Shinobi Isekai: Round Two

Frenemies

Satan stared down at her, his smile gone. She stared at her reflection in his black eyes, quivering in his grip as she waited for his reply. It had been a long time since her last outburst, and she still winced when she stepped wrong. Surely he wouldn't hurt her too badly if he planned to take her out on missions with him, right?

Fuckity fuck fuck.

He shoved her. Hard. She hit the ground with a thud and a gasp as she struggled to get air back into her lungs. He pressed his sandaled foot into her back, leaning over his knee to scowl down at her.

"Then fight."

He walked away, leaving Kyou in the leaf littered dirt. She lay there for a moment, just breathing, before she pushed her hand underneath herself.

"Kyou?"

Shit.

She looked up into the wide eyes of her least favorite cousin, the look of softly confused horror completely out of place on him.

"Go ahead," she spat at him. "I know you want to say it. This is what I deserve, right? For being a freak of nature?"

Izuna flinched as she threw his own words back at him, mouth gaping open and shut like a fish out of water. She pulled herself to her feet with a groan, glaring at her cousin with open malice. Now would be a perfect time for her namesake killing intent to kick in, but it seemed her luck had been wasted on the stupid jutsu.

She rubbed at her face, wiping blood from her nose as she stomped past him. She had more important things to do than mollycoddle a brat who'd done nothing but add to her trauma. Not that she had any.

Fuck.

Once inside her house, she crawled into the bed. It was weird, sharing with both her mother and Satan, but she'd long ago grown accustomed to it. In winter, she couldn't be bothered to care, her father's warmth the only thing keeping out the cold. Her grandmother lived in another house, and she often wondered how the older woman managed during those cold months. She seemed fine, though.

Her mother didn't react as Kyou snuggled up to her, tears welling in her eyes.

"It's not fair," she complained quietly. "I don't want to fight. I just want to be strong enough to live."

Her mother said nothing.

With a sniff, Kyou pulled back to regard her mother.

"I hope I look like you," she told the unresponsive woman. "I don't know what I'll do if I end up looking like Satan. Are permanent henges a thing?"

No reply.

"Y'know, I bet he did this to you. It totally makes sense. He can barely stand it when I breathe next to him, so you must have driven him insane, huh?"

A blank stare was her only reply.

"One day, when I get strong enough, I'm gonna leave this shit hole Clan. I'll take you with me, and we'll go to the Senju so they can fix you up! I know, I know, the Senju are our enemies! I'll tell you a secret: I'm actually friends with some. Don't tell Satan! Who knows how he'd use that." She smiled crookedly at her mother's thin face. "I'll get you out of here, Kaa-chan. I promise!"

Sometimes she wondered why she was so fixated on the woman. It wasn't like they'd ever bonded over anything. They'd never held a single conversation, never shared meaningful glances, never fought over anything trivial the way she had with her first mother. Still, Kyou was attached to Uchiha Hitomi in a way that transcended reason.

She sat herself down in her mother's lap, snuggling against her like the child she was, and cried herself to sleep.

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