Chapter Text
I’d inherited black hair from my new mother and black eyes from my father; completely ordinary traits in this new Japanese-esque world. The riotous curls confused them, but they chalked it up to some distant ancestor. Only I knew I’d kept the curls from my past life - though it’s not like I could tell them that.
I was beyond pleased with my new appearance. At two years old, I was as cute as a button and would no doubt grow up to be a smoking hot babe. Of course, that’s only if I got the chance to grow up, there being several major obstacles in my path to adulthood. One of which was the twelve-story demon fox that would be curb-stomping the village in two years’ time.
But that was a problem for later. I had a closer and much more pressing issue to deal with right now, and it came in the form of the six-year-old genin standing before me.
As I took in his chubby cheeks, his round, inquisitive dark eyes, and his own mess of curls being restrained by a headband far too big for his tiny face, I knew this would only be the start of my tribulations.
I turned to my new parents, eyes wide and beaming. “Mama, Papa, is this my new brother?”
Said ‘brother’ spluttered as his older teammates and their sensei laughed.
“No, sweetheart,” my mother smiled fondly and ran a hand through my hair. “He’s here to babysit you.”
I blinked in confusion. “But, but Mama, he looks just like me! He even has my hair!”
She laughed. “He does, doesn’t he? But a lot of people look alike and aren’t related.”
“Oh.” I looked down in disappointment, then back at the Uchiha who appeared caught off guard yet a bit flattered. “I’m Sato Chiasa! What’s your name?”
He grinned at me, bright and cheerful, and in that moment, I knew I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.
“Uchiha Shisui! Nice to meet you!” He all but vibrated on the spot excitedly.
“Shisui,” I sounded out the name.
“Um. Can I…” I glanced away shyly, wiggling my tiny fingers in front of me à la Hinata.
And here came the climax –
I peeked up at him between my lashes, cherub cheeks pink and blinked my doe-eyes.
“Can I call you nii-san?”
My parents were absolutely slayed by my cuteness, and the team before me was not much better. Shisui himself was flushed, staring at me with wide eyes.
“Uh,” he sounded a bit dazed. “Yeah sure, Chiasa-chan.”
I beamed, and it was the epitome of all things pure, joyful, and innocent.
“Shisui-nii!”
Shisui looked utterly smitten.
Score, I thought to myself.
I probably should have felt bad about seducing a six-year-old with my charm, but I totally didn’t.
Shisui and his team became my go-to babysitters quite a lot after that. The team themselves even preferred to take my parents’ D-rank mission over all the others, since I was an ‘angel in human form’ and an ‘absolute delight’ to look after compared to the drudgery of chores or the volatile whims of other infants.
Of course, I didn’t make it completely easy for them to care for me.
Instead, I enacted the first step of my very vague, rather hazy, completely stupid plan.
I had nightmares. Ever since I was reborn here, I would sometimes wake up from a dream of my old life or my death in tears, sobbing tiny gasps into my pillow as one of my parents shook me awake.
The first time I awoke from one of those dreams after a nap, poor Shisui was fretting over me like a clucking hen.
“Nii-san!” I cried and launched myself at him.
He patted my head awkwardly, very much a six-year-old boy faced with tears.
I turned watery eyes up at him. “Nii-san, I had a scary dream.”
Shisui hugged me back. He was warm and comforting, and to my two-year-old self, he was big and safe. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“There was a huge fox, it was enormous and taller than all the buildings, and it was attacking everyone.”
“Don’t worry Chia-chan, it was just a bad dream.”
I sniffled. “Really?”
“Really.”
Shisui had swiftly graduated from D-ranks, and he and his team were thrust out into the Third Shinobi War which was still raging on several fronts, though Iwa had now been thoroughly decimated by Namikaze Minato, the newly instated Yondaime Hokage.
But he still made the effort to stop by occasionally to check up on me, and my parents – both medics and thus in high demand – even roped him in to babysit a few times.
I made sure I had that same dream more than once. Every time I awoke from a nightmare, I would lie and always say I saw a giant fox. Over time, I added more details. There was a man with a swirly orange mask on top of the fox. There was a woman, crying for her son.
By the time October tenth approached two years later, my parents were getting rather worried and there were loads of child insomnia books lying around the house.
The kyuubi attack was a nightmare. I literally don’t have the words to describe the calamitous horror evoked by the sheer presence of the demon – chakra construct or not, I knew why they called him a demon. Its chakra simply felt… evil.
Although I had never known evil before in my life, yet that is what I imagined it would be like.
I don’t remember much of that day. Just flashes of absolute terror and bone-chilling fear. More memoires would come back to me later via nightmares, and I would eventually piece together the fact I had been pulled from the rubble by an elderly woman, and she had brought my catatonic self to the shelters.
A kind old woman, a stranger who could barely hobble and whose arms shook as she carried me saved my life that day. I never even got to learn her name, because she tripped over a fallen cart and broke her leg.
She gave me to another passing stranger, and I never saw her again.
But I would always remember. Her kindness. The self-sacrifice for a complete stranger.
She was a hero, the unsung kind I had imagined only existed in fairy tales.
Perhaps because I now lived in one, she was real.
I spent two horrendous weeks in the orphanage with other crying children, over-worked matrons and cramped, cold beds. They were the most miserable weeks of my life, mourning my new parents – who I doubted had escaped the collapse of our house – and anxious about my uncertain future.
In those two weeks, I feared Shisui wouldn’t come. That he had forgotten me, that he was only eight years old and hadn’t realised my ‘dreams’ had been foretelling the future.
And despite being an adult, despite knowing he was okay because he had lived in the story, when I was called to the matron’s office and saw him restlessly standing, exhausted but alive, I burst into tears.
I raced across the room and threw myself at him, clutching his midsection like I’d never see him again.
“Shisui-nii!” My voice cracked terribly.
“Chiasa!” Shisui sounded equally as relieved and held me in a crushing hug.
I blubbered helplessly into his shirt and heard Shisui’s own sniffling, his tears a reminder that he was only a boy. A real child, unlike myself, and I felt ashamed. But I couldn’t stop, my child body and hormones making it impossible to control myself.
When I had cried myself out, the adults in the room – and since Shisui was a chuunin, he counted – sorted out the administration.
“We were worried about her,” the exhausted woman told him as she sorted through the requisite paperwork. “She didn’t utter a single word this whole time and we didn’t even know her name. It’s good you came looking for her, Uchiha-san, we didn’t know to contact your clan to pick her up.”
Shisui paused, then smiled. “Well I’m here now! There won’t be any issues with me taking her home, right?”
“Not at all. Please just fill out these forms.”
Sitting in Shisui’s lap, I had prime view of him filling in the name section of my release papers as Uchiha Chiasa.
I had to duck my face into Shisui’s chest so no one would see the victory I was unable to mask.
Step one, complete.
Shisui and I had lived together for two days before I came to him with a pressing concern.
“Nii-san, what if they find out I’m not an Uchiha and they take me away from you?”
“Don’t worry, Chia-chan!” Shisui patted my head reassuringly. “I went through and changed your records, even all the D-ranks your parents requested so you’ve always been Uchiha Chiasa,” he finished, grinning like the madman he apparently was.
I wasn’t sure whether I should be horrified that Konoha had such terrible security an eight-year-old (no matter how prodigious) managed to pull that off, or simply gratified that it all worked out okay.
Instead, I just smiled back. “That’s great nii-san!”
With that bit of highly illegal news delivered, all my worries were assuaged, and I set about making the Uchiha compound my home. I would be staying here from now on, so it was only right it should be up to my standards.
Except, apparently, I wouldn’t be staying here. Nor would any other Uchiha.
No, instead of focusing on rebuilding the village, dealing with all the homeless and wounded, or reinforcing internal security (already penetrated by an eight-year-old), Konoha’s newly reinstated Hokage wanted the Uchiha to move to the very edges of the village.
Haha. Ha.
I had forgotten that detail – which, alarming, what else might I have forgotten? – but I wasn’t about to let this slide since I had now permanently thrown my all in with the Uchiha clan.
I paid a visit back to the orphanage Shisui had only just rescued me from two days prior.
I arrived armed with blankets, clothing, snacks, and stuffed animals, all purchased by Shisui in an over-indulgent shopping spree from the clan tailor or scavenged from his house. Naturally, all the items had the Uchiha fan on them.
Knocking on the door, I waited for the harried matron to open it. The ridiculously tall wooden doors (stupid kid body) swung wide to reveal my tiny self, holding an enormous pile of blankets and bags, nearly staggering under its weight.
“Ume-san,” I peeked over the top of my pile. “It’s me, Uchiha Chiasa.”
Saying that name filled me with so much satisfaction. The matron blinked down at me before taking the bags and letting me through the entrance.
“Chiasa-chan! What are you doing back here?”
I set the cloth onto the table as she began unloading piles of bread, sweets, and crackers.
“These are for you Ume-san.” I looked earnestly up at her. “Nii-san and I are very grateful that you took care of me, and I remember there weren’t enough blankets, so I brought these. And Mina-chan said she wanted sweets, and Toru-kun wanted biscuits, so I got those too.”
“Oh,” I said, as if remembering and ducked my head in embarrassment. “But the clan doesn’t have any noodles like Sachie-chan wanted, so I couldn’t bring them.” I squirmed in my chair.
The matron looked incredibly touched. “Chiasa-chan, that’s so thoughtful of you! What a kind girl you are!”
Step two, begin.
My answering smile was sweeter than sugar.