Mirror, Mirror, a naruto fanfic

Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto

Mirror, Mirror

Her name had been Iliana.

"What are you looking at, skýla? Huh?" Athanasia jeered. When Iliana turned to look at the older girl over her shoulder, hardly perturbed by the blonde's sudden appearance, she was able to watch her companion's face go from ugly to uglier within a second.

What a feat. To think someone with such twisted features could contort them even further - and just to express their displeasure at her! How special it made her feel. Truly.

"Now?" the dark haired girl asked, eyeing Athanasia with thinly veiled displeasure. "Why, I'm looking at you. Sadly."

The other girl's nostrils flared in offense. Iliana could barely suppress her smirk of triumph.

"You think you're so clever, chazí̱? Do you?" Athanasia growled. "You think-"

"I think my name is Iliana," she interrupted. "Stop calling me names."

Athanasia's thin lips somehow thinned even further at Iliana's demand. "I'll call you what I want! Áschi̱mi̱! I̱líthia! How do you like that?"

Iliana huffed out a disbelieving laugh. "Gods, Athanasia, is there something you want from me? Whatever it is, I don't care. Just leave me alone."

ii.

For as long as she could remember, she'd had no one but her mamá and adelfí̱. She loved them more than anyone else in the world.

The blonde clenched her fists and stalked forward menacingly, getting as close to Iliana as she could. Her hot breath ghosted over the smaller girl's cheeks as she glared down at her, every line of her body screaming her hatred to the world.

"You think you're so special. So pretty, so beautiful. So perfect. Like a goddess reborn," she hissed. "You're not. You're nothing."

Iliana frowned, taking a step away from the older girl, only to stop as she heard the sound of another approaching. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. It was akin to a soldier stomping through the snow. When Iliana turned to see who it was, Athanasia thrust her hand out and twisted her ice cold fingers in her hair, pulling hard and diverting the young girl's attention back to her.

"Look at me when I'm speaking to you, skýla!" she screeched. "Now let me repeat: you're nothing." She leaned closer to the bewildered girl, tugging at her hair harshly with every breath she puffed out, and whispered, "You're nothing but the spawn of a karióla."

Iliana could feel her face distorting in anger, and took not a second to snap her hand out and slap the older girl in the face. Athanasia ripped her hand out of her hair and Iliana went to step away from her, but then she bumped into someone's chest and Athanasia's fist had crashed into her nose. Blood dribbled from her nostril and the blonde spat on her face.

"Hold her arms, Dimitra," she demanded. Then, Iliana's arms were held taut behind her back and Athanasia had punched her again, and again, and again. With each punch, she'd tell the younger girl, "No one likes you! No one loves you! Who would?"

Iliana could say nothing in response. All she could do was spit bloody saliva at Athanasia while trying to kick Dimitra.

iii.

Her mamá told her she and her adelfí̱ were beautiful beyond words. Such beauty was something that belonged to those of royalty - and so, really, they were princesses. Her princesses. They would have Prince Charmings and Happily Ever Afters, because that's what princesses deserved.

"Just go and die, already!" Athanasia screeched, finally stopping her onslaught of punches and kicks and scratches just to stare, wild-eyed, down at the bruised and bloody girl lying in the snow at her feet. Dimitra, also, stopped her kicking, and stared at her friend in confusion.

"What's the matter, Sia?" she asked.

Athanasia didn't respond. She simply panted and turned away from the crumpled girl on the ground, shaking her head. "Nothing. Nothing, Di. Let's go."

Iliana was left alone, snow melting into her parka. The cold, however, did not numb the pain she felt. She knew that her young blood stained the snow like a lipstick mark - like a kiss of death. She could hardly feel the blood spilling out of her mouth, her nose, her head, the scratches all over her face - but she could feel the ache in her bones, as though she were bruised from the inside out.

Her eyes trailed across the dull grey sky, blinking away the tears and the sticky red haze in order to see it properly. Though there was nothing to see, the blankness was a comfort. It was better than looking at the red and pink pool of bloody snow surrounding her body. Red was the color of passion. Pink, the color of a pretty princess's dress.

She felt no passion. Only pain.

And she certainly did not feel like a princess - not anymore. Princesses did not die like this. They slept eternally, or they were poisoned, but they were eventually awakened. By True Love's Kiss.

Iliana could not help but wonder: Where was her True Love's Kiss? Where, actually, was her Prince Charming? She could not wait all day for him. Not when her life was being tickled so scarily on the tips of Thanatos's fingertips - but no, it was not Thanatos who was waiting to take her to Hades.

It was the Keres, and they were impatient. They did not wait. They cackled, they pinched her skin and twisted her broken bones, dug their nails into her wounds and tried to drag her to their home. She could feel their eagerness for virgin blood; their impatience when it did not come swiftly enough.

She wished she couldn't feel it.

Was her Prince Charming unable to save her from these demons? These fairy godmothers who wanted not to care for her, but to watch her fall at the hands of her evil stepmother, or into the trap laid by the malevolent queen of the fae.

Save her. Save her. Save her. Save her, please! Wake her from this nightmare with a kiss, give her the Happily Ever After she deserved! Anything but this. She'd take anything but this.

This… painful ending. This… sudden blackness…

iv.

Although Iliana loved to think she would become the princess her mamá always told her she would be, her adelfí̱ liked to think she didn't need to be a princess. That she didn't need a Prince Charming to keep her out of harm's way. While Iliana loved to hear stories of the gods and goddesses, princes and princesses, her adelfí̱ loved to find stories of her own. Stories about regular people doing regular things - or regular people doing spectacular things.

With the blackness, came a reel of memories. Iliana knew she ought to treasure these last looks back at her short life, and so she watched without protest, even though giving up hurt her more than she would ever admit.

She expected to see her mamá, first. Instead, she saw her adelfí̱. She was slightly surprised, but not disappointed. She loved Korina as much as she loved Mamá.

"Tell me a story, Kiki!" a smaller version of herself demanded. It was slightly unsettling to see yourself, younger, happier, and certainly more alive, after having died. Iliana shook the thought off quickly, focusing back in on her memory.

"Alright, adelfoúla," her older sister giggled. "What should I tell you, I wonder?" she muses cheerfully, twirling a strand of her dark hair around her finger. "Perhaps… Harry Potter?"

"No!" she told Korina huffily. "You telled me about the England-boy. Someone new!" The Iliana who was watching this all from afar could not help but quirk her lips in amusement. Even Korina smirked at her younger sister.

"Told, Ana, not telled. Anyway… Percy Jackson, then? He is the son of Poseidon, you know-"

"I know! You telled - told me about him already! No more America or England-boys. Someone new! New!"

"What about America-girls? Or England-girls?" Korina asked.

"Boring!" the younger Iliana declared. "No America or England-anyones! Or real people!"

"So no Lucrezia Borgia? I thought you liked her brother… Well, alright. Then… what about a boy named Naruto? He is from a place like Japan. You remember Japan?" Korina checked.

"Yes!"

And then, everything was black again.

Nevertheless, Iliana much preferred to hear the stories her mother told. Kiki told nice stories, but they were not nearly as interesting as Mamá's.

"Zeus had two older brothers: Hades and Poseidon. Poseidon ruled over the seas, whilst Hades took control over the Underworld."

"And Zeus, the sky. And lightning! Boom!"

"Yes, boom! Good job, méli! You're so smart, aren't you? My brilliant little princess." Her mamá had been so beautiful. Iliana knew, without a doubt, that she would miss her terribly. Her and her dark hair, her small smiles just for her and Kiki, her stories…

Giggles filled her ears, much like the blood that had been pounding through her head before the blackness had consumed her. It distracted her enough that she had to forcefully push the sound of it and all of her thoughts away just to be able to focus on her mother's words.

"Now, while thunder and lightning are very fearsome indeed, and stormy waters are a force to be reckoned with, the scariest brother of them all is surely Hades. He is the one who will pass judgement on you when you die. You can be punished, or rewarded, or left to roam throughout your afterlife for eternity. It all depends on Hades's judgement of you. You'll be a good girl, won't you, méli? You will be good for Hades, so that you will not be punished?"

More giggles. This time, she could not rid herself of them. "O'course, Mamá! Good girl!"

Then, without a warning, the memory replaced itself with another.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall-"

"-who's the fairest of them all?"

Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. She wished she could make the pounding go away. It hurt to listen to. She wanted to see Mamá. Her blood was pumping through her veins as though it were in a race, though, and she could not see or hear a thing besides her heartbeat.

Then, without a warning, silence.

Her heart finally stood still.

vi.

But stories aren't real.

Iliana could not recall travelling through the Underworld. She could not remember seeing the Keres, or Charon. She could not remember seeing other people as dead as she.

All there was to recall was the blackness. The interminable blackness.

Yet she did not forget what came before the blackness.

vii.

Even still, it is that which you believe that becomes your world.

The next time she became aware of her heartbeat, the blood rushing through her veins, and the sounds of other people talking, it was not cold outside. Rather, it was muggy and unbearably humid. She could not help the cry that escaped her lips.

What a cry it was, indeed.

Someone shushed her, wrapping their arms around her body, but it was too late; Iliana had suddenly found herself screeching loudly, unable to believe what, exactly, she was hearing.

With every cry she willed her body to make, she heard the wail of a young child. A baby. And while she had been young when she had died, it certainly had not been this young.

"Shhh, shhh," someone - the person holding her - repeated, over and over again. Iliana ignored them in favor of trying to look around, trying to figure out where exactly she was. Yet she could not see anything. It was as blurry as it had been when she was crying, on her back, in the snow, bleeding to death. She heaved in a shuddering breath, and let out another warbling whine.

This was impossible. Simply impossible! A child such as her, being reborn? She had definitely not made her way to Elysium, so how on Earth could she have been reborn? Yes, she had most certainly died; yes, she could not remember visiting the domain of Hades; yes, she was here, seemingly in a newborn's body - but no!

She was no hero! She had been a child. A plain, boring child. No princess or goddess or Chosen Hero, no matter what she had desired all her life.

And the only way for her to have been reincarnated was if she had made her way to Elysium, taken a sip from the River Lethe, and shot off like a star, into her rebirth.

And even despite the fact that some of the facts added up - no matter what she wanted to think - there was no disguising the fact that she could, in fact, remember being Iliana. She did not even know who she was now. If she had taken a drink from the River Lethe, she should not recall anything at all.

However, there she was. Screaming like a newborn -as she was a newborn, and being cradled by… someone. Someone decidedly much larger than she, and most likely, the person who had given her life.

… was this a gift? Or a curse?

Iliana could not decide. So she let the darkness consume her yet again - except this time, she knew that when she woke up, it would be to this new life.

viii.

Suddenly, her world seemed that much more confusing.

There were more voices, the next time she awoke. She could understand none of them.

They spoke such odd words, ones she had never heard before - they were neither Greek, nor English, and those were the only two languages she knew how to speak.

After having decided that if she could not see them, nor understand them, she should just go back to sleep, she was alerted to the presence of someone nearby; someone much closer to her size than the one who had been holding her the day before. Someone right next to her.

She turned her head to the left, and although everything was still blurry, she could just barely see the face of another newborn staring back at her. Iliana was shocked beyond words - or, well, cries. And the baby next to her was just as silent as she.

Then, they cooed and blinked at her in greeting. She found that she could really only do the same in response.

The voices were quiet in the room.

Iliana and her new companion did the only thing that they could - they blinked their goodbyes, and went back to sleep.

ix.

Suddenly, her world seemed just a little bit brighter.

Someone was holding her hand in theirs, and her forehead felt a little warm. Iliana blearily blinked her eyes open, trying to see who it was, but there was only a big blob of nothing in front of her face.

Next thing she knew, there was a big blob of something there, instead. It looked like a young child, though not as young as she was now. They whispered something to her, something that sounded like a greeting, and Iliana could only flex her fingers in the other child's in reply.

Was this, perhaps, a new relative? A cousin? An older sibling?

Or… was this her Prince Charming? Had they, perhaps, kissed her awake? Was that what that warm feeling had been?

If this was her Prince, they were a little late to the party. But, well… better late than never, right? That's what Kiki always said.

Iliana ignored the feeling in her chest at the thought of her adelfí̱, and cooed at her visitor. Her maybe-possibly-Prince-Charming.

She wasn't sure, but she thought they smiled in reply.

She still wasn't quite sure how she felt about all of... this.

There was a crooning voice in her ear that awakened her the next day. The voice was soft, and beautiful, and it was singing such a comfortingly unfamiliar song to her. Their arms, which cradled her close to their body, were just as soft and beautiful and comforting as their voice.

Wherein the first time Iliana had woken up in her new life, she had not been sure who the person holding her had been, and thought, Perhaps this is my... new mamá - this time, she was sure the person was her mother. It could simply be no one else.

Her mother stopped her singing for but a moment, unwrapping one of her arms from underneath Iliana's body and reaching out for something - someone else. Large hands brushed pasts Iliana's small body, dropping another child into her mother's arms.

They were rough, calloused hands, and she instantly recognized them from the days before; maybe this was her father.

She… may have actually received a papa. This time around.

The idea that in this life, she would have not one parent, but two, shocked her beyond belief. However, she was unable to muse on this new development for long - the child who had been placed in her mother's other arm had begun to coo at her in a rather familiar way. This was the child she had seen next to her the last time she had awoken.

Was this her dídymo? She had… so much family. So many people surrounded her. So many people would be here, in this new life with her, to love her and protect her, including the Prince Charming who had not been there in her last life…

But a part of her truly wished that these people around her were her mamá and her adelfí̱. A part of her needed - wanted, no one but them. She did not even want a Prince Charming, not if she could have those two women back in her life.

She wished she had forgotten them. That the River Lethe had done its job.

It would have made this so much easier.

xi.

She didn't even know who she was anymore. Who she was supposed to be. Was she supposed to leave Iliana behind? Her dreams of being a princess, or a goddess? She couldn't. She could not do that. But was she meant to do that? She honestly had no clue.

Her mother began to sing once more. Iliana found herself relaxing imperceptibly, allowing her thoughts and worries to drift away with the reverberations of her mother's soothing lyrics.

The words, still, were unfamiliar. Unknown. That was one thing that rang true, despite her odd situation; babies must learn their language slowly, speak only after observing for a long while. Iliana was thankful for that. It gave her time to adjust.

After a while, there were some words that began to repeat enough times that Iliana found herself trying to make out what they were.

Her new mother leaned close to her and her twin, as though she knew her daughter was curious, and whispered the words one… last… time…

xii.

But there was one thing she did know.

Her name was Nanami. Uchiha Nanami.

skýla/chazí̱/áschi̱mi̱/ilíthia/karióla; all vaguely insulting names, ranging from bitch, idiot, ugly, to whore

adelfí̱/adelfoúla; big sister, little sister

dídymo; twin

The Keres are harbingers of violent death. Thanatos is the minor deity of peaceful death. The River Lethe is one of five rivers found in Hades; all those who drink from it experience complete memory loss. It can be assumed that once you drink from the Lethe, you will be reborn into another life.

A/N: I began writing this as an experiment, something to try and bring originality to terribly big, cliché "no-no's" in the writing community, whilst exploring the world and characters of Naruto. I hope to update every weekend, if not every other weekend; it may not work out like that, however, since I will be writing this as I go along. I have a basic idea of where I want this to go, certain scenes and interactions I want to play with, but that's it.

Hearing your thoughts on this would help me tremendously.

Inspired by a great many SI/OC stories, like Dreaming of Sunshine by Silver Queen and The Blurring Lines by GaleSynch.