Merger 1.6
Hisana rushed through the streets, as fast as she'd ever gone. It was still odd, to her, that she possessed such physical ability. She probably couldn't pull off the tree leaping that most ninja in the Land of Fire traveled by just yet, but she was still far faster than she had been in her old life. Even if her legs were stubby and her steps tiny.
The Konoha Hospital was a surprisingly modern building. It was amongst the tallest in the village, though at less than ten floors that wasn't saying much. Hisana had rushed over, and she took a moment to breathe just outside the hospital proper. Then, she walked inside to face her first major challenge in changing things. Getting an in with Naruto was as easy as, well, turning up with some extra food. Sasuke, just after the massacre? She could forget about making any progress for a while.
A nurse directed her to her distant cousin's room, and as she exited the stairs onto his floor she saw the two ANBU standing guard outside. In their almost featureless masks and grey armour; they certainly cut an intimidating figure. Fans seemed to have been divided between thinking they were the coolest part of the series, or that they were just over glorified mooks. Actually standing near one, Hisana was perfectly aware that he could kill her in the time it took her to blink. This time though, they merely stood aside to allow her to enter.
She entered the hospital room gingerly. Sasuke looked up slowly, his eyes red. He'd clearly been crying. In that hospital room, he looked more like the traumatised child he was than what she'd been subconsciously expecting. The boy in front of her was no hardened avenger, or coldy closed off recluse. He mostly looked like he needed a hug. She didn't really know what to say. She almost opened her mouth to ask if he was okay, but that was stupid. Of course he wasn't.
"The-they told me you survived, too." Sasuke said, his voice hoarse and halting and agonisingly young.
"Yeah." Hisana said, sitting down in a chair next to Sasuke's bed.
"Do you... do you know why?" He asked her. Hisana wanted so badly to tell him the truth, then. To tell who was really at fault, who had manipulated his brother for their own ends. But that wasn't what she needed to do, or what he needed. At least, that's what Hisana told herself.
"I don't." She said, each word painful to say. Sasuke looked down, tears in his eyes. Slowly, gently, she hugged him and ignored the wetness on her shoulder. After that, there wasn't much more to say.
+++++
Only a week after Sasuke had finally been released from the hospital; the last two Uchiha stood on wooden pier overlooking a lake. It was located just behind the compound; and the wood bore more than a few singe marks. Hisana shivered into her jacket against the wind.
"You should stay clan head, cousin." Sasuke said.
"It's your birthright, Sasuke. I'm not even a real Uchiha." Hisana replied.
"You're more of an Uchiha than I am." He said, looking down at the lake.
"Sasuk-" Hisana started, but he interrupted her.
"How can we have a clan head who hasn't even awakened his Sharingan! How can we have one who was related to Ita... him." Sasuke shouted; looking up at her.
"Why the hell do we need a clan head anyway? There's two of us left, so we may as well just both "lead" the clan." HIsana said, growing tired of the argument.
"Fine. But I can't -" Sasuke began, only to stop when Hisana spoke up.
"I know you can't lead right now. I'll keep on taking care of it, okay?" Hisana said.
"Okay." Sasuke replied, visibly relaxing. "But that's not why I asked you to come to the pier with me. You should have learnt this... you should have learnt this from your mother. But I'm the only one left to teach you, so watch." Sasuke said, and Hisana's eyes spun in red on black. She saw the handseals, Snake-Ram-Monkey-Boar-Horse-Tiger, and the way Sasuke's chakra moved and changed. She saw the fire gather, and she saw it roar out past the pier onto the lake.
She formed her chakra, directing it along the pathways her Sharingan dictated; and breathed fire. Orange flame, far smaller and cooler than Sasuke's, came roaring out of her mouth and shot across the lake like a flamethrower. She felt incredibly powerful; and like she was finally becoming stronger. She knew that was absurd, of course - she'd only been Hisana for a few weeks, and she was far from being able to use the Grand Fireball in battle. But it was satisfying.
Plus, she wasn't quite so cold anymore.
+++++
It was a few days before Hisana's ninth birthday that a terrible and wonderful idea struck her. Or, perhaps, it might be better to say that she came across a piece of information that led to said idea. The Chunin Exams were being held in Konoha in a few days, and she had a Sharingan. Genin from all over the elemental nations would be traveling to Konoha to compete against one another, with the final stage being a tournament of the strongest in front of a public audience.
It was a chance to expand her arsenal of techniques with things she'd never be able to learn in the village, and likely only be able to copy off of enemy ninja. She was also fairly certain that such a thing would not be appreciated by the visiting ninja; or her comrades. So she could not use her Sharingan openly in the stands. In a natural user, the chakra drain of a Sharingan is very low; and almost undetectable even by skilled sensors compared to a 'standby' state of chakra usage.
So she had to physically disguise her eyes, and probably herself, if she wanted to get away with it. That left her two paths to go down - a physical disguise, using sunglasses to hide her eyes, or a transformation jutsu. She wasn't sure she could hold the transformation long enough, but she also wasn't sure she could pull off the physical disguise.
[x] - Use the transformation jutsu to disguise yourself once inside the stadium.
[x] - Use a physical disguise to do so.
QM's Note: We'll be skipping ahead in time pretty rapidly from this post onwards until the end of the Academy.