11I live!
Sorry for the delay everyone. I don't know how may of you follow my One Piece stories, but if you don't, the reason for my long absence was that repeated plagiarism of my work really turned me off writing for awhile. This is me trying to get back into the habit of writing. Thank you all for your patience.
Relearning how to work her body is annoying.
Crawling was fairly easy to work out, but walking is another matter entirely. She's been here for roughly two years now and the best she can do with this body's tiny legs is waddle around. Judging by the looks she gets, she supposes that she's progressing far more quickly that an actual toddler would, but it is still frustrating. She knows what she wants, how she wants to move, but her body isn't cooperating with her.
Even worse is the fact that she has to learn language all over again. Her mind is still hardwired for English and it is not something anyone here speaks. The language here is not what she is used to - the structure is wrong, the sounds are off, and all the rules are different. She dreads relearning to read and write because she's seen the written language and it is far more complicated than she knows what to do with.
Still, given her physical age and the fact that she knew nothing of the language, she supposes that she's learning as well as a toddler can.
Her new mobility is something she likes to test because being stuck in the same room for the majority of your time is not as fun when you are mentally over two decades old. So even though she knows it probably scares Mikoto out of her mind, she wanders off every chance she gets.
It probably says something about this world when no one seems to notice or care that there is an unattended toddler wobbling around. She'll take all the freedom she can get though; she just wants a change of scenery.
She hears voices and the tone is jeering, goading - not teasing, because teasing can be lighthearted and is rarely ever cruel, but this is.
Brow furrowed, she turns and spots a group of boys, all years older than her, crowded around another boy who looks to be slightly younger than them. She can't understand everything they are saying, but she catches enough to understand their meaning. She blinks, looking around for someone older, to see if they can stop it and finds no one. When the boys get a little too loud, someone on the other side of the street glances over, but that's the extent of acknowledgement they get.
Moving closer, she finally catches a look at the younger boy's face.
She feels like she's been punched in the stomach.
Uchiha Obito.
A large part of her wants to recoil in terror - she knows who this boy is, what he will become. She knows that even if she wanted to, if she were braver perhaps, that she could not do anything to save him from the mission that pushes him into the arms of the enemy. She is too weak, too young, too small and it is physically impossible for her to change that.
She wants to flee, to run away and never look back. To hide away from this the same way she's trying to hide from everything else.
But.
This Obito is a boy. Not the man who is willing to burn the world to the ground for a fantasy, but a lonely little boy. Just a child.
A child who endures sneers and name calling and cruel words from his own clan.
A child who is unfamiliar with kindness, with people seeing him.
She presses her lips together and takes a deep breath.
For now, he is just a child.
For now, he is not someone to fear.
But he is someone who needs a friend.
Squaring her shoulders, she walks over to them, slipping past the older boys unnoticed, and reaches out to take Obito's hand.
He startles, looking down at her and she almost laughs at the double take he gives her, eyes going wide when he registers just who she is.
The other boys around them fall silent and stare at her with the same expressions of bewilderment.
They know who she is.
The whole clan knows who she is.
They whisper about her in a way that makes Mikoto's eyes go hard and Fugaku's expression go grim.
They talk about her even when she's right there.
She's the son of the Clan Head.
She's also apparently the youngest in clan history to activate the clan's kekkei genkai.
"Obi-nii," she says into the silence and delights in the looks that cross the older boys' faces even as the one she clings to stares at her open mouthed, "Play me. Pwa-misd."
"Itachi-kun," one of the boys starts to say.
She doesn't listen, she turns to him and glares and feels her eyes burn and all the boys around her pale and Obito's hand squeezes hers almost to the point of pain.
"No," she says, pointing at the boy, not even caring what he was going to try and say.
She heard his tone, he was talking down to her. She knows he was probably going to tell her to play with them instead or to leave Obito alone because he wasn't worth her time. She looks at each of them and memorizes their faces because even though the person who Obito will one day become frightens her, right now he's just a child.
So she hates these three on principle now.
Obito stares at the child that takes his hand with something like numb shock.
Uchiha Itachi, son of the Clan Head and future prodigy, had marched right up to them, taken his hand, and called him "Obi-nii" like they've known each other for ages.
He has never met Itachi in his life.
"Itachi-kun," Takashi starts to say in that 'I'm-older-and-therefore-better-than-you' voice that makes Obito bristle automatically.
Itachi turns to look at him and his eyes go crimson, three tomoe spinning lazily, as he glares up at Takashi. Obito feels his eyes go wide and his jaw drop. He's never seen the clan's eyes so close before and certainly not on a two year old before - looks like all those whispers about the Clan Heir being born with the clan kekkei genkai fully developed hold truth after all.
"No," Itachi says firmly, pointing at Takashi in emphasis, "No like. You mean. Go 'way."
Takashi, Akio, and Daisuke stare at the toddler, pale and still and silent in the face of those red eyes - eyes none of them have for all they like to pretend.
"Go 'way," Itachi repeats when none of them move, eyes narrowing.
Spluttering, the older boys vanish and Obito stares after them in awed amusement.
"Okay?" Itachi asks, looking up at him with crimson eyes and giving his hand a little tug.
And that's when Obito realizes the entire thing was deliberate. Itachi saw what was happening - understood what was happening - and decided to stop it. That's far more than most people do and those people are adults.
"Y-yeah," he manages around the sudden lump in his throat.
This is ridiculous, he's eleven. He is not going to cry over the fact that a two year old stood up for him.
Itachi nods at him, a frown pulling at his mouth as he raises his free hand to rub his eyes.
"Itachi?" he asks and the mentally kicks himself for assuming familiarity. Though, Itachi assumed it first, so maybe it's okay?
"Burns," Itachi says, voice dangerously close to a whine.
Obito swears.
Itachi is two.
Regardless of how amazing he might be, he's still a little kid and right now, the boy's eyes are still crimson, still spinning and Itachi clearly doesn't understand.
Obito kneels down in front of him. "Itachi, your Sharingan is still active," he says, and Itachi gives him a wide eyed look of confused surprise - he hadn't even realized what he'd done, "You need to stop channeling chakra to your eyes."
At least he thinks so. Obito only has the vaguest idea of how the Sharingan works.
Itachi blinks at him, brow furrowing. "Cha'ra? The shiny s'uff?"
Huh. He'd never thought of it that way, but it's not like the kid is wrong. "Yeah," he says, "Think you can do that?"
Itachi nods and closes his eyes, a look of concentration on his face.
Obito kind of wants to smush his cheeks together, it's so cute. Then the toddler's eyes flicker open, not a trace of red in sight, and he beams.
"Good job!" he says, eliciting a shy, but pleased smile from the little boy.
"Thank you," Itachi says, enunciating each sound carefully, "Burn gone now."
Obito waves away the gratitude. "You helped me first," he says.
"Help 'chother," the boy replies seriously and Obito has to stop himself from cooing, "Play now?"
He blinks. "Wait, you were serious about that?"
Itachi nods and takes Obito's face in his tiny hands. "Obi-nii frien'."
His eyes well up before he can stop them and he waves his hands. "Ah! Sorry, sorry! I'm fine! Just something in my eyes!"
He is a shinobi, damnit! He is not going to start crying because a toddler decided to be his friend.
But Itachi just blinks at him in bewilderment before something in his expression sets and he leans in to press a kiss to Obito's forehead. Obito stills at the gesture, staring at the toddler before him as he says, very seriously. "No sad."
Obito takes a deep breath and releases it slowly, nodding as an involuntary smile pulls at his face. "Not sad, promise."
Itachi eyes him for a moment, like he's not really sure if he believes him, but then he nods and steps back, taking Obito's hand and pulling him down the street.
"Where are we going?" Obito asks, amused by the boy's determined stride.
Itachi grins at him. "Dunno. A'vnter."
Mikoto has been looking for Itachi all afternoon.
She swears, as soon as that boy learned to walk, you couldn't turn your back on him for three seconds or else he'd disappear.
And she knows that the Clan for the most part considers its children to be self-sufficient, toddler or otherwise, and the most they will do is keep an eye on them from a distance.
So Mikoto is surprised, and more than a little relieved, to find her son sitting on a bench outside a dango stall with a boy who has to be ten years his senior. There is a small plate with two half eaten sticks of dango between them and her son is watching the older boy attentively as he animatedly tells a story about something that sounds like a training mishap. The boy is clearly a shinobi, hitai-ate proudly displayed on his forehead. Mikoto is struggling to place his face, though the orange goggles are definitely familiar.
She watches, bemused, as Itachi goes to eat some of his snack and the boy pauses in his hand gestures, but not his story, to make sure her son can take a bite, holding the stick for him so that Itachi can get to the dango without poking himself.
It's the first time that she's actually seen Itachi invested in an interaction outside from herself and Fugaku.
Itachi is smiling and listening to this boy and it warms something in Mikoto's chest.
Not enough to make her forget her worry in the first place though.
"Itachi!" she calls as she makes her way over.
The boy's mouth snaps shut and his eyes swing around, going wide when they land on her. "Ah…Hello, Mikoto-san," he says sheepishly before turning to her son, "Looks like your mom found you, Itachi."
Itachi hums, eyeing her carefully and she can't figure out why. "'lo, Kaa-cha."
She sighs. "Itachi, you can't just run off like that," she scolds, "It's dangerous to wander around alone."
Her son frowns at her. "No 'lone," he says, pointing to the boy sitting next to him, "Have Obi-nii."
Mikoto blinks as the pieces click into place.
Obito. Asami's son. The one who lives alone. The one who most of the clan turn their noses up at because of his grades and poor chakra control and constant sunny smiles in the face of it all.
"Uh, Itachi," Obito is saying, "I don't think that's what your mom means…"
Itachi doesn't pay him any mind, staring her down with eyes too old for his face. "Obi-nii," he repeats seriously.
Mikoto feels a smile pulling up her lips without her permission. Itachi doesn't get attached to people, doesn't want anything to do with them for the most part. But it seems he's made a friend all on his own. And if that friend just so happens to be the clan pariah. Well.
"I can see that," she says, smiling at Obito, who freezes under her attention, "Thank you for looking after him, Obito-kun."
The boy flushes. "It's not a problem!" he blurts, "I mean he's a really nice kid and, uh, it was fun."
The smile he gives her is bright and sunny, but Mikoto is a mother and before that a shinobi, and she can see the uncertainty that lingers in the boy's eyes. She keeps her anger off her face like the professional she is, but inside, she's seething. She wants to collectively take the Clan in hand and brow beat them into submission.
She looks at these two boys before her – two children for all that one of them is legally considered an adult because of the hitai-ate he wears proudly – and wonders what logic justifies this treatment. One revered before he can even crawl and the other an outcast long before he even entered the Academy. Accidents of birth that neither had any control over, isolated for something they did not choose and yet here they sit together, smiling.
"Well, if that's how you feel," she says to Obito, refusing to let her smile falter, "Perhaps you would like to babysit sometime?"
Obito stares at her in shock, but Itachi lights up like the sun. He reaches over and snags the older boy's shirt in his tiny hand and gives it a light tug.
"Play 'gain?" he asks when Obito turns to him.
"What?" he asks, obviously caught off guard by her question, but then he blinks and his eyes go wide and he swings around to face her again, "I mean, yes! I would like that, Mikoto-san!"
Itachi beams, looking entirely pleased with himself.
Mikoto laughs lightly. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind, Obito-kun," she says, "In the meantime, we need to be heading home, Itachi."
Itachi pouts at her, but slides off the bench regardless, wrapping himself around Obito's legs. "Bye, Obi-nii."
Obito grins and ruffles his hair. "See ya later, Itachi. Try not to wander off so much, okay?"
Itachi just gives a non-committal hum to that and Mikoto sighs inwardly, already resigned to future scavenger hunts for her child.
"Thank you again, Obito-kun," she says, scooping up Itachi in one arm and setting him on her hip, turning down the street towards the house.
She feels more than sees Itachi waving over her shoulder.
Her son made a friend.
She smiles.
Hope this was worth the wait.
Until next time,
~Elri