It is difficult to describe his emotions - a dilemma he never had to deal with in public. Perhaps a sudden rush of love for his wife, in her beautifully dishevelled state strewn across a hospital bed.

Truthfully, birth is disgusting - liquids, shit and chaos. The baby comes out like a ten pound raisin and his wife looks at it as if Kami incarnate - Fugaku stops, these thoughts are dangerous, he cautiously glances at his wife, the female intuition is dangerous. A brief flash of his mother comes to mind, and he shudders.

A single cry pierce through the room, a echo of bows and traditional greetings for the heir of the clan return its call. Fugaku presses a hand to the sweaty brow of his wife and lays eyes on his first born, Itachi -

"- Sakura." Mikoto angles her face towards her husband, she says these words with the firm damnation of mothers and dares for disagreement. "Uchiha Sakura, heir and firstborn of the Uchiha Clan."

Ah, Fugaku remembers the maelstrom of emotions in his deepest pit. A daughter. Marriage contracts, proposals, puberty, dating, finding a suitable husband - Fugaku deflates on the inside - the Elders. A daughter and firstborn.

Mikoto's eyes glitter dangerously at him, her voice coos with the weight of an impending storm, "Darling?"

Fugaku will remember this moment, his next words, as the beginning of the end. He will remember the gravity of his voice and wonders if Kami had sent for his sentence in Hell early. He speaks with the reverence of a clan head, with a gravity in his voice that sends shivers down the spines of any, a voice of certainty that even the most stubborn will falter at the declaration, he affirms, "Uchiha Sakura, heir and firstborn of the Uchiha Clan."

The clan trickles from the hospital bed down the halls of the hospital, a grand total of 243 members and counting bow ceremoniously. Like a wave, and as if in echo, a bell rings throughout Konoha. The nurses titter and doctors impatient at the sheer amount of people, they mock the traditionalism and call it barbarity. In their annoyance, they miss the pulse of chakra from the babe as she opens her eyes.

Emerald green eyes and seeing.

Uchiha Sakura opens her eyes to the world and screams for the life she left behind. She screams and the chakra pulse radiates, glass shatters and sensory ninja cringe. She screams and cries and lets the memories fill her with emotions and hatred and love and Naruto -

Her eyes open again, blood red and awake.

Heat and pride bloom first in his chest. Before worry or concern, Fugaku allows a proud grin to pull his mouth edge to edge, he flashes rare dimples at his panicking wife as she tries to calm her child. Her own Sharingan flickering as she rocks the child with the desperation of a new mother. The Uchiha crowd titters with excitement, they see strength and a future.

Fugaku steps back from the bed, allowing the doctor and nurses to fuss over the mother and child. He had pressed a chaste kiss on his wife's head and allows the gravity of the situation to hit him - a father. Him, at twenty three, has a living being to take care of, to care for, to love and cherish and protect and teach and - Fugaku tries to remember his own youth, his own father.

His eyes fall on a clan symbol, a weight settles in his chest, he is the leader of a clan of families. He must protect the many over the few, and yet, the nurse hesitantly offers his child to him, she is wrapped in a soft pink blanket and has his dimples - Fugaku helds her with the awkwardness of a new father and presses a tanned finger into her dimple gently.

Her skin is soft, like fresh tofu, pale, unblemished. Little thin white scars litter his own finger. As if the phantom hand of his mother presses his shoulder down to sit before his wife, he does. He allows the memory of his mother, placating and guiding, to tell him how to hold a baby.

"Sakura." He breathes. Long dark lashes and dark eyes, a little fuzz of black hair and - "She doesn't have eyebrows?"

Mikoto laughs. "She will, anata." Laughter bubble from her throat as if the hysteria returned her sanity. Her hands shake with adrenaline and her mind frantic, as her joy dies down at the dumbfoundedness of her husband, she asks, "She sent a chakra pulse."

A cautious answer, "Yes."

"Her Sharingan."

Fugaku does not look up from the scrunched up face of his daughter, from her red tinted skin to the space where her eyebrows should be, he says unknowingly his mantra for the rest of her life, "She is a true Uchiha."

Sakura hears it all. She sees a man, barely a man, fall in love with his child, with his duty and his clan. She lets the pleasure of being held in warm, in soft blankets and love dull the pain of death, of leaving loved ones and of war. But she does not let the memories fade. Sakura, in her sleep, begins to recall a life before this one meticulously.

She wants to relive the memories of a war that hasn't begun, a boy that wasn't born and a world that did not exist. Nor will it, by the time she was done.

Apparently, parenthood can be delegated.

Mikoto sits with her daughter and dangles a toy lazily before her, it has been two months since a large scale chakra pulse was radiated across Konoha and her coils, next to the source of it all, were sensitive.

Coupled with a rough birth, a patriarchal society and underlying sexism against people with breasts and a pussy, she finds herself drowning in her boredom with guards and other new mothers. As a lady, Mikoto would never dare to voice these thoughts out loud and rarely to her husband, but as a ninja, these words were cradled like kunai in her hand.

Two months had given her Sakura some eyebrows. The little girl had fallen asleep from her perch on her mother's lap. They had not seen her Sharingan since her birth, nor a fluctuation of her chakra coils. Accidentally dropping her daughter's head as she stood up, Mikoto cringes, she quickly presses a hand and a coat of numbing chakra to her daughter's head, before the child shrieks.

It was time for a playdate before insanity becomes her. Or was it boredom.

At 2 months old, Sakura was done being a child. Her body could not handle her mind, she is tired, weak and fatigued for the majority of her new life. She was often shoved with other nameless children that gurgled and stuck toys in their mouths. Once, she had thought she spied a flash of grey hair but she couldn't turn her head to check.

The time she was given to get in tuned with her body was used for her mind, for her chakra and for her future. She watched and studied and fell in love with the clan known for its fire. Its spirit and deep, deep pride. From past experience, intense buried emotions never end up well. She saw a disproportionate number of Uchiha shinobi in escort missions, in the three Chunin exams of her one year lifetime and sheer lack of numbers in the upper rungs of society.

The numbers were worse for women.

She puts the names and faces to the men and women of the Uchiha, to the cook that makes her favourite dango, the fruit vendor that brings her the softest peaches for her toothless gums and even the cousins that coo at her either out of respect for their leader or her sheer virtue of being a baby.

Her first words frightens her mother and thrills his father, it is spoken at a clan meeting and she speaks the words with the gravity of a leader. She had been held in her mother's arms, and had reached to grip her father's collar in the middle of his speech before the clan. Before her mother could tug her hand away, she declares to the clan, "Sharingan."

Amusement rise from the men, Fugaku stops and pulls his daughter into him embrace and asks him to say it again, she does. The clansmen cheer and joke at the nature of fatherhood on their rigid leader. Unknowingly, her Sharingan flicker on as Fugaku faces the crowd as a proud father. They flash between blinks until they suck her dry of chakra, Fugaku catches sight of it before she slumps into another nap. Casually handing his daughter off to his wife, he watches the women usher the two out. Cold sweat and worry pool in his gut, the fathers in the crowd sympathize, the Elders seeth at the disruption of the meeting, they urge him to continue.

He does.

Sakura does not care that she has redefined the word prodigy.

She cares little of what is normal, she cares for the lives that she sees on a day to day basis, she cares for the future of which little Naruto's and Sasuke's can live with peace. Her clansmen whisper about her, about the heiress who was born with the Sharingan, the heiress who had sent the village into chaos by a chakra pulse - the born killer.

As a doctor, she takes no pride in her ability to take lives.

But she is not a doctor anymore. She is barely a toddler with the emotional and physical needs of one.

Sakura loves life. It takes losing it once to discover the depth of the appreciation she has for simple things. For a hot meal by a loved one, naps in the sun, kisses and ice cream. Innocence and obligation-free days of a child.

She is a quiet kid, kind and observant. There is no ostentatious display of her abilities, and whatever seeps through the cracks of her mask is disregarded by the sheer virtue of her heritage.

Shisui knows this. He is of the same sort as she. A year older, with dark curly hair and eyes dark as coal but simultaneously sunny, Sakura attaches herself to him from the moment their mother had dumped them together on a playing mat.

Stupidly beautiful with innocence and sheer excitement, Shisui had tugged her hair loose from the tight braids and stuffed a braid into his drooling mouth. Sakura had watched with numb disbelief as the boy begins to stand and walk, forcing her to take her first steps with her hair in his mouth and led like a dog. She bursts into laughter, unlike any her parents had heard before, her mother rushes forward to catch her daughter.

Shisui's mother had gasped in horror and ripped her son from the heiress, her eyes flickering to her matriarch for any signs of anger. Sakura stops when she feels the wet blob of hair hit her face, the disgusting feeling couldn't be described by any other emotion in her infant repertoire than sadness - one Shisui seemingly emulated as his piercing cry cuts through the crowd.

Sakura sobers up and blinks at the toddler from the ground. He flails from the grip of his mother and lands gracefully onto the ground, happily stuffing another braid mulishly into his mouth as he grips her hand with a moist palm.

"Shisui." She says, her tongue curls around the foreign sounds, "Shisui."

Her braid drops from his mouth, he raises a finger to poke at her cheek, "S'kura."

"Sakura." She repeats calmly, "Sa-kura." Sakura giggles at the living legend as he blinks at her as if her hair was an extension of his body.

"S'kura." He mumbles, the braid falls from his mouth and lands in a wet splat on her dress, "S'kura, S'kura, S'kura -"

"Sakura-chan," long fingers grip her armpits and tug her from Shisui's embrace, "It's time to say to Shisui-chan."

Sakura glances at the boy, the poor confused boy with eyes that glitter like Naruto's, her heart melts and she does the only thing she can - wails.

Her mother's expression tightens and Sakura meets swirling red eyes, then darkness. Sakura wakes up to an empty room, devoid of her books and toys. Hot anger simmer under her skin, she sits from her cot and watches her mother enter the room.

"Its dinner time, Sakura-chan." She presses forward, a maid pushes a cart with bottles of baby formula and food.

Sakura blinks and meets her mother with swirling red eyes, success rewards the hard working, it seems. "No."

The woman's features tighten, a wave of her hand, she sends the servant out scurrying. "Sakura, do not make me repeat myself."

"Shisui." She asserts.

Sakura doesn't know what she wants from this, anger bubbles from being knocked out, from being taken away - again - from Naruto, from who she wants to be with.

"Sakura," her mother lowers the side of the cot so she could face her daughter, "you are the firstborn girl of the Uchiha clan. We do not have time or the luxury -" Sakura's eyes flicker towards the jade ornament in her hair, "for you to throw temper tantrums."

"I wanted to be with Shisui." If Mikoto was surprised, she didn't show it. Sakura speaks her first sentence with the experience and conviction of an adult.

Fugaku enters the main house, Sakura feels the thrum of his chakra.

Mikoto's features harden, her Sharingan spins and she spits, "Sometimes it's not about what you want, Sakura-chan."

When she speaks, Sakura speaks not to Mikoto, but as if to the fates and circumstances that had led to her new life, "I will get what I want."

She does not turn or flinch as Mikoto's palm freezes before it hits her cheek. She lowers her palm, her Sharingan flickers from existence and pulls her daughter into her embrace. Mikoto murmurs apologizes into Sakura's shoulder and presses kisses into her hairline.

"Mikoto?" Fugaku calls from the door, he presses a hand to his wife's back, "What are you doing on the ground? This isn't good for the baby."

Her mother, bless her soul, begs Sakura to understand with her eyes and smiles without teeth to her husband. "Ah, yes. Sakura-chan, you're going to be a big sister!"

"Oh." Sakura smiles sardonically, "A heir and a spare?"

This time it's her father to does the job, her head snaps to the right painfully. Red hot anger bubble in her gut, Sakura snaps back just as fast, her Sharingan spinning.

"Never say that again." He presses his crying wife into his shoulder, his shadow covers Sakura from her cot. The darkness makes her Sharingan illuminate a glowing hue. "Who taught you that?"

It's moments like these that Sakura is reminded that words are weapons that will hurt more than any wound, she says, "You did, tou-san."

Fugaku sighs, he wipes a hand across his face and sends his daughter to bed, picking up his pregnant wife, they leave for their room.

Figures.

Figures.

They are figures in the light, silhouettes that stretch from the boundaries of her room to her bed. Like monsters with ever extending limbs by the ironic virtue of the very light that defeats them. Sakura almost laughs.

But she remembers that she is not hiding from monsters anymore, she has been one and now she is going to kill them all.

She remembers that she is almost two years old and time is going to be a luxury that she does not have. Sakura cycles chakra in her coils, she lets the warmth exit her body and dance between her chubby fingers. She coats her foot and begins to take a step from the ground, she falls.

Sakura remembers that her mind is her, but the body isn't.

It is a harsh reminder that came with a fist sized bruise on her hip and a split lip from her own hand that shifts her entire world. Her pin sized chakra control is gone with the wind, with her family, with her friends, her enemies - the pivot of her strength is gone.

Who is Sakura without her chakra control? She had asked herself mulishly from her cot during a particularly Shisui-less day. Sure, she had decent enough chakra control as a winner of the Uchiha genetic lottery, but not enough to be Sakura again.

Anger bubbles and explodes in her core. Coating her hands as much as she can, Sakura steps forward and smashes her closed fist into the wall. Bright, sharp pain tell her that she has broken a few fingers, her eyes tell her that the dent in the wall was barely passable for a Sakura standard in the last lifetime.

Her clansmen come running into her room, ANBU flicker in and look curiously at her bleeding hand. Sakura offers no explanation other than a simple, "I fell."

Mikoto picks her up from the hospital with indifference and an air of impatience. Sakura takes a breath and lets it escape from her body, her mother could hate her inwardly for all she cared, she has a world that she needs to change.

Hours later, they return to the hospital for the birth of her brother - Itachi.

Sakura, once daughter and only child of merchants, had no such preparation for apparent Uchiha traditions of unconditional love of family. Apparently the same capacity for hate as such for love.

She stands tiptoed to press a finger against her new brother's cheek. He is a calm baby, and she loves him already. This is a child, Sakura watches with all her two decades of life, that can change the world. She watches the rise and fall of his chest and reminds herself that there are lives worth saving. She promises herself that nothing -" - will harm him." she finishes in a quiet declaration.

"Good." Her father's chest rumbles from her back, he doesn't speak more, but pride radiates from his core.

Sakura watches Itachi's hand curl around her finger, her other hand casted and in a hard casing reach to brush his cheek. Dark eyes meet her green ones, Sakura smiles broadly. "Hello, Itachi, I'm your aneki or nee-chan, or nee-sama, or Kura-chan, or -"

"Sakura," her mother cuts her off with a smile, "go with your father for some food, you haven't had dinner yet."

The first thing Uchiha Itachi's eyes laid upon in his arrival to the world is his sister. Coincidentally, and as the rest of the world will find out, she will remain what he prefers to rest his eyes on for the rest of his childhood.

Mikoto watches with unreadable emotion - postnatal depression, Sakura determines - when Itachi leaves her embrace for his sister. Sakura often toddles with Itachi in the front yard, in the sunset or in the morning before and after her tutors. Mikoto watches from the shadows of the house and sometimes wonders if this is her life. If years of blood, sweat and tears lead up to this moment, of her children and her sitting alone in a home.

In the scary moments of loneliness, she wonders if it was all worth it.

Then Itachi would release a childish giggle and she would answer without a beat - of course. Sakura would let Itachi tug on her hair as he babbles in her lap. Sometimes, Shisui and his mother would visit and Itachi would never release physical contact of his sister in fear of the older boy's glittering eyes and wild curls.

Sakura is three when she enters the Academy.

She is four when she graduates and almost vomits at the routine and familiarity of it all for a full year. Her father had greeted her with pride and the Elders each pressed a kiss to her forehead in support of her growth, her bloodline and her talent.

Sakura's eyes sought for her little brother's in the crowd and he grins back.

Minato watches the little girl from his perch.

She is young, which he realizes is an understatement. His own teenage self couldn't fathom the reality of what was happening - four. The girl, toddler sized human, was approved to be sent on missions and should the case be - kill.

War is rising and there is a delicately balance that is on the route to being tipped so fucking out of proportion.

He almost stumbles from his post as the girl, the Uchiha Heiress flashes her Sharingan in his direction. They meet eyes and she smiles, dimples prominent from his perch.

Minato thinks back to the little boy, the other prodigy, and he wonders how many children will be ruined before this war is over? Inwardly, he answers his own question. War never ends, it only stops. As for ninja, the stakes are just higher.

He appears before the family, Uchiha Fugaku does not flinch and smiles easily. His wife smiles at Minato with familiarity and greets him, "Minato-kun! What are you still doing here? Kushina-chan tells me you have a date today?"

Flushing red, Minato runs his fingers through his hair, "Yes, she, ah, finally said yes."

Glancing down at the curious little girl and the boy half-hidden behind her, he crouches before the new genin. "Hello, chibi -"

"Itachi," Fugaku hisses, "do not hide behind your sister."

In response, Sakura tightens her hand on her brother's and steps forward to block her brother completely, "I'm just in the way, tou-chan."

"Sakura-chan, Itachi-chan! My name is Namikaze Minato." He smiles at the children, it widens at the tight grip of the siblings on each other. The little girl nudges her brother gently forward, he follows without a question and they bow courteously.

"Nice to meet you, Namikaze-san." Sakura answers, her voice does not waver but she sees so much Naruto in him. "My name is Sakura, I'm going to be assigned to you. Please take care of me."

Her brother hastily copies her bow, Sakura stifles a giggle.

"My name is Itachi, I'm going to the Academy soon!" His father places a firm grip on his shoulder, Minato watchs as Sakura's face darken. "Pleased to meet you."

"Its an absolute pleasure to meet you both." he turns towards Sakura, "How do you know you will be assigned to me?"

She grins widely and quips, "Female intuition."

Mikoto rolls her eyes and ushers her children away. Minato watches as his smile fades, and Sakura once again place herself between her father and brother. The family silhouette stretches down the pavement and turns the bend of the street. Minato turns his heel and wants to curse, he hates it if they die young.

The red steely gaze of Sakura burn the back of his eyelids, he thinks that she will not die easily, but then again, when had it been up to them?

Life and death are beyond mere mortals.

Itachi knows many things by the age of two.

The majority taught by his sister, but he knew them nonetheless. He knows that a year has seasons, the days of the weak, how to count up to a million, how to walk up a wall and wrap a rice ball so that the nori won't leave crumbs on the bed.

He knows that sometimes mother and father don't get along, that he belongs to a clan, to a village, to people. There is such a thing as a ward, and that no one can be happy forever and that's okay. There is such a thing as peace and that it sounds like parents and children at home with funerals for the elderly from old age.

Itachi knows that his sister knows everything, and that she is smart. Smart in a way that you feel safe and secure, with the assurance of love and family and peace. No one fights when she is around. Itachi knows this because he has seen it, in his family and in his clan.

He has seen many things and even the red, red eyes of his sister and parents. She told him that they are a sign of suffering and pain and loss and that she will make sure that he will never get it. He believes her.

Itachi believes his sister over anyone in the world, because he knows that she believes in him more than anyone in the world. And that is enough for him to believe that there will be peace, and he will achieve it.

Sakura heaves heavily.

The moonlight illuminates each and every open wound on her fingers, each breath seem to catch on the open cuts and sting.

She needs to let go.

Her eyes scan the destroyed trees and overturned chunks of rock - she will never be who she was. She physically is not who she was and it had made all the difference.

It has made all the difference.