4A/N: hi everyone, here's me cross posting my works from ao3. This was my attempt at something different from what I normally write for Halloween! Will try to post my rated M content next, fingers crossed.
Sarada Uchiha had always been surrounded by shadows.
She wasn't consumed by darkness the way her father once was, but there was a definite dark presence that blanketed her life.
Sure, there were moments where brightness penetrated through, like when she ate snacks with ChoCho or her mother healed even her most mundane scrapes or she caught her parents teasing each other in the kitchen, but there can never be shadows without light anyway.
The Uchiha clan was infamous for their dark hair and dark eyes, not to mention the curse of hatred that had been broken, but still managed to linger in the way her father would always carry pain from his past. Sarada didn't have her father's quiet and stormy disposition, but she wasn't exactly her cheerful mother either.
While Sarada was no stranger to the darkness, she sometimes forgot the way others were afraid of it. She had a slight morbid fascination with the human body and when given the chance, examined enemies that had succumbed to one wound or another. The first time Boruto compared her strange behavior to that of Mitsuki, she passed it off as having her mother's medical curiosity. The second time her entire team was too uncomfortable to say anything, not wanting to get in the way of her examination until her sensei finally suggested it was time to move on. They never brought it up again.
Her father's stories about her uncle made crows seem like playmates, so when she was waiting for ChoCho to come outside to play, she felt perfectly content observing the crows that had gathered on the lawn. She was confused when Cho Cho shrieked upon seeing the mass of crows and ran back inside. Maybe she should introduce her best friend to her uncle's gravestone, then she'd understand.
Her love for snakes could also be considered as inherited from her father, and she even researched the properties of venom with her mother when she got the chance. Unsurprisingly, her summoning contract was with a snake. They were far more loyal than other shinobi made them out to be, but Sarada had a feeling it wasn't like that for everyone. There was something in her that they liked enough to serve her.
Mitsuki once suggested she should talk with Orochimaru about snakes when he was visiting the Uchiha house after training. Sasuke was home and had overheard. Before Sarada could even think to accept, he stepped into their living room and forbid it. He had a hard look on his face and his eyes lacked their usual warmth. He never regarded her this coldly, so she didn't bother arguing. She could learn about snakes elsewhere. She never minded the darkness, but she didn't like the chill that came with shadows.
And for a long time, it felt like someone had a blanket over her eyes by not telling her the complicated tale of the great Uchiha clan. Her father was often away on missions and no one else would tell her why other villagers seemed to be wary of their clan — except for her bright and determined mother. Sarada sometimes wondered, if Sakura weren't her mother and her father's wife, would she feel differently? But the thought of not having her soothing presence in her life disturbed her.
Shadows pervaded Sarada's life, but that didn't mean she was weighed down by them. Her father was the shadow hokage, but she would be the real thing. A little darkness wouldn't stop her from protecting the people she loved. Besides, Konoha had been cloaked in shadow for a long, long time. She would just be the one to point it out.
A/N: was this weird? Felt weird to write, not bad though. Hope people still enjoyed it :) new smut coming eventually LOL
