Warnings: Ummm war again, so think chapter one, but a lot less. Character death. Same-sex romance (Yuri) THERE'S YOUR WARNING K THANKS

Word Count: ~3k

Summary: A self-insert who's main priority is to survive, whose morality is as straight as a double rainbow, who is literally thrust into a war at the physical age of ten and has more mental issues than the hair ties that she keeps on losing. And she thought university was hard. SI OC, third shinobi war and onwards. A series of interconnected stories, not in chronological order.

Unbeta'd.

Strange Days and Stranger Nights

Manji

(In which Hyuuga Niwaka goes through life.)

Hyuuga Niwaka is born three years after the second ninja war erupts. She is the daughter of two branch family members, a clan civilian and a compound guard.

Her parents find her eerie the moment she is born; she does not cry, does not fuss. She only makes minimal noise when in discomfort and is a ridiculously easy baby to take care of. Everyone else is just glad that no one will be woken up at 3am to yet another baby screaming. Despite this, she is a loving daughter, and her father is more than happy to dote on her (her mother insists that no one in the clan will coddle her once she becomes branded and she just get used to the harsh realities of life as soon as she can).

The war intensifies. In its seventh year, when Niwaka is four, the newly named Sannin battle Hanzo and gain their infamous nickname. Her parents fight over whether she should become a ninja or not. Her father insists that she does not have to become a ninja; she can train to be a servant instead, and stay safe within the compound walls (her father was always the more optimistic one).

That same year, she is branded with the clan's signature curse seal (it hurts).

A year later, Niwaka takes a look at how the branch family servants are treated by (most) main family members and politely asks when she can enter the academy. Her mother displays a rare expression of pride and smugness.

She enters the academy at the age of six and soon becomes a sort of prodigy, right after the oh-so-great Uchiha in her class. She is intelligent and quick to learn and excels in taijutsu. She masters the kunoichi arts perfectly. Her teachers sing praises and constantly fawn over her (This is when she begins to learn how to milk each smile, each laugh, each word, and get what she wants).

That same year, her mother gives birth to another child, a little girl named Nari who enters the world a month too early, screaming for breath. Secretly, her mother is relieved that this child is normal, even if she is sickly. The baby is too noisy and smelly for Niwaka's liking and she takes to spending more time outside, practicing and refining her jyuuken with the other branch family children.

Hyuuga Hiashi and Hizashi visit just once. The twins are sixteen, and chuunin. Niwaka notes how close they are, despite the rift between the branch and main family. She wonders how long that unity will last. Both are expected to marry within the next two years and there has been no end of discussion over who will become their betrothed. Personally, Niwaka finds the gossip dull, but listens to it anyways. One never knows when information will become useful.

Niwaka graduates in two years as kunoichi of the year and is placed on a team with the Uchiha and the deadlast of the team, an orphan. The Uchiha is alright; he acknowledges her strength (after she displayed it by delivering a harsh jyuuken-style beating), even if he occasionally displays misogynistic tendencies (he'll learn). Both of them are mature enough to put aside their family feud and smart enough to act aloof with each other in public.

The year that she graduates, there is a kidnapping attempt on the Uzumaki princess, Kushina. She is rescued by an eleven-year-old prodigious orphan by the name of Namikaze Minato. The attraction between the two of them seems to be obvious to everyone except for the involved parties, much to the dismay of Minato's fanclub (and the Uchiha, who has a secret-but-not-so-secret crush on the redhead). Kushina bounces back from the kidnapping attempt with even more vigor, throwing herself into her training. And finally, the war ends.

Niwaka becomes a chuunin two years later (the Uchiha on the team was promoted in the previous exams); along with yet another genius named Hatake Kakashi, a brat four years her junior. It irks her just a bit. Her sister is four years old now and no longer as smelly (but still as noisy as ever). Little Nari adores her big cool ninja sister and follows her around whenever she is actually in the compound, trying to emulate her. It leads to a small accident when she sees Niwaka walking on water.

Their mother forces them to spend time together when she falls ill and cannot be in close proximity with her children. Niwaka learns that her sister is much more skilled than everyone gives her credit for. It's most likely because her older sister is so skilled; rather than help nurture Nari's potential, they compare them constantly and put her down instead, chipping away at the four year old's already diminishing self-confidence. Niwaka sends the rest of her clan a proverbial middle finger when she helps her little sister refine her Jyuuken and takes pleasure in watching a startled tutor fall on his ass when Nari actually manages to get a hit through the man's much too relaxed guard. That will teach him to not take his job seriously.

Nari is eager to please and learns quickly; much quicker that even Niwaka when she was four. She becomes a prodigy in her own right, only her frail body stopping her from going even further, and their mother downright preens over her daughters and how much better they are than everyone else's children in the clan (the family head has not yet had children). Niwaka spends more and more time with her little sister, making up for the first four years of neglect when she thought the little girl would be useless. Nari is delighted and does her best to please her idol and big sister. When Nari cries after being branded with the curse seal, Niwaka holds her and sings her to sleep.

When Niwaka is twelve, Hatake Sakumo fails a mission and inadvertently begins the third ninja war. He suicides a few weeks later. In the tension and stress of preparing for a war that they are desperately not ready for so soon after the last one, no one grieves. No one but a small seven-year-old orphan who cries alone at night for a week before locking away his emotions and donning a mask to hide his identity on the battlefield that he will no doubt be called to.

Niwaka herself gives her family a big hug and kisses and departs with her team to the frontlines. The Uchiha proves his clan's fiery reputation by felling a dozen enemies with a single well-placed giant fireball and the orphan discovers he actually has really, really good aim and eyesight after several years of training. Then again, with an Uchiha and Hyuuga on their team, anyone would think they had only average, if not horrible eyesight, and when your teammate has the byakugan, there's no way you're hitting them with a projectile they can see coming before you've even thrown it.

The orphan gets stabbed in the stomach. He doesn't make it. The Uchiha scoffs and simply insists that he was too weak, but she sees him crying silently in the dark, unfamiliar chakra swirling around his eyes, with her byakugan when it's her turn to patrol. No one can stay emotionless when they lose family, and team is as good as family, especially for them. They'd been together for four years. The orphan had just been promoted before the war. They'd gone out for tea, because apparently ice cream was too childish for an Uchiha (they'd made him pay for the tea). Niwaka herself discovers she doesn't handle loss well when she more or less slaughters the enemy the next day, using her byakugan and a single kunai retrieved from the orphan's pouch. The Uchiha nods approvingly, his newly awakened blood-red sharingan eyes sweeping the field.

They return after six months. The Uchiha is praised heavily by his clan for awakening his sharingan. Niwaka welcomes the small but growing arms of her sister. She spends the evening relaxing and listening to her sister's loud, cheerful voice as she talks about random things. She keeps her sane for the next four months as she prepares to return to war.

When they return to the war, each are them are deployed to different locations. Niwaka proves again and again the Hyuuga clan's strength. She fights. She rests. She fights again. Rests again. Time blurs until six months finally comes to an end again. She acquires many scars and takes to wearing a yukata to hide the physical ones. The Uchiha does the same.

The mental scars are a bit trickier to hide but they manage.

For the first time, she gets into an argument with her mother, who wants to send Nari to the academy. They don't scream or shout but it's a close thing on both ends. Niwaka's mother has never been to war. She associates it with honor and glory and proving one's worth. Niwaka associates it with blood and flesh and flying limbs and never ever ever wants that for her little sister.

"I will not let Nari enter the academy," she says to her mother. She knows Nari will do anything she says.

Her mother slaps her.

She goes to her father with a red cheek and a sweet smile and convinces him to not allow Nari to enter the academy, lest she graduate early and be pushed into the war. She explains her reasons to Nari before their mother can poison her with lies. Nari is upset at being forced to stay and train in the compound but obeys.

"I love you," Niwaka says. Nari beams, the small pout falling off of her face right away. The little girl swings her arms around her sister's neck and plants a kiss on her cheek.

"I love you too, Niwaka-nee!" Niwaka hugs the little girl tightly and swears to her herself that she will never, ever, ever let anything happen to her, even if she has to lock her away forever.

When she comes back from war a third time, her little sister has been killed by her own clan. Killed by the seal on her small forehead when she tried to stand up for another branch family member who was being punished for landing an accidental near-lethal hit on a main family member during a spar. Her name won't be carved on the memorial stone. She isn't even given a proper funeral. Her body has long been confiscated by the time Niwaka is home. Her mother falls apart with grief and blames Niwaka for her death.

"If only," she mourns, "If only you'd let her go to the academy. She wouldn't have been there; she wouldn't have been killed." Niwaka isn't sure if she's madder at the clan (for killing her sister) or her mother (for being right). Her father isolates himself when he's not working, drowning his sorrows in alcohol. Niwaka herself spends almost all her time in the Konoha general library and archives, studying up poisons. She's almost glad when she can finally return to the war. She no longer sees monsters in the war anymore – they're nothing compared to the monsters in her own clan. She also stops wearing her forehead protector on her forehead. She doesn't wrap it, either. It's caused some strange looks and double takes but she doesn't care.

She's fifteen now, and has just been promoted to jounin. When she comes back, she is all pleasant smiles and the model of a perfect kunoichi and Hyuuga clan member. She's always been charming; now, when she's actively putting her mind to it, she's downright manipulative and almost no one notices. She moves into a different clan house in the compound, away from her parents. She becomes friends with many people in her clan without any of them realizing her relationship with the next person. She comforts them when they are sad, and celebrates with them when they are happy. She digs her claws deeper and learns how to direct their emotions to her advantage. She sets people up, breaks them apart, and revels in it. She studies poisons obsessively in her spare time. An elder dies of a heart complication.

Oh, she loves her clan alright. She loves to hate them.

She returns to the war. She gets a pleasant surprise.

"A Hyuuga, huh?" The wild-eyed, fanged woman with red upside-down triangle marks on her cheeks can only be an Inuzuka. "I've always thought your clan's eyes were seriously creepy, as useful as they are." She's the field commander, years of war experience going as far back as the last years of the second ninja war when she was just a pup. Inuzuka Kyouko is wild and crass and strong, so unbelievable strong with her huge wolf-like hound at her side. She doesn't give a shit about formality and is fair to all of the soldiers under her command (she fondly refers to them as her pack and call all of them her pups). She wears clothes that are red and brown and white and black; so much colour, so unlike a Hyuuga's usual mostly-white outfits. There's absolutely no one like her in the Hyuuga clan; she's beauty and power incarnate, mixed together into the shape of a gorgeously toned and muscled body, and Niwaka is pretty sure this is love.

The woman points a finger at her.

"To the rear, pup. I've got the front; you'll be our eyes in the back." Niwaka obeys, fighting to not swoon. The six months end much too soon.

(Somewhere in the back of her head, Niwaka wonder's what it means that she would gladly murder another enemy ninja just to spend some more time with Kyouko.)

They say that love can heal all wounds. Perhaps this is true, even for one-sided love. At least for Niwaka, when she comes back, she finds she doesn't hate her clan as much. It's not as satisfying to toy with them anymore, mocking them from her mind. What's much more satisfying is thinking about Kyouko. About her low rumbling voice, her blazing, spikey mess of hair, the impish grin in her eyes when she manages to startle one of her pups or wins yet another arm wrestling match. The Hyuuga clan is so pale and dull compared to Kyouko, and she can't help but pity them. The pity turns into fond affection, similar to what one would have towards a little bird or kitten. Look at them, trying to be all regal and proper, as though that will make them stronger. So silly. So cute.

She's more than a little bit disappointed when she isn't assigned to Kyouko again when she returns to the war. But then she spots a shock of long black hair, falling down the little girl's back so much like Nari's that it punches the breath out of her lungs.

Then the girl turns around and Niwaka isn't sure if she's glad or disappointed that the girl isn't Nari.

The girl's eyes are haunted and her pose screams that she doesn't want to be there. By all rights, she shouldn't be. But she has the flak jacket, two sizes too big for her, and the konoha hitai-ate, so Niwaka says nothing and simply watches.

It becomes clear that this girl – an orphan named Hibari, if the gossip is correct – is nothing like Nari. Where Nari was cheerful and confident, this girl is quiet and withdrawn, trying hard to not attract any attention to her. Where Nari was fluid and firm, this girl's movements are hard and a tad jerky and more than once break bones.

Even so, when an Iwa-nin tries to decapitate the little girl, Niwaka is suddenly there, swiftly disposing of the ninja with two harsh jyuuken strike to the heart. And then the girl is at her back, fending off another three Iwa-nin, and for the rest of their time together in the war, they fight back-to-back like this.

When Hibari wakes up screaming, Niwaka is there right away. But Hibari isn't Nari, and that's the only reason she's able to hand her a small white pill that she would never have handed to Nari (she just really wanted the screaming to stop).

Niwaka tries not to get her confused with Nari, but it's difficult and requires constant reminders, especially when Hibari's eyes light up impishly the same way Nari's did when Niwaka used to sneak her a piece of cake. The more time she spends with the orphan, the more the lines between Hibari and Nari blur.

It's been so long since Nari's death, but every time Niwaka looks at Hibari and reminds herself that she isn't Nari, it feels like she's lost her little sister all over again. Especially when Nari only ever turned to her, but Hibari turns to two other men that she calls her big brothers.

You could keep her, an insidious voice from within whispers into her ear. She resists the voice for a month. Then she begins plotting.

"Please leave, Niwaka-nee."

"You're the one I can't trust anymore."

The words are a kunai to the gut, followed by drowning and electrocution. She'd know; she's experienced them all separately at one time or another.

Nari would never say that, she thinks.

She leaves without a word.

Before Hyuuga Hiashi can activate her curse seal, she breaks free of her restraints and stabs herself three times in the heart with expertly placed jyuuken strikes. She coughs blood all over the pristine wood floors and dies laughing at the aghast looks on the elder's faces. She's had the last laugh.

"You're an idiot, Niwaka-nee."

"I know." Niwaka strokes Nari's head fondly.

I know.

In a small apartment room, there's a piece of wood lying upright in a corner. There's a list of names carved into the wood. The last one reads, Niwaka.

A/N

So, a brief interlude, all written from Niwaka's perception, which leaves a lot to interpretation. There are still a lot of questions I've left unanswered; how much did she love Hibari for who she was and not for the fact that she looked like Nari? Was she replacing Nari or did she see Hibari as a second little sister? She's good at fooling others, but was she also in a way fooling herself? Did she really stop hating the Hyuuga clan? The answer is whatever you guys, the readers, want it to be. I don't think even Niwaka herself would know the answer to most of those questions.

The next update might take much longer, maybe two weeks; I'm going on vacation soon.