Disclaimer: I totally don't own Naruto.

I also can helpfully admit that some of the motivation from this story comes from Supernatural Crossover Girl's story about girl!Kakashi, Dysphoria. That being said, I don't think I'm stealing her idea, and there are notable differences between these two stories. This story, however, did take the initial inspiration from there.

That being said, I'm trying to write this story in a way that keeps it distinctly Naruto, while keeping the complicated issue of gender identity relevant (at least, until the MC gets treatment). The goal is to strike a balance between the two.

On another note, in the interest of being perfectly clear, Itachi is the OC/poorly-disguised-self insert. She is physically male, but considers herself female — hence the feminine pronouns. This is also true for her previous life. So while she knows she's female, everyone else sees her as a boy.

The new and lovely cover art was put together by the maybe not new, but definitely lovely enbi. Which is pretty great so you all should tell her how pretty and great she is. The original drawing, however, was done by hakuku on deviantart.

Finally, if you'd like to talk about this story, I made a discord. Feel free to bug me on there, if you have questions or want to leave feedback more personally. Here's the link: discord . gg / brR55CP

Chapter One
Dudes and Dudettes

Sasuke whimpered in his cloth sling again, and Itachi clutched him tighter to her chest. He was only months old, and she couldn't find either of her parents. The night was silent, cold, and the moon was full.

A bad feeling was in the air.

That feeling was quite literal. In a world full of chakra, 'bad feelings' more than likely had a real cause. Like, for instance, a giant orange nine-tailed rage monster made of pure hatred. Itachi couldn't explain her uneasiness very well, other than the fact that there was chill in her spine, and the goosebumps on her lower back would not go away.

It was October tenth. Minato and Kushina were dying. But there wasn't anything she could have done, right? She was five. Was it foolish, not having gone to the Yondaime and demanded to be seen, and spilling everything she could remember? Perhaps.

But that was the problem — she didn't know if everything would be how she remembered it, and could very easily make everything much worse without even trying. And who's to say that that warning would end up doing anything? The Kyuubi was a terrifying beast, and people feared it for good reason. Knowing it was coming might not have helped Minato, and the result could have been the same anyway.

As if on cue, an enormous, angry roar sounded through the village. Konoha wasn't small, either.

Sasuke began to whine. Itachi rocked him a bit, but he didn't quiet down. Instead, he picked up the volume. What a baby. She sighed, and started to whisper.

"Hey Sasuke, it's going to be fine. Don't worry, little guy. I'm here."

Itachi could feel a kind of cloying terror — the air was thick with it — so she focused on Sasuke instead. Regardless of how she might have felt about him, he was her little brother, and their parents weren't around to protect them, so there it was. And besides, he was a baby. He hadn't grown up to be the self-possessed and ultimately cruel child from the series that she remembered. And hopefully he never would.

Itachi didn't much like that Sasuke, but it wasn't hard to decide that this one would be one worth knowing. She could see to that.

The gates of Konoha's shinobi academy were actually somewhat imposing, if Itachi was being honest. It wasn't as much that they were really that big or scary, but it was probably more of the reminder of what she was — so very very short again, at six years old — and what they represented — induction into the ranks of the child soldiers.

But even now, years later, she could still remember those feelings of despair, of fear, of terrifying killing intent, and Itachi knew she wanted this, because she didn't want to feel like that ever again.

Either way, it wasn't like there was much of a choice. It was only her mother's insistence that had kept her out of the academy last year — because, honestly, at five, it felt like kids should be learning to count and playing with blocks and definitely not learning how to kill people.

Of course, she probably should have seen that coming, seeing as Itachi had seen her sweet-faced, perfect housewife of a mother kill a man before most children learned to read.

"Itachi?" Mikoto was frowning at her. Itachi had stopped, and stared up at the kanji for fire that decorated the top of the gate. She shook herself out of it, and followed her mother and father into the yard, with the crowd that was gathering to listen to the Hokage's introduction speech.

Mikoto smiled softly, and put her hand on Itachi's shoulder to guide them behind Fugaku to a spot to listen. They were Uchiha, after all, and they had to make a show of looking superior to everyone else. It was practically mandatory.

The Hokage looked old and tired, and Itachi supposed that he had to be. The Yondaime had only died months ago. She'd had a decent understanding of the manga, and had watched most of the TV show, but wasn't totally sure that a lot of the dates were even made clear — or weren't contradictory. Itachi distinctly remembered something about the Sanbi being in two places at once around this time, but couldn't recall everything clearly. It was only two or so years ago that the memories of a past life had even started to make sense.

Sometimes, she wondered if she was really Itachi and just had strange dreams, or if she really was someone else reborn as Itachi. Itachi was Itachi, though, and that was enough.

Of course, the fact that she was really much older than she should have been was only part of the reason Itachi was here early as the hope of the next generation of the Uchiha and the pride of her father. Itachi wasn't one of the biggest badasses of Naruto for no reason, after all. And he really only died because he was sick and let Sasuke beat him. She had no intention of doing that. Sasuke was a cute baby, but he wasn't that cute.

But, being Itachi instead of someone else, she was just better than she'd remembered being in that other life. She'd been somewhat athletic, but was relatively sure that her-as-Itachi even now could take her past self when she'd actually practiced martial arts, at peak physical fitness. It would be hilariously not close at all, because Itachi was just naturally gifted as all hell. There was just no comparing them, really. And even this world's basic Academy taijutsu beat out most martial arts she'd seen before. It was simple, and straightforward, but it wasn't bad.

Mastery of a rarer or more specific form of taijutsu, like Naruto's Frog Kata, the totally unfair Gentle Fist, or one more suited to a person's body type and natural strengths, would be more effective than mastery of the simple academy forms. However, mastery over any kind of taijutsu rarely resembled any kind of basic form. Still, there wasn't anything wrong with the technically correct kicks, punches and blocks one learned at the academy. Ultimately, the academy style focused around giving students building blocks that they could use to develop their individual style of hand-to-hand combat. Similarly, if students were learning from a different source, such as a sensei or a clan, the academy taijutsu strove to be versatile enough to flow seamlessly into a specialized style. As such, the form itself was generic, with very few strengths or weaknesses.

And Fugaku, being who he was, pretty much trained her from the time she could walk to develop her natural gifts, not only in taijutsu. In fact, Itachi could comfortably say that taijutsu was her weakest area, even considering her small stature. Probably the most impressive was the absolutely silly level of reflexes and hand-eye coordination she had now, compared to before. At five, Itachi could hit bullseyes with kunai regularly and out-sprint her full-grown past self. It was almost hilarious, until she remembered how easy it could be to murder someone.

"Itachi." Mikoto said calmly. The Hokage had finished up his little introductory speech by now. "You have your bento?" she asked. Itachi nodded. "Your books? Notebooks? Everything you need?" she nodded again, reminding herself that Mikoto was a first-time mother sending her child off to ninja school for the first time. "I know you will do us proud."

"Yes, Mother," she replied.

Then, she leaned down, and put her forehead against Itachi's. "And you have already made me proud."

Sometimes, Mikoto was just awesome.

Fugaku piped up for the first time, "You are Uchiha, and you will excel." Itachi just nodded her head in assent.

Her mother leaned down and dusted off Itachi's dark pants, before straightening and fixing the high collar of her shirt. "Now, you don't want to be late, and I have to go check on your brother. Someone will be here to pick you up when you're done."

And then she let Itachi go, and they were gone in a flutter of leaves.

Itachi stepped calmly through the doors of the house, as the Uchiha Military Police officer body-flickered away. Fugaku wasn't home, and she didn't see Mikoto as she walked in. Itachi popped into the nursery to check on Sasuke. He was asleep. Good.

She shut the door to her room, and for the first time that day, allowed her posture to slouch and let herself fall ungracefully onto the futon. Itachi could feel the hot sting of tears in her eyes. She didn't want to face this life.

She was Uchiha Itachi. The ninja who murdered his entire family under orders, who apparently defected and joined Akatsuki, and who finally died, willingly, by the hand of his murderous little brother. That was part of the problem. Itachi had never really liked Sasuke in that other life. She didn't consider that original Itachi to be that much better than him, but at least Itachi tried to make the best of a bad situation, while Sasuke let it consume him.

Itachi didn't want to kill everyone for Sasuke this time. Hell, she didn't really want to kill everyone at all. She especially didn't want to kill Mikoto. Fugaku...she didn't want to kill him either, but Itachi admitted that she liked him less than his wife. And he was actually plotting a coup to take over the village, and Itachi supposed he sort of deserved to die for that.

It wasn't that she totally opposed to the idea of being a ninja, or of killing people who deserved it. And Itachi was probably better suited to the life of a child prodigy than an actual child, because she wasn't actually a child, so, really, it wasn't all bad. And she was an Uchiha, which meant that she'd inherit the Sharingan, which was totally cheating, and even if it wasn't, she was fucking Uchiha Itachi, which was definitely cheating.

But she would be a ninja, and therefore didn't feel all that bad about cheating. She could also probably prevent the massacre, by the simple virtue of not murdering her relatives at all.

And...as much as it might have seemed petty compared to everything else, Itachi was a boy. Again.

She'd really hated being a boy. And she'd pretty much reached the point where she wasn't one anymore. All of the time, and money, and hormones, and therapy...just gone. Back to square one.

Granted, Itachi was six again, so it wasn't all bad, because she could get an earlier start on all of this, but she was pretty sure that Fugaku wouldn't be okay with his star pupil and precious prodigy son telling him that he'd rather be a she. There was also no telling what kind of healthcare the Elemental Nations had for this kind of thing. Most of the things that could be done with chakra were extraordinary, yes, but the medicine of this time seemed heavily focused towards the military — and the military had no place for people like her.

Itachi dragged herself up, and wandered into the bathroom. She didn't have Itachi's signature tear tracks on this face yet, but she wasn't sure if that was simply because she was too young, or if she was actually less stressed than the real deal. It might have been both, but her face was smooth, young, and unlined. Thick, dark hair fell around darker eyes, tied in the back in a ponytail. Convincing Mikoto to let it grow a bit had been easy, as long as she took care of it

Other than that, Itachi looked like a kid, in that pre-pubescent sexless status of children. She was wearing the standard Uchiha male attire™, and therefore looked like a little boy, but that couldn't be helped. At least not yet. That was admittedly another reason that she strove to graduate as young as canon Itachi did — she would be legally an adult at seven. Itachi couldn't wait.

But the thing that made her smile — even it was a small, sad one — was the eyes. Itachi — and Sasuke, too, while on the topic — had Mikoto's eyes, big and vivid in a child's face, framed by thick dark lashes and glittering with unshed tears. She loved those eyes, and for reasons that had nothing to do with the Sharingan.

Itachi took a deep, shuddering breath. She didn't really have a plan for the future. She hadn't really known how to stop the Kyuubi. She had no clue how to prevent the Fourth Shinobi World War.

Itachi just wanted to survive, not massacre the Uchiha, and not to be a boy anymore.

It wasn't much to ask. Really. It wasn't.

The first step? She went to find her mother.

It wasn't hard. She wasn't in the house, but she was out back, in the garden. Mikoto liked to garden. Itachi thought that was her way of creating a private space — her garden was in the back, in a place away from training grounds.

"Mom?"

"Oh! Itachi," she said, as she straightened up and looked expectantly at her child.

"Hi," Itachi replied quietly. "Would you like some help?"

Mikoto just looked at her, confused. "What?"

"I would like to help with your gardening."

It was almost imperceptible, but Mikoto made a small movement as she moved her hands up to her mouth, before wiping the blood off her ubiquitous apron. Itachi couldn't control the grimace that flickered across her face. She was checking for a genjutsu? Huh. Was it really that weird, to ask to do something like gardening with her? Did she truly think her child didn't want to spend time with her that badly?

Itachi supposed it was, feeling a bit ashamed at the idea. It wasn't that she disliked Mikoto. She was a bit distant, and quiet, but she did care, though, and she showed that in her own quiet, understated way.

Unfortunately, that was kind of the problem. Itachi knew she'd been a jonin, and nobody gets to that rank by accident. But she also followed her husband's direction completely and unfailingly, and was pretty much the perfect housewife. She didn't really get her mother, and therefore suspected that her compliance wasn't completely willing. But that might not be totally fair to her father, so it was best to reserve judgement until she knew definitively either way.

And with Fugaku completely focusing on training Itachi the moment she showed signs of intellect, combined with the difficulty in recalling the memories of that previous life...Itachi had to admit she'd probably hadn't spent as much time with Mikoto as the woman deserved. Mikoto had forced an infant Itachi through her ladyparts in an hours-long ordeal full of blood, sweat, and tears. Itachi was understandably quite grateful for that, seeing as it meant that she was alive again. By that logic, she owed Mikoto like for ever.

And she had been much more reserved after the Kyuubi attack. Itachi remembered she was supposed to be friends with Kushina. She supposed that after losing her best friend, Mikoto didn't have a ton of people to lean on, anymore.

It wasn't that she wanted to learn anything about gardening, or flowers. Despite being admittedly jealous of all the girls in Academy classes, Itachi was admittedly not all that jealous of the flower arranging, knitting, and tea ceremony classes — the ones that taught how to act like a proper girl — they had to take. She admittedly was having trouble seeing the point to learning all those things, but that was probably one of those culture moments — if Itachi was going to learn how to infiltrate, it seemed best to do that in a class specifically designed for infiltration, not a general subject taught during adolescence.

But she was a boy, so, really, that was neither here nor there.

There was also the fact that one class specifically for one gender without an equivalent seemed kind of sexist, but really, there was enough about this society that seemed sexist that it wasn't a terrible surprise. Itachi had another pang of worry about the medical technology of this time, but she couldn't afford to worry too much about that. She'd face that when she graduated. She had time. It wouldn't matter until at least twelve, and she could probably get away with sixteen or so, at the latest. And she'd probably be a missing-nin by then anyway, so nobody would care what she did.

Mikoto collected herself, and then smiled. "Sure. I'm just planting some seeds and clearing out the debris from winter right now, so there's not a lot of gardening left to be done."

Itachi just nodded stiffly, and followed her directions to fetch her the seeds, and watched as she dug perfect small holes with earth jutsu.

"So how was your first day at the Academy?"

"It was...easy," Itachi replied. Mikoto cocked her head in response, silently imploring her to elaborate. "The majority of the things that we are learning this year are things I already know."

"Your father will be pleased," her mother said.

Itachi just hmm'ed, noncommittally. She was sure he would be, but a big part of the reason she was working so hard was that she wasn't terribly interested in spending a whole lot of time in school. Itachi knew all of the purely academic knowledge that wasn't historical, and that was easily learned — she'd always had a talent for remembering dates, and this life was no different.

There was also the fact that Uchiha Itachi was beyond talented.

The ninja arts — all of them — came as naturally to her as breathing, and Fugaku took the effort to make the most of this, of course, which was partly why this was really the first time she'd gone out of my way to spend time with Mikoto. It was both a blessing and a curse, really — she was supremely skilled for a six-year-old, but it came at the price of spending untold hours with her father to work on those skills, and losing out on the opportunity to socialize with her physical peers — or anyone outside of her clan.

Itachi's chakra reserves were low for an Uchiha, which was probably the only thing that could be remotely considered a weakness. Sure, there was the taijutsu, but it wasn't like Itachi was bad at taijutsu, she just wasn't stupidly good at it because of her physical limitations. Of course, lower than average chakra capacity for an Uchiha obviously meant respectable reserves by everyone else's standards, so 'weakness' was a relative term. Combined with very good chakra control, and the amount in her coils wouldn't become a weakness until probably jonin-level.

But she'd come here for a reason, even if that reason was little more than sowing the seeds.

"Mom."

Mikoto looked up. "Yes, Itachi-kun?" Itachi flinched a little at the honorific, even as she tried to hold her expression steady.

"You are a jonin," Itachi said softly.

"I am," Mikoto replied evenly. Sometimes it was tiring, these Uchiha word games, spending so much time talking around each other.

"Father insists on teaching me to become a ninja, but everything he talks about is how to fight. How to kill. Those come easily enough to me — taijutsu, ninjutsu, shuriken, ninja wire," Itachi said. She wasn't totally sure what she was trying to say, but this expression of frustration would at least let her discover just how her mother would react to the mention of somewhere Itachi disagreed with Fugaku. She needed to know if Mikoto would support Itachi against him, if it came down to it.

Itachi also wanted her mother to spend time with her, despite not wanting to admit it out loud.

Mikoto just turned, stopped, and raised an eyebrow.

Taking it as both a prompt to continue and a need for clarification, Itachi pressed onwards. "I...do not wish to learn solely from my father. And I do not think he would react well if I told him I wished to attend kunoichi classes." Kunoichi classes were theoretically possible for boys to attend. It just...wasn't done, and kids at six or eight were young enough that they weren't likely to insist enough to go against the established way of doing things.

Mikoto looked slightly flabbergasted. "You wish…to learn to be a kunoichi?"

Itachi smiled, and the expression came easily to her child's face. "No, Mom. It's not that. It's not about the classes themselves. Father keeps emphasizing getting stronger. So does the Academy. But when that Kumo-nin came, I couldn't beat him. He was much stronger than me, and I would have been at his mercy if you had not appeared and defeated him. What am I supposed to do if that happens again?"

She made a noncommittal noise, no doubt thinking of the same thing as her daughter — the sight of a pale-faced, trembling Itachi watching as Mikoto slashed the throat of a scarred Kumo ninja.

Itachi continued, "But you, you're a jonin of Konohagakure, and yet you didn't even need to use chakra to kill that man from Kumo. So, clearly, there is more to being a ninja than flashy jutsu or coming from a distinguished clan name."

Mikoto's eyes widened briefly, and Itachi wondered whether she'd gone too far, seemed too smart, assumed too much.

But then her mother smiled, a small, wry thing, and she said, "I suppose I could think about it, Itachi-kun." Itachi held back the instinctive wince this time. Then Mikoto looked thoughtful, before continuing, "I am not sure, though. I can offer no guarantees. You know your father treasures the time he spends with you." Itachi nodded. She did see that, but he was demanding in ways that took up all of their free time. Itachi wanted to be strong, but it wasn't something she wanted to share entirely with him.

"But why kunoichi classes?"

"It's not about the content, just that they teach you how to defeat opponents that are stronger than you. All I have learned is to be stronger than my opponents. I do not think I will always have that advantage."

She frowned, and Itachi held her breath. "You've thought about this quite a bit."

Itachi smiled, and handed her another seed.

Mikoto smiled a small, sad smile, where her child couldn't see, and said, "You know, if you wanted to spend time with your mother, you could just say so."

Itachi ducked her head, her cheeks burning, and sighed out a quiet, "Yes, mom."

"You are very quick, Itachi, and your use of the academy taijutsu is coming along very well. It is to be expected. You are, after all, a genius." Itachi nodded in assent. "There is little use in teaching you the Uchiha clan style until you have developed the sharingan, but I have faith that it will happen very soon."

There was no use arguing with him, and even less use saying anything about how much of an impostor she felt whenever he said those words to her. Everything came entirely too easy.

Of course, his praising of her abilities didn't stop him from absolutely crushing her in their brief spars, but then again, she was six. Six-year-olds are generally rather poorly matched against adults.

He came at her again, this time with a fast kick to the chest. For him, it was a low kick, and Itachi scooted to the side and tried to strike his knee. Speed was Itachi's strength, but she was so much shorter and facing an adult that it barely mattered, because she had no real effective way to close the distance in straight taijutsu. Without some kind of ranged weapon, it was an exercise in frustration.

That was kind of the point, though.

He snaked out and grabbed her wrist, but Itachi jerked and twisted away, retreating, before coming at him with a flying kick. She wasn't quick enough, and he flicked over to the left and avoided the strike.

He danced around as she tried to close with him for a few minutes, before he appeared behind her and put a hand on her neck, and Itachi stopped.

She glanced backwards for instruction, but he just nodded. Itachi couldn't decide whether that was better or worse than another comment about how his son was a genius.

Itachi was honestly sort of sick of hearing about it. She didn't feel very much like Itachi, the once-in-a-generation prodigy and pride of the clan. She didn't feel much like she deserved that kind of reputation, and had no idea if she'd be able to live up to the hype.

Fugaku, however, would hear none of that. Itachi was, after all, the heir and pride of the Uchiha clan.

He resumed his earlier statements, "Much of mastery in taijutsu comes from doing, not always from learning. I think I will have to find you a partner with similar skill. When is your test?"

Itachi responded, "In two days, Father." It was the truth. She wasn't worried about it, but it was part of the arrangement between the parents. Itachi was entering the Academy at the standard age, despite Fugaku wanting to enter her earlier, but at this point, a number of teachers from the clan, lead by her father, had spent the last two years instructing Itachi.

"You will advance to the graduating class."

"Yes, Father," Itachi replied. Of course, that's what he expected. And, to his credit, his pride wasn't unfounded. Those two years weren't wasted, and she really was far above the others of her age group.

"That's my son. Follow me." She held back the twitch as she did as he asked, and he guided them through the district, but not as if they were leaving, or going home.

Itachi didn't want to feel that fear, that, paralyzing, numbing fear in the face of her imminent death again, and, whenever she felt myself flagging or didn't want to get up in the morning, Itachi remembered the cruel, pitiless eyes of the Kumo-nin and the terrifying killing intent that he emitted. And that was often enough.

She was ready for the test, and thought it would be relatively easy to mirror the original Itachi's performance in the Academy, and graduate by seven. There was enough general knowledge that would be laughably easy, the history wouldn't be too hard — she'd spent some time focusing on that, to familiarize herself, when Fugaku actually let her read history books. Fiction was out of the question, like most every other 'frivolous' activity.

Once they arrived at the lake enclosed within the Uchiha district, he stepped up to the dock, and Itachi followed.

"We will work with throwing accuracy tomorrow, but for today, since you are officially an academy student, the time has come for you to start learn our clan's jutsu." Itachi nodded. He continued, "The Great Fireball Jutsu. As an Uchiha, you are not a true member of the clan until you can properly perform this technique. You will not master it today, but you will add it to your regular exercises."

"Ah."

Itachi wondered briefly whether Fugaku would even bother to make her learn her elemental affinity, or not, or just throw a fire jutsu at her because they were Uchiha.

"I will show you the handsigns, and then you will attempt to copy it. The technique is simple — focus your chakra through the handsigns, and visualize it rising with your breath."

Apparently trivial details like elemental affinities were for lesser mortals. Y'know, people who weren't Uchiha.

Fugaku raised his hands, and Itachi followed along as he went through the handsigns once slowly. Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger. It was easy to set the cadence in pairs of three, and she repeated it to herself once more, before gathering chakra and attempting the jutsu. The first time, she was able to focus the handsigns, and produced a fist-sized bit of fire. Her father nodded approvingly, gesturing her to continue.

The second time, she coughed up smoke, and spluttered uncomfortably. Fugaku looked impassive. The sensation vaguely reminded her of smoking cigarettes in a previous life, although the smoke was harsher, and it was coming up rather than going down.

Itachi waited a second, caught her breath, and tried again. And again. And again. Until, a quarter of an hour later, she gathered herself properly for the smoke, and breathed out a basketball-sized sphere of flame. She looked at Fugaku expectantly.

He smiled, a proud, pleased thing, and said, "That's my son." She steeled her expression to stop the almost reflexive wince at the gendered pronoun.

Itachi nodded, to acknowledge the compliment.

And Fugaku just folded his arms and gestured, "Again."

On the third day of the Academy term, Itachi quietly sat down under a tree in the yard, bento open at her feet. She munched carefully on the onigiri, attempting to find the optimum method for eating them with the proper ratio of rice and salmon. It was tough work, because it required biting in a precise order, starting around the edges and working her way up to the top.

She was so absorbed in the task of efficiently eating her lunch that she didn't even notice someone behind her until she spoke.

"Itachi-san?" Itachi whirled around, quietly cursing that someone had caught her off guard. There was a blue-haired girl standing there, clenching her hands nervously.

"That's me," the Uchiha responded.

"Ano...well, we were just wondering...would you like to have lunch with us?" the girl asked.

Itachi looked over to where she had come from. There was a small crowd of other girls who were watching the exchange. Itachi was torn. Part of her wanted to agree, because they were girls, and because she'd always felt more comfortable around girls, even if she felt she was intruding sometimes given her sex.

Boys were usually pretty simple and straightforward, and even if she did understand them, and how to get along with them, there was always that feeling like an itch in the back of her mind that she wasn't one. The interactions felt false, somehow, that she'd somehow tricked everyone, and it stuck there no matter how much she tried to ignore it.

But, another part of her felt like these girls in particular might be here, asking, because she was an Uchiha. And she wasn't sure if encouraging this kind of attention was a good thing.

Still, she was probably going to be in a different class, with a different lunch break after today.

So Itachi simply said, "Sure." And followed the blue-haired girl over to her friends.

Upon arrival, there was a great deal of giggling and whispering, and Itachi felt her face burn with embarrassment. It was...disturbing, to feel on display for so many adolescent girls.

The blue-haired one, Megumi, proved her bravery by addressing Itachi first. "Itachi-kun! Itachi-kun! We hear you're a prodigy..."

Itachi just eyed her. That wasn't a question. Or really a declarative statement. Still, "Well, yeah. That's what my father always says."

Cries of 'Oooh!' and squeals erupted from that announcement. Itachi had a sinking feeling in her chest at the implications of that.

Another, dark-haired girl spoke up at that, "Itachi-kun! What kind of foods do you like?"

"Well, I like cabbage," which definitely wasn't something she'd liked before, "and most kinds of sweets." Sweets, on the other hand, she did. Particularly pocky. Delicious, delicious, pocky.

And then, the questions began.

"What's your favorite color?"

"Maa, I like lots of colors. Red, and purple, and black, although that's technically a shade. I think my favorite color is brown, though."

"Oooh, Itachi-kun! What's your favorite hobby?"

"I enjoy training, and spending time with my little brother, Sasuke-chan."

"That's so cute! How many kids do you want when you grow up?" That was heading into dangerous territory. Still, Itachi wasn't sure what to say. Best, probably, to head this off if possible.

"I don't think I really want to be a father." There, literal truth, while misleading enough that they would take from it what she wanted. The girls weren't too concerned with a negative answer, though. Why let a little thing like reality influence the plan of your future life?

Of course, if the question about kids was only heading to places Itachi would rather it wouldn't, the conversation quickly devolved completely at that point.

This, of course, culminated in the question Itachi had been dreading since the start of the conversation, asked by the blue-haired girl, Megumi: "What kind of girls do you like, Itachi-kun?"

Itachi decided right then and there that it was her duty to both feminism and girlhood everywhere to attempt to head off fangirlism wherever it could be found.

So she answered, "I like strong kunoichi." Of course, it wasn't that easy. Itachi had figured that maybe if she made it clear that desirable boys liked girls for their strength, rather than their looks, she could influence the culture of fangirls enough that they spent their time training instead of obsessing. Of course, being mostly unfamiliar with the many-headed and supernaturally resilient beast that is the fangirl, Itachi thought it would be simple enough to mention that stronger ninja were more attractive.

But instead of some great revelation, all she got was more excited muttering, along with an exclamation of, "Like Tsunade of the Sannin?"

And Itachi agreed, that yes, she'd like to be with a strong woman like Tsunade of the Sannin, despite wanting to be a strong woman like Tsunade of the Sannin, and found herself not thirty seconds later wondering how and why every girl there seemed to have developed pigtails.

Did Tsunade wear pigtails in this past? Probably.

Was 'Itachi likes girls with pigtails' what everyone but her got from what she said? Yes.

Itachi just leaned back and uncomfortably resigned herself to dealing with the gulf between her and the rest of her lunchmates. Itachi couldn't help but think that she'd rather be a Megumi, even if it meant that she was shallowly obsessing over someone's favor, rather than Itachi, raised in a cold and distant clan weighed down by expectation. It wasn't a comfortable difference, and, for all her talent and prodigious skill, she couldn't quite figure out how go to about bridging the gap between those two extremes.

Itachi pushed again, despite the building ache in her legs, weighing her down more and more. She gasped through the run, pushing to keep the pace steady through the last lap around the district.

Running was a release, almost as much as it had been in her first life. She could let go of all the stresses of her life — the pressure of being called a 'prodigy.' It wasn't something that she'd ever experienced before. Itachi was very good under pressure, and she shouldn't be particularly nervous about not living up to expectations, but they were different when the world could be narrowed down to making a certain time around the compound. It was a different kind of pressure, a simple, primal desire to exert, to work harder, and she cherished the times that she could only focus on keeping a pace, and didn't have to deal with reality of her body, the expectations of her new family, or the fact that she was now isolated from everyone that she'd ever met.

Because, misanthrope and shut-in or not, she did miss the people from that other life.

It wasn't often, and she found herself forgetting details as time passed. And quietly, she mourned the fact that she wouldn't ever see that past again, and couldn't even remember how she'd arrived in this world. Racing through the trees, she mourned a life. Not a perfect life, but one that she had lived. The parents she remembered, the brothers she'd had, the friends she'd made.

Itachi didn't begrudge Fugaku and Mikoto much, but, in a way, she rarely felt a sense of family that was so prevalent in her past life. Fugaku was very much a busy man, resembling her first father, but he was also a Clan Head, and he tended to put clan duties above personal ones. Most of the time she spent with him, they were training. And Mikoto was...distant in ways she wasn't used to, although Itachi hoped to make strides there after her initial overture a few days ago. Sasuke was a baby, and Itachi couldn't help but remember that man that he grew to be in that story, and couldn't help but let that Sasuke color her opinion of him.

She didn't hate him, but she also didn't think she liked him much.

It wasn't the same. It wasn't bad, but to know one thing and be suddenly and inexplicably thrust into another…

It was easier to run.