Dragonfly

Chapter Six: Adventures In Art

After the Kyuubi's attack and the subsequent loss of the Fourth Hokage as well as a substantial amount of villagers, Konoha's sentiments towards the Uchiha clan as a whole shifted into the negative. A great many suspected it was our clan that orchestrated the whole shebang thanks to our dear ancestor Madara's history with the beast, and to an extent, well...they were right.

It was because of two Uchihas that such misfortune and destruction fell upon the village. Just-not us.

Relations with other clans and civilians alike had already been, y'know, rocky at best even before this event, but now there was obvious animosity. Not in the apparent, throw-rotten-fruit-at-the-outcasts way, either, but the quiet, simmering kind where people side-eyed us and muttered behind our backs like uppity jerks.

The dislike spread like wildfire.

But, at the very least, old man Third did his best to remain neutral and to continue supporting everyone in his village equally. It was probably thanks to him that the rancor didn't overflow into something disgusting and biased to where the clan was shunned. But he never really did do anything about it.

If things didn't end up getting all FUBAR later on thanks to interlopers like Danzo and Obito, maybe...maybe the clan would have gotten out of this alive.

I didn't like any of it-in fact, I hated it. But it wasn't enough to make me want to change it. Even if it hurt, it was something that I would have to deal with; just grin and bear.

Because, if there was even the smallest chance that I would be returned to my own world when I was killed in the massacre, the payoff would be well worth it. It was only a matter of a few more years. I did care for these people-loved them, in fact. But... they weren't mine.

Sometime after this, around the time I was eight, Emiko and Satoshi pulled me out of the Academy because I wasn't making any outward progress in the shinobi side of life anyway and the teachers were starting to get irritated at my behavior-it might have been because of the ostracism, too, but they never talked about it. Dad became pretty tight-lipped concerning clan meetings and general clan talk after the whole Kyuubi thing went down-and if that wasn't just a bad sign.

Emiko took it upon herself to homeschool me, teaching me the basics in each subject-enough to get by. Most of it was what I already knew but I pretended to be a moron learning new great things just to make her happy. Satoshi still attempted to persuade me with flashy clan techniques, thanks to Kou's testament about my awesome Fireball, but when I stubbornly refused to comply, he finally gave up and let me have my peace as a normal villager. They discussed my future and decided I would follow in Emiko's footsteps and become a seamstress, too. At least, they hoped that would work out-this was me they were dealing with after all.

By this time, Shisui graduated and became a full-fledged genin and our time together became less and less. It was a huge shift, but I actually spent more time around Itachi and his family, because even though I dropped Sasuke once and could have damned (or bettered) his future (like I said before, it was an accident), Mikoto liked having me around to help out every now and then.

Sometimes I wondered if my oh-so lovely, fiery personality reminded her of her late friend Uzumaki Kushina-it would have explained her tolerance for me.

And, when Sasuke was old enough to walk and go outside, I took him along with me to pick up Itachi from the Academy-but that turned out to be only a measly two short times, because the kid was a pint-sized genius who managed to clear the bar in a year and became a genin soon after.

Then, it was just me and Sasuke most of the time.

Who would have thought-I'd somehow landed myself as his babysitter.