Chapter 6

"I don't like them," I whispered to the empty living room, a faint smile on my lips as Shisui rinsed out his mouth in the bathroom with Itachi helping him. A spider had crawled into his sake cup earlier without him noticing. This led to a hilarious scene involving spider abuse, swear words, and a load of laughter.

"It's definitely not right. Why are they so interested in us? Besides being on a team with his brother, there's really no reason as to why Itachi's here now. Shisui's more of a wildcard though. He may honestly be here for the shits and giggles," Inner sighed in frustration, blowing out a deep breath in my mental landscape that made me shiver a bit.

I rubbed my bare shoulders, the tank-top I wore doing little to keep me warm. Itachi had won off my two ninja sandals and one of Shisui's, Shisui got my beloved hoodie and Itachi's outershirt that left him in a short sleeve, but I had been more brutal, taking Itachi's sandals, the remaining sandal Shisui used to have, Shisui's pants (his boxers had little Uchiha fans over them and I may have laughed for longer than I should have at that), and Itachi's hair tie. The last thing was currently used to tie my bangs up into an impromptu, mini ponytail above my head.

I took another sip of my sake, checking in the cup for spiders beforehand. There was only one bathroom, and the kitchen sink didn't have very clean tap water. Amidst the noises of Shisui gurgling water, I continued my chat with me.

"I screwed up today," I stated calmly, rolling the ceramic cup between my palms and watching the liquid inside shudder and ripple with miniature waves.

"Yup. Your persona fell, congrats Kura-chan, you screwed the fuck up. Now we have to deal with people who know we actually have, ugh, emotions. Almost as if they expected us to not be human, can you fucking imagine that," Inner growled sarcastically. I sighed, moving to lay down on the fuzzy carpet across my living room floor. It wasn't a good kind of 'fuzzy' either, short, scratchy, and with a very disturbing stain in the corner by the large window.

"Maybe we won't need the persona around the team," I murmured almost too quietly for even myself to hear.

"Kura-chan, half the time I can't tell whether you're an optimist or a pessimist. Do you expect things to go our way or not? And more importantly, do you want them too?" Inner questioned with a deep sigh.

"Chaos is always more fun… but yeah, sometimes all I really want is a warm meal and more blankets around me and someone- anyone really- to smile at me and tell me I did a good job," I admitted to the still all-too-empty living room.

"That's why I've been walling up your emotional responses for the last three years. I'm letting them trickle out now though, so if you feel the urge to scream or cry or laugh hysterically at random things, don't worry, it's just you," Inner informed me with glee.

"Fun. Alright, I guess it's time to make them leave. We've gone through two of my nine best bottles, wow. To be fair, I probably drank one all by myself," I slowly stood up, vertigo messing with my balance.

And the sake too. That was probably messing with my balance too.

I wasn't drunk drunk, just kinda tipsy, but hey, it'd be a long night if I tried to get absolutely shitfaced drunk. The cons and pros of having a weird double layered chakra system in your head that connected to your physical body's breakdown process. At least that's what I think Inner is. Whatever she, I, we are, the basics are probably something along the lines of my body breaks down stuff faster because my brain sends 'double' messages to my organs.

I think.

"Stop thinking then. Now go and kick those two out of our home. Set back up the seal before we sleep. C'mon, let's go," Inner prodded impatiently, a slight shiver passing through me as she slurred her words slightly. I began the trek down the hallway to the bathroom door, a headache starting to eat away at me. Strange, Inner usually took care of those.

"Itachi-san, Shisui-san, regardless of how amusing it is to destroy you in cards, I need to sleep in preparation for the genin test tomorrow. It's almost one, please leave. And don't forget your clothes," I told them, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe.

The bathroom was already barely big enough to fit both of them at once, along with adding in the partially deformed tub I had shoved inside to fit very snug and tight against the sink. At least there was still room for a towel rack behind the door. (At least I was only one person in this small-but-too-large-too-empty apartment).

"No words of comfort for me Kura-chan?" Shisui asked with a pout and a flutter of his eyelashes. Those eyelashes were ridiculously long, so not fair how pretty they are. Inner prodded me again, a sway in her, mine, our movement.

"No, now get out. Shoo. I need to sleep. Just go shunshin or something, I'm reactivating the seal in my room," I bit back a whimper and groan as I pushed off the doorframe, absentmindedly noting the flaking wallpaper around it.

"Told you, emotional whiplash. For the rest of your life. Have fun with this one Kura-chan, bet you're gonna start regretting never learning how to deal with feelings."

"Thank you for inviting us over Haruno-san," Itachi intoned politely with a nod of his head. He had drunk maybe a fourth of the other bottle with Shisui polishing off the other three fourths.

"Yeah, Kura-chan, this was fun. Can't wait until you're old enough to return the favor at an actual bar," Shisui grinned at me, reaching out a hand and ruffling up my hair.

"Uh-huh. Now please leave, your clothes are outside, don't worry about the cups and stuff, I'll clean up later," I told them, stifling a yawn and having to rapidly blink away the emerging tears right after.

It was a long five minutes before they finally left with shunshin. I made sure my window had its seal reactivated, put back on my hoodie, and picked up the bottles and sake cups before returning to my room with the curtain drawn.

Then I broke.

"This team's going to be a disaster. Inner, Inner, I don't think we're going to get out of this unscatched, and this is past the whole 'return in a bodybag' thing, I already knew about those percentages, but I can't handle, handle…" I inhaled a shuddering breath, pressing myself into the corner of my room, hoping Inner would fill in the blanks I couldn't vocalize.

"You can't fucking handle normal human contact, that's a shitty-ass hand to be dealt. Looks like you've used up all your luck on cards earlier. And we didn't even get any money off of them, nope, you had to freeze up after Shisui patted your head and suddenly it was cards 'for fun'. Which you've never done before. What the actual fuck Kura-chan," Inner said flatly as I continued to shiver.

"This might break us," I whispered softly, a smile creeping up my lips despite me discouraging it.

"This may break us and all I can think about is how nice Shisui was towards me and how it felt to share smirks with Itachi when Shisui did something stupid again and I, I-" I froze, the smile still curving my lips. Tears started gathering in my eyes, this was such an annoyance, crying twice in a day over such similar things.

"I'm so fucking scared."

"Go to sleep Kura-chan, we'll deal with this tomorrow," Inner directed in a kind tone. I nodded absently, pulling my blanket over me as I lay down.

"Don't cry Kura-chan, if you cry now then you'll wake up with crusty eyelids. Dream of happy things Kura-chan, dream and sleep now," A whisper floated through my mind, Inner covering my thoughts with a layer of 'tired'.

"And tomorrow we'll become genin," I told myself quietly, unwilling to break the silence that had fallen over my apartment.

"Genin… in a genin team...," I sighed, rolling over onto my side and curling up to huddle under the too thin blanket.

"I'm so fucking scared," I admitted with a stuttering laugh, just as sleep claimed me.

Hey there dear readers, quick explanation on the weird way I update: I'm actually making sure I always have the next chapter typed up before I update the previous.

Also, no beta, all these mistakes and typos are mine.

Ummm, I think that about covers everything. Next chapter will have more worldbuilding and third character perspectives, I get that my summary sucks, but there's a limit on how much I can share in a freaking summary. :D

Thank you for all the lovely reviews, they really keep me on track. :3c