Crossroads (A Naruto Fanfiction)

Polarized

Sasuke was mesmerized by the floating water above my palm. For an infant who had been on the chubbier side, the more he grew, the more lean he was turning out to be. As a two year old, there was no longer any rolls on his body but his cheeks still held enough of his baby fat for me to pinch till they turned red, which I loved to do often much to Sasuke's suffering. I twisted my fingers and wrist to move the water as if it was a ribbon wrapped around my hand and he reached out with his own stubby little finger to poke through the transparent liquid.

"Satsuki, I told you not play around during lunch." Mother scolded me as she came back from the kitchen. Mother took half a year to recover after the attack. Itachi and I were still very cautious of her doing strenous activities, but after so long, life had gone back to some semblance of normalcy.

I reluctantly let the water fall back into my cup and signed an apology. [Sorry, but Sasuke loves it.] I tried to defend my action like the countless other times before this. Kakashi, after being fed up with our limited abilities to communicate, began to design hand-signs by using old and recycled Anbu signs to sculpt out a wordless language. Sign language had never been used for daily communications other than mission operations. It took him almost an entire year to complete with both the approval and help of Minato, while they were also busy with other more important business or so I heard from Rin. She acted as if they could have finished it sooner, those fiends.

I still remember the feeling of disbelief when Kakashi dropped the thick and heavy manual full of drawings and their translations in front of me when I was in my room studying. Now that I had come close to being able to join the academy, mother made sure to teach me math and history, to which I was happy to know I didn't lose my ability of basic mathematics.

As I stared back and forth from the manual to the silver haired teenager, he simply said, "Learn all of it," before disappearing the next instant.

When Obito came to visit next, I forced him to tell me when Kakashi's birthday was so I could give the blessing of a boy my own thoughtful gift. Obito had been grumbling about how he didn't know but from the pink rising from his neck to his ears, I knew he knew. After a very long stare from me, he finally gritted out "September 15th". With that, his grumbling mood dissipated when I rewarded him with ice cream.

I still had no idea what I could give him in return even when two of Kakashi's birthdays came and gone, but I began to practice and memorize the hand signs with a devotion to mastering the language. It took me months, whereas my parents and Itachi, including Shisui, simply took a few weeks. In fact, it was less than a month for them! I had been jealous, but when I was finally able to hold a proper conversation without having to skim through the manual each time, I was near euphoric. I wished with all my heart to actually speak with my voice rather than hands but I loved the way it helped increase my everyday interactions with my family.

It wasn't just my family who had memorized the hand signs though. Of course, Kakashi and Minato knew it as they had created it in the first place, followed by Rin and Obito. The black sheep of the Uchiha (to my satisfaction) spent much longer than even me to get it down.

Mother couldn't help but chuckle and kissed the top of my head as she passed by me to sit in her own seat. Sasuke pouted when I put the water away and whined, "More!" I patted his head and Mother promised I would show him again later today and he calmed down almost immediately.

Everything had gone back to normal daily life after the memorial service. The people had spent months repairing the damaged properties and as the Uchiha suffered the complete beat down of our own compound, the council had taken the chance to push our relocation from the center of the village entirely. How do I know this? Well, for some odd reason, Father had begun to order my presence at the clan meetings. In fact, he seated right besides him the same year of the Kyuubi's attack. The elders and the other few in attendance gave me an odd look at my company at first, but didn't question it. I felt as if my presence was unneeded. What was their for a, at the time, five year old to say amongst veterans? One that couldn't speak to begin with? But I wasn't one to argue and even found myself willing to go after I found it gave me front row to information I would have never known otherwise.