Merger 1.2
Hisana sat up in her hospital bed, determined to get on with the difficult task of figuring out exactly who she was. Well, not in the sense of her goals in life. She began the rather more simple task of finding out the simple facts of family and status. Because if she really was a Sasuke-replacement, things were going to get more than a little insane. Things had basically turned out alright in the end in the manga, but there were an awful lot of coincidences that led to that exact outcome. Even if she was barely related to Sasuke at all, the fact that there were two Uchiha running around Konoha was bound to change something.
She'd always, in her previous life, found the other parts of the manga than the Uchiha metaplot more interesting; a fact she was silently cursing now. Though, cut down in the zenith of her fandom as she was, she was sure she could remember enough. She tried to cast her mind back, but she wasn't really sure what she was supposed to be doing.
Then, of course, it hit her all at once; or at least seemed too. She had vague memories of her mother and their small house at the edge of the compound. She remembered a childhood defined by loneliness and exclusion. She remembered the shame she'd eventually figured out she'd caused her mother. A bastard child tainted with commoner blood; with a lineage so weak she was never expected to awaken a Sharingan at all. Let alone at eight years of age. She isn't even technically an Uchiha. On her birth certificate, it merely reads "Hisana".
Now, she might very well be all that's left of them to the Leaf. There's a cruel irony in that, and perhaps an explanation for her survival of the massacre. Though surely there must have been some other reason she was spared. She can't have been the only child from a weak line with an embarrassing parent. Hisana was startled by a knock on the door, followed by a uniformed medic making her way into the room. The medic was a tall woman, with an ugly burn scar across much of her face.
"Ah, you're awake Miss Uchiha. There are quite a few people who want to speak to you, if you feel you're up to it." The medic said, reading the output of a quietly beeping machine and checking it against a chart at the foot of Hisana's hospital bed. The lack of bedside manner didn't particularly bother Hisana, but it did seem odd.
"W-water, please" Hisana croaked out, finding her voice unfamiliar and her throat parched. The medic procured a glass from somewhere, helped Hisana sit up and handed it to her. The water inside it tasted odd, but not awful. "Did anyone else... survive?" Hisana asked, and there the memories were still fresh.
"I'm afraid only Sasuke, of the main line, survived, and he's in a geniutsu induced coma. None of the non-clan caretakers or merchants were killed, either." Hisana just nodded her thanks. So she wasn't a replacement for Sasuke, but she still close enough to the main plot to inevitably drag her into it. That simply came with being an Uchiha in this age. "I'll tell the Hokage you're ready for him, then." The medic said, and again Hisana was slightly perturbed at her bedside manner. Not that she minded, exactly, but the nurse wasn't doing a very good job at caring for the traumatised eight year old she ostensibly was.
The Third Hokage, the so-called 'God of Shinobi', was certainly aware of what had happened to the Uchiha. Though the massacre may have been ordered by Danzou, Sarutobi seemed like the kind of man who'd blame himself for it; citing his failure to negotiate a peaceful solution to the ongoing crisis and the fact that he was the ultimate authority for all Konoha shinobi. She wondered what he'd want to talk to her about - it wasn't like he needed answers on what had happened.
He entered the small hospital room, and Hisana's first impression of him was that he was old. Weary and broken down; rusted and abandoned - those were the words she'd have used to describe the God of Shinobi. Without any prior knowledge of him, she'd be hard pressed to see him fighting off an aggressive house cat; let alone dozens of superpowered ninjas. Of course, then she felt that 'heat' again; and she understood his reputation just fine. The medic that had first checked on her was the largest chakra signature she'd sensed yet - but Sarutobi was something else. Even tightly constrained as it must be, it was like standing next to a raging bonfire.
Hisana shuddered at what the true masters of brute force amongst ninja must feel like if Sarutobi; a man past his prime and never famed for his brute power was like this!
"Hello, Hisana." He said quietly; sitting down on a slim wooden chair next to her bed.
"Lord Hokage" She intoned, bowing her head as much as she could.
"Please, dear, there's no need for such ceremony here. You've suffered enough that I won't inflict any more torture upon you." He said, and Hisana couldn't help but laugh. "I'd have preferred to wait until you were recovered to do this, but responsibility waits for neither reason or mercy. Normally your... cousin Sasuke would have to deal with this, but he is currently in a coma that seems beyond our medic-nin. You, as the last remaining and mentally capable Uchiha, are now acting clan head." Sarutobi said, then paused. Hisana felt confused for a moment; but then remembered the comment about all the various non-Uchiha who lived in the compound, and of course the land itself must be astronomically valuable.
She was at best fourteen! How did anyone expect her to deal with something like that? It was just absurd. The she remembered that Itachi had been thirteen when he'd killed her (how quickly her thoughts changed) clan. He'd been younger than that when they'd given him a position of authority within the village's military. She was going to have to get used to a whole different concept of age in this screwed up world where six year olds could wield military authority over grown men.
"I see. What do I have to... what do I need to do?" She eventually replied.
"Without your mother to teach you, you'll need to enter the academy. I know that the clan kept you home before, but well-" Sarutobi began, but Hisana interrupted him.
"They're not around for me to embarrass anymore?" She asked, and felt tears welling in her eyes at the mention of her mother in this world. Why, she thought, would she cry over something like that? She didn't know the woman, didn't have any fond memories of her.
Only she did, and they were terrifyingly real. That was the moment she realised she was neither Mary nor Hisana entirely, that she hadn't just taken over some poor girl's body wholesale. Sarutobi put his hand on her shoulder.
"I knew your mother, distantly. She was an exemplary ninja, and a better mother. She gave your clan nothing to be ashamed about, and neither did you. And I think we both know that you have proved yourself a true Uchiha in the only way that matters to a ninja. The compound will take some time to be habitable again, and a funeral for the lost will take some time to arrange. In the meantime, you will have an apartment under ANBU guard provided to you. If you have need of anything; or even just need someone to talk to - my office will be open to you. It will surely be an improvement over the incessant natter visits from other clan heads are filled with." Sarutobi said, as Hisana blinked back tears.
"Thanks." She said, barely managing to get it out. Sarutobi nodded, and left. Hisana was alone in an almost featureless hospital room, left alone to contemplate her future.
[x] Try to do what you can to improve your chakra control from your hospital bed. It's the only training you can do right now, but the exercises your mother taught you combined with your awakened Sharingan should prove useful enough.
[x] Try and come up with a long term plan without leaving anything for your definitely there ANBU guard/watcher. Without the ability to take notes - and you'd imagine english is a pretty decent code in this universe - you'd be hampered; but you could start sooner.
