"It's not my fault you performed a shitty genjutsu."
I announced it loudly and boldly as Sasuke stepped into my room that night, shutting the door tight behind him. Rather than looking angry or annoyed at me, above all, he seemed tired.
"That's why tonight I'm going to find out what went wrong," he said dully, trudging over to my bedside with heavy feet. Clutching my pillow in front of me, I cautiously eyed out the Uchiha as he loomed over me, hands in his pockets. "Look at me."
His eyes flashed red again, and for some strange reason, I felt as if my mind were being picked apart and scrutinized, giving me a slight headache as I looked away from the Uchiha after a few seconds. He narrowed his eyes at me in skepticism, and I rubbed my face as I tried to shake off the feeling of invasion.
"You said you were awake, and you were," he said, sitting on the side of my bed. "How did you know that wasn't a genjutsu either?"
"Why the hell would you put me under a genjutsu just to show me what you were already doing?!" I snapped irritatedly, crossing my arms and turning away from the Uchiha. "Are you really that thick?"
"I won't fail tonight," snarled Sasuke, reactivating his Sharingan and grabbing my face. I glared intensely into his eyes as I waited for it to take affect.
Please, please work tonight.
It took a while, but it finally got there. How did I know?
Because Sasuke let go of me, and said I could leave in a defeated tone. I made my way to the door and it opened once more, revealing Shisui standing on the other side. I greeted him warmly with a smile, but part of my mind kept niggling at me.
This isn't real.
***
The next couple of days passed by pretty uneventfully, save for me getting pretty good at throwing anything and everything at whatever Shisui instructed me to hit. We stayed out on the training grounds for a decent amount of time before I retired to my quarters again and waited for Sasuke, but his presence in my room every night was now a minimal part of my schedule, and I found it little more than an inconvenience to what I was doing with Shisui.
"Boom, bullseye!" Shisui did a fist pump as I managed to throw three kunai in a row at three different targets, all of them hitting dead center.
"This is great, we're making awesome progress," said the giddy Uchiha, clapping his hands together childishly. I laughed and put my hands on my hips, raising an eyebrow at him. "You're a natural born kunoichi! I'm dying to know who you are!"
"I'm Kohana Yoruno," I joked, reaching out and playfully punching him in the arm. His face briefly flashed a look of pain before breaking out into a look of tremendous relief, and I laughed.
"I know you didn't mean it, but that really hurt," he said with a light laugh, shaking his head at me. "God, you don't know how happy I am. You've got great accuracy and strength, and your first week here isn't even over yet! I'm excited to see what else you have in store for me!"
I grinned in lowkey embarrassment, raising a hand to the back of my head and scratching the nape of my neck.
"Now that we've covered how to effectively use shuriken and kunai, I want us to move on to hand to hand combat next week. I'll be teaching you how to kick, punch and block, as well as show you the most vulnerable points in your enemy's body to concentrate on when you want to win the upper hand. At some point in time we'll be able to spar together, but that won't be until I'm one hundred percent sure you know how to utilise taijutsu. Okay?"
I grinned at Shisui, giving him the thumbs up.
"Okay!"
***
As the days progressed into weeks, my visits from Sasuke diminished, and my training sessions with Shisui increased in terms of stringency and difficulty. Two and a half weeks after Shisui began my taijutsu training, we sparred for the first time.
I felt so alive.
"Good!"
Shisui barked at me as I parried one of his high kicks, before paying him back with a flurry of my own hits. As I aimed my punches at his head and upper body, he blocked each and every one of them before lashing out and performing a high kick aimed at the side of my head.
I was too late to stop it from making contact from me, but when it did, it left me little more than tipsy. I stumbled sideways as I attempted to straighten myself up again, and Shisui grinned at me from a distance.
"Good!" he roared, as I regained my equilibrium and broke off into a sprint towards him. We clashed once more, but this time, he was on the offensive. He managed to land hits on me every now and then, but that didn't faze me. Every time he made a blow, I recovered in a matter of seconds and leapt back at the opportunity to strike back at him, being blocked every single damn time.
"Your attack is perfect!" he yelled mid-fight, dodging my hands as he flitted from side to side. "But your defense is weak! Don't leave yourself open like that too much!"
The longer we fought, the more time I got to study his patterns, and form a plan in my mind of the best place to attack next.
The only opportunity I have to land a single blow on him is when he reaches out to attack me, I thought to myself, thinking carefully as I dodged his punches and kicks rather than blocked them. He moves so fast- but that's okay!
I moved quickly to the side as Shisui attempted to hit me in the face, and saw my chance as he poised himself to leap into the air and finish me off with a final downward kick.
NOW!
Moving as swiftly as I could, I twisted my body so that I was on an angle as I locked his head as my target, and propelled my body as hard as I could so that I could put as much force as I could into my attack.
Before Shisui's feet had even left the ground, my foot made solid contact with the side of his head, catching both of us in surprise.
It actually worked?
I watched as Shisui was knocked flat to the ground, eyes wide as he landed with a loud thud, and stayed in that position with my leg in the air as I looked upon the fallen Uchiha with pure amazement.
"Shisui?"
He looked up at me with a dazed look in his eyes, and I quickly regained my normal posture and dropped down to my knees beside him, shaking him furiously.
"Shisui?!" He blinked at me, and a smile began to spread across his face.
"Good," he said in a disoriented voice, slowly raising a hand and giving me the thumbs up. I laughed and helped him sit up, watching as he shook his head to clear his mind.
"Goddamnit Kohana, you could've given me serious trauma there!" complained the Uchiha, rubbing the side of his head where I had made contact with him. "Did you infuse that hit with your chakra? Because I swear to god I passed out for a good five seconds!"
"No," I laughed, reaching out and patting the top of his head. "I may be a genius, but controlling my chakra during battle isn't something I can easily do, you know."
"Good," grumbled Shisui, tenderly rubbing his head. "More for me to teach you! It's taken you longer to pick up than using the weapons, but I think that with a few more lessons, your taijutsu will be good enough against an average shinobi! Hopefully... hopefully we can ingrain more taijutsu in you before... you know..."
The lightheartedness in the air vanished as Shisui reminded me of my job, and my hand instinctively moved to my belly at his words. My appointment with Karin was tomorrow, and already I felt queasy at the prospect. I had had a great time forgetting about my situation while I trained with Shisui, sharpening not only my physical capabilities, but my mental and emotional ones as well.
I wasn't ready to carry a child, but there sure as hell was no way in escaping it.
"I think we did well today," said Shisui gently, softly pulling me out of my train of thought. I frowned and plopped myself onto the ground with my legs crossed, trying to see if anything felt off in my body. "Are you worried about tomorrow?"
I nodded silently, throat parched both from the spar and the remembrance of my inevitable pregnancy. Shisui sighed and sat up straight, glancing around before leaning in closer to me.
"If it'll make you feel better... I can tell you right now if you're with child or not," he murmured under his breath, making me blink at him in bemusement.
"How?" I asked robotically, staring at him with wide eyes. He grinned and closed his eyes, before opening them once more to reveal his blood red Sharingan. I winced and looked away, having grown some sort of fear against the dōjutsu itself at the amount of times I had encountered Sasuke using it.
"If there is another chakra signature within you... I can sense it and tell you if you're pregnant or not," said Shisui reassuringly. "But I won't look if you don't want me to. We can always wait until tomorrow."
The thought was tempting, and I bit my lip as I contemplated my options.
"Are you allowed to do that?"
Shisui snorted and put his arms behind his head, falling backwards onto the ground and looking up at the clear blue sky. The cold weather was now slowly beginning to let up; it had stopped snowing, but the chilly temperature hung around. It was only mid-February, and spring wasn't expected to fully grace us with its presence until late March. If I was, by any chance, "with child" as Shisui so eloquently pointed out, then possibly... quite possibly, I would be seeing the end result by November at the latest.
"Nope," replied the Uchiha, popping the 'p' in his answer. "Well, I'm not explicitly allowed to. But do you think Sasuke would rock up to your room and ask you if you wanted to know?"
"No," I said truthfully. "But... if I am... and Sasuke's always been using his Sharingan on me for the last few weeks... is there a chance that he already knows?"
"More than likely," breathed Shisui, closing his eyes and letting out a loud sigh. "But again, since it's Sasuke, he wouldn't tell you. It's not in his job description to tell his partner when she's with child."
"True," I sighed, my voice nothing more than a small murmur. Shisui opened one eye and looked at me with a half smile.
"Hey," he said softly. "You'll be okay."
I nodded and looked down at my lap, playing with the dirt in front of me.
I had been avoiding and dreading this horrible truth for as long as I could remember, yet tomorrow, everything would be made official.
I wasn't ready for it.
Any of it.
I wanted to burrow underground and hide from everyone for a thousand years.
My body would no longer belong solely to me; I was eventually going to end up sharing it with another human being.
Eventually. Ha.
I don't know why I said 'eventually.'
I didn't need a test from Karin to prove it; no matter how much I tried to deny it, I knew that my body wasn't just my body anymore.
It hadn't been just my body for the last three weeks.
I instinctively put my hand over my belly, feeling the overwhelming urge to cry wash all over me.
But the tears never came.
Author's Note: So I ended up changing it into OC x Sasuke rather than Reader x Sasuke hahaha. If you dislike the change, then feel free to stop reading! But the storyline remains untouched, and the change will not have an effect on the plot whatsoever. Thanks!