Okay, I've been working on this because of a request I had, and I figured it might make for an interesting read. I hope you enjoy it! Here's the full summary:

Uchiha Mikoto, the daughter of the great but stupid Uchiha Sasuke, and his equally great but stupid wife, Uchiha Kaede, sister of the great and wonderful Uchiha Itake, niece of the amazing Uchiha Itachi. Yeah, that's her. Realize where this is going? Where does Mikoto fit in all this, in all of this wonderful greatness that is her family? A girl whose Sharingan hasn't even activated (and she's ALREADY fifteen, can you believe it?), and who is slowly going blind, though she doesn't know it. Her family does, but she refuses to listen to them. And when she runs off to find Uchiha Madara, who is long dead and gone, so that she can activate her Sharingan (impossible!), she is followed by her best friend, Uzumaki Soma, the second son of Uzumaki Naruto, the Hokage, and the boy she's had a crush on forever. When her blindness finally consumes her, who do you think will be there for her? Soma, of course...

Disclaimer: Don't own naruto, never have, never will

Simultaneously, Soma and I heaved a long, agitated sigh as we watched our older brothers' spar. Blonde-headed Arashi and black-haired Itake were going at it, and had been for the past half hour. Neither of them showed any signs of tiring, either, so until they were through, Soma and I were forced to wait on the edge of the ANBU training field to be taken home.

As if we needed escorts, anyway. I was fifteen, and Soma was sixteen, and we were both close to becoming Jounin. We could take care of ourselves just fine, but our parents would freak if we came home without our older brothers. Especially Soma's dad, considering he was the Hokage and all and it was dangerous for an "inexperienced child of the Hokage" to be out and about by himself. But he had me with him! He wasn't all by himself, really!

Yup, that's right. Soma's father was none other than Uzumaki Naruto, the seventh Hokage of the Village Hidden in the leaves. His mother was Uzumaki Sakura, a skilled medical ninja trained by the Fifth. And my parents? Well, that was a different story.

Mom, however short-lived that term may have been, once reigned as the Sixth Hokage, but now was a simple ANBU who enjoyed quick, not-so-dangerous missions and long walks holding the hand of my father, Uchiha Sasuke, the ninja who once betrayed the village to join in with the evil Orochimaru and assisted in our taking back of the village five years after Mom caused the entire takeover situation. Yeah, I knew the entire story, all right.

Uchiha Kaede, formerly known as Kaede Shinota, had apparently disregarded the massive amounts of scrolls on her desk in a week of mourning and of course, one of those scrolls had had a red ribbon tied around it, and was Orochimaru's official warning for the war he was planning to rage against Konoha. When she'd finally found it, it had been the day before the attack, and Konoha lost to the Sound. For five years. Five years.

So as you can imagine, growing up the daughter of the betrayer and the Hokage who failed the village, I lived under quite a shadow. Of course, there was the little fact that I was Uchiha Mikoto, daughter of the great (but stupid) Uchiha Sasuke and niece of the terrible but powerful Uchiha Itachi, whom no one had seen head or tail of for twenty-some years. In my opinion, I figured he'd been killed or taken over by Orochimaru, but hey, it was only my thoughts. Like they counted.

And then there was the problem of growing up with an outstanding older brother, Uchiha Itake, who always aced all his tests, graduated at the top of his class, and was an ANBU at age fourteen. Oh, did I also mention he was also head of ANBU black ops at age fifteen? Yeah, quite a reputation to live up to.

I heard a satisfied "Yeah!" coming from the battle field and felt Soma standing up beside me. I followed suit, seeing that Itake and Arashi had finished their fight, Arashi winning of course—hey, he was the son of the Hokage, after all, and the grandson of the Fourth—and stretched my arms up over my head, trying to get the cricks out of my neck.

"Good, you're finally done," I commented as the two older ANBU came walking over to us. Itake smirked.

"What, were you getting bored with watching our superior skill?" he teased, and I rolled my eyes.

"No, I got bored watching the two of you wrestle around like gay squirrels fighting over an acorn." Itake glared at me, but I ignored him and turned to leave. "Are you two coming or what?"

In a moment Soma was walking beside me, and we could hear our brothers chatting a few feet behind us. About what, I didn't know, probably about how absolutely gorgeous Hyuga Arana was or something like that, or how much they wished she wasn't dating that Nara boy, Gakuto. I could remember my parents telling me how shocked they were when the found out Shikamaru was marrying some girl named Kutsumo Hazuki. And even more so when the couple announced they were having a baby.

I knew that both Arashi and Soma had the biggest crush on Arana, and how crushed both of them were every time she turned them down for a date or flat-out cursed them out for flirting with her. Of course, having a five-minute older brother that could punch like nobody's business helped, too, and her boyfriend being the least-lazy of the Nara clan. It was amazing, but Gakuto seemed to have caught a little of Naruto's spirit in him, strutting around to his father's dismay.

Arana was a really sweet girl, though. She might have gotten some of Neji's aloofness, but she had her mother's habit of pulling pranks on people. And she was really pretty, too, with her pale, innocent eyes, dark-brown hair she kept back in a ponytail, and tiny but muscular figure. Sometimes I wished I looked like her, instead of having my brooding Uchiha looks that most people seemed a little intimidated by, despite all of my attempts at being nice to everyone.

But that was what I got for being an Uchiha.

I sighed again, and leaned against Soma's shoulder. He draped his arm around my waist and pulled me tighter against him. Behind us, I could hear Arashi and Itake snickering, but I ignored it. The two of them always thought Soma and I were dating, but we weren't. It was nice being able to hold hands with someone and lean against them when I was tired and still be just best friends. But that was how close Soma and I were—we'd known each other since I was born, and grown up together, in classes, on teams, and all that other stuff. Our relationship was just that of two best friends forever.

Yet sometimes….I closed my eyes for a moment to repress the thought. Okay, so it didn't help that my best friend was absolutely gorgeous—even with the pink hair—and the sweetest, most selfless, kindest person I'd ever met, or probably would meet in my entire life. That was just Soma. The perfect gentleman his parents raised him—and his brother, whom I thought failed miserably—to be. So it wasn't really my fault when my heart gave a little flutter every time he came into a room. Right?

It wasn't long before we reached the main area of Konoha, and our parting point. Soma and I waved goodbye, promising to meet up in the morning, while Arashi and Itake scheduled another rematch for tomorrow afternoon. I impatiently waited for Itake to start walking, and fell into step beside him.

Itake was a good head taller than I was, and his features were much sharper and well-defined. He looked just like Dad, with the black hair, black eyes, brooding expression, and proud way he carried himself, as if he knew he was better than everyone else. There were light shadows under his eyes from lack of sleep. He always got up earlier than anyone in our family—except maybe Mom on a mission day—and went to bed last. Sometimes, if I couldn't sleep during the crack of dawn, I would go to the window and watch him train outside, wondering where the heck he'd gotten all that talent and why only a minute amount had been left for me.

I, on the other hand, sort of took after Mom. Sure, I looked like the typical Uchiha, but when you got right down to it, I was more or less a miniature of Mom, only with black hair and black eyes. I had crisp features, a small nose (like Mom's), and slightly narrower eyes than Itake. You could only really see those small details if you looked for them, but I knew they were there, and that was what bothered me.

"So…" Itake's voice distracted me and I glanced up at him.

"What?"

"So when are you and Soma gonna finally get together?" Itake teased, but I heard the meaning behind his words and punched him in the shoulder. He rubbed the spot, giving me a half-amused glare. "I forgot I taught you how to punch. Ow."

"Yeah, sucks for you." I sighed. "And haven't we been through this before? Soma and I are never going to get together. We're best friends, that's it."

"Sure you are," Itake said knowingly, and I aimed another punch at his arm. He stopped me this time, though, and shook his head. "I may have taught you to punch, but I think we need to work on the element of surprise." I growled under my breath and took my fist out of his hands, shoving it into my pocket.

For some reason, whenever I did this (sticking my hands in my pockets) around my mother or one of her friends that she'd grown up with, they'd all give this weird smile as if they knew something I didn't, or were comparing me to something. I really didn't understand it, but it irked the heck out of me.

But by now, Itake was used to the small but obviously noticed habit, and didn't say anything. Of course, I don't think he knew what the reason for all the smiling and small chuckles was anyway. He did know, though, that when I shoved my hands into my pockets, I wanted to be left alone.

We made it home in about another ten minutes, and when we walked in—after taking our shoes off at the front door, of course—we found Mom and Dad in the living room, cuddling on the couch. Itake and I both gagged loudly to alert our parents to the fact that we thought it was disgusting when they got all mushy. Dad glared at us, and Mom scoffed. I walked past them to the kitchen.

I poured myself a glass of soda, and dug around in the cabinet for a granola bar. The one my hand landed on was one of those dumb fruity ones, and I tossed it back inside, disgusted. Why couldn't Mom buy normal food, like chocolate-chip granola bars and not her health-conscious ones?

Saddened by the lack of good junk food, I padded back into the living room and plopped on the ground, my back leaning against the front of the couch. Dad's legs were next to me, and I could see Mom's feet dangling over the edge of the cushions—she was obviously still cuddling with Dad, so I didn't look. Instead, I sipping on my water and waited for one of them to start up a conversation, which they did after a few minutes.

"Did you all have a good practice?" Mom wanted to know, and I shrugged.

"I didn't really do anything. Itake and Arashi just wanted to spar, so me and Soma sat around and waited." I rolled my eyes. "As if we need escorts home, anyway."

"Anything can happen," Mom started again, and I bit back the groan I knew would get me grounded. "You don't know what sort of trouble you'll get into the one time you walk home alone."

"What, like Orochimaru's going to walk out of the bushes and attack me?" I grumbled, and felt my dad hit me lightly with his foot: a warning.

Refusing to glance up, and knowing that Mom would be glaring at me, I took another sip of my water, wondering what she'd do if I told her what I was really thinking. Probably beat me senseless and make me the official outcast of the Uchiha family. Cheh, whatever. It wasn't as if she had that much power over me anyway.

I realized after a minute I wasn't going to get anything else out of my parents, so I stood and walked back down the hallway towards my bedroom. Ironically, though neither Mom nor Dad would ever admit it, my bedroom used to belong to Dad's brother, Itachi. Although I'd never call him "Uncle Itachi," I couldn't help but think of him as a close family member that I wanted to know. Sure, he killed everyone but his brother, and so what if he and that clan he was in were after Naruto's demon? As a family member, I still had to think of him as such, and that didn't stop me from wanting to get to know the reasons behind his attack. And since Dad refused to say a word about him, and Mom swore she'd murder us if we questioned about him, none of us kids knew what he was all about!

I sighed and sat down on my little bed with its navy blue sheets and white pillow. It was so bland and boring, just like the rest of the house. My walls were decorated with a few pictures of my family, my friends, and several little "inspirational" sayings Mom put up to encourage me to be more like my brother: determined, intelligent, skilled…the list could go on and on. My floor wasn't carpeted, just wood, like everywhere else in this house, and the only spurt of individuality in the place was a lava lamp I'd convinced Itake to buy for me. Of course, he'd only gotten it for me because I'd threatened to tell Mom about his "important mission" that had really been spent making out with some Chunin girl behind the academy.

Grinning at the thought of what trouble he would get into, I reached over and flipped on my lava lamp. The soft blue light started to glow and the goopy stuff at the bottom started to rise up slowly. Mom was always saying how important missions were, and how you had to respect and love your village to carry out each one with care, precision, and perfection. Yeah, as if she'd done all of her missions as carefully as she should. I'd heard the stories of her sneaking away from the underground hideout to visit her lover (Dad, of course) despite the protests of her friends. I'd heard about her attempts to "betray" the village by seeing Dad—although he hadn't been Dad then, he'd been Uchiha Sasuke, betrayer of Konoha, the last remaining Uchiha that had once been loyal to Konoha, but went on the same path as his brother.

I shook my head and continued to watch the goopy stuff float around the lava lamp, giving an eerie blue glow to the darkened room. I was starting to get mesmerized by its continuous process, and a little dizzy, too, when someone knocked on my bedroom door and brought me from my pleasant oblivion. Grumbling, I hollered for them to come in, and the door opened, revealing my brother in his entire Uchiha splendor.

For a moment, as Itake let himself in the room, I let myself study him and compare him to Dad. He was tall, strong, muscular, and yet somehow slim and wiry with broad shoulders and a bored expression. Sometimes, if I caught a glimpse of him, only out of the corner of my eye, I'd forget that he was Itake and think he was Dad instead. Of course, you couldn't tell Itake that, because he'd find it insulting and insist he resembled no one of this family. Cheh.

"What do you want, Itake?" I muttered, rolling over onto my stomach and staring at him, putting on my best irritated face. "You already tortured me with your stupid sparring match. As if I wanted to watch you and Arashi wrestle around like idiots. Jeez."

Itake sat down on the floor next to the bed and started playing with my long black hair. I let him, utterly bored and having nothing else to do. Besides, I liked it when people played with my hair, for some strange reason. We sat there for a few minutes in silence, until finally Itake tugged hard on a lock of my hair and let it fall. I lunged out to smack at him, but he caught my hand without hesitation and stood up, pulling me with him.

When I was on my feet—after a few minutes of clumsy struggling, I hate to admit—he looked straight down at me and studied my face. He tilted my chin up, and spent a while gazing into my black eyes with a curious, dubious expression on his face. I bit my lip hard to keep from snapping out at him, for I figured that whatever he was getting at was probably important, at least to him, so I knew I'd better keep quiet.

After a moment, he rolled his eyes and took a step backwards so that he was leaning against my desk. "You're eyes are developing slowly."

Ouch.

That comment of his hit me like a punch in the face, a kick in the stomach, and a knee in the groin (unless you've had someone knee you in the groin, you probably don't realize that it still hurts like hell even if you're a girl). By telling me that my eyes were developing slowly, he meant that my Sharingan wasn't developing right, at a turtles pace, more or less. And that was a straight-up insult.

"What?" I said stupidly, and wanted to hit myself ten times over. I was acting like a complete idiot—Itake's opinion of me was going down the drain, I just knew it.

"You're eyes are developing slowly," Itake repeated simply and ran a hand through his long black hair. I cringed at hearing the words again. I didn't want to know that, I wanted to develop my Sharingan as quickly as my brother had, but I'd already passed that time. By the time he was ten, Itake had activated his Sharingan, and although I was fifteen already, I had yet to activate mine. Maybe I'd inherited Mom's genes, and wouldn't get the Sharingan. Oh, Dad would be so disappointed!

Again, I said something stupid. "Oh."

Itake snickered. "If you're really that upset, just go ask Dad what you can do to help it along."

"No!"

I was horrified by the idea, absolutely horrified! Dad didn't talk to us much, just nodded and grunted and "mmm'd" all the time. It really made me upset, though, since he was our father and refused to speak. He only talked to Mom, and that was rare, considering she knew what he was going to say before he said it anyway.

"You know," Itake added, picking at his teeth, "Dad's probably going to be really upset when he finds out you don't have your Sharingan yet."

"I know, I know," I moaned, and flung myself down onto the bed.

"But there is a way you can get it," whispered Itake, and I turned my head to the side to look at him, eager. If I could get my Sharingan before my sixteenth birthday—for an Uchiha should have their Sharingan before then—I could impress Dad and make him be proud of me! "All you have to do is find the legendary Uchiha Madara, and he'll help you."

Okay, now he was just being stupid.

"You and I know damn well that Uchiha Madara is dead, Itake," I snapped, shoving my face into the comforter, "and that there's no way anyone could find him, much less me!"

"Yeah, you're right," Itake said, and I heard him move towards the door. "But everyone says he never left the Valley of the End."



That night, I didn't get any sleep because of my dumb brother, and when I woke—more like just waited for the sun to rise to get out of bed—I had dark purple hollows under my eyes. In the bathroom, I stared into my black eyes, trying to see what was wrong with them, what Itake had seen. But they were normal, at least to me. Just black, round, and dull as always. Although I wouldn't notice it then, there was a smallest bit of fog beginning to wrap around my pupil.

As I made my way into the kitchen for breakfast, I saw that Dad was the only one there. Hmm. Maybe Mom had gotten another mission or something. Dad had his morning tea and rice balls in front of him, the morning paper still folded on the other side of the table. I grabbed a bowl, filled it with cereal, poured myself some milk, and sat down next to my father, eating slowly. I was starting to feel a little self-conscious around him, almost like if I looked him in the eye, he'd see that I wasn't worthy of being an Uchiha.

We sat there in silence for several long minutes, until I stood up to put my bowl in the sink. Dad grabbed my arm as I moved, and I had to fight not to flinch. If I flinched, surely he'd see it as a sign of weakness.

Looking down at him, I saw that he was looking straight at me, and I avoided his gaze. He tugged me down to his level and pushed my chin up, just as Itake had done last night. My stomach wriggled and flipped inside me, and I tried to force it to calm itself down, which didn't work, of course. I only succeeded in looking utterly aghast that my father was so close.

When he finally let me go, I backed up a few steps without really thinking about it, and mentally scolded myself for it. Kami I was being such an imbecile today!

"Your eyes are dull," he said, quietly, and I swallowed hard.

"Yes, sir," I answered, not knowing why I used such formalities with my father. I'd known him since birth, hadn't I? There was no reason to be intimidated! And yet, my better conscience told me, there was. Dad wasn't a rogue for nothing.

"And your Sharingan doesn't seem to be developing," he went on, ignoring my answer like he hadn't even heard it. Then, he sighed heavily. "Go train. Be back for dinner; make sure you don't go out alone."

Feeling scared, irritated, and relieved all at the same time, I ran out of the kitchen, bowl still in hand. Realizing this, I threw it down on the front step and continued my way down the Uchiha district, my chest feeling as if a huge rock had been lifted off of it. I was terribly relieved that Dad had dismissed me without reprimanding me, and irritated at his insistence that I have someone with me at all times. But I was more concerned with why he'd mentioned my eyes were dull, and that he knew about my Sharingan problems. My eyes had always been dull, hadn't they? A slightly grayer shade than Dad's or Itake's. Right? It seemed that way to me.

And he knew that my Sharingan wasn't developing, but he'd said it wasn't developing at all, not just slowly. My stomach knotted and I bit back a cry. Was I really going to be the freak of the Uchiha family? It couldn't be true, right? The only remaining Uchiha's had the Sharingan: My brother, my father, and Itachi. Oh, please, I begged silently, please let me have the Sharingan! Please let my father approve!

Okay, there you have it, the first chapter! Please review, this story is still hesitant, and if more reviews come, I'll write more!

Luv ya

Nicola