家路 (The Path Home)

Disclaimer: I do not own, and will never own, the Naruto Series. But Tomoe does belong to me.

CHAPTER 1

Lightning.

Nets of blue cast in the darkness that enveloped me. Electricity that surged past the blood within my veins. Light that offered a shred of hope to escape this prison.

The prison was warm. I could stretch my hands that existed only in my imagination. I touched the soft confines but could not breach it. My body was unable to stretch any further. It wasn't always warm. When it seared, I imagined I was whaling at the walls.

Occasionally, it was cold. Ice cubes down the back of your shirt cold. Chilled until I was numb.

The last sensation was pain—of being constricted, squeezed and pushed.

That was the last time I ever felt physical heat, cold or pain.

~{I}~

A mother's embrace, the matron at the orphanage told me when I asked, was always warm and comforting and most of all, radiated the sense of safety and of being loved—that was home. It was a subtle way of saying that the orphanage was never home for me. That was when I was six and still young enough to be adopted by a nice couple. The matron changed her tune after I turned fourteen. Her phrasing had changed to: "Come home safely, sweetie. I'm making your favorite butterscotch cookies," when it was always, "Come back early, don't break your curfew, no one likes a disobedient daughter."

I was like rotten milk that had reached the expired date.

And expire I did. The day she changed her phrasing was the day I never returned. Maybe because I knew the orphanage was never home. Or maybe it was karma or just fate's sick idea of a joke. The hideous yellow bus that carried kindergarteners cut off the path to home. For all of us. I didn't know how many of them survived. How many of them would make it home that early morning.

I knew I was one of those that didn't make it.

One insignificant number that upped the statistic. That was what I amounted to in the end: a millimeter of a statistic.

~{I}~

A mother's embrace, I realized, was not very warm. It was several days after waking up in an infant's body, realizing that the rollercoaster of sensation was being in a woman's womb, and I was being held by my mother for the first time.

Well, she gave birth to me—giving me a second life. So she counted? Even though I wasn't … wasn't genuinely her child? Was that accurate? Technically, I had 50% of her DNA now, as odd as it sounded. I couldn't even understand what she was saying. But she was sobbing, crying tears of joy, relieved by the product of a difficult childbirth.

The confusing, conflicting emotions her presence, her overbearing, overflowing love almost made me wished I were in that dark space once more. Where lightning cut darkness and left its mark in my vision.

Tomoe, Tomoe.

Her constant repetition of it in my presence, when she was talking to me, or to the nurses that shuffled in and out with my tiny body, implied that was my name. It was a rather Japanese sounding name … which meant I was somewhere in Japan, I guess … I wasn't sure since I didn't understand heads or tails of what they were saying.

What did I feel to be stuck here? I was frustrated and confused at first but it eventually mellowed out to be replaced by intrigue and curiosity. It wasn't everyday you were born again, I guess. I made a mental note to write a journal as soon as possible so that I could record this sensation.

Then again, I might not even need it. Who could forget something like this?

I had nothing to do so I did what I liked best: sleep and sleep. In fact, I slept so frequently and deeply that I could be carted off in someone's arms without knowing until we were already moving. It was not the woman I had gotten familiar with and—dare I say it—had formed some … some sort of connection with.

Distress settling in, I burst into tears before I could suppress my infantile instincts that screamed for the mother to comfort me. This person holding me was undoubtedly male since I was held tight to a flat-chested person, cradled comfortably in the crook of his elbow.

Through the haziness that was my poor infant vision, I saw the same blue that had accompanied me in the darkness, slashing the air—lightning and electricity cackling. That didn't make sense. It was like the sky was before me again.

A grunt of pain and the grip on me tightened painfully, spurring my tears and screaming sobs. I would've smacked myself if my arms hadn't been constricted by the purple blanket wrapped around me. I squirmed relentlessly in a futile attempt to free myself.

"Fugaku!" cried the woman's voice and arms pried me out of the first arms. I hiccupped, falling silent once I was settled in the woman's familiar arms again. "Shh," she tried to shush me as gently as possible.

Ozone lingered in the air. I sniffled, wondering how I could smell it when the sky seemed as clear as day. If I looked past the woman who held me, I could see a stretch of blue blur—the curvaceous sky that was the roof of my world.

Well, it seemed that the world was still turning despite this aberration.

Nothing special at all.

~{I}~

I was alone. Isolated. Imprisoned once more—the prison had changed but I was still a captive. I was held in a wooden room, bare of any furniture but the Japanese-style closet and cradle I slept in. there was nothing to stimulate me in my infant years and all I did was feel the energy thrumming within me—hot, nothing, then cold and repeat again.

I couldn't believe I didn't notice it before, so distracted I was by the family I now had. It was surreal. To be an orphan and to have a family now. I hadn't met any of them except the mother yet. I was disturbed by how eager I was to meet them … to know them … to be accepted …

I doubted they would be delighted to know I wasn't actually their child in mind and soul though. This body may prove us family but there was always that person, that one with the mindset of a fourteen year old reborn into Japanese family. For them, I would endure schooling—again—to learn the language, to be able to converse.

They weren't very encouraging though. My only contact was the woman, the mother. She bathed, changed and fed me. She nursed me until I could roll and crawl and walk and see for myself what sort of family I had been born into.

There was no child neglect although I barely saw my father. Still, sometimes, at night, I could hear whispers outside my door and someone's piercing eyes studying me. I would stare back, even though my gaze was unseeing. My eyes hadn't developed enough yet.

I estimated nearly a year had passed before I noticed it.

In retrospect, it was my fault—for sitting so close to the door. When someone opened the door, I was smacked aside and my head connected with the floor. Someone muttered a plaintive oath under their breath and pulled me up, repeating my name again and again.

Two boys, black-haired and -eyed and pale-skinned, murmured urgently to one another in the language I still hadn't a proper grasp on yet—but said something among the lines of let's get out of here and gonna cry. I stared curiously at them. Only one of them stared back before the taller of the two dragged him away and out of my room.

Later, the woman came in and relieved me of my loneliness. "Itachi … what happened … does it hurt?"

I shook my head. I almost asked her to repeat what she first said, her first word that sounded a whole lot like a name—a name that was distinctly familiar. But then I remembered I couldn't actually speak Japanese. I tried anyway. It was a butchered version of what she said, something like, "Chi."

The woman fell silent, surprise registering on her beautiful features. Obviously not expecting her silent child to be speaking out of the blue. "Wha … what did you say?" Excitement polished her features, like one would polish a shoe, and she was suddenly shining.

"A'chi." Great, I sounded like I was sneezing. "Tah-chi. Eee-tah—" I gave up. There was no way to pronounce the name until I was older. But the woman squealed like she'd won the lottery and disappeared through the door again, calling loudly for someone.

"Itachi, Tomoe said your name!"

Disinterested, I yawned.

~{I}~

My room was furnished as I grew older. My crib was replaced by a futon in the corner of the room. The closet took up a whole side, wall to wall, filled with clothes of purple and blue. A tea table was given to me and the walls were painted violet—the color I'd picked after my … mother had shown me the catalogue. I was nearly twenty months old, but the woman seemed to understand I was more aware than other infants though she didn't try to psychoanalyze me so deeply.

A mahogany shelf was fitted next to the desk. It was mostly empty except for picture books on the lowest level so I could easily reach them. I'd read them so often I could spout the story line word-for-word in my sleep now.

What surprised me was that I actually had a father and two older brothers.

I wasn't exactly sure until the woman showed me pictures of them. Capable of understanding what she was saying now, I listened with widening eyes as she spoke, pointing at each of the family members in the pic. I was about as large as a loaf of bread then, and asleep, since I didn't remember being caught on camera.

A stern man with tanner skin than his family and the same black hair and eyes they all shared. His lips were unsmiling but there was gentleness in his eyes the camera had caught. The woman—mother—was beside him, carrying me, and her free hand was rested on the shoulder of a seven-year-old with deep tear-troughs. A laughing toddler with the same features was squirming in his arms so he was slightly blurry.

"Fugaku," that was the stern man, "Itachi," her oldest son, "and Sasuke," the toddler. On the wall behind them, was a Japanese-style fan with red and white colors.

I pointed to it with a clumsy finger. "Uchi—wa, ne?" I looked up at her for confirmation.

She nodded. "Aah. We are … (indistinguishable words) Uchiha Ichizoku."

I meant to bark out an ironic laugh, wondering what was wrong with her, but ended up giggling and rolling around on the floor with laughter—for reasons she didn't understand. I stopped laughing, face flushed, and breathless, when I noticed the genuine confusion but adoration on her face.

Her lips were pulled into a quizzical smile, but still a lovely smile nonetheless.

"Tomoe?" she queried. "Are you alright?"

"Where?" I asked instead, abruptly.

"Sorry?"

I patted the floor, saw confusion, and gestured wildly to the window out of my reach. "Where—we are? Outside—places!"

"This is Konoha, dear," she replied, finally cottoning on. "The Village Hidden in the Leaf." That was when my world exploded.

… Of course not.

"Stupid name," I muttered under my breath, once my mind started churning and reeling with the new information. The world didn't literally explode. My world just shattered into pieces and reassembled itself into a new puzzle—like the ones I spent so much time on piecing together when I was tired of the books I'd read.

"Tomoe!" she chided sternly, black eyes flashing, "Where did you learn that word?"

I ignored her, turning back to the photograph that she'd brought in. Grumbling, she headed to my shelf. I noticed that it was restocked every week. And it now occupied three rows instead of one. It was done during when I was asleep though, because I never caught who gave me new reading materials.

"Itachi!" Watching the woman stomp out, white-knuckling one of the new books, I figured I'd gotten my answer.

For someone who could win the award of Best Brother Ever—and getting the Worst Son Ever award for killing his parents—Uchiha Itachi sure couldn't filter a book for vulgarity to save his life (or ear, because Mikoto's ranting could be heard even up here).

"Shit," I whispered to the silence of my room. You'd think being an infant again was the weirdest thing ever. Apparently not. I didn't scream with elation or horror at the information. The only thing in this world—or any other worlds—that could make me scream was ghosts. Ghosts in toilet bowls. Ghouls behind doors, lurking in the dark shadows. I was ninety-nine percent sure this world didn't have that.

At least there was a bonus to it.

Who was I kidding?

I screamed and electricity struck and lit everything on fire.

~{I}~

I've finally posted this. Not to worry, I'm halfway through this fic's completion already, so I should be able to finish this within this year or the next (I hope).

I want to say thank you to those who've stuck around and as a reward to reviewers, you'll get a small drabble in PM for every chapter—short like about 100+ words—mostly fluffy bonding in the beginning but some gives you the real idea of what's going on (stuff that Tomoe, the narrator, doesn't find out and doesn't fit into the flow of the story).

R&R