the sister of an uchiha

I'm escaping this marriage!

Several days had passed since the Sand siblings told Tukiko they would be there for her along with everyone else in the village. She was rather happy about that and got over her small depression of Sasuke leaving. Since she was happy, she grew even more happy when she was finally fit enough to leave the hospital. Sure, she was still upset that she couldn't speak anymore but she got over. When she left the hospital, the first thing she did was have a bowl of ramen at Ichiraku's. She hated the hospital the medics were always giving her so eating that bowl of ramen was like heaven to her.

Speaking of ramen and Ichiraku's, Tukiko had never gotten to see Naruto around ever since she saw him go through the gates to go get Sasuke. She heard that he was in the hospital and would be there longer than she had because he and Sasuke had this huge battle royale. He was seriously injured along with Chouji, Neji, Kiba, and Akamaru during the retrieval mission. She felt horrible when hearing that most of them had gotten hurt because they were chasing after Sasuke. She felt so guilty that they had gotten hurt to get Sasuke that she couldn't even dare and go visit any of them herself during their recovery. Tukiko had thought that if she saw them, they would only be reminded they failed, especially Naruto. He had promised to bring back Sasuke for her and Sakura and he had ended up failing. It would be even worse to see the same face that had ended up betraying him and the village. So Tukiko didn't visit them. Instead, she had to ask Sakura to give them the flowers she wanted to give to them for a quick recovery. She felt like a coward for asking Sakura this but Sakura didn't seem to mind.

Tukiko walked through her house, cleaning up after her lunch and wondered what she could do for the day. She didn't feel like she was in the greatest mood to go and train right now and she felt like she needed to be alone. After putting away the dishes, she decided to go and read a book out in the backyard. She headed up to her bedroom and grabbed the book off of her bedside table. The title read, The basics of sign language. She scowled at the title as she slowly walked down the hallway.

Since she couldn't speak anymore, she had to find some way to communicate with people. Tukiko didn't want people always trying to guess what she was saying by doing charades and she didn't want somebody to translate for her all the time. She was an Uchiha. She preferred to do things herself. So the only possible solution was to learn sign language. She didn't worry if people still didn't understand what she said. Either someone was going to translate or they could learn sign language themselves. That was what Sakura was doing; learning sign language herself.

As Tukiko was walking down the hallway, she seemed to linger at one particular door on the way outside. Her eyes glanced at the door, pausing for just a second. The door that she was staring at happened to be Itachi's old room. She wondered why she had paused there when she remembered Itachi's supposed last words he had said to her before she had ended up fainting back in that outpost town.

"Go to my room to find a box...Use the key to open the box and you will find your answers..."

Oh, yeah...I remember he said that, Tukiko thought. Now she could remember that Itachi had said that to her. She just forgot with all of the drama that was happening in the last few weeks. The thing was she didn't know if she should listen to Itachi. Technically, he was an S-ranked shinobi criminal that had ended up murdering their entire family at the age of thirteen and he was a part of some evil organization so it was a tough call on whether or not if she should listen to him. But she really really wanted to see what he meant when he said "you will find your answers" and "open the box." What box? She had to know. It was like there was going to be a really huge secret thing in the box Itachi mentioned and she had to know. If she didn't see what was in said box, it was like she would die.

Forgetting all rational thought of this possibly being a trap, Tukiko opened Itachi's door and walked straight in.

Tukiko stood in Itachi's room, her eyes wide with amazement. Even when she was little, she had gone into Itachi's room whenever there was a thunderstorm so that she and Sasuke could room with him to escape the scary storm. He always let them in and the two would snuggle up on either side of him with his arms around them both. The room was just as big as her room, if not bigger, and had the same essentials a bedroom would need: a bed, a desk, and other things. Itachi had never personalized his room since he saw no need to. He was a ninja and was always off on missions. He didn't have time to do such silly things like decorating his room. It was a waste of time. The room seemed to be untouched for five years because there was a thick layer of dust around the room. Tukiko had to try hard not to sneeze as she made her way into the room.