like a mantra in your mind;

 I want to die.

 The warmth of Iruka's hand on your shoulder brought you back to the present. His hands were just as big as your brothers'. Like Shisui's. You wonder if you were looking for a father figure to replace the void in your heart. The bile at the back of your throat threatens to rise. You stare into your sensei's eyes.

 His eyes were a nice shade of chestnut brown, almost golden under the rays of the afternoon sun and you've noticed this ever since the first time he herds your entire class to the training grounds outside on a particularly bright afternoon. And something hits you.

 Eyes. Black eyes. Black like the midnight sky. Sky. Moon. Red Moon. 

Itachi.

 "Thank you for your concern Iruka-sensei, but I have to go." Your body shot up from the chair. You scrounge up as much chakra as you can and shunshin halfway across the village.

 "Wait, I still have something to sa-" Iruka doesn't get to finish his sentence before your form disappears from the classroom.

                                                         ____  

Shisui's shunshin is vastly different from the normal shunshin that you know. Brother's shunshin technique felt much different too.

 It feels like your entire body is tugged forward by a large rope twisted around yout torso. A chakra rope. The sensation made your coils itch like a thousand mosquito bites. It was a mishmash of colours from the scenery again. Greenblueredgreenblueredgreenblueredbeigebeigebeige. And you land where you needed to be.

The strain of chakra overuse makes your insides burn. 

 A dango shop in one of the dingy alleyways of Konoha. Itachi is in there, sitting with people whom you assume to be his friends, and his girlfriend? They look close but you are a kunoichi on a mission. You don't care whether you interrupt their date or not.

 You storm your little body into the shop as scary as a seven year old can be and drag Itachi out. The sudden rush of adrenaline through your system gave you the push you needed for that act of bravado. You have to know. No, you need to know the truth.

 You ask him, and he denies everything.

 His features look strained. And there was that look in his face that made you think that he was lying. Raised eyebrows that stayed raised a tad bit too long. Black pools for eyes that reflected something else longer than it needed to.

Itachi is a polite boy. A nice boy. His nice and polite attitude creates a wall of distance. He is a nice, polite, emotionally distant boy with pretty, pretty eyes and no tells or weak spots at all when it comes to his mask, when he lies to Sasuke about not being able to spend time with him, when he lies about not knowing what happened with Shisui.

 But today he does.

 There is a crack in his mask and you needed to know why.

                                                           ____

Bodies in black, blue and gray are strewn across the courtyard and the floor is dyed crimson red with blood. Sable struggles to keep himself from vomiting inside of his mask. It'd be a dick to wash out. The grisly sight before him doesn't really sit well in his stomach. What happened here?

 Some buildings are up in flames while others were beginning to crumble from the holes and cracks in their walls. 

 Only one phrase could describe the carnage before him; it is a massacre. Who did this? Who had the capacity to murder all these people who didn't fight back.

 They didn't fight back. None of the blood splatters on the floor suggest a struggle happening, or a scuffle, or a fight. It is like whoever did this just plainly slide their sword between their rib-cages, across their throats into their clavicles without them knowing.

 Or they willingly walked into the blade.

How did they wipe out the Konoha Military Police force too?

 He feels his chakra tingling in his coils. His joints pop as his muscles tense into action. Sable's body, black cloak, sword and all moves before he hears the soft tachikaze from the blade behind him. he jumps and lands on the grass, one knee and hand on the ground, a couple of meters behind.

 A familiar boy with a low ponytail and a ninjato in his hand. The mist that hangs in the air obscures his face. It makes his red eyes look terrifying. But the expression on his face. It's not what he expects it to be. His sharingan tomoe circles around his irises in a slow and hypnotizing pace.

 The boy pauses where he stands. A long moment passes and the grass crunches beneath his feet, the sound slow and drawn out.  Another step. Crunch. And another. Crunch. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Crunchcrunchcrunchcrunch. Then there are no more crunches, only a sharp whistling of a blade in the air.

 Sable's fingers circle around the hilt of the sword on his side. His breath growing ragged from the lack of chakra in his reserves. He just got back from a mission outside Konoha and he'd have taken a soldier pill or something if he knew he was going to fight Uchiha Itachi, the Uchiha Prodigy, Weasel.

 His colleague. The person he trusted his kid sister with. Youngest person to have made ANBU commander at 13.

 Overuse of his sword has consumed most of his life force and he is now on his last legs. Any more and she will consume him.

 He feels the grooves between the roughness of the cord-string on the hilt, he feels how heavy the weight of the sword is in his hands and he hears the metal of his blade singing as he pulls it out of the sheath with a practiced swing.

Both of their blades clash and a bright ray of chakra shoots up into the sky with an ear-crackling boom.

 The shockwave that soon follows blows the rubble away from beneath him. The last thing Sable knows is Itachi's feet approaching him slowly, and the rain droplets falling onto his half-closed eyelids before he falls unconscious.

                                                         ____

 Naruto gasps as he sees the bright light go up into the sky. He was alone at his dingy apartment when he saw it. His first thought is that they were getting attacked. His second, is that the light is breathtakingly beautiful. The mist that came with the rain dimmed the light a little. His little potted plants by the windowsill will be happy with the moisture.

 The light looks familiar. Like something he was really fond of a long, long time ago. Something in him moves and he feels happy? The emotion that he feels... It's a comfort that he's never felt before. 

 Naruto wonders what that light is.

                                                         ____

 Hound shunshins towards the Uchiha district, where Sable is, as fast as he can. A trail of leaves in his wake. His body blurs past the buildings and the forest until he reaches the unmoving body of his ward. He is too late. Sable lies there in the middle of the dead bodies, a dark red wound in his stomach. It's almost invisible against the black cloak they all wear.

 Not again. Not another comrade. He can't save Sable like how he couldn't save him.  

His heart pounds in his chest. Thud. Thud. Thud. Flashbacks of the Third Shinobi War plays in his head over and over and over again. His breath hitches in his throat. He hears a ringing in his ears and-

 A puff of air slips from between the cracks of Sable's mask and a large wave of relief surges through Hound's body like a tsunami of the new Icha Icha books in his room. Hound presses his bare fingers on Sable's neck and he feels a pulse. He cradles his arm under Sable's neck and lifts him up in a princess-carry. Hound is sure that you will use this as blackmail if you saw them like that.

He is lucky that you aren't there.

 Sable's whole hand hangs loosely by his body but the sword in his hand sticks to his palm and doesn't fall off. Even if his fingers were not fully on the hilt.

 Hound feels his shinobi training kicking in and his emotions subside. He has to find who did this. And he needs to find them. Fast.

[hazusreaderinserts]

Legacy [Naruto Reader-Insert]

You’re definitely a Yamanaka, aren’t you?

Family and Village secrets run rampant. All you wanna do is survive long enough to see Naruto become Hokage and to find out who you really are.

[Fem! Reader x Various]

Warnings: Long Plot, Slow-burn, the slowest of burns

Crossposted on Wattpad and Quotev Masterlist

Chapter 5

You quickly walk through the narrow roads to the Uchiha compound. The journey was long and winding but it didn't stop the enthusiasm that you had about the visit. Despite being one of the biggest clans in Konoha, their main residence was much more further away compared to the other big clans. 

But the strange thing is that their clan compound is close to the outer edges of Konoha. Normally all the big clan's would be stuck near the inner circle but not the Uchiha.

The Uchiha Clan is huge. Bigger than your own. You had heard of the stories that they tell of the clan, how it produces elite shinobi, generation after generation. The Hyuuga clan comes a close contender to the Uchiha, but they will insist that they're better. It's all subjective, really. The Byakugan makes it easier to track and figure out enemy weak spots while the Sharingan makes it easier to perceive your enemies' movements? You don't know. You'll check it out in depth later.

You feel jealous. You would have preferred being born in such a clan with a powerful kekkei-genkai. But you play with the cards you were dealt and you didn't get a good draw. You had read about Uchiha Shisui and Uchiha Itachi in a couple of the Intel reports (that were definitely not for you to read) and mission logs stored in your clan's private library. Relics of the Third Shinobi War. The reports, you mean, not the boys.

They are prodigies. One of the elite. Elite even among the elites. E with a capital letter.

Shisui is famous for his shunshin. A war vet. He is said to be so proficient in his technique that it became his title in the bingo books. The reports you read also mentions that his shunshin is so fast that he could produce solid afterimages that he used like shadow clones. He is almost as fast as the Fourth.

Itachi is a war vet too. Experienced war in the front lines at four. Proficient in almost all categories and graduated the first year of academy four months after enrollment at the top of his class. Intelligent and strong, with the experience to prove it.

How is that fair? Facts say Uchiha are genetically superior.

You have always wanted to learn Shunshin to that level of proficiency. And you do. Courtesy of Shisui.

You ambush him on your first visit. He was coincidentally at Itachi's house at the time, just a quick visit to drop off some equipment for him. You take advantage of his kind and trusting nature and he eventually agrees to train you in shunshin techniques, some genjutsu and the basics in kenjutsu. 

You didn't know that he only agreed to teach you because you were persistent. Persistent to the point of using petty manipulation tactics that he is sure is too advanced for a seven year old like you. He's taking a really big gamble, to train you like this.

 The both of you meet after your classes and if he was free for a couple of hours on a daily basis for training.

 Itachi joined the both of you once and you saw them spar against each other. It was safe to say that you were lucky that they were both shinobi of Konoha. You would have been obliterated in a couple of seconds. They moved faster than your eyes could follow and performed feats beyond your wildest imaginations.

This was your fourth-no, fifth time visiting them since these couple of weeks were really busy for Brother and Mother. 

Mother is attending a series of medical jutsu conventions where the heads of all the hospitals in the Land of Fire come together to compare notes about any recent findings or research and the such. They are held on a bi-annual basis.

Having Mother away from home was normal for you. She hasn't been home for longer than three months since your seventh birthday.

Brother is sent to many long missions consecutively. He gets back, rests for barely a day or so, then gets shipped off with Hound, the person that brought him back that time he was drunk. He doesn't tell you Hound's real name of course. ANBU protocol.

Brother doesn't seem to like him that much anymore after all those missions.

No rest for the wicked, Brother says. 

There seems to be some disturbance within the political powers of Konoha itself. Some whispers here and there from the adults in your clan, and you only had the vaguest of information.

But you know for sure that waves of unrest will hit Konoha soon. The Uchiha are starting to grow discontent.

The Uzumaki kid wasn't the the most talked about in town anymore.

Regarding Uzumaki Naruto. To you, he seems like a kid who is looking for attention in the worst ways possible. He pulled pranks on almost all the Sensei, pulled pranks on the Academy principal and you even heard about the time where he pranked the Hokage. You had doubts about the latter, but you don't put it past him to try.

You don't talk to him much but you knew that Shikamaru and Choji invites him to hang out and play ninja with them on occasion. The sight of the Uchiha gates breaks you out of your thoughts. Your lips curl into a smile. You are pretty excited to be here despite the fact that Sasuke hangs around and is generally being a pest. You know that he hates that his brother showed you courtesy since you were his senpai's kid sister. He has a pretty big brother-complex in your eyes, and nothing could change your perception of him.

 You have every intention of teasing him with it in class later.

Class ended pretty fast and you skipped Kunoichi lessons for like the nth time today. Ah well, you'll just tell Ino that you were at Sasuke's house and give her something to squeal about.

You put away your slippers by the porch and made your way further inside, past the dinner table and living room.

" ... A hazard to Konoha and her people.. "

You strain your ears at the sound of a voice but you only manage to catch some words. The doors were thin. Paper thin.

" Father, Hokage-sama let them in for a reason, " A more youthful voice protests. A boy. He continues, "They're in the care of Konoha's best. You shouldn't talk about them that way."

Your throat becomes drier than the dunes of Suna. Were they talking about what you think they were?

 You push closer to the shoji door, as close as you could get without creaking the floorboards that will alert them to your presence. You strain your ears, they don't seem to be talking as loudly anymore.

 " The sword is a wild card and should not be in here with us. The demon child is bad enou-"

 A hand clamps down hard on your shoulder, shocking you out of the focused state that you needed to be in to hear the rest of the conversation. You almost let out a scream. Your heart jumps and you had to will yourself not to make a sound. Both of your hands clamp over your mouth to not make a sound. The skin around the surface of your skin crackles with static as you feel your chakra coils twist and tighten within you.

 Please don't be Sasuke. Please don't be Sasuke. Sasuke will tell on you. Please, please don't be Sasuke.

 You pray to whatever god above that this wouldn't get you into trouble. An odd feeling in your stomach makes you feel like you need to throw up. You don't think you prayed for your life as much as this moment. The idea of being caught eavesdropping in the Uchiha house makes you feel very unsafe.

 The hallway is dark, but you recognize the eyeliner on his eyelids anywhere. A sigh of relief that you didn't know that you were holding escapes from between your lips.

 Bright red eyes stare back at you, his hand still firmly around your right shoulder. The smile dancing on his lips contrasts the hard look he has in his eyes. Hurt festers in your chest when you realize that he has his Sharingan out.

 He places a finger to his lips and single-handedly signs in a language that you didn't recognize. He signs again when you don't respond. The conversation happening behind the paper door dulls. The loud thumping in your heart drowns everything else down. You couldn't hear anything else between the sound of your heart beating against your rib cage and his slow breathing.

 He furrows his eyebrows in annoyance when you realize that you couldn't understand what he is saying and tries again. This time in a language that you do recognize. 

 Hostile? Objective? Shisui gestures with both of his hands faster than your eyes could see under the dim lighting, but you could deduce what he wants to ask you. A language that was developed in the Third War. Brother had taught this to you when you were young. Well, younger than now.

 He is suspicious of you.

 You don't blame him. A stranger enters your household with your best friend and demands you, a famous shinobi, to teach them your strongest non-kekkei-genkai jutsu and you catch them snooping around in said best friend's home. You yourself would be pissed.

 Area. Clear. Canvassing surroundings. Friendly. You fumble a bit with your fingers because of your nervousness but you hope that he can make out what you are trying to say. He searches your eyes for ill-will or anything other than fear but finds none.

 The shoji door shakes and slides open. Shisui drags your body into his arms and shunshin away.  The world melts before your eyes and the colours seem to blur together in a mishmash of blobs. The scenery stabilises and your feet touch the ground. Shisui lets go and you drop to your knees, clutching at the grassy greens beneath your palms. Your pupils were shaking, and it wasn't because of the speed.

 The killing intent that was coming off Shisui made your coils go out of whack. You couldn't get up.

 "You know there's a time and place for everything right, little mouse?" He kneels down on one knee and taps your forehead with his fingers.

 Your pupils were still shaking. Scared. Scared. So scared. Your body doesn't want to obey you. Your arms and back tenses up as you dry heave onto the grass. It was mostly bile, you haven't eaten for the day. Shisui lifts your chin up with a finger and looks into your eyes.

 You don't resist. You couldn't.

 He dispels the genjutsu that you are under and your body sends you a meter away. You reach for the kunai that you hid under your skirt and hold it in front of you in a defensive kata. It was an immediate reaction. Your legs react as soon as you regain control over your physique.

 Your eyes are trained to his figure and he doesn't seem to be following up with an attack.

 Shisui looks at you with a proud expression on his face. You blink twice to check that your eyes weren't playing tricks on you. He shunshins again, closing the gap between the both of you. This time you appreciate the hours and love he put into his famed technique. From the time he used his jutsu, you didn't see him move, only the after-image of his body was left behind. Before you close your eyes to blink. he is standing before you.

 If he were an enemy. Your life would have ended even before you saw him move.

 "You could've killed me." You admit.

 Shisui laughs and places an affectionate hand on your head, "It's good that you can discern your opponent's strength. But next time do something about your chakra when you wanna eavesdrop. It's different from everyone else's you see. Consider this your last lesson."

 You swallow and look towards your feet. What did he mean that your chakra is different? Was it a hint? A warning? But most importantly, what did he mean by last?

 Your chakra control is meager at this point, nobody had taught you how to use any jutsu yet so you didn't see the point of training. You lack knowledge about chakra. Did that mean sensors could sense you no matter where you are in the village? It would make sense. Nobody seemed to care when you didn't turn up for certain classes. Now you know why.

 The fact that you were lacking in so many ways burned bitterly into your brain.

 Both of Shisui's palms cup your cheeks and forces you to meet his gaze. "I'm going to tell you this only once, got it?" He says under his breath, like he was speaking to an accomplice about something that he is plotting. You nod as much as you can in his firm grip. He brings his lips to your right ear and whispers.

 "I'm going to die soon. Someone is going to take my life."

 You grip his wrists. No, you can't let it happen. You can't afford him dying. Was these few months that he had been training you, a waste?

 People don't just tell you that they were going to die out of nowhere. There has to be a reason. Was this a trick? A test? Was he testing you? Your will? Your abilities? To check if you could be trusted with his secrets?

 Someone, he says. Who is this someone? Someone from his clan? Someone close? Someone from higher up?

 "I know that look, little mouse. " Shisui murmurs your nickname dearly. He has never used this intimate tone before. "This can't be helped, I can't change my fate and the fate of my clan. " Emotion swims in his black, black eyes and you feel a knot forming in your throat. His tone is so soft. And so sad.

 "Don't go." You manage to choke out a few words from your uncooperative larynx. "Don't leave me." Your heart feels desolate. Desolate like an empty vessel in a large expanse of water, unable to be filled.

 Shisui shushes you with a finger to your lips. "I'm going to give you something as a farewell gift, okay?" He studies your features closely and adds, "I'll miss you." Like any gift could heal your heart of what was going to happen.

 You sense chakra flaring from him and you see pinwheels in his red eyes. He allows you a moment to take in the situation.

 "Goodbye."

 A gentle brush against your forehead and he is gone.

 The youngest Uchiha boy finds you staring into space with a vacant expression in one of the fields he and Itachi frequent. He furrows his eyebrows as he looks at your curled up form, squatting by the side of a particularly gravelly part of the road. You looked small. Even smaller than usual. Smaller than your nickname reminds him of.

 "Hey, what's wrong?" Sasuke says, after a long silence. He stuffs his arms in his pockets and adjusted his weight to his other leg. He doesn't really know what to do with a girl who seems like she is upset. 

 You wipe your face with the hem of your haori and turn around. Sasuke could see the puffiness of your eyes. He wasn't dumb. He knew you were crying.

 You bite your lower lip, contemplating whether to tell him or not. This is his clan business, he should have the right to know. But you don't think he will believe you. It was Shisui's word against yours and Shisui would win.

 Sasuke's eyes pierces into you. Something in you snaps, and you run. Run as fast as your stubby little legs could carry you. The Uchiha boy says nothing as he follows your figure into the distance with his eyes.

 The sun has set and the cawing crows are echoing in your ears. Like they were laughing at you.

 You go back to an empty home crying your eyes out, as much as your shinobi pride will let you. Regardless of what he said, Shisui has made it clear that he didn't want to see you anymore.

 That night, you dream of Shisui.

 His hair is dark and shaggy like you remember. It had only been less than a day but you want to forget. Forget everything. And just pretend like he never existed. Like he never taught you in the first place. It had been pure luck that he had agreed in the first place. Manipulation was not your forte but you like using it to get what you want.

 ForgetforgetIwanttoforgetgoawaygoawayyoudontmatter.

 The moon is bright and it lights up Konoha's dark streets and he is there by your wooden windowsill. Eyes, well, eye hard and red, red like the blood moon. His left eye is hollow and empty. Just darkness. The way he carries his left hand makes you think he is holding something.

 Shisui is by your bed now. His body looming over yours. His fingers dig deep into your left eye-socket and you let out a blood curdling scream.

 You wake up to nothing of course. Shisui isn't there. Nobody is. Your room is empty. No tracks. No sign of anybody being in here. It is just you, your futon and your sparsely decorated desk by your window. A bitter laugh escapes your lips. Of course you dream of him. You miss him. It's a given. You didn't expect it to be a nightmare though.

 You press your fingers to your cheeks. It's damp.

[hazusreaderinserts]

Legacy [Naruto Reader-Insert]

You’re definitely a Yamanaka, aren’t you?

Family and Village secrets run rampant. All you wanna do is survive long enough to see Naruto become Hokage and to find out who you really are.

[Fem! Reader x Various]

Warnings: Long Plot, Slow-burn, the slowest of the burns.

Crossposted on Wattpad and Quotev Masterlist

Chapter 4

The 'Deer Festival', as the civs of Konoha affectionately dubs. It was one of the biggest yearly celebrations of Konoha. Every other clan in Konoha had their own tradition. The Uchiha clan had their 'Festival of Fans', a summer event that you subtly think was a ploy to increase their clan income.

The Deer Festival is a festival that is held every year at the Nara compound to celebrate the arrival of the Takemikazuchi-no-Mikoto. A great god that was thought to have descended from the heavens with a pure white deer as his steed.

You also know of another, more recent myth; If you spot the White Deer, you'd be destined for great things. And if you and your significant other manage to catch a glimpse...

You know how it goes.

At dusk, all of the villagers gather in front of the Hokage Mountain and a grand procession (which all the men in the Nara clan would have to take part in) will lead them towards the Nara compound (which would be set up with stalls that sells various things like food and other relevant goods) where some religious rites will be performed.

The festival ends when dawn breaks.

The Yamanaka and Akimichi clan members show up, of course. All the clans do.  Akimichi sold food. Yamanaka sold drinks and various corsages of the botanical variety. Uchiha sold round paper fans in various designs, in homage to the origins of their name. The Aburame usually have several vendors dedicated to their love of bugs and the Inuzuka preferred selling goods of the animal variety. Other clans joined in the fun too, but this year there didn't seem to be many.

Brother stands beside you with you in a plain black yukata with a beige haori, draped over his shoulders. His ninjato, which he carries around in his normal shinobi clothing, was tucked neatly into his sash.

"She's a jealous one, she never leaves once she gets a hold of you. " He says with a smile when you ask, earning him a look of extreme doubt. It's a sword. Swords don't have emotions. His smile doesn't reach his eyes. Brother only smiles like that when he wants to deflect the situation. Or if he's lying. You don't know which of the two is his reason.

But you couldn't deny that it was beautiful in both craftsmanship and make. The handle is long and narrow, and the cord wrap looked worn. It was dusty and faded, like it had seen many battles which it probably had. The blade itself is taller than you. It was an heirloom from Mother's side of the family and Brother had been the one to wield it when he came of age. He was 10 when the sword chose him.

You spot the carving of a great white serpent etched on the sword's guard and the eight-pronged star gilded on the pommel. You don't notice them until now. 

Brother wasn't home very often and that meant the sword wasn't around much for you to examine at your leisure.

You were wearing a luxurious yukata in your favourite colour with little purple bush-clovers as a pattern. Bush-clovers are your clan's representative flower, so you deem it was appropriate to wear as a member of the Yamanaka clan.

Mother was quite reluctant to attend, giving the excuse that she 'didn't like the hustle and bustle of a loud and noisy celebration'. She has used other variations of this excuse in the past so you asked Brother instead.

You stand within the throng of people watching the procession approaching the gates of the Nara compound. There are many people in yukata and haori, and you spot a couple of them were wearing their corresponding clan's traditional clothing.

The atmosphere is festive and the night sky is already lit by a couple of firecrackers. Jingles of the kagurasuzu and the reverberating beats of the taiko drum fill the air in a harmonious symphony. It is loud and you could feel the sound of each beat vibrating through your body. It is almost hypnotic, and it definitely helped make the mood.

As the procession reaches the final stages, you caught sight of a very familiar black-haired, ponytailed boy dressed in the traditional clothing of his clan, waving his hands and dancing to the likeness of a deer among the others who were doing the same.

You greet him with a shit-eating grin on your face when you caught his eye. You imitate the move that he was doing and gave him a thumbs up with a dramatic flourish. This is totally going to embarrass him.

Shikamaru sticks his tongue out, made a face and mouthed some words at you before leaping into the air with grace as part of his dance.

You giggle. You didn't need to know how to lip read to know what he had said to you.

The dance wasn't funny or silly at all. It was beautiful. Ethereal even. You only tease him because his reactions amused you.

The procession comes to an end, and the festival finally begins.

Lanterns are everywhere on the main road and various vendors advertising loudly for their goods. You saw a couple of vendors selling candy apples and other sweets further away.

You haven't seen Ino and Choji yet but you know they are around. Ino is probably running the flower stall with Father, and some other members of the clan, and Choji was probably running a small Yakiniku booth at the end of the road with his.

Brother slips his fingers into yours and leads you down the road towards the sweets. His hand are large. Much bigger than your own by at least three-fold. He makes you feel warm and safe.

You look up at him to observe his profile. You think he is subjectively handsome but maybe others think otherwise. He has narrow eyes that were the colour of amber under the afternoon sun and a slim but prominent jawline. He usually wore his hair short. The snowy streaks on the tips of his hair were now reaching his scalp.

It wasn't there before. How long has it been since it got that bad? When did it start showin-

You break your gaze and blink when Brother runs a finger over your knuckles.

"What are you looking at, little mouse? " He says with a hint of a lilt in his voice, his eyes glittering half-moons as he looks at you, " Your brother too handsome for you?"

You shelf your concern away and shake his hand, hard, throwing him off-balance. He laughs and so do you. You felt pleased that he was enjoying himself.

You feel that he plays the part of a friend, a confidant, a mother, a father, a mentor and a brother. Sometimes a mixture of the above and sometimes all at once. He basically raised you. Between a mother who is never home long enough for you to make a parental connection to and a father who never has time to talk or to check up on how your lessons were going, never giving you the time of day when you try to talk to him, brother is the only one who cares enough to be all those things for you

But today he's playing the part of a brother. And you're happy with that since he's enjoying himself.

Brother halts to a sudden stop when you bump into someone else.

"Oh, it's you." 

You narrow your eyes and give the person who spoke the stink eye. Sasuke clearly sounds like he is annoyed by the sight of you.

Of course it's your luck to bump into the person you consider your rival today.

Brother smiles and lifts up his other arm to wave at the person beside the younger Uchiha, " Didn't expect to see you here with your brother, Itachi-kun."

Ah, so he knew Sasuke and his brother then.

"Hakunetsu-san, what a surprise. " A modest voice comes out from the older Uchiha as he returns Brother's smile with his own.

He looks like Sasuke, but with a hint of visible tear lines. His hair was in a low ponytail and he had a parted fringe. Brother's features were more masculine than his. But his eyes. His eyes reminds you of the dark sky after the setting sun. Black, like the sky when the moon rises. 

His eyes pierces you like how his smile pierces your heart. Your instinct tells you that he is a dangerous man. A dangerous man with pretty, pretty eyes.

And maybe you have a crush on him.

You stare at his general direction with a vacant look as Brother exchanges pleasantries with him and some other words.

Sasuke just looks at the ground with discernible impatience as he held onto Itachi's hand. He doesn't get that much time with his brother so he just wants to just move on already.

" That's fine, we can look after her when you're away. The least I can do for a senpai. " Itachi says, still smiling.

" You're doing me a big favor! Thanks. You'll see her in a couple of days." Brother then gives your hand a few squeezes, "Say 'thank you' to Itachi-nii will you?"

You and Sasuke share the same wide-eyed look. No. No. NO!

"T-th-thank you, Itachi-nii, " You stumble on your words and you sport an embarrassed look on your face as your cheeks turn pink.

The younger Uchiha boy frowns and aims a kick at your leg when the older boys weren't watching. He misses.

Itachi directs a kind smile at you, "It was nice meeting you. We'll see you in a few days."

You feel your heartbeat quicken for a second.

You also don't forget to give Sasuke a nice, fat finger when Itachi looks away. Brother chuckles under his breath when he sees your hand making rude gestures to his colleague's little brother from the corner of his eye. The offended look on Sasuke's face almost makes you forget how childishly your brother had treated you.

Four of you say your goodbyes and walked toward opposite directions.

The bad mood that Sasuke put you in made you want to go find Shikamaru. You tell Brother that you'd be right back and you dash as fast as you could to the Nara's main house. You are confident that the Nara boy would be there, hiding from the other festival attendees after the earlier incident.

As you whiz down the road, you spot a shimmer of white antlers behind some bushes from the corner of your eyes. 

You blink, but it was gone before you could make sure you saw what you did.

[hazusreaderinserts]

Legacy [Naruto Reader-Insert]

You’re definitely a Yamanaka, aren’t you?

Family and Village secrets run rampant. All you wanna do is survive long enough to see Naruto become Hokage and to find out who you really are.

[Fem! Reader x Various]

Warnings: Long plot, Slow-burn, the slowest of the burns.

Crossposted on Wattpad and Quotev. Masterlist

Chapter 3

You clench your fists and put them both forward ahead of you, body tense and eyes sharp. Your eyes never left Sasuke's form as he sweeps his arms into position of the basic Uchiha taijutsu kata. With a lowered center of gravity and legs firmly planted into the ground, your right leg further in front of your left.

You wait for Sasuke's first move.

He smirks. Dashing forward towards you, his hand going for your jugular. Sasuke is moving so fast that your eyes could barely catch up.

A strangled, choking sound escapes you as his fingers scrapes by the side of your neck, his nails sliding across the surface of your skin. He almost had your throat in his death grip. You'd seen a couple of older Uchiha boys in the academy using their clan taijutsu, and you knew they favored this move.

Shit, that hurts. You thrust your body backwards into a flip as you move to dodge his attack.

Thwack! The bottom of your feet smacked into some resistance and you kicked for an extra measure. Yes! You scored a hit!

Your victory is cut short.

Before you can steady yourself as touch the ground and revel in your success, all you could see was a streak of black. He kicks your feet from under you.

And the next thing you know, you’re on the ground with Sasuke above you, his fingers digging painfully into your shoulder as he holds you down from behind.

"Tch," You click your tongue and clench your fist. Your eyes felt prickly. And hot. You’re disappointed in yourself.

Cheers bursts from the female members of your class.

The weight on your body moves.

You stay on the ground, face first and body unmoving.

"Okay, you can get up now, " Iruka-sensei's voice is gentle and comforting. You knew he was referring to you, since Sasuke was already up.

Your eyes were still hot.

"Come on, get up."

Sasuke's voice echoes in your ears and you feel the disappointment all over again. His fingers circle around your wrist, dragging you up with a firm grip.

His hand was really warm.

You blink back your tears, hoping that they don't show.

"Sasuke's the winner this time! " Iruka-sensei announces and Sasuke's fangirls go wild. "Don't worry about it, " Your sensei comforts you with a small smile and a pat on the shoulder, "You can get him next time."

You can tell that your sensei saw some improvement with your skills. It isn't enough.

"You've gotten better, Mouse, " Sasuke says. He lets go off your wrist and extends two fingers towards you. His dark eyes reveals his triumphant attitude, even if his face remains passive. You are painfully aware of the condescending tone he uses when he calls you by your nickname.

His family would be proud of him after he retells the story of what happened during class today. And it shows on his face.

The burning in your heart hurt and it irked you. You feel bitter. He’s better than you in almost everything. Taijutsu, Ninjutsu, Shurikenjutsu. Your only strengths against him at this point was that you were faster and more agile. You also could hold your own in a bukijutsu spar.

You reluctantly hook your fingers with his and made the seal of reconciliation. His eyes meet yours and you meet his with your own narrow ones.

The corner of Sasuke's lips curl into a smile. It made it seem like he was patronizing you, that he was far more superior. He isn't wrong.

The burning feeling in your heart jumps to your throat. Your neck now felt stiff and your shoulders tensed up.

"Oh wow, Sasuke-kun's so cool, "Ino squeals, nudging your side with her elbow. She really likes him and you mean, really, really likes him. You notice that she’s dressed up pretty well today, probably hoping to catch Sasuke's eye.

You held your silence and moved closer to Shikamaru, sulking as he gives you an awkward pat to the back. You lean your body to his and your shoulders touches.

He was smart enough to know that expression on your face. So he lets you.

"How troublesome, " Shikamaru says, with a customary eyeroll and a complaint, one hand touching the back of his neck. He isn't very good at dealing with girls and their moods, courtesy of his mom and Ino. He tolerates it, at best.

But it isn't like that either when it came to the blonde-haired and blue-eyed Yamanaka girl.

He rests his gaze on Ino, who’s cheering in an over enthusiastic manner as the Uchiha boy beating up the Uzumaki kid. Her eyes sparkles as she watches the ongoing spar, mouthing 'Sasuke-kun' at every punch he lands and kick he hits.

Shikamaru's never seen her this excited for anything else.

For a moment, he sort of understands how you feel. Envy and Jealousy were opposite sides of the same circle, after all.

Choji stands behind the two of you, silent, as he watches everything that happened while munching on his favorite snack.

The sky looks really soft and inviting, with the indigos and the baby blues of the late afternoon. Shikamaru stares up into the clouds with both his hands behinds his head, deep in thought.  He doesn’t really know much about art but he knows that the colours are beautiful.

Thud.

The clouds showed him very interesting things today. Oh! Was that a deer he spotted?

Thud. Thud.

Choji and Ino aren’t here today. She went with some of his other classmates to hang out with the Uchiha or something. And Choji had something with his dad or whatever. A family thing, Shikamaru deduces.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

"Argh! What a drag! " He groans, closing his eyes shut in annoyance. He could feel his blood pressure rise with every thud of your kunai into the wooden target.

Your last kunai misses the target completely and whizzes past the target into the bushes behind.

"What. " You say. Giving the Nara boy beside you the side eye. It wasn't a question or an exclamation, it was a statement.

With a big fat period at the end.

"I can't think with you poking holes at your 'friend' over there! " He sits up, jabbing furiously in the air towards the direction of the log you were practicing on with his finger.

You had set up a small training range not too long ago after Ino had invited you over to their spot. The taijutsu log went up first. Then the throwing range, which only consisted of a couple of wooden targets lined up vertically on the trunk of a thick tree.

And the agility course.

How in the world did you manage to put up an agility course in a short period of time?! It was a question he could never answer, despite his deductive skills.

He admired your tenacity to keep training yourself despite not having much guidance from your clan.

You go on to remove the remaining kunai from the trunk and place them back into your pouch. You'd get the other one later.

" You coming to the Deer Festival later? " Shikamaru asks, after a long period of silence. The sky is darkening at a rapid pace, it's getting late.

You lie down next to him and the both of you watch the clouds together in complete silence. Your body had ached more than the last time and your muscles appreciated the rest. It was a nice change.

You laugh, " It's the one time you do that weird dance in front of everyone. I'm not going to be missing out. "

You give him a smug, toothy grin when he punches your shoulder in embarrassment.

A/N: A couple more chapters before the first arc ends! Thank you so much everybody for sticking around. I know the introduction arc might be a bit long but I really wanted to focus on the childhood relationships first before getting into the thick of it!  You're in for a big surprise this arc, please look forward to it!

Edit: This chapter was a huge mess of dumpster fire. I fixed it

[hazusreaderinserts]

Legacy [Naruto Reader-Insert]

You’re definitely a Yamanaka, aren’t you?

Family and Village secrets run rampant. All you wanna do is survive long enough to see Naruto become Hokage and to find out who you really are.

[Fem! Reader x Various]

Warnings: Long plot. Slow-burn. The slowest of the burn.

Crossposted on Wattpad and Quotev. Masterlist

Chapter 2

Sable holds his breath, pulling his chakra close to his core. His entire body is tense, muscles taut and ready to spring to action. The black cloak that drapes over his arm moves and a glint of metal under the moonlight reveals that he is indeed hiding a short blade on his back. He moves closer to the targets that he and his team were shadowing: two nuke-nin from Suna.

It was a pity, for Suna. They were seriously understaffed and overworked after the Third Shinobi War, he didn't blame them for defecting.

Besides, they gave his squad some work. 

And boy, did he like work.

His team had been tracking them for about two to three weeks, they've been pretty crafty and giving them the slip. Unfortunately for the two nuke-nin from Suna, this is Sable's home turf.

The two figures below the branches didn't seem to have noticed him yet. They were huddled up by the small fire that they made, roasting a couple of lizard-like creatures for food. Leave it to Suna shinobi to make the local, scaly wildlife into food. If you looked under Sable's mask, you'd likely find a smile of disdain. Sable had not much love for shinobi from Suna.

Two hostile. Clear. Engage? He raises a gloved arm, signing in rapid succession. Sable sucks in a breath and gazes towards the canopy ahead, waiting for a signal.

Hound nods, a lock of silver hair pokes out of the side of his mask as he signs back.

Affirmative.

Sable's lips spread into a face splitting grin, angling his fingers to make an oblong frame. Like a viewfinder, only deadlier.

"Shiranshin no Jutsu!"

A small bolt of chakra crackles from between his fingers, piercing into one of their bodies with an audible sshng.

On cue, his entire squad erupts out of the leaves; fangs bared and weapons unsheathed. 

The two other nuke-nin didn't stand a chance.

"Ne, Hound-dono, " Sable dusts his hands and adjusts his cloak, "I think we were supposed to bring them in alive.”

The mangled remains of their targets lay strewn across the little clearing that they chased them to, courtesy of Hound and Otter of course. Ever since he got thrown into ANBU, the Sandaime had ordered Hound to, uh. Look after him. In a nutshell.

"It's better if they're dead," Hound responds, his voice curt and concise. He swings his tanto into a wide arc in front of him, the blood and liquid remaining on the blade scattering on the ground.

It was Hound's habit to do such things. Effective, but flashy.

Otter gives a wry chuckle as he wipes a blood spot that had splattered on the front of his flak jacket, "We didn't need that many people for this mission, Hound could have done it on his own."

Hound ignores Otter and unravels the large scroll marked with a black band strapped to his back and seals both the bodies inside. Sable doesn't know if the Intelligence Bureau would be able to identify the bodies later for their bounties, but he held his tongue. To him, Hound always seems on edge. And ruthless. And effective at what he does. Sandaime seemed to have given Sable a scary guard dog.

  "Let's head back to the village," Hound commands and the three of them disappear in a flurry of leaves.

You're in your clan's training fields, going through your clan's taijutsu kata. Father had been busy lately. There wasn't any opportunity for you to ask him to teach you anything. He hasn't had time to see you in a long while.

Your eyes steels as you kick at the padded tree trunk in front of you.

Your leg hits the padding hard. Kick to the kidney. Jab to the clavicle. In your mind, there was an overlay of a person's anatomy on the training log and you were placing very well aimed kicks at the most vulnerable spots on a human body. Or so you think. You were only five.

To a much more experienced shinobi, you were just trying your best. A much more polite way of saying that you’re just a toddler attempting to do one of the most lethal moves of your clan's techniques. But you didn't care. You needed to work as hard as you can.

Then Mother would be proud.

You continue throwing punches and kicks on the log until a voice breaks your focus.

"Hey!" Ino calls out your name, approaching from the main road.

You stop to look at her, panting heavily as you held onto your knees, trying to catch your breath. You had grown up with her, close enough to call her sister, you suppose. Ino wore a pink ribbon in her hair today and a modest off-white blouse with some dark shorts.

Yellow hair and blue eyes. Your source of confusion and envy. Not Ino, but her hair and eyes.

You knew the Nara and Akimichi kids too. They came over when you were younger to have playdates with her. You joined them too. Sometimes.

Shikamaru is really smart. You didn't have the sort of intelligence he had. He beat you in Shogi every time you decide to play him, which wasn't very often. But he did challenge you to use your brain in every other hypothetical war-game that he played with you.

He insists that it's good for you and you don't question him. So you continue playing, even if he did beat you. Every single time.

Choji, however, is pretty nice to you. He offers you extra food to bring back when the playdates were at his house. He also teaches you some easy recipes that kids could make without complicated cooking techniques, which were a lifesaver.

You had suspected that the three of them have been talking about your family situation behind your back and this was their way of taking care of you.

A smile works its way on your lips.

Ino rushes over to you when she sees fat beads of sweat rolling off your brow and bruises on your limbs, her eyebrows furrowed. "You didn't show up for Kunoichi class today," Ino says softly.

A clean handkerchief presses against your sweaty forehead with hurried fervor. Pat. Pat. Pat. You just close your eyes and let her wipe your sweat off.

You watch her mother-hen you for a short moment before muttering out an apology, "Sorry, I kinda lost track of time."

"Nn, It's okay," The worry seems to melt from her face as she eases into a smile, "Wanna go hang out with Shikamaru and Choji? We're going to go cloud watching. Blech." She makes a disgusted face before breaking into a giggle.

You hook your tiny arm around hers in agreement and giggle with her too. That did sound like the lazy, cloud-loving boy you knew.

Ino then fills you in on what happened in Kunoichi class. Telling you about all of the flowers and herbs she picked, and what your sensei had taught that day as the both of you walk to their special spot, arm in arm.

She doesn't ask why you didn't turn up or why you were basically beating yourself up with intense training. Ino doesn't question you about anything.

You like that about her.

That night, Brother returns home sloshing drunk, stinking of alcohol and money. He swings a bag of jingling coins at you with a half-lidded grin.

"Lil' Mouse, guess who has extra allowance this weeeek?" He drawls out the last syllable at you, as he shakes the bag at you.

Brother is a horrible drunk.

It doesn't happen often but Brother does end up drunk whenever he comes back from one of those missions that he had to dress up all weird for. You weren't focused on him though, you were more focused on the stranger that had your brother half-draped over his shoulder.

He had silvery-white hair styled upwards with some strands peeping forward to frame his face. His eyes were hooded and dark. Well. Eye. His other eye was closed, a long visible scar running down.  A mask covered most of his features but you could tell that he was good-looking.

He seemed to be a little bit older than Brother.

"Hey. I brought your brother back, " He lets Brother crumple into a drunken mess before your feet and disappears, leaving behind a few stray leaves on your otherwise clean porch.

"M-mouse-chan," Brother gurgles while hugging one of your legs, giggling with alcohol-induced glee.

You stare at the leaves, then at your brother and back to the leaves.

You ignore your brother, your eyes lingering on where that mysterious stranger was standing before.

You suddenly want to learn how to shunshin as soon as possible.

A/N: I was on a roll so I released this chapter early! The first couple of chapters will just be setting up the relationships between Rea-chan and everyone else, so hang in there guys! So how do you like the characterization of rea-chan's brother and their relationship? Did you guys spot the little hint of Rea-chan's family situation that I dropped in his part? What do you guys think about this mysterious older boy who seems to be friends with Rea-chan's brother? Please comment and tell me what you think! 

Feedback and criticism are welcome too! 

[hazusreaderinserts]

Legacy [Naruto Reader-Insert]

You’re definitely a Yamanaka, aren’t you?

Family and Village secrets run rampant. All you wanna do is survive long enough to see Naruto become Hokage and to find out who you really are.

[FEM!Reader X Various]

Warnings: Long plot. Slow-burn. The slowest of the burns.

Cross-posted on Wattpad and Quotev. Masterlist

Chapter 1

You’re five when you asked your mother about your her-i-tage. All the other kids at the academy were being mean to you. Pulling at your hair and asking a lot of questions. Why isn't it yellow, they ask. Why don't you have blue eyes, they ask.

You didn't know why they were so bothered by that. Why did your hair need to be yellow and your eyes blue?

"It's pronounced heritage," Mother gives you a short, clipped smile. Her chopsticks were down and she looks at the middle of the dinner table with her eyes slightly unfocused. You notice that she had her hair up in a tight bun, hidden behind a white nurse's cap.

It was dinner time, which probably meant that she has a late night shift today. Again.

You look at her, waiting for an answer. She doesn't say any more than that. Brother then shoves a piece of broiled meat into his mouth.

A long silence passes by and she excuses herself from the dining table. You hear the shoji screen slide shut as her footsteps trailing off further and further away.

The back of her white Iryo-nin frock were one of the things that you associate with the word Mother, you think.

"We've always lived here, little mouse," Brother says, placing his palm on your head, "Don't listen to the brats in your class. They don't know what they're talking about."

The smile on his face does not reach his eyes.

You know he's not exactly telling you the truth. You smile back at him.

Brother then excuses himself from the table, "Duty calls."

He puts on a worn black cloak on his neck and a funny-looking animal shaped mask with weird markings. A sable, you later learnt. Brother ruffles your hair one last time before he shunshins out of the window with a flutter of black and you were left all alone in a dark dining-room.

"Gochisou-sama deshita," You say in your best impression of Mother.

You lower your voice to a baritone, a very bad imitation of Brother's, "Gochisou-sama."

Then in your own soft, voice, "Gochisou-sama deshita."

You clap your hands together, chopsticks in between the nook of your thumb and index finger before packing up the rest of your food in containers and washing the rest of the empty bowls and plates.

The light clink of plastic hitting against each other. The sound of the open faucet.

You try to ignore the fact that it's what you've become accustomed to when you're at home.

Another day ends at the academy, another day of hard questions. Questions of which you're unable to answer.

You were a Yamanaka through and through, you thought. Father definitely promised to teach you some of the E Rank Clan jutsu, which you were excited for. You felt a little impatient for Father to teach them to you.

On another note, maybe Father also knows why you were being teased. You'd need to ask him about it the next time you visit the Main House.

A small pebble rolled to the other side of the road as you kicked it.

You had to take a very long detour from the entrance to reach your house and considering the distance between the compound and the academy; the walk back and forth was long. You came up with a list of the Good and the Bad.

Bad: It was far.

Good: It was far.

Bad: It made your legs burn.

Good: You liked the feeling.

Bad: You had to wake up extra early.

Good: The walk was probably the best hour you had to yourself. To think. To daydream.

Sometimes you even play guessing games. Like what's for dinner.

Dinner!

You pick up the pace at the thought of food and slowly jogged your way home, a small smile of glee on your face. The light breeze feels cool against your skin. And the dull ache in your legs served as a prompt that you needed even more training to catch up.

Your family lived in a small house located on the very edges of the Yamanaka compound. It was a fairly simple terrace house with a dining room/kitchen/living room combo, two bedrooms and a bathroom. The clan's training fields and greenhouses were just a short walk away, perfect for throwing practice. The training fields, not the greenhouses.

It sort of feels rustic but it's home.

"Tadaima," You say, kicking off your sandals and sliding the shoji door open with a bang but nobody responds. The lights were off and the whole house was silent.

A small scrap of paper catches your eye and you go over to pick it up.

"It's Mother's writing," You say out loud as you read the contents of the letter.

Cook dinner for yourself, little mouse. I'm at the hospital and you know your brother is away on official business.

You crumple the note and toss it to the side, not caring where it lands and made yourself some instant ramen.

A/N: Yes I know not all Yamanakas have blonde hair and blue eyes. Just really BIG foreshadowing xD. Would love some comments and feedback <3

Also if you guys have any multi-chaptered fics recs pls send them my way!