Diamond Spoons Tastes Cold

Authors Note: Usual disclaimers apply. Thanks to everyone who favourited, placed this story on alerts and reviewed! I will do my best to keep writing. If there's any typo or weird grammar feel free to point it out. Chances are I've missed it during the proof-reading. I will update the chapters accordingly. I added a glossary of terms I used in this chapter in case some readers are confused about it. Please tell me if there's any other terms I've missed.

Chapter 1: I may have gained a brother complex

With how long it took me to figure out where I was reincarnated despite the glaringly obvious clues, I must seem like a Class A idiot.

In my defence, the only reason it took me so long to connect the dots was because I was still reeling over how I just exited out of another person. I don't think anything in the world could have ever prepared me for that. No one expects to be born. By the time our brains were developed enough to have any semblance of self, we were already born.

Descartes' "I think therefore I am" had never made more sense than it has now.

Right, so let's see what I have to work with here.

1. Is currently a very small infant

2. Is a younger sister to someone who would cause untold emotional trauma to me, in the future, under the delusion that it was for my own good.

3. Is it just me or the air here is a bit -

… Did I just… fall asleep mid thought? How and why would I - right, infant body, infant brain. The brain of a baby isn't developed enough at this stage to actually support my mind. Do you know how infuriating it is to have the capacity for thought, but you can't actually finish thinking all your ideas through because your body is failing to keep up. The thing holding me back isn't an actual obstacle I can do a quick fix on now. How am I supposed to think of a game plan to deal with the mess that is the future of my current life if I can't even think when -

And I fell asleep again.

I'm furious. This sleeping in mid thought is fast getting old. As I fumed, there was a strange prickling sensation running around my skin. At first it was faint, kind of like the pins of needles I get when I sat at a seiza position for too long. It wasn't that serious and thus, easily ignored.

Overtime, as my frustration grew, the feeling worsened. Eventually, I feel like I've been scrubbed raw all over with sandpaper, and even the air hurts. I wanted to cry. I did cry, but god how could tears falling down my cheeks feel so painful?

My body shook, but the friction from the cloth underneath me made everything hurt more.

My mouth opened to wail, but everything just felt so horrible. The wails were loud at first, but as the pain grew it became little squeaks.

You know, I would really appreciate it if my baby brain decided to knock me out cold right now, so at least I don't have to deal with this sensory overload.

I heard the door slide open, the thudding of feet before seeing a little blob peering over me.

It's been two days since his new little sister was born. Itachi was still marvelling at how small, and pink she was. Are babies supposed to be that pink? It was hard for his mind, genius or not, to wrap around the fact that he too was that small two years ago. Or was that two and a half?

Compared to him, his little sister looked more like a moderately sized stuffed toy. If it wasn't for the fact that she made noises and had some small, independent movements, he would be hard pressed to believe that she was a living, breathing, person. Before she was born, mother and father made it clear that he was a big brother now, and as a big brother, it was his res-pon-si-bi-lity to take care of her.

His parents laid her down in a crib in the room next to theirs. They called it a nur-se-ry. The last time he checked, little Yuuki was still sleeping heavily. She didn't even notice that there's drool on the side of her mouth. Mother and Father were still in the living room after coming back from the hos-pi-tal, and mother still looked tired, while father had to start preparing something to eat. If Itachi was being honest with himself, he would admit that he wants to make a fuss so his mother cooked instead, since father's food was … eh, but he's a big brother now and has to be good since mothers' so tired.

Seeing that the last time he saw his sister felt like hours ago, Itachi, decided to slip out of the living room to take a peek at his sister. As he walked down the hallway, he heard some soft squeaks that slowly grew louder as he came closer to the nur-se-ry.

His sister must have woken up! That means he gets to play with her! Feeling more excited than he ever had in his brief but important life, he all but ran inside the room and went to the side of the crib. He's still a little short, so he can't quite peer over the crib and get a clear look at his sister, but Itachi was nothing but determined. Furrowing his eyebrows a little, Itachi wholeheartedly focused on climbing up the crib to get a better view of his sister. His hands gripped the wooden bars tightly before he attempted to lift himself up on the small ledge. Slipping, he stubbornly tried again, succeeding on the second try to be stably up above the ground, and in a much better position to lean over the crib.

The swaddled, pink, fleshy baby had a scrunched up face. She's crying? Why was she crying? Upset, Itachi tried to look around the crib to see why his sister was sad. She looked terrible, like she's hurt.

"Chichiue! Chichiue! Help!" Itachi shouted in a panic. "Yuuki-chan's crying! She's hurt."

His father all but flew into the room. Mother, with the sheer exhaustion on her face followed after. His father then tried picking her up, but the bundle ended up shaking more. His sister's face looked nothing like the cute, pink giggling one Itachi remembered a day ago. Instead, it now looked an angry red, with deep lines from how strongly she's scrunching it up.

"Itachi, go with your Hahaue, we need to take Yuuki to the hospital."

Itachi ran.

Had it not been for the panic caused by his little sister, his parents would have realised that this moment was yet another testament of Itachi's genius. What other toddler would be able to control his chakra so precisely, as to help him stick and climb up the crib's wooden rails.

When I came to, my body feels like its aching all over. My nose is assaulted by the sharp sting of disinfectants. My skin no longer feels as raw I, and in the distance, there are three giant, blurry, blobs. This hazy world view is slowly getting on my nerves. It's irritating how I can barely see anything, especially when I'm stressed and cranky.

One of the blobs moved a smaller blob attached to it closer and closer to me, before stopping a few centimetres from my face. This close, I realised that the blob looked roughly like a hand. A hand covered by a semi-transparent blur. Was it iryo-ninjutsu?

If it's iryo-ninjutsu, then I'm at the hospital?

On another note, all the stuff you hear about how chakra from iryo-ninjutsu should feel comfortable, warm and soothing? Well, they're all lies.

The moment that glow appeared, my whole body starts itching and tingling like crazy again. Before my skin starts feeling raw enough that slightly moving air feels like knives again, I gave a very angry shout. To re-emphasise how much I do NOT want that glowy hand anywhere near me, I did my best to swat the damn thing away, before realising that my parents had me swaddled in a blanket. So I ended up flailing instead of the very authoritative baby slap I was envisioning.

Thankfully, the medic was smart enough to remove the offending hand away. The raw, itchy sensation eased up some, but it was still so, so uncomfortable, especially when everything feels so chilly. Then the hand came back. I tensed up, and readying another angry shout before I realised that the itching stopped, and everything gradually felt warmer, and better. Still eyeing the hand suspiciously, I slowly relaxed.

"As suspected, Fugaku-sama, Mikoto-sama, it seems like your daughter's condition is caused by an imbalance in her chakra"

"What do you mean by a chakra imbalance? If it's just an imbalance, the effects shouldn't be so severe."

"More specifically, the imbalance is caused by a very skewed ratio of spiritual to physical energies greatly favouring the spiritual side." The voice of the medic-nin let out a sigh. "She has an abnormally large amount of spiritual energy, it's practically dwarfing her physical energy."

I heard the sound of wood splintering.

"On the bright side, it's a very strong indicator that your daughter's mind would develop quickly. She could be as prodigious as your son." The medic-nin continued, as if to calm the tension from the diagnosis.

"The chakra of Uchiha's on average skews towards spiritual over physical energy, but there hasn't been a case in the clan similar to what's happening to my daughter." Well, this is new information to me.

"Which is why this is so disconcerting, even factoring in her Uchiha heritage, she has such a large excess of spiritual energy that it's practically oozing out of her. From her strong reaction against yin-release techniques like the mystic palm, she also suffers from a heightened sensitivity towards spiritual energy." The medic-nin seems hesitant. I'm more concerned about what it means for my future. Does this mean that I am unable to become a shinobi? In a world filled violence, and in this particular clan, being unable to become a shinobi may as well have been a death sentence.

"What is promising is that she reacts well towards chakra with a greater proportion of physical energy." Seriously, couldn't you have led with that. Who can I complain to about the medic-nin's bedside manners?

"In the best case scenario, the severity of the imbalance should reduce as she grows older. I would suggest either a stronger emphasis on physical conditioning when her body is old enough to train routinely and safely, or to teach her more jutsus in the future, that requires a greater concentrations of spiritual energy like iryo-ninjutsu or genjutsu to try and use of the excess energy."

This conjuncture doesn't help much. Would an excessively strong yin-chakra make it more difficult for me to learn taijutsu? or is the impact so severe that it would impede me using my body even for day to day civilian life? or hopefully, it just requires me to specialise in taijutsu or genjutsu as a shinobi so I won't have to feel like everything is cutting me? Seriously, Being X, before dropping me into this world, shouldn't you ensure that there's no crippling problems about my survival, beyond the sword of Damocles that's the Uchiha Massacre?

What's with this HELLISH level of difficulty. I'm not asking you to make it extremely easy, but couldn't you have given me a more AVERAGELY difficult, at least by shinobi standards, life?!

"For now, its strongly advised that your daughter isn't left alone for any period of time. Ideally, she should be kept close to sources of chakra that has a strong yang component to soothe her."

Isn't the Kyuubi half that's going to be sealed into Naruto the Yang half? Wouldn't that make Naruto the perfect safety blanket for me? Seeing that Itachi still looks no where near 6 years old, Naruto wouldn't have been born yet. Who knows, maybe his parents weren't even married yet.

There was a long pause after that.

"Since this is a rare condition, what's your professional opinion on why our daughter could be harmed by the imbalance? When we first discovered the symptoms, there was no yin-release techniques, or even anything giving out yin chakra anywhere near her."

"Well this is just a theory, but assuming that her body's natural limit for storing chakra, is only slightly greater than her current available physical energy, the massive excess of spiritual energy is simply expelled out of her body and into her surroundings due to the body's self-preservation instincts." The medic-nin seemed pause for a bit, as if restructuring his thoughts. "We could conclude that what's harming her isn't the actual excess spiritual energy she produces naturally, but more the high concentration of yin-chakra near her immediate surroundings. On that note, it may be even more effective for those around her to continuously expel yang-chakra into her surroundings, to counteract the amount of yin-chakra she is producing."

"In short, the spiritual energies inside her isn't doing any damage, it's the yin rich environment that's the problem."

"Thank you for your help Sano-sensei."

"No problem at all, it's my job."

"Before you leave, it would be best to schedule another appointment in a months time so we can check that the proposed treatment plan is helpful for Yuuki-hime. It is likely that these check ups would be routine, better safe than sorry. However, if she's experiencing another episode even with the treatment plan, feel free to come earlier, this time, through the office doors."

There was an awkward silence after that. I can already imagine how we got here in the first place, presumably as all ninjas do, through the window on the side of the building. Can you imagine a normally dignified Uchiha couple barging in through the window? It's almost as disconcerting as the time I watched an episode of Boruto and saw Hyuuga Hisashi fawn over his grandkids.

To my parent's credit, they didn't make a single sound.

Itachi softly coughed.

Ever since that day, my parents have never left me alone. If they were busy with their jobs, at the very minimum Itachi would be there to accompany me. Mentioning Itachi was kind of a moot point, since the moment he filled in the blanks from that conversation, we became less two individual people, and more a single unit. Despite the whole "don't coddle your children" bit of being a shinobi parent, this incident was a large enough scare that leaving me alone with only Itachi around was more of a rarity than the standard. They've got older, more responsible people than my two year old brother radiating chakra as they watch over me.

It may sound like I'm being smothered, but between that or feeling like I'm being given a thousand cuts, I'd take being smothered any day.

Life as a baby was much simpler after that. I slept. I ate, and wasn't that a can of worms I do not want to open. I attempted to plot, but ended up with an impromptu nap instead. There were two parts of being a baby that I wasn't handling very well. It's already very reasonable that I limited my issues to just two areas. The first was a very respectable problem. There's just no method of effective communication. Other than tugging some part of a person's body, conditional to them actually carrying me, or crying, or giggling, or blowing spit bubbles, or attempt speaking but ending up saying 'Aaaa!', 'Uuu!' or 'Yaaa!' there was just nothing. My body isn't even developed enough to try an attempt at butchering the Japanese language toddler style. I actually need teeth for that.

The second problem was more… humiliating. Bear with me for this. No matter how accepting I am about dying and being reincarnated, it doesn't change the fact that in less than a year, I went from a fully functional, high flying adult with a complicated job to a very young, unable to even control my own … waste disposal, baby. The first time I had consciously - for a lack of any better descriptors- crapped myself in my nappies, my brain just decided to have a shut down.

I am ashamed to admit that a bit after that, I threw a tantrum of epic proportions out of sheer panic over how could this be happening to me. The thought of having to crap my nappies, likely multiple times a day, for a minimum of at least 1 or 2 years just made me hysterical. On a side note, the downside of being a baby with overly developed mental capacity in comparison to the body, is the ability to overthink yourself to hysterics. I cried, screamed, screeched. If I had enough control over my arms I would most definitely throw things at a wall. The worst part is how these emotions just keep coming and I can't even make anyone understand me since I'm STILL just a baby.

The meltdown was so swift and devastating that it startled poor Itachi, who prior to this mess, was doing his brotherly duty of teaching me to reach for the stuffed cat he was dangling above my head.

The stuffed cat landed on my face.

I am not amused. So I screamed my head off.

"Chichiue! Something's wrong with Yuuki again." He shouted out.

Chichiue? Where's mother? No, Itachi, go get mother not father! I may be a baby now, but if I have to get my nappies changed by an adult, I would rather it be done by an adult woman instead of a man!

Father flew into the room the second Itachi finished his sentence. It's like one second, he was by the door, then the next, he was right in front of me, picking me up in his arms. No words could describe how disgusting it feels to have your own waste squashed up against you by that motion. I kept wailing, and all this bloke did was just hover his hands around me.

No you nimrod, I want a nappy change!

Father brought out a bottle to my mouth and I want to scream. I want a nappy change. A NAPPY CHANGE!

Oh my god. This is driving me up the wall. Father just seems as perplexed and confused over how I swatted the bottle away. He looked at Itachi. Itachi looked back at him before they both looked back at me. I can't talk to the guy. I can't gesture at my nappies. I can't bloody communicate my need for a nappy change since I, physically, can't speak. My brother being clueless, fine he's like what, 2 years old? But Fugaku? He's the head of this village's police force and he can't figure out that I need a nappy change. I bet mother is the one who usually handles stuff like this. If she were here, she would probably place me in a new pair before I could even blink.

I honestly never hated the patriarchy more than in this moment.

When having a baby, the least you could do is to know the basics of baby care. Changing nappies is most definitely a basic skill.

There was a growing sense of panic inside me, which makes me cry louder. It became a pretty vicious cycle, of panic, crying, with more panic and more crying. The emotions just kept building on top of each other, and there was a growing pressure on my head.

I just want a nappy change!

Like a snap, I felt something rushing out of me before spreading out to the whole room. My father seemed to somehow get the message, and the panic greatly receded from within me. He quickly took off the soiled nappy, cleaned and put me in a new pair. I stopped my tantrum and the panic attack, and just stared at him in disbelief.

Did… did I just discover ninshū, because my father was clueless about how to check for soiled nappies?

This has to be another fever dream.

On the bright side, I can now 'talk' to other people. My father and I just had a long look at one another, and I can feel that as one, we decided that we will NEVER speak of this incident to anyone.

Really, discovering ninshū because I crapped myself. I don't think this was what that sage planned for when he spread out chakra to everyone.

Still feeling very unsettled by this, tantrum. I just kinda flopped on the bed the moment my father placed me back into the crib. Itachi then started patting my head with chakra, making me feel all fuzzy inside. He kept repeating the motion while saying "its okay now" over and over again until I calmed down.

It's eerie how he stopped exactly when I calmed down.

… I should probably work on how to control this ninshū or I'll never have any privacy in this life.

I actually feel kinda guilty towards my brother. None of this was his fault, but he still got caught in the aftermath and is doing his best to take care of me. For that reason, and partially to regain my lost pride (I mean really, an adult throwing a temper tantrum?), I resolved to only make a fuss whenever I was hungry, or when I soiled myself, or when I'm in pain. I strove to be the most calm and understanding baby a family could have.

Do I feel guilty towards my parents though? Not really, I mean they already had prior experience in raising a child and they still chose to have another. This type of tantrums is actually quite normal. Instead, it's probably weirder if I never raised hell as a baby. Glancing at my brother, and seeing how he's still very attentively patting my head, abnormal baby title or not, I resolutely decided no more. Since I already had one meltdown, even if I don't have another in the duration of being a baby, I'm sure my parents would just assume that I am a naturally well behaved child… right?

Turns out, when you're not screaming and crying your head off, there's a startling amount of energy for a baby to focus on other things like playing with my brother, or making a mess of, well, everything. With how little I can't actually do, I simply had to look at the bright side and focus on what I can actually do. Like the time I projectile vomited on the tatami in the living room because father forgot to burp me after feeding. The look on my mother's face before she calmly skewered my father was pure gold.

I can't wait until I can crawl. Imagine the sheer chaos I can make. The best part? As a baby no one would even think to scold me. All I need to do is give them the 'confused watery puppy eyes' and everyone would just coo at me. When I say everyone, I mean everyone, even if Fugaku would rather die than admit it.

After a few months of this routine, my eyesight has improved enough that I feel more comfortable interacting with the world. It really helps when I can actually see. Turns out, shinobi babies have a much faster developmental speed in general. It hasn't even been half a year, but I can already see clear shapes and nearly full RGB colours. Not only that, the treatment raised by the medic-nin was a success! The itching, stabbing sensation has at most become a mild tingle, and I never had an episode anywhere near as bad as my first.

Mother's maternity leave seems to be up though, since on most days, I no longer see her around the house as often. Itachi is always with me though. He's always hovering any type of colourful toys above me just a little bit beyond my reach in the name of training. I think he's trying to prepare me to gain enough strength to crawl towards him. Times like this, I'm reminded of how great of a genius my brother is.

Today, my father left for work early in the morning. Before my mother left, she placed me down on the tatami floor of the living room and tasked Itachi with keeping an eye on me until our babysitter arrives. Apparently, she asked one of the clan members to look after us, but which one, I don't quite remember. She left the shoji doors facing the garden open to let in the sunlight and to air out the house, before giving us each a kiss on our foreheads. She's been gone for a while now, but no one seems to be coming.

Instead of thinking about that, I focused on rolling over onto my side instead. Itachi seems to deem that I have mastered reaching up for a toy, so now he places the toy next to me instead of above me. Is this his four step training plan to teach me how to crawl?

Step 1: build arm strength from stretching and reaching up.

Step 2: learn how to turn to the side.

Step 3: learn how to turn over to my belly.

Step 4: learn how to move forwards.

That thought made me giggle a bit. It may seem impossible that a 2 year old had such skills, but then again, this is Itachi. Seeing my giggle, he gave out an encouraging smile and shook the toy harder.

"Just a little bit more Yuuki!" He encouraged.

Okay, I just need to turn my body to a side. I strained my muscles to lift of my shoulder, then my leg, then a part of my chest, and… I fell flat on my back. I peeked over at my brother, he just ruffled my hair gently and the smile never slipped off his face. Alright, just another try. This time I tried to build up a bit of momentum by rocking side to side before launching myself. Just when I was about to go for it, there was a really loud slam. It startled both Itachi and I so badly that it undid whatever progress I made with the rocking, while Itachi jumped up in alarm.

"I'm so sorry I'm late Mikoto-sama! Just now granny misplaced her cane after breakfast with her friends so I had to go all over the compound to find it, after that Yuri-chan's cat got stuck in a tree and… ." A very panicked voice shouted from the foyer.

… What kind of excuse is that? At least try to make it sound believable.

Itachi still looked very unsettled with the loud noise. It's a bit alarming how easily he startles. I wonder if that's a common trait with the Uchiha. If it was, it would be the perfect explanation as to why so many of our clan members are attached to nin-cats. The look on Itachi's face is actually quite funny since his eyes were open so wide, making him look very much like the young toddler he actually is. What I would do to have a camera right now.

"Mother left 3 hours ago." Itachi warily replied.

… This guy is at least 3 hours late. Will he even be a reliable babysitter?

Doubt, is a very easy emotion to transmit through ninshū, and surprisingly, so is exasperation. I only realised what was happening when I saw Itachi give a full on frown, and how there was nothing from this interaction that would give me such strong feelings of resignation.

"Ah! Crap." Cue an even heavier frown on Itachi's face. His eyebrows furrowed even deeper. "I'm really, really sorry Itachi-bo, but look! I at least remembered to bring you some dango this time."

He's bribing my brother with sweets? Hah! He must not know my brother very well then, there's no way my amazing, responsible and mature-for-his-age brother would be bought out by some - … what? Itachi? Why am I getting the sense that you're feeling conflicted about the bribe?

"What flavour is it?" He asked after a long pause. It was so long, they voice finally finished changing his outdoor shoes for his indoor ones, and made his way into the living room from the hall. I still can't see his face, but I can see that he's wearing a very bright shade of dark blue trousers.

"I have three sticks of hanami-dango and two sticks of mitarashi-dango. Which one would you like?" The babysitter made his way to us and sat cross legged on the floor after placing a plastic bag down. When I looked at his face, he wore bright orange goggles on top of his head.

Uchiha Obito?

"... I'll take the mitarashi-dango then."

"Ara, is this Yuuki-hime?" He turned to look at me, and carried me in his arms. "It's very nice to meet you Yuuki-hime. I'll be taking care of both Itachi-bo and you for a bit today. Don't worry though! I've been doing this for Itachi-bo since he was born" He gave a very bright laugh, and shot me a large smile. I cooed back in response.

Obito looks so young now. He's probably around 8-9 years old judging from a lack of hitai-ate. Cheerful, hopeful and excitable. It's hard to believe that one day he would go insane with grief to the point that he would make the world live in an eternal illusion to escape reality. Even knowing what he'd do in the future, it's hard to dislike such a happy looking guy. It helps that he's handling both of us so well. Bribing my brother with sweets helped him gain back some of his face that he lost from being late.

"Alright! So in the plan that Mikoto-sama left, Itachi-bo should be doing some stretching and light exercises in the garden." Obito looked at my brother expectantly. My brother looked back, drinking his tea and slowly munching on his dango. This staring competition stretched out for a while before Obito wilted.

"Itachi-bo don't look at me like that. I know I was late but we should at least try to go with your mother's plans for the day? How about this, I'll buy you another 5 sticks of an-dango? What do you say? Okay?" Obito pleaded with my brother. Feeling the sense of desperation from him, I tried to project a calming emotion towards him. I then looked at my brother and pointed to the garden outside the shogi doors and went "Ugah! Gah!" and squirmed like I was miming going out.

Itachi glanced at me and sighed. He drank some more of his tea and finished the last dango on his stick before standing up.

"Fine. I'll forgive you for being late this time Obito-nii." Then he stalked out the living room doors, onto the wooden engawa, before changing his shoes again, and going to the outdoor garden area.

"Yuuki-hime, do you want to see your brother do some ninja training?" Obito whispered. I excitedly lifted my arms in the air before making some enthusiastic baby noises. He laughed with me, then walked over to sit at the engawa, and sat me down on his lap. This way, I had a clear view of my brother doing some stretches on a gravel area.

It was a really long series of stretches. I don't think I even knew that people could bend that way? I guess it makes sense that shinobi, and shinobi in training need to be that flexible, considering their job scope. Once he was done, Itachi then ran laps around the training area. He kept going until he didn't have any energy left.

Isn't he just two years old? If they're already training him that hard, no wonder Uchiha's were such beasts in the shinobi world.

I gave Obito a questioning look, actively trying to use ninshū to ask my question. Obito then looked at me and patted my head, then he brought his attention back to my brother.

"Yuuki-hime, you're a very lucky girl you know?" He starts.

"Mikoto-sama told me about your little chakra issue. Ever since Itachi-bo knew you lacked physical energy, he kept pestering both your parents to start his training early so he could help make up the difference in your chakra." Obito turned back to me and smiled.

I was a bit shocked. Itachi did that because of me? I looked back to my brother who's soaked with sweat, but still kept going for another lap. A warm, fluffy feeling rose from my stomach to my throat, and I couldn't help but continue to stare. It was one thing to read about Itachi's love for his younger brother, Sasuke, and extrapolate that he would feel the same for me, but it's a whole other thing to actually know how much he cares. This feeling was so overwhelming, I nearly cried, but I didn't want to disturb my brother either.

Was this what Sasuke had felt as a child? No wonder he reacted the way he did when he thought his brother has betrayed him. No wonder the last semblance of sanity snapped when he realised it was all a lie, and that another person had cornered his brother to kill his whole family. Itachi didn't deserve such a terrible death.

As I digest these emotions, I felt the pangs of loneliness. After a few months of discovering ninshū, I got better at realising what emotions were genuinely mine, and what came from others. When I looked back up at Obito, he was still smiling, but his eyes looked a little sad. Right, at this stage, Obito only has his grandmother left as his close family. It felt bad to see him be this way, so I tried to send him the feelings I felt for my brother after what he had told me. It worked for a bit since he ended up focusing on me, but he wasn't completely distracted yet. So I decided to do a very bratty thing.

I took his finger from the hand he's holding me with and I slobbered all over it.

"Yuuki-hime! Oh come on don't do that okay? Ah damn where's that dummy… if you want to suck on something you should suck on that instead" Obito yelped.

Apparently in all that scrambling, he finally found the dummy and put it in my mouth. Clan pride here could be a bit much. Even the dummy wasn't spared from the Uchiwa symbol of our clan. Obito sighed. "At least I still have cute, little cousins like you and Itachi-bo. Although Yuuki-hime, you can't keep that cute title if you drool on people like that."

"Itachi-bo that's enough now! Wow! You've ran a whole two laps more than the last time I watched you. Good job!" Obito praised loudly. Itachi, still panting in a half crouch, struggled to push himself up before starting on his cool down stretches. When he finished, he took a towel Obito handed to him, then sat down on the space next to Obito. Obito then lifted me up and placed me in the care of my brother.

"It's lunch time now, so Itachi-bo please watch Yuuki-hime for a bit while I search for the bento Mikoto-sama left." Then he went inside the house, into the kitchen. Itachi nodded then tried to settle me in like Obito had, but it was hard since he was still two. No matter how developed he was for a two year old, it's still impossible for him to let me sit on his lap.

Giving up he decided to hold my hand instead. From there, I can feel a nice, warm sensation flowing from where our hands are joined. Although tired, Itachi still smiled at me. "Are you better now Yuuki? Don't worry Nii-san is here."

I realised then that he was giving me his chakra, which right after physical exercise, was very rich from the yang components I needed. This is bad. It's really bad. I think I might get a brother complex.

Authors Note:

Glossary of terms in this chapter:

Hahaue: An archaic and formal form of "mother" typically said in old, traditional families.

Chichiue: An archaic and formal form of "father" typically said in old, traditional families.

Seiza: A formal way of sitting where people sit on their legs on the floor or a pillow-chair.

- hime: Suffix usually used for princesses, daughters of lords, or as in the context of this story, the daughter of a powerful family.

- bo: A shortened suffix from -bochan, usually meant to address young boys from powerful families.

Hanami-dango: A japanese snack made out of three different flavoured mochi. (Plain, green tea, and pickled cherry blossoms)

Mitarashi-dango: A japanese snack made with plain mochi balls, covered in a sweet, soy sauce glaze. All dango goes well with tea.

An-dango: A japanese snack made with plain mochi balls, topped with a thick layer of red bean paste.

Engawa: A feature of Japanese traditional homes, a wooden hallway that goes around the compound. Attached to the engawa are some rain shutters, which protects the more fragile shogi doors in case of heavy rain or typhoon. If the shutters are down, the engawa is more similar to a hallway, but with it up, it's like a long, wooden balcony even though its on the ground floor.