hey im not dead

disclaimer etc etc because ffnet buys ads now

I stood staring at the patch of discolored wood above the sink where a mirror must have been. They didn't try very hard with hiding this no-reflective-surfaces thing. Makes you wonder if they wanted me to notice, to ask, to look to them for guidance.

As it stood, I have no idea how I'm going to tell Kakashi about this.

It's been two weeks since the my first seal adjustment, and I've gone back to the Sealing Center three times. I've also started to view them like health checkups. The upside of getting the seal changed so often were an almost hyper-awareness of the layer of chakra simmering under my skin, and I knew a lot about how my bloodline limit worked, now. The downside was … well, a lot of the adults' behaviors were starting to gain coherence.

From the moment I stepped into this village, I had been shuttled around from place to place, treated with secrecy and only handled by those who can keep a secret — even my lightning-fast adoption by Sakumo acquired a more mercantile edge after I learned the Hatake were a respected founding clan with considerable political pull in local government.

Because, and here I switched off the tap that had been filling the blocked basin with water, creating a surface in which I can study the seal on my face, my Ryokugan was powerful, volatile, and I was fifty percent sure I'm the last of my line.

After his leave was up, Sakumo was out the front door on a week-long mission before either of us kids could blink.

"It's always like this?" I had asked Kakashi, and he nodded, morose. I could tell he was trying for a poker face, but being four - his birthday was coming up - it didn't work quite as well as he'd thought.

Then he got a little defensive, and said, "It's his job."

"I know," I said, and left him to stand guard at the door like the world's most resigned puppy.

It was easy to read his loneliness. What do the adults read from me?

It didn't matter that powerful people had my continued health in their interests. I owned something rare and valuable, something not easily transferred. There may be not much I could remember about Naruto as a body of work, but I remembered the eye-multilation and the bloodline wars. Preservation of this commodity — my eyeballs — was absolutely part of the reason Sakumo adopted me.

Maybe I'm too paranoid. Maybe this line of thinking is unfair. But as Jiraiya explained to me with food dye and eye droppers, my dōjutsu sees and manipulates nature energy to devastating consequences.

"Pretend that this," he said, swirling a beaker of clear water as Orochimaru looked on in the background, a bemused sort of expression on his pale face, "is the world. Nature energy exists, like this." With the pipette he applied three drops of green food dye, and then we were silent for the five seconds it took for the food dye to disperse. "All around, everywhere, sometimes creating eddies and currents." He stuck a finger in, to demonstrate.

Then I nod, because he was looking at me expectantly.

"With your Ryokugan unsealed, you can see this green stuff. None of us can." Jiraiya set down the beaker and picked up one of those trick cups that dumped its contents into your lap if you pour too much stuff in it. It was filled with a blue liquid, up to the tipping point. I didn't know they had these. "Pretend this is the human body, and the blue stuff is human chakra. The special thing your dōjutsu can do is this."

He moved us to the sink, took the beaker of green food dye, and poured its contents into the Pythagorean cup. I watched with a sinking familiarity as the trick cup instantly overflowed, but Jiraiya did not stop his practical demonstration until all the blue and green liquid had drained out of the cup. Left with two empty, dripping lab equipment, he turned to me.

"That's not healthy," I said, flatly.

"No," Orochimaru said.

"This effect is triggered by eye contact." Jiraiya put down the glasses and turned to me, serious. "The seal you are wearing is a filter. It limits the amount of chakra your eyes receive from your core, maintaining a careful balance between keeping the organs healthy but not enough for the kekkei genkai to activate."

"When you are older, we will teach you how to control it," Orochimaru said, finally coming forwards. "For now, you must not use it. Many terrible things can happen. You might over exert yourself, leading to chakra exhaustion. You might forget, and kill someone. Or you might look in any surface reflective enough, and accidentally kill yourself."

Jiraiya frowned. I waited for him to say something, to add another slice of bad news, but he stayed silent.

"A growing child like you will require many tune-ups to the seal, of course," Orochimaru continued. "Tenketsu are delicate areas to operate in the best of times. As your core develops, the filter must be adjusted. Sakumo will see to it."

Then he tilted his head and fixed me with golden eyes. "Do you have any questions, Haiko?"

I thought about Kakashi, the only person I shared my living space with. I thought about that incident in the orphanage. "How will I know when the seal slips?"

"You will loose the ability to see color," Orochimaru said. "I suggest wearing bright colors and always looking down."

He didn't sound like he was joking. I considered the sunshine-yellow yukata I was wearing and all the colorful yukata hanging in my wardrobe, and wondered if they had communicated with Sakumo about this beforehand.

"Can I use the nature energy in other ways?" I asked.

"In due time," said Orochimaru.

I weighed my next question heavily.

By then, I had already understood the future power of this ability. If it was as Orochimaru implied and my ability to replace chakra is proportional to my chakra reserve, then it was in everyone's interests (except Leaf's enemies) for me to build up said reserve. It followed that if properly trained, I will become an extremely powerful — and extremely valuable — asset in Leaf's arsenal.

I had also come to the conclusion that one, I had to learn enough sealing to understand and take over the maintenance of my own power, and two, I will be no one's gun.

All that was left was to gauge the blast zone of my plans. Kakashi was merely unlucky enough to be the son of a dying clan, grasping at power.

(Was it an uncharitable representation of Sakumo's decision to adopt me and thus lay claim to my bloodline limit? Perhaps.)

"Does Kakashi know about this?"

I saw surprise flit through both men's eyes. Jiraiya said, his tone noticeably more sincere than before, "Maybe you can tell him."

The babysitters were regular as clockwork, but Sakumo's mission dragged.

In the evening, I found Kakashi on the porch again, and this time he cut me off before I even opened my mouth. "Yes, it's always like this. Didn't your mum have to leave for missions?"

It suddenly struck me that Kakashi might not know where I'd come from. He didn't ask, Sakumo didn't say, what was I supposed to think?

I stared at him for a while. It's been two months since I arrived in the household, and eighty percent of that time I had spent watching Kakashi mope around the front of the house. No wonder the back was so dusty. "I was going to ask, your birthday is next week, isn't it?"

His face darkened like the storm clouds overhead. (An unrelated note: it had begun to rain a lot. I wondered if I should brace myself for wet autumns in the future.)

"What are you planning to do?" I asked, pretending I saw nothing.

"Nothing much," he said after a long beat. "What about you? When's your birthday?"

"It's over," I replied. I had just spent the entire day in my room, studying. I came out for some fresh air, and there he was. I took a seat at Kakashi's feet, and stared at the same doorway.

(I had not decided if Minato was 'in' on the scheme. If they wanted to raise an obedient pet, they wouldn't have allowed him to give me those theory texts, would've instead striven to limit my access to resources. Of course, it could be that he's giving me a curated experience — but there was always the possibility of my branching out on my own, and I fully intend to take advantage of that. So, Minato's role was still up in the air.)

"So when is it?" Kakashi asked, and I looked up, reminded that he was still there.

He stared right back, bold and unashamed. "You know," he said, "I can't decide who you are."

I raised an eyebrow, slowly. "…No?"

We've had mealtimes together, and still had training sessions together. Sometimes, he tailed me to the archives, asking the occasional question about why I was reading what I was reading. Aside from that, we didn't talk. He was too busy moping, and I was a little preoccupied with charting who to trust.

(The verdict was still no one.)

"No," he said, and then dropped to the floorboards beside me. "Sometimes, but either when no one's around or we're outside, you're like any other kid. At home, you never talk. When the adults come around you're like those students in the Academy, and with Dad you're weird." He paused to think about it. "Like you want to pick a fight but only with words?"

"And then sometimes you're loud," he continued, "but then you act shy. Are you trying to bluff the adults? You aren't bluffing me."

I opened my mouth to say "okay", but he cut across me.

"Before Dad brought you home, he told me that I had to be nice to you. Because you lost your mum, too, and you never had a dad. He told me you're like me." He folded his arms, and I faintly wondered how long he'd been planning to unload this on me. "But you remind me a lot of those Uchiha kids, and I don't think you're nice."

Wow, thanks. …Uchiha kids aren't nice?

"Also, I don't know jackshit about you."

I clicked my mouth shut. O-kay.

Kakashi huffed, then looked away, and his voice grew smaller. "I thought having a sister would be more fun."

I sucked in a breath. "You done?"

He glared at me. He muttered under his breath, "Uchiha." Then he met my eyes, and it was clear challenge.

"I think," I said, choosing my words with care, not breaking eye contact although Jiraiya's words echoed loudly in my head, "you're right. And I owe you an apology."

His eyes widened in surprise.

"I'm sorry I was an ass. And you are right, I pretend a lot. There's this game my mother and I used to play," I said, struck by inspiration, "called 20 Questions. We ask each other twenty questions, and we can't lie."

Kakashi considered this. Thunder rumbled, still distant.

"I'm not good with people," I said, by way of explanation, then grimaced. I absolutely know how to be an asshole to people. "Sorry. I mean, I'm still trying to figure out how to be around you guys."

"What do you mean?" He looked genuinely confused.

I thought about telling him my paranoid suspicions, then decided against it. He's just a lonely kid who got excited at the idea of a friend. He doesn't need politics on his plate.

So, I sighed, and went with another line of truth. "My mother was around all the time, Kakashi. We didn't live in a village. We lived alone, out in the woods, just the two of us. Then she's dead and I'm surrounded by people and Sakumo is never around." I lay out my hands, as though to say so there. "Just you, and you mope all the time."

He was momentarily offended by that, but he deflated quickly. "Okay. That makes sense. But why do you pretend with all the other people? Act differently. Talk differently. And don't lie!" He added.

"I don't know what else to do," I admitted, allowing another truth. "I want to know everything so I know I'll be safe, but between this—" I tapped my temple, unmistakably referring to the seal "—and the shinobi lifestyle everyone wants me to enter, will I even live past my teenage years?"

The thunder boomed, closer. Kakashi looked thunderstruck. "You… don't want to be a shinobi?"

I shook my head. "That's not up to me."

"But why?"

"Why I have to be one, or why I don't want to be one?"

"Both of that!"

"How did your mother die, Kakashi?" I asked, guilty that I had to pull this card, and felt worse when his face went white as a sheet.

"Giving birth to me," he said, quieter than before.

"And did Sakumo ever tell you how my mother died?" I asked.

He shook his head mutely.

"Fighting off assassins so I could live," I said.

"She died an honorable death."

"She died for nothing."

We stared at each other. This time, he broke away first. "And the other reason?" His childish voice never sounded so fragile. "Why you can't not be a shinobi?"

I tried to keep the bitterness out of mine. "With my kekkei genkai and all the work the Sannin are pouring into me and giving me this last name, you think the village is going to let me be a civilian?"

He blinked into the darkness outside the compound walls. While we were talking, the sun had set. In the washed-out greyness of an overcast dusk, Kakashi asked, "So… what are you going to do?"

I sighed. Stood up. "Go along with it. Play dumb."

He mirrored my actions. He seemed to want to say something, so I waited. Finally, he said, "I never thought of it that way. I'm sorry too, for being rude earlier. I actually wanted to throw a small birthday party with Dad, and of course you're invited."

I supposed this to be a refutation of his statement earlier, about sisters and expectations. "Thank you," I said. "I hope Sakumo-ue comes home in time."

Kakashi managed a smile, then hurriedly added, as I began to turn away, "This is the real you, right?"

I stopped, but I did not turn. Was this the real me? Was I really so bitter, so paranoid? So quick to judge?

"I'll try harder to understand you now that you've told me all that… So, can you promise, you won't play pretend with me? I won't ignore you anymore, either. Let's be friends?"

It was my turn to huff. "Okay," I said, and I turned around and stuck out my hand. "Shake on it."

He did.

Things went a lot smoother from there. Lightened up, too. A lot of the latter was because Sakumo returned the next day, injured from the mission, and was subsequently house-bound.

Kakashi's birthday was a small affair. Oh, Sakumo tried to make it big, tried to invite some clan children over — names that were reverse-familiar to me, recognized only after they were said, because of the aforementioned pop-culture osmosis/second-life memory-barrier — but everyone who was anyone knew about the White Fang's injury, so the actual turn out was short and limited to what I suspected to be the shinobi lunch-time break.

Minato was there, of course, honorary member of the Hatake clan as he was. Was he paid to babysit? He'd better be paid. Dealing with the two of us was a handful. He was the only guest to stay until dark.

A frowning man with dark hair and dark eyes and impressive frown lines showed up at the tail end of the afternoon visitations to drop off a present without saying a word. "Uchiha Fugaku," Kakashi supplied, "one of Dad's old friends."

"I look like him?" I said, disbelieving.

"The Uchiha are a big clan," said Kakashi, and didn't go on.

Other lunch-break guests included:

Two white-eyed teenagers who came over to stare at me then went to speak with Sakumo, and left directly after, without wishing Kakashi a happy birthday. ("Hyūgas," Kakashi sighed. "Jerks.")

Kushina, who came over for the cake. ("Uzumaki." "I know.")

A stern lady whom everyone tripped over themselves to bow to showed up with a sleepy kid. ("Sarutobi Biwako, the Third's wife," Kakashi hissed, dragging me over. "Get in good with this lady, and you're bound to get in a good class in the Academy." "Are you sure?")

A teenager who showed up with a giant fluff ball of a dog and three tagalongs, which all made Kakashi's day. ("Inuzuka!" cried Kakashi, throwing himself at the dog. "And the Ino-Shika-Cho," Minato told me.)

The most memorable visitor we had, however, was a little girl in purple robes, coming up to the gate without an adult supervisor. I saw her first, and I knew she spotted me, too, but her eyes snapped away from me. She wondered in right into the middle of those teenagers and that gigantic dog, and was almost lost in the chaos. I fished her out, and she flushed scarlet when I went to get Minato, then she shoved a gift in my hands, mumbled, "Happy birthdays to you and Kakashi-san," finally managed one solid look at the seal around my eyes, then fled the scene.

"Who was that?" asked Kakashi, coming up. I was too busy being flummoxed.

"A girl from the Nohara clan," said Minato, "didn't leave her name. Is it on the present, maybe?"

He took it from me and turned it around. "Oh, no, it's from Mikage," he said.

The rest of the day passed amicably. When the fuss died down and everyone expressed their wishes and left, Sakumo ushered everyone into the living room, and there we finished the rest of the cake and blew out the candles and sang the song, and Kakashi finally looked happy for the first time since I got here.

The next morning, I was up early and on the kitchen counter, helping Sakumo make omelettes.

(My breakfasts memories were all cereal or toast washed down with instant coffee. This is novel to me.)

"So Dad," Kakashi declared, walking in, "now that I'm four, can I enroll in the Academy?"