Summary: The way of the ninja was hard to adapt to. It started with fear and denial, then it gradually became easier over the years. There was still fear. There was still denial, but I've carved this path on my own. This is my story as Uchiha Itachi's twin brother.

A/N: There are five things you should know before reading:

One, this story is AU with an OC Self-Insert. I haven't seen Naruto in years. I've read the manga, watched mostly all the episodes, and have a crappy memory overall. I'm hoping the specificality of Naruto canon won't matter seeing as the MC will be carving his own path.

Two, this story's main genre is angst. That being said, I do agree the beginning chapters of this story may be rough for those who aren't used to this genre. I was a teenager when I first wrote this, and I was not very good with keeping a consistent tone to call my own until around the middle of the Uzushiogakure Arc. The angst will be more subtle as you follow through the MC's life, who will grow into a more mature role.

Three, this story is a slow burn, but not in romance. More so in that I presume we'll be around chapter fifty when Asuya becomes a preteen and so on. Heh.

Four, this story is categorized into arcs because I imagine it will help me find my way around in the future if I want to fix plot holes or something.

Five, I do not plan on shipping my MC with anyone. This isn't a romance story, although there may be romance in it.

Inspired heavily by many fanfictions, such as, Dreaming of Sunshine, Catch Your Breath, Introverted, Bloodless, I'm Defying Gravity, The Medic Nin's Guide to Casual Revolution, and The Girl From Whirlpool to name a few.

The Sacrificed Disciple

-Prologue-

"I wanted to give up the idea I had any control. Shake things up. To be saved by chaos. To see if I could cope, I wanted to force myself to grow again. To explode my comfort zone."

-Chuck Palahniuk

There is nothing when people die.

There is only darkness.

That's what I believed. So. . . When I took my last breath and felt something cold take over, I let it. I didn't fight death. It was hard to when I was left with the knowledge that it was inevitable.

Cancer did that to people.

I heard the sobs of my older brother, Ryu, heard his last words, and then everything became silent, and just like that, darkness took over.

But I didn't feel like a corpse. Sure, I wasn't breathing, and my eyes didn't water from not blinking, but I stood in the darkness. A complete void that surrounded me from all sides. It was an emptiness that I stood in. That I was aware I was standing in. So, no. I wasn't a corpse. I couldn't see my hands. I couldn't feel anything. I closed my eyes, and I couldn't see the difference.

Where was I?

I began to move, hearing my footfalls echo all around. Tap, tap, tap. The noise was loud. It was as if it was in my mind. Maybe it was in my mind. The deep subconsciousness of my brain that I fell into when I died.

I continued for what felt like years. Perhaps, it was. I was stuck here, but worst of all, I was aware that I was stuck here. Darkness. All sides. I wasn't aware of time. It was a construct of a human's perception. An illusion to measure the days. Light and Dark. Day and night, but there were no days here. No nights. Just. . . Darkness.

I wished for something more. Sure, I believed that there was nothing after death, but I had never expected it to turn out this way. I dropped down into a fetal position, and it was completely silent. Darkness. Time. No control. Chaos. Darkness. Time. Chaos. Oh god, I can't. . .

If I listened close enough, I could here the pitter patter. The tapping. ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump. It was so fast, and so hard to catch, but it was there. Faint, but there. It was my only solace. My only comfort in the darkness. It was a warmth that I could not feel, but I was aware of it all the same. It took longer to realize that it was a heartbeat.

Was it mine?

Was I alive?

Why couldn't I breathe? Why couldn't I see?

In my contemplation, I almost missed the second beat. It was slow and measured. Compared to the fast tapping of the other heartbeat, this one sounded more developed, like it belonged to an adult's.

What the?

Then there was another.

A third heart beat, and it was the same sound as the first. It was a fast little pitter patter but at a different pace. I tried to think, wondering what this could mean, but the irregular paces of the two fast, beating hearts irritated me. I tried to regulate my heart to the other one. It took a couple of tries, but I managed. The hearts regulated with one another, and I couldn't think anymore. I felt at peace, as if I made a choice and stuck to it with no regrets.

I was alive. I knew that much. I had a second chance.

It felt like more years passed, but it was okay because I was holding onto something. I wasn't alone in this void anymore. There was a soft voice talking to the two fast beating hearts. It was comforting and feminine. I felt a childish part of me instantly associate it with home. However, that instinct to associate sound with safety when I was completely enveloped in the abyss wasn't so easy to dismiss.

I was still aware.

Some sick part of me wondered if this was real, and if so, then I was an old soul with the mental capacity of an adult. . . inside the womb. Either that or I was going stir crazy.

Then, the darkness was no more.

It faded into a blinding light that held no mercy even behind my closed eyelids. I could see the veins of my skin in big blurs. I choked, holding onto my lifeline. Whoever the heart belonged to, it was beating with my own pace.

Everything was loud as I held on for dear life.

"Oh my! Would you look at that?" It was overwhelming. The voices were loud and scary. The only thing familiar about the voices was that they were speaking Japanese. A language I was raised to understand alongside English.

"Wh-What is it? I can't see. Please, what's wrong with my babies-" It was that voice again. The soft, feminine voice. It was home. . . She sounded distressed. It scared me.

"It seemed there was a reason the first one born with his feet first. They're holding hands-"

"What-"

"Your twins are holding hands."

And that was my cue to scream.

It was painful when I took my first breath.

Air filled my lungs, and rather quickly, I was pulled away from my lifeline when I screamed no more. Faintly, I could hear my lifeline cry when we were pulled apart, I tried to do the same, but nothing came out. My heartbeat quickened, and it was like a music note straying off course in a song. Our heartbeats were no longer synced, and it terrified me.

I was frozen in my fear, but I couldn't voice it.

The only one who did was my lifeline.

"I-I can't hear. . . What's wrong with him!" I didn't like how scared my home sounded. I wanted home to be comforting, to make me feel safe once more. It reminded me of the darkness where I couldn't feel anything, see anything, be anything. I was nothing with the potential to be something, and that moment of awareness in the abyss was the safest I could be. It was scary, but it was safe.

I realized then, that home was mother, the darkness was the womb, and the lifeline was my twin.

I stayed completely still as the doctors began to take all the fluids from my nose and mouth, but I still couldn't breathe. They were panicking, taking me away. What was wrong? Why couldn't I breathe? I could hear this woman, the one I associated with home, screaming as they laid me down on something soft and took me away. I could hear the numerous footfalls, the voices panicking.

Then I heard a rough voice, deep and grating with worry: "What happened? Please, that's my son." I knew that voice. It was vague. Not as comforting as mother, but it felt safe. This. . . This was protection. I wanted to reach out to him. My last form of something familiar.

"He spent too much time in the womb and accidentally breathed in fluids. Wait- You cant follow us in here, Uchiha-san-"

Then the doors slammed, and I heard my heartbeat slow. When I faded away into a deep slumber from the rest of the world, I wondered if this was the end. Just like that, I born, and I died.

Just great.

But then, the next moment, I opened my eyes to see a patch of black hair beside me. The big blurs of pale skin, and those big, obsidian eyes. My vision was crappy since I was a newborn and all, but I knew. This was my lifeline. My brother. The only comfort I found in the darkness besides our mother: my brother. I moved forward, curling against the newborn and instantly felt better.

"Look at them, the smaller one seems healthier now."

"This was your idea. If we get caught, I'm putting the blame on you."

"Come on, the least we can do is this. He doesn't have much time left. . ."

"Fine. . . You're right. Come on, let's go and inform their parents."

"This is the sucky part about this job."

"It has to be done."

I tried to speak, but nothing came out except a coo. I looked at my brother's chest, and then, I struggled to look at my own which had nothing but tubes and wires pinned to me. I closed my eyes. Guess they meant me then. So unhealthy in the old life and so unhealthy in the second life. Just my luck.

I woke up at different times either on my own or by a rude awakening. Doctors and nurses peeked into our incubator out of curiosity when they passed by or they would prepare bottles of milk. With each passing moment that I'd wake, I'd feel stronger, better.

In the few moments that I was awake, I would bring my hands up to my face and yawn, satisfied with gaining control of my limbs like my brother. It seemed that days, maybe weeks had passed since I was put with my twin because everyday I would hear whispers about how I was getting better simply because I was near the one who gave me comfort.

Those in scrubs would laugh at our antics and would wiggle their fingers in front of me. I felt like a cat, drooling in content when I would catch a finger. It was hard to feel mature about these situations. My thoughts were developed, but my instincts and motor functions were vulnerable. It was odd. Did the little angels up in heaven (or something of the sort) forget to erase my developed, cognitive thoughts and memories before they sent my soul into another body? Or was there some technical malfunction in the matrix machine when they put me in another reality?

I didn't know, but I rolled with it. . . It was the only thing I could do.

The other choice was completely going off the deep end and abandoning my sanity, or maybe I already did that too.

Another time when I woke at a different hour of a different day, we were woken abruptly when we were both moved into a small crib. There was no more tubes and wires stuck in me, and I had learned that painfully when they peeled the tape holding the tubes on my skin. When I cried, the mean doctor, who was responsible, merely congratulated me. "There, there, Asuya-chan. It's good to cry, little one, that means you have good lungs now. You're a survivor."

Survivor.

How ironic. . .

My twin reached out for me when I had been lowered back to our little, hospital crib, and I had stopped crying. I looked around curiously when the same doctor began to roll us out of the room. I was gazing up at the doctor, watching the surroundings behind the man change. A door was pulled open, and we were rolled into another room.

"It's a good day, Uchiha-san! Your babies are awake this time!"

Then there came a light voice, "Oh, that's great news." It was that voice again. It was home. I had wondered about my mother, but it seemed that both of us were just unlucky to be awake when she held us.

The moment I was picked up by the doctor, I felt my lips tremble. My body wasn't really familiar with this man, and the memory of the tape pulling the hairs off my skin were still fresh in my mind, but then, soft but sturdy hands grasped me, and I was facing this woman. My mother. I instantly stopped my tears and gazed at this woman. Being aware of my past life and of my other parents, it was difficult to view this woman as my actual mother, but instincts told me that she was. She felt safe, and I felt loved, so perhaps, in the long run, it wouldn't be so difficult.

She pulled me closely to her chest and kissed my forehead. I tried to speak to her when she began to talk about her day, and I listened calmly as she began to recall the past weeks and how I had worried her and my father greatly.

"Your tou-san was more scared than even me, Asuya-chan," She whispered conspiratorially, as if she was sharing a secret. "He always went to go visit your brother and you even though you were too weak to be held, but now look at you." She tickled my stomach, and I gave an 'ah' to her. "You're healthy and strong, and it's all because of the nice medic-nin trainees that put you by Itachi-chan. You just felt alone, didn't you? Don't worry, you'll never be alone again." She kissed my forehead, and she held me there.

I stayed completely still, feeling her tremble as she held me. I managed to grasp a strand of her hair as I felt the dampness of her tears, wondering if maybe she had been more lonelier than me. She was my mother, and it must have been hard in those dreadful days where I needed a machine to breathe for me. In the days where she wasn't allowed to see her own child.

Because everyone thought I had zero chance of living, and I proved them wrong.

And. . .

Wait.

Did she just say Itachi?

Did she just say. . . medic-nin? As in medically-trained ninja?

Itachi?

As in Uchiha freaking Itachi?

No, no, it can't be, but as bizarre as it was that I was reincarnated into a TV show (What the hell?), it was true wasn't it? The doctor had called my mother Uchiha-san. Why was I barely having this revelation now? I choked, and then promptly, because I was a few weeks old newborn, I started to cry.

Asuya? That was my name right?

Weirdly enough, that was my name in my old life, my past life. I was biracial. My mother was full Japanese, and my father was in the American Navy, who just so happened to fall in love outside of the country. They had two children. The first boy was Ryu, healthy and four years older than the youngest: me, who was diagnosed with Leukemia.

I spent most of my days in the hospital watching TV shows and movies. I died when I barely turned seventeen, and he was twenty. My oldest brother, Ryu, didn't have it easy either. He always wanted me to have a good childhood even though, really, I was forced to grow up too soon.

Ryu always was into conspiracies and would tell me stories. Stories about how, really, realities were illusions, kind of like Total Recall, where people would be sent into different realities, universes and be whoever they wanted to be. They just had to desire it. He also would speak about how originality wasn't really real. Stories we would hear as fiction were probably true in a different alternative universe, and perhaps, the creator who came up with the 'fictional' idea in the first place lived in a world like that in their past life.

I didn't believe any of that before, but when I knew that I was going to die before I was even twenty, I thought about the end way too much. My soul passed with Ryu's sobbing. "No matter what, Asuya, I'll always love you," those were the last words I heard, and I passed on with no regrets because knowing that I lived a limited life full of love was enough for me. Or so I thought.

Because Ryu was always there for me, spending his days in the hospital with me rather than being with his friends. As much as I never had a childhood, Ryu didn't either, and I realized too late, that Ryu suffered too. He suffered because I suffered, and it was because of something incurable with a messed up treatment that Ryu would continue to suffer after I was long gone. The world didn't end with my passing in the old life, and perhaps, this world wouldn't end with my passing as well.

But that would mean believing that this was real, and if Ryu's conspiracy theory was real then really, what could I do about it? What if this was just like the Matrix? Living a lie, but still believing that I was living all the same? And my mother's touch felt real. The threat of death hanging over my weak self had felt real. Everything felt real, and even though I reminded myself constantly that this was a TV show, an animated one at that, it still felt absurdly realistic.

I closed my eyes and rested, wondering what this future would hold now that I was in it. Certainly my presence would change things. It had to change things. I was Itachi's twin brother for goodness sake.

Itachi.

Where the hell was I going to start with that baggage?

When I opened my eyes, after being put to sleep by my mother, it was to the silent presence of someone slightly familiar, but not as familiar or as comforting as Itachi's or my mother's presence. This felt like protection, however. Safety. It was night time, I could tell by the blur of dim lighting, but I could still see the soft look on the man's face. This man was my father: Uchiha Fugaku.

"Itachi, you really are a kind kid."

I blinked and my bottom lip began to tremble as I remembered the tears from Itachi as he killed his parents, our parents. This man, our mother. . . I didn't want them to die. All of my childish instincts lead to that single fact. Ethically, TV show or not, it would be wrong to not interfere. What was I going to do though?

My father's eyes widened slightly, looking panicked as he looked from my sleeping mother back to me.

"Shh," he whispered, adjusting me so that my head was cradled against his neck. I felt a soft rubbing against my back. It instantly calmed me down. After a while I was pulled back into a cradle position. "Are you hungry?" My father sat down and began to grab a bottle. He tested the milk on his skin, and seemingly satisfied, he brought the bottle to my lips. I wondered how it stayed warm the entire time. Could it be fuinjutsu? Ninjutsu? It was fascinating to wonder about the magic that was chakra. . .

Maybe there were other people who remembered their pasts and wrote stories about them in their next life. Top selling stories. If that were true, I congratulated all the lucky bastards who reincarnated into the Harry Potter world, and I thanked my lucky stars that I wasn't in The Maze Runner or The Hunger Games. That'd suck. On second thought, maybe I drew a not so lucky card if I was to be trained as a shinobi. . .

My father held me, burped me after I was finished with my milk, and waited until I would fall back asleep. The whole time he looked serene, glancing from time to time out the window before his eyes would snap back to mother when she stirred in her sleep. He looked jittery, paranoid, as if someone would come in and attack his family.

Was this how a shinobi lived? The whole time looking over their shoulder and constantly worrying about the people they were attached to? I tried to speak, but instead I made soft cooing noises that diverted my father's attention. I reached up, trying to hook my fingers against the green, flak jacket's pouches, but my father's finger easily distracted me, and he grasped my index finger, laughing, and I looked up to see crimson eyes and a playful smile on my father's face.

I looked curiously at the eyes: the three blurred tomoe whirling slowly around the pupil, and surprisingly, it was comforting. I didn't feel anything ominous from the sharingan that was being wielded by father. I just felt protected, observed, and as I closed my eyes and was lured to sleep contentedly under the protective gaze of my father, I vaguely wondered why he even activated them in the first place if it wasn't to hurt me or influence me.

I contemplated for hours, running through the theories about the sharingan and coming to a conclusion later on as father continued to play and feed Itachi and me every night in the hospital while our mother rested. He did so with his sharingan activated, looking more and more relaxed despite the restlessness in him. I felt more and more closer to my father, realizing that the man loved me in his own way. A protective guardian, watchful, and finding purpose in us.

He seemed to be coming from missions. Sometimes he would take off his flak jacket whenever it was dirty, and then he would wash his hands of dried blood before he'd touch us. Then, he'd activate his sharingan, looking from his wife softly before looking to us.

Tobirama was wrong about the curse of hatred.

I always thought it was a bit biased of him. It was the Nidaime's flaw as a character, who was known to be calculative and pragmatic. I realized the sharingan was born out of trauma not because it was part of a curse of hatred, but because it was to prevent trauma, like what was first experienced, from happening again.

It predicted threatening movements, so that the user could prevent them from becoming reality. It copied jutsu, so that the user could utilize it against the opponent. It imprinted memories, so that the user could remember them forever. It was a dojutsu meant to protect. It was a dojutsu to remind the user why it must protect and serve.

The Sage of Six Paths was right. He parted his knowledge of jutsu so that people could utilize it to protect and to prevent threats peacefully. Dojutsu, fuinjutsu, ninjutsu, taijutsu, it was all used against his wishes, and so, shinobi born from war.

The Uchiha loved fiercely.

At least Tobirama realized that. It just so happened that those who fell into the darkness of their memories dwell too deeply in the trauma of losing a loved one. Uchiha needed constant purpose to protect and serve. They needed several bonds, numerous ties to keep them from falling into darkness. If they lose one person, whom they loved, they needed motivation to hold the remaining precious people closer. They needed constant good memories to prevent that trauma from turning into hate. The Uchiha always had to be filled with love.

Or they'd get too comfortable in the pain within the darkness.

My father must have been the few to realize this. I observed it when he would slip into the room silently. His shadow would creep slowly, and he would loom over us. He'd smell of sweat, grime, and blood that was not his. He'd be covered in evidence that showed me he was a shinobi before he was a father. I would coo at him and giggle. It would startle Itachi awake. Then as twins, we would stare into the hard gaze of our father, the frown of his mouth.

Then we'd reach for him, and his sharingan would swirl. Everything about him would soften as he'd smile down at us, and he'd reach down with clean hands and caress our cheeks and hold our hands, and our father would say, "I'm home." Because it seemed that we and mother were home to him.

We would know that to us, he'd always be a father first.

I would make sure of that.

A/N: Here I am, writing fanfiction once again. Hopefully, my curiosity on the glossed over parts of canon will fuel imagination into Asuya's and Itachi's life. Fair warning, I'm probably going to hit every cliche in the book.