It was a Friday afternoon. The rain had reached a state of calm, pouring over the village like a bag of feathers floating through the air. Less rain meant more activity, so the village was bustling with sales, training, and only a semblance of crime; not as noisy as Konoha, but not as quiet as it usually was.

Sasuke had taken note of many things since his arrival from looking out the window.  Amegakure was quiet, but not uneventful. He'd see people talk in low whispers then go into the next building or alleyway, then come out with something brand new wrapped in parcels or stuffed in a box. Business was shady and on the low, and as the days passed Sasuke realised that it was just how people did sales in Ame.

He took note of the attires. Amegakurans never worse bright coloured clothing, and if their hair was colourful, they covered it with a hood. From head to bottom their clothes were muted, probably to blend in with the dull surroundings.

The neon signs bothered him because he didn't know what they were for and he was to far away to see the streets below. All he knew was a few of them were bars, and some were open establishments that didn't need hiding.

But if Amegakure was known for it's secrecy and dullness, then why were there so many bright signs?

Two months passed by the same way, with Sasuke looking out the window, going downstairs to eat, and going back up to sleep. It was like his mind was on autopilot, doing the barest minimum to get him through the day without breaking down.

Whenever intrusive thoughts about his family came to mind, Sasuke pushed it away. And as time went by without a single thought of his late mother– or a flashing memory of the dead bodies that littered the Uchiha compound like dirt–Sasuke was beginning to feel like he was dead too.

Though that was about to change, because Kisame had gotten a talking to from his boss, who was not pleased that Sasuke did not spend every second of every day training.

He rolled his eyes when he opened the bedroom door and saw Sasuke wallowing under his duvet–as usual. It had become a habitual sight to see the young Uchiha boy like this. Sasuke only got up to do three things, and that was to eat, bathe, and stare out the window like that would somehow bring whoever died back to this world.

At first, Kisame had allowed Sasuke to be as sad as he wanted, because he was empathetic enough to let him grieve in his own way. He met the boy with blood stains on his hands and tears in his eyes, so whatever had happened before the boy was dropped in Ame, Kisame knew it was something that gave him every right to grieve.

But Kisame was an ex-mist shinobi and there was a limit to his empathy that Sasuke had crossed.

Granted, he was scarred, but so what? When Kisame was Sasuke's age, his parents were slaughtered by missing nin, and Kisame did not remember crying or staying in bed for days. Kisame remembered going for training like nothing ever happened, and telling himself that death wasn't unorthodox in the Shinobi world. If Sasuke were a normal civilian boy, his actions would have made sense. But he wasn't. He was an Uchiha; a shinobi that was going to grow up to become the Akatsuki's greatest weapon.

He just didn't have time to be sad.

"Get up, Uchiha." Kisame knocked on the side of the door loudly, which made Sasuke writhe. The boy peaked his head out of the duvet, eyes set on Kisame yet faraway and sad.

Then he frowned and went back under.

Samehada shook.

"The audacity, I know." Kisame's eye twitched. "Did you not hear me? I said get up."

Sasuke mumbled something that sounded like a "no" and "go away".

For a split second Kisame  thought of killing him.

Then he remembered his orders that sounded like he didn't want Sasuke to be killed, and Kisame let go of  Samehada. (Though Samehada was still shaking in annoyance.)

"If you don't want to get up, then fine." In two long strides Kisame was at the side of the bed, and with a tug, the duvet was stripped away from Sasuke.

Samehada rustled in annoyance when Sasuke groaned.

"Get up before I use Water Splash Jutsu on you." Kisame was ready to do more than that, but he would be mad if he learnt that Sasuke suddenly didn't have legs.

Sasuke mumbled what sounded like a reluctant agreement before pushing himself off the bed and to his feet. He kept his gaze on the floor and his shoulders slumped down low.

Kisame didn't feel pity or sadness as he looked down at the traumatized boy, because he had seen this before, on different faces and in different ways.

Every Shinobi lost someone they loved, or they died before they could. It was either one, or the other.

'He'll learn to live with the grief, like the rest of us do.'

"Good, now go take a shower because you stink. When you're done meet me outside at the back. It's time to start training."

: :

Sasuke shivered. "I'm cold."

Kisame blinked. "I gave you a coat. You're wearing a coat."

The boy's gaze moved to his sleeves, as if it had slipped his mind that he was wearing something else, then he looked back up at Kisame and shrugged.

"I'm still cold." A pause. "And wet."

As Kisame spent more and more time with Sasuke, he kept wondering what would've happened if  Kakuzu were the one hearing Sasuke's bullshit and not him.

'Kids. Damn annoying, stupid kids.'

"You'll get used to it kid." Kisame took a step back and placed his fingers together. With a 'poof' sound, a clone appeared in the midst of smoke beside him.

"So here's how the training's gonna go–"

"Training?"

"Yes. Training. Haven't you been listening to me?"

"I have but—" Sasuke stopped, wiping the raindrops off his face with the sleeve of the oversized coat. It was then he realized his coat had a hood. "Why?"

"What do you mean why?"

"Why do I need to train?" Sasuke had more questions than that, actually. He wanted to know who had brought him here and what their purpose was. He wanted to know why Hoshigaki-san was even bothering to take care of him, or rather, who Hoshigaki-san was taking orders from. He wanted to know more about Ame, about those damn out-of-place neon signs and what they were for, and what lied in that grotesque- looking building. He wanted to know if his father was okay.

He wanted to know what he was supposed to do next.

Kisame saw the ample curiosity in his eyes, and for the first time, he wasn't annoyed with Sasuke and his slowness.

He couldn't tell Sasuke that he was just a pawn that the Akatsuki was going to use in the future. So instead, "You're a kid, alone in a village full of people that will sell you for a piece of chicken. If you want to survive, then you need to be strong."

Sasuke looked down at his hands. 'Be strong, huh?'

Once upon a time, he wanted that more than anything. To be better than the golden child Itachi and hold an important position in the Uchiha, to finally make his father proud, to become a legend like Madara that would be feared and praised for generations.

He wanted that strength. That power.

'Congratulations kid, you unlocked your first Sharingan.'

As of now, he just wanted to go back to his room.

Sasuke put the hood over his head, blocking the rain. "No."

"No?"

"I don't want to." Sasuke blinked twice. "Hold a kunai, I mean. Those are for..."

'A kunai. Sasuke gave her that for her birthday.'

"...killing people."

Kisame, Samehada, and their clones all stared blankly at the kid for a second.

Samehada writhed, as if it was trying to say "someone hold me back–"

"Calm down, Samehada." Kisame looked down at the Uchiha who had just said he didn't want to hold a kunai, and he thought he hadn't seen anything more pathetic in his entire life.

A Shinobi just told him he didn't want to kill people.

An Uchiha.

It was ironic. It was laughable.

But most of all–

"You don't want to train? You don't want to hold a kunai?"

'You don't want to?'

–it was fucking stupid.

"No. I don't want to." Sasuke was an observant kid–he should've noticed the boiling in his caretaker's eyes.

He should've watched the next thing he said.

"I don't want to be a shinobi."

Kisame's eyes widened.

Samehada was shaking, as if in ironic laughter.

Because–

'You think you had a choice?'

–who actually chooses to be a shinobi?

A silence breezed through the plain, misty green backyard like the winds of the rain's touch.

Sasuke stepped back a bit when he finally saw the irritation–no, anger, in Kisame's eyes.

'You think–'

Kisame threw his head back and laughed.

Then he grabbed his kunai from the pouch in his coat, and even without the sound of Sasuke's scream he knew he had drawn blood.

'–Any of us had a choice?'

Sasuke was on the ground, screaming and crying and kicking around and wailing about how much it hurt, infuriating Kisame the more.

"You take me lightly kid, like I am just here to keep you fed and rested." His gills flared. "Do you think I care about what you want? What I care about is harnessing that sharingan of yours for my boss's plans." He was raising his voice. It had been a while since he had such emotion.

"Listen, kid." His voice dropped to a low growl. "Don't ever think you have a choice in anything."

Sasuke wailed, cradling his bloody cheek in his hands.

"You are shinobi!" Kisame hated weakness. "Get up and act like one!"

He tried to get up, to look Kisame in the eyes and tell him to go kill himself. He wiped his cheek with his palm and–

–then he saw the blood

Blood.

Sasuke paled drastically. His body shook without control as he stared at the crimson red on his hands.

Blood blood blood blood blood Chi Setsune Yu Zabu Takumi Rei Akira Bo Yuri Katara Dai Fuun Mummy MUMMY MUMMMY–

"PLEASE WAKE UP!"

Sasuke smashed his hand against the ground, every single unwanted memory rising to surface like the bile in his throat, and suddenly it felt like he was choking–no, drowning in his own memories, in the pain of it all.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't see Kisame anymore through the tears and he couldn't hear him through the screaming because everything felt like background noise to the beating of his heart and the tightness in his chest and the overwhelming feeling that he just couldn't breathe anymore.

He tried, for a whole month he tried to ignore the pain, and now it had come back full force, knocking him to the ground and spiraling his mind into chaos and fear.

There was so much blood–and now blood stained his hands like it was his fault they died.

And maybe it was.

He shouldn't have waited for so long to go home that day.

He should've–

"Kid!"

He should've just ran.

: :

Ame streets were cold, and nobody bothered to talk to him or stop him as he ran through, not caring enough about the kid in a hooded coat pushing through a few masses of bodies. From their perspective, he was a kid doing what kids normally did–reckless and playful running.

Sasuke couldn't breathe and his hasty steps were haggard, but he pushed through, not knowing where he was going but just wanting the images to go away.

And when he couldn't breathe anymore he stopped in a dark alleyway, slamming against the wall like it would protect him from all the blood.

Sasuke's screams had died down to sobs, sobs to cries, cries to pathetic chokes for more air.

His cheek stung as droplets of  sweat rolled down into the wound.

Opposite him there was a trash bin, with rats eating off by the sides of it. He didn't see that, instead he saw his mother laying on the floor with her eyes closed like a resignation.

Sasuke kept choking on air as silent tears rolled down his cheeks, mixing with the sweat in his wound and making it sting even more.

His mother was his light that guided him through the darkness of having no friends, needing to impress his father, and losing Itachi to what he didn't know. Through everything, she was there for him, warm smile and all.

And he wasn't there for her when she died.

When they killed her.

"I'm sorry." He choked out. "I'm s-so SORRY–"

The alley was dark. 

It surprised him that, in the haze, he saw a flash of red.

Red hair.

He remembered red hair belonged to–"K-Kushina san?"

Her voice sounded muffled compared to the ringing in his ears. "It seems you're having a panic attack. Heart racing, shivering yet sweating, choking, and crying." The voice was stern, young. "I never knew how to stop my panic attacks, so I apologize if this is a little unorthodox."

That was the last thing Sasuke heard before everything went black.

But even in the darkness, he still saw it.

A flash of red.

: :

The first thing he took note of when he woke up was that he could breathe properly again and it relived him. The second was that the blood was gone (finally) and his cheek felt bandaged. Third, he noticed that he was in a different house. Similar, structure-wise, but completely different in terms of arrangement and décor. The couch was larger, with a much bigger coffee table with papers scattered all over them, and a bookshelf of papers rather than actual books.

The fourth thing he noticed–

"Oh, so you're awake."

–was that she was here.

Red hair. Not Kushina. Square framed glasses. She came out of a room that was likely the kitchen considering the tray of food she was holding.

"You'll feel better after you eat." Red told him. "You've been out for over an hour, which is my fault, I hit a pressure point on your neck."

She placed the tray on the table, "I hope you like instant ramen."

(Half of her hair was haggard while the other was straight. Sasuke couldn't stop staring at her hair.)

"Why did you–" A dry cough stopped him from asking.

"Before you ask questions, drink the water and eat the food. Your body needs the nutrition after the stress it just went through." It seemed Red noticed the uncertainty in his eyes because she said, "If it will make you feel any better, I will eat the food and drink the water with you, just so you know there's nothing in it."

And she did. She came back with another set of chopsticks from the kitchen and joined him, though she took less bites than he did. As Sasuke gulped down the last of the water, he realized that this was the second stranger he had eaten with since he was born.

"Now that you've eaten, you can speak."

His throat didn't feel dry anymore as he spoke.
"How do you talk so well?"

Judging by looks alone, Red was probably around the same age as him, yet she talked like she was an 80 year old diplomat.

He could tell she didn't expect such a question, because she froze and blinked rapidly.

Her reactions reminded him so much of Uchiha...only different, in some way.

"Oh?" Red cocked her head to the side. "Unusual question, but it's okay. I learned to speak from the books I read and the people I associate with."

"Associ...?"

"People I hang out with." She clarified. "Is that all you wish to ask me?"

"No," he shook his head. "But if I ask you more, will you tell the truth?"

Not roundabout answer, or a half baked lie. The full, honest truth. Sasuke didn't think he'd gotten that in a while. After all, he still didn't understand why he was in Ame. Hoshigaki-san had mentioned something about training, but Sasuke knew that wasn't the full picture.

( Why did Sasuke's refusal to train make him so angry if there wasn't something else behind it? )

"I have no reason to lie."

"Okay." Sasuke folded his arms. "Why do you care?"

Red's eyes widened in the slightest. She straightened her body. "I was expecting a question more on the lines of 'why did I help you', because deducting that I care because I helped you stop a panic attack is a far fetched conclusion."

"Huh?"

She closed her eyes and sighed, exasperated. "I'm saying, why do you think I care? Maybe I want something from you."

Sasuke didn't miss a beat. "I ran through the streets and nobody tried to stop me to take something from me." He paused. "Because I'm a kid, I'm not meant to have anything. And if you wanted something from me–something bad, you wouldn't have taken me to your home. You would have taken what you wanted there and left."

"What if I–" Red stopped herself, shaking her head. A hint of a smile graced her lips as she stared at Sasuke, impressed.  "You're observant."

Then she tilted her head, an amused glint in her eyes. "You know what observant means, right?"

Her teasing demeanor made Sasuke pout. "Of course I do!"

He could feel his cheeks getting hot and he wondered why he was so embarrassed in front of a stranger. "I'm not a dummy."

"Sure." She drawled out.

"I'm not!"

The atmosphere no longer felt stiff, and this made Sasuke relax into the couch a little.

(It didn't occur to him that this was the first time he had ever held a conversation with a kid his age.)

"You asked me why I care." Red continued. Her tint smile was no longer playful, instead it was uncertain, and just a bit bashful. "I had panic attacks for a long while–"

"You're a kid though."

"And so are you but here we are." Red held her gaze with Sasuke until he broke away. "So as I was saying, I usually had panic attacks, and when I saw you running down the street like that it kind of reminded me of that time."

"So you helped me." His hand tapped against the coffee table–a habit he developed whenever he was beginning to feel frustrated or anxious. Her answers were vague and it made him wonder if, or when she was going to explain herself properly.

(Distantly, he wondered why he hadn't run away yet.)

"Are you Konohan?"

He saw a twitch in her head "No."

"Huh, you look like a Konohan I know."

"What a nice coincidence." She relaxed into the couch, a scowl taking over her face. "You are from Konoha? That must be horrible."

"It is." He understood the sourness of her tone; he hated Konohans too.

Silence stretched out between the two of them, and Sasuke didn't know what to make of it.

He didn't know what to make of any of it, really.

"Is it okay if I ask you why you had a panic attack?"

Sasuke deadpanned "No."

"Please?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because..." She looked down at her lap, fiddling with her fingers. Then as if in conviction, she sighed and looked him straight in the eyes again.

Sasuke was taken aback when he realized she had red eyes, like her hair.

"People here don't talk about where they came from. They tell me to forget and move and that the past doesn't matter here." She frowned so deeply Sasuke worried that she might cry.

His hand reached out to comfort her without thinking, and he quickly retracted it when he realized what he was about to do.

Maybe she noticed, because she gave him a thankful smile as she went on.

"But I can't–no, I shouldn't forget. I don't want to live life like nothing happened before. That wouldn't be fair to her, to them."

Her? Them?

Red sighed again; this time it was shakier. "I lost my mother, and it's been the cause of my panic attacks."

Sasuke's brows shot up.

There was a beat of silence, not for the words he couldn't say, but for the words he didn't need to. Gazes fixed on each other, it was then it hit him that he could've left a while ago, went back to Hoshigaki-san and faced the consequences. However, he stayed, he ate with her and listened to all she had to say even if he didn't even know her name.

He regarded Konohans as outsiders, Uchiha as family, and Hoshigaki-san as an evil fish.

"Me too."

Maybe...

"I lost my mother too."

...he could see Red as a friend.

Ame was bleak and dull, like a visual representation of his mind. He ignored the feelings and settled for numbness, something almost as close as death.

He was ready to give up and accept the feeling of death.

"So," Red gave him an uncertain smile, and he had no choice but to smile back. "Do you...want to talk about it?"

It was amazing, that in the midst of it all, he found a flash of red.

: :

On the 4th of November, the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero gave birth to a bouncing baby girl.

And because of it, the Uchiha Civil War, began.