Discovering One's Heritage

Echo had been hard at work training for the past few months, as her younger siblings had finally started to make moves towards starting their ninja careers. Shin was 16 and was getting a somewhat late start on his journey, somewhat like Echo herself. And the youngest sibling in the family had just gotten started their journey as well but she was right on track for such a thing. Echo knew that in the beginning the challenges they faced would be minuscule and easy to overcome, but sooner or later down the line they would need help. She clearly was not the only one to notice this as even her brother Yuuki had taken notice, which caused him to even train harder. He too saw the need to protect their younger siblings and so he took it upon himself to do the same as Echo in his own way.

Today Echo was going to go and study some things about her clan, and more specifically their history and powerful genetics. She knew that as a member of the Uchiha she had a large amount of latent potential that she would need to soon tap into if she had any hope of making things work as a ninja out in the field again. She knew a lot about her clan already but most of it was surface knowledge that almost anyone could get to and learn. However that wouldn’t do for her as she was a member of the clan so she felt like she needed to know more than the average person… she had a right to know more. So today she would take her time to learn about the Uchiha and their powerful heritage, hoping that in doing so she would increase her own power so that she could help her siblings and continue to be the guardian older sister she was always good for.

She figured that to start this exploration of her heritage that she would start with the village library and its many information sources. She figured with Tango being in the country directly next to the land of fire, the birthplace of the Uchiha clan they should have some type of good info on the clan. When she arrived to the library she would approach the front desk and ask the librarian there “Hello, I was looking for any books on clan traits. If possible I would like any books directly relating to the Uchiha clan of Konoha.”

WC:413

While Yuuki had stopped actively working the fields for his country, he still occasionally helped out whenever there was a shortage of workforce or an unexpected problem arose, with today's problem being the sudden absence of a fellow rice farmer, bedridden by excessive consumption of alcohol in the night prior. As such, Yuuki swiftly scurried along the streets of Tanbo in a futile attempt to make it to the library in time, still oozing sweat out of each and every single pore imaginable. Upon filling her in on his plan to finally restart his career as a shinobi of the village hidden in the rice fields, his beloved elder sister Echo had promptly suggested for the two of them to first learn a tad bit more about their decently influential clan, it's illusive history and highly sought-after bloodline. She was looking to reenter the kunoichi business herself after all, slightly moving her focus from the purely medical field to a more combat-oriented style of caring for the people. The thought elicited a slight smurk from the comparatively small 20-year-old, as he turned the next corner and finally stepped out of the sun.

A few houses ahead, the village library towered over most other buildings in the vicinity, promising a vast variety of information on virtually each and every topic he could think of: weapons, rice, rice wine, fighting and rice farming. Well, to some a library would seem like a peaceful place of research and learning, to Yuuki however, the building emanated a dreadful and eerie aura, drenched in post-traumatic stress from his days in the academy. "Urgh, do I have to be here for this?", he once again lamented the task he was given by Echo, his steps subconsciously slowing down as though his own body desperately tried to keep him from entering such a hellish place, which didn't help at all though. The longer he enjoyed the blissful time on the outside, the more incentive he would provide for Echo to scold him for his late arrival, the thought of which caused him to opt into quickening his steps once again, before finally making his way through the door of the aforementioned hateful building.

In entering, he immediately spotted his sister, her back turned towards him as she was engaged in a conversation with the librarian working at the front desk. The oddly musty smell immediately had him relieve painful memories of his younger days, a slight shiver down the spine ensuing in turn. When it came to his siblings, Yuuki was a real teaser, and perfectly in line with that character trait of his, he quickly held up a finger to his mouth with a smile and raised eyebrows, trying to signify for the librarian not to make his arrival known to Echo. Slowly and with his footsteps as silent as a mouse's cough, he would creep his way up to his sister's rear and should she not take notice of him, joltingly but decently lightly stab her in the ribs with a finger on each side with a wide grin. Should she notice him however, he would surely sport a disappointed facial expression. In any case, he would proceed to lovingly greet her: "Hello there, big sis."

With his body still quite visibly in the process of acclimatization, he pocketed his hands and relaxed his posture a bit. "Want me to carry the books or something?", he smurkingly inquired, with a slight hope she might actually let him off the hook with combing through the ancient books and whatnot in an attempt to find any information on the Uchiha worth their time. While their parents had told them a bit about the clan and it's origins in the Land of Fire, Yuuki wasn't necessarily the type to listen in on a conversation like that, much less remember obscure details or legends surrounding some old-ass distant family member or the like.

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WC: 654
TWC: 654

After posing her question to the Liberian the woman would answer by saying “Ah yes I believe we have a few books on that clan, but you know some things may be restricted. May I ask if you are a part of that clan.” Echo would smile before pulling out her village ID and saying “I am Echo Uchiha, I am a citizen of this village see.” As she presented the ID. Meanwhile as this was going on Echo would feel someone walking up behind her but would pay it no mind as the Liberian gave her response saying “Ah ok very well then let me go get those things for you…” It was then when the woman would notice Shin trying to silence her so that he could scare Echo, however she would simply walk off to go and get the requested books.

As the woman walked off Echo would turn to find her brother Yuuki looking as if he was about to do something silly. Her face would be filled with a smile as she spoke but her aura and tone would come off very menacing as she spoke. “Hello little Yuyu… What do you think you were about to do mister?” She would ask him as he looked like he was up to no good, his face full of disappointment probably due to being caught. As the second oldest child Yuuki and Echo had the best relationship in the family, with the two almost being looked at as twins to some people. Echo would tower over her little brother before patting his head and rubbing it a bit, messing up his hair in the process.

Echo let off a smile at Yuuki before saying “No Yuyu, there probably won’t be much to carry… not anything I haven’t read 100 times before anyway. We are only here as a starting point for our research project…” her words would trail off a bit. She seemed less than hopeful that anything would come out of today’s research. However her voice would perk back up as she would speak again saying “We may not find what we need here… but if we don’t we will have to break into mom and dad’s room and steal dad’s old Uchiha scrolls.” Echo said this all with a happy and upbeat voice but she knew very well that it would be a wild thing to take their father’s stuff. However what else was the girl to do? Echo was committed to protecting her younger siblings and ensuring their well being, but as the youngest two got older she knew she wouldn’t always be around….

The whole reasoning for the elder two siblings doing research today was so that they could find the source of the Uchiha power, in hopes to gain it for themselves and then share the knowledge of the power with their siblings. The reason was to figure out how to forcefully awaken their sharingan. Echo was 21 years old and Yuuki was 20 and neither of them had ever awakened the ocular doujutsu of their clan. Their father or mother never thought it odd, simply for the fact the two elder siblings lived a peaceful life, far away from the stress and pain that came with being a ninja. Yuuki was off working in the rice fields, while Echo was saving lives in her own way as a medical ninja but far away from the front lines.

Shortly after Echo finished talking the woman would return with 5 books in hand, before she would place them on the counter. Echo would look at the woman and the books with a look of joy before saying “Thanks! So how long can I rent them out for?” The woman would look over the books before writing down their names and some other book info before moving her eyes to Echo saying “You have 14 days, after that there is a 20 Roy fee for every day you are late.” Echo would smile before saying “Ok that’s fine they will be back long before then. Yuyu grab the books, I guess its more than what I thought it would be.” Echo would then begin to work her way towards the exit of the library, believing Yuuki to be on her tail.

WC: 717
TWC: 1130

"Ah, damn.", Yuuki disappointedly bemoaned his failure. Just as the Genin was about to deliver his devastating ribcage-poke, his sister took notice of the anything but stealthy young man and addressed him with her favorite nickname of his. The hateful 'Yuyu' kept on ringing in his ears, disgust visibly showing on his face, as he let out the corresponding "Blurgh.." for a pitiful excuse of a response, exaggerating on his facial expression and elongating his tongue as far as he could. He might've overheard what Echo and the librarian had talked about, but he quite frankly couldn't be bothered to actively pay attention, his beloved sister was much more suited for tasks of this kind anyways, given her intelligence and all that.. reading, studying and contemplating she had done in her life-time. "She'll go bald before soon."

His big sister was quite literally that, older and taller than him, which had always rubbed the Uchiha in all the wrong ways, just as her rubbing his head did as well. Not that Yuuki was overly concerned with his exterior, but Echo did know that he wouldn't enjoy such belittling gestures, as he sure was overly concerned with his lack in height. In order to refrain from sustaining further damage to his already less than inflated ego, he would duck away under her arm in a spinning motion and lightly deliver a blow to her so-desired ribs with his ellbow, grinning with malice and banter. "Gotcha.", he proudly stated before returning to his usual slouched position, his hands in their respective pockets.

"Well, you spent half your life in here..", he referred to the literal months Echo had spent studying the intricacies of the human body and the methods to heal and restore what might've been damaged. Yuuki looked up to her for that, in no way, shape or form would he have been able to endure such labor, much rather would he slave away on the rice fields for a tenfold of that time. Simply scoffing at her remark about the two of them potentially relieving their father of the burden that keeping his scrolls with information on their clan's history hidden entailed, he shook his head with a frowning smile. "Nope, I'm definitely not doing that.", he amusedly declared her plan both futile and rather.. dumb, his rumbly and deep voice cracking at the beginning of the sentence. Their father's rage, an Uchiha's rage mind you, was nothing to be taken lightly, especially when it came to anything that remotely concerned his office or work. Echo should be the first to remember what scoldings she had suffered through when she first tried to please her urge of learning and sneaked into the office.

The friendly librarian had procured what books his sister asked for, carefully placing them onto the counter as the two of them interchanged mundane formalities that he galantly ignored. Yuuki simply waited for them to finish their empty phrasing before scuffling towards the counter, picking up the aforementioned goods and holding them under his arm. As he approached the counter, the librarian smiled at him, probably in a mere polite attempt to wish him a good day as well, but the introvert quickly averted his eyes and turned around, rose his hand as to not seem overly impolite and scurried past his sister to exit the hateful building. "Finally.", he enjoyingly sighed as the fresh air hit his lungs. Echo would probably impose him with the task of skimming at least on of the books, which should suffice in providing her with enough down-time to closely read the other four.

Rolling his eyes in anticipation of her commanding him to do exactly that, he turned towards his favorite spot in the entirety of the Tanbo, a decently calming park located comparatively close to the library itself. Side-by-side with Echo, he took an inquiring glance at the assortment of books the librarian had given them, before turning to his sister sporting that same questioning facial expression. "Do you think there will be anything on the eyes in here?" While their younger brother had already awakened his Sharingan, the equally famed and infamous Kekkei Genkai of their clan, the two elder siblings had yet to achieve such.. greatness. "Shin beat us to that, the little runt.", he jokingly fired an insult at their younger-taller brother both of them loved dearly. However the Sharingan was awakened though, Yuuki was definitely not privy to that information and he didn't yet have a chance to ask Shin himself.

As they turned the corner at one of his favorite restaurants, the trees lining the park bordered said restaurant, the young man would expertly jump the fence that closed off the park and make his way through what little bushery remained between the decently thick trunks. He waved at his sister, signifying for her to come over to the little bench with an accompanying table, slightly hidden amongst the greenery. "Some peace, right?", he ironically commented as this park was anything but peaceful at the moment, with half the park being a children's playground brimming with their squeaky and almost agressively high-pitched voices. While he did love children, growing up as an elder brother to two of those he simply had to after all, he wasn't necessarily fond of the loud ones. He rather enjoyed the timid ones. Much less noise.

Yuuki slapped the books on the table, greedily eyeing the most promising or in this case the least thick one and pointing at it. "Mine.", he declared with a wide grin, swiftly snatched it before she could react and hoisted himself up on the back of the bench, internally lamenting the next few hours he was going to spend with one of the activities he hated the most. "Should I look for anything besides info on the Sharingan?", he asked Echo, in another one of those piteous attempts to postpone actual reading as much as possible. A sudden revelation struck him as an even better excuse for skipping out on this mental exercise. "Didn't the woman say we have 14 days? Can't you read all of them then?", he questioned with a light smurk on his face, as he was sure she would decline. "I'll miss the good stuff anyway.", he decided to further prove his point, which wasn't entirely a lie. The chances of the hands-on Uchiha actually skipping a part with important information were all too high, given that he had surprisingly passed the written exam when they graduated the academy and became Genin.

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WC: 1.093
TWC: 1.747

Echo could see that Yuuki was upset by the fact that he was unable to take her by surprise. Echo would smile a bit as she would have her younger brother under her arm saying “Now Yuuki you know it will be a lot harder than that to catch me off guard.” After her small comment her brother managed to slip her grasp right after that he would elbow her in the ribs something that would make her face glow red with anger. Although it was a small hit Yuuki should have known Echo wouldn’t have liked it much.

The female Uchiha would look at Yuuki before saying “If we weren’t in the library I would beat your ass for that…” Soon after Yuuki would give his response to the idea of stealing some things from their father to which he was totally against the idea. Of course he was though as he was the eldest soon and felt the wrath of their father most out of all the kids. Echo would let out a sigh just as the woman had come back with the books. She had placed the books on the counter and before Echo could do or say anything it would appear as if Yuuki took it upon himself to carry them. Echo would smile before saying “Oh wow such a gentlemen… thanks little brother.” 

Yuuki would then scary past Echo seemingly in a hurry to get out of the place, for whatever reason he had. Echo would wave farewell to the woman before she would scurry off after Yuuki. She would catch up to him with a bit of effort due to the difference in speed between the two, with her brothers being far faster. After she caught up with her brother she would match his speed before saying “Damn Yuuki you just couldn’t have been more awkward huh?” However the last bit of her statement was covered by Yuuki asking if Echo thought they would find anything good in these books. Echo would laugh a bit before saying “No probably not… Anything that’s public knowledge we most likely already know… We need the info that doesn’t get seen by the public, we need father’s journal Yuuki…”

Echo would continue to follow Yuuki until they would end up at a small park within the village. She would watch as Yuuki would go and find a spot and declared which of the books he would read. Echo would look at the book compared to the others and she could instantly see why Yuuki picked that one, however it worked out in the woman’s favor as she was going to pick that book for him either way. After he picked the book she would laugh before saying “Yeah sure have at it! Im going to skip on the reading though… I honestly don’t think these books will tell us anything we don’t know. You can stay and read if you want, we only need information on the sharingan, its techniques, and variants. But I know where we will find it….”

Her words trailed off as she was referring back to stealing their father’s journal. The girl was a glutton for punishment when it came to helping her siblings in any way. She would look at Yuuki before saying “Im going to head home. You can stay here or come with me. Its your choice though brother, I don’t want to feel like im forcing you to help me…” She would then turn towards the direction of their family home before begin to walk away.

WC:596
TWC: 1726

While his sister was surely right about the fact that Yuuki would have to try a tad bit harder at the gloomy arts of sneaking up on somebody to successfully startle her, the visibly disappointed man had hoped for her to be sufficiently immersed in her conversation for his goal to be easily achieved. His quick little jab to her ribcage proved to be effective however, but effective in a way he didn't anticipate at all. "Might've been a little rough, sorry Echo, Echo, E c h o.", he joked in response to her aggravated threatening him with an ass-beating, his words trailing off and mimicking an actual echo.

This weird, and quite frankly very childish, way of addressing his sister was one of the pitiful rebuttals for the 'Yuyu' nickname a much younger version of Yuuki had come up with, and it somehow stuck with him. "Of course you would sigh..", the usually very outspoken man commented on Echo's obviously annoyed response to his denial of robbing their father. "Did you get a beating every other friday for being a bad role model?" Quite the exaggeration of course, but semi-true nonetheless.

Once the two of them had left the gods-forsaken ruin of intellect and Yuuki blitzed forward in hopes of bringing as much distance between himself and said beacon of hopelessness, she had to pick up her pace to keep up with her much more swift and nimble brother. Almost akin to a wolf attempting to fend off an attacker, his deep voice merely growled at her when she noted his awkwardness in his interaction with Tanbogakure's librarian. "You know I don't like.. people.", he muttered into an imaginative beard and glanced to the other side. "Better than anyone." Another true statement, Echo had seen him fail in social contexts much more frequently than any other human being, she knew of his.. weirdness and 'social clumsiness', the way he avoided larger groups of people and tended to generally keep to himself. With the exception of family members, of course.

In quickly switching the topic to the books and scrolls they had acquired, he elicited a short burst of laughter from his beloved sister, which in turn put a smile on his face. "At this point, she's probably written me off as an idiot..", he had to reluctantly admit to his question being somewhat of a rethorical one. She was probably right on her point, that whatever public knowledge there was about the Uchiha's dojutsu, the two of them most likely already knew of, with them being a part of said clan and all. A mere "Meh..", was all the younger brother uttered in an attempt to rid her of that dreadful plan of stealing their father's journal. He had specifically ordered them not to touch it, after all.

Once they had arrived at their impromptu reading spot and Yuuki had decided on skimming the slimmest of the slim booklets they had procured, Echo would laugh at him, in turn making him chuckle. Apparently though, his elder sister had fully manifested the idea of investigating their father's office in her mind and decided on going through with it, as she declared just after the two of them had sat down on the decently comfortable bench. While she 'ordered' him to decide for himself if he wanted to have a part in said endeavor, she sure as all hells knew he would tag along, as his desire to protect virtually any member of their small family did not at all lag behind hers. And upon her starting to resolutely strut away, the young Uchiha let out a resignated sigh, swiftly collected each and every piece of literature scattered on the table and reluctantly scuffled after Echo's willowing black hair. "She must've lost her mind..."

"If we're in any luck, he'll still be gone.", Yuuki noted to his siter after catching up. Their father had told them that he was going to visit one of his long-time companions from Tanbogakure today, the two of them apparently wanted to go on an extended stroll around the rice fields and catch up on each other. "Mother should be problematic though.", the still reluctantly scuffling brother added with a painfully warped face turned to Echo. "She'll be vigilant, as usual." Sure their father was the more outspoken of the two parents, but their mother.. She was scary in her very own right, a deep and still lake did hold the most eerie of monsters after all, and she was quite proficient in keeping a watchful eye on her surroundings. The mere thought of confronting either of the two head-on, sent a terrified shiver down his entire body.

The two siblings slowly but steadily made their way over to their house, the sun slightly burning on Yuuki's neck, his anxiety spiking with every step they took. "Where exactly do you think he has that..", he initiated somewhat of a planning talk and waved his hand. "Journal or whatever stored? His office?" The Uchiha did not at all remember what the inside of said room looked like, their parents had been quite insistent on none of the children entering it after all. "You used to sneak in there a lot, right?", he continued contemplating their options. The biggest obstacle to overcome would surely be the acquisition of the key to the room itself, which was always locked, even when there father was inside and diligently working on his dubious deeds.

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WC: 913
TWC: 2.660