Toshiko woke up on a dusty floor. She turned her head, which was weird because her head had been cut off; completely removed from her body. She even remembered a moment before she lost consciousness, when she could feel her head being seperate from her body, falling down to the floor, blood leaking from the neck vessels.....

She vomitted everything that was present in her stomach and then dry-retched for some time, before leaving the mask temple, as the smell was beginning to overwhelm her.

She wandered aimlessly, feeling numb, wondering why she hadn't had this much of a reaction after her first death. Was it because of the novelty of time travel or because her the newly awakened Sharingan and the chakra drain because of it, dulled her response?

Speaking of chakra, she had the same amount she had before her head was cut off, and it would grow as she grew up again, she noted absently. It meant that she had to work very hard on the chakra control excercises if she wanted to perform the mystical palm jutsu.

She was faintly aware of her name being called out, but didn't deign to give any response. She was probably in shock, which was understandable, since her head had been cut off from her body a few moments ago.

She was found, hours later probably, by Uchiha Shoto and his team, hyperventilating, with snot and tears running down her face, her eyes flashing  two tomoe Sharingan.
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Toshiko retreated to her home, this time avoiding to show her expertise at controlling her Sharingan. Fugaku didn't much of her awakening a two tomoe Sharingan. Children often activated their Sharingan in emotional distress, (look at Izumi) that didn't mean that they were capable of controlling it.

It was better for to be left alone for a while. With careful introspection, she understood why she had such a strong reaction to her second death. Her Sharingan had been activated when Itachi had killed her. Every moment had been practically seared into her brain in high definition. It was bound to produce a stronger reaction. Secondly, being stabbed and waking up didn't have the same effect as being decapitated and waking up.

Introspection also made her realise the mistakes she had made. She had assumed everything would remain exactly the same even when she herself had changed so much. She had underestimated her enemy, who had access to the information that she was a medic nin, and hence had thwarted her in a way she couldn't recover from.

She had not even tried to fight him. Not that she could, when she had also put all her eggs in one basket.

Toshiko attempted to evaluate her current skill level only to be disappointment. Her taijutsu, physical conditioning as well as shurikenjutsu were all shot to hell, because of her younger, weaker and much shorter body. Her chakra control was fine for now, till her reserves inevitably grew again. The only thing in her arsenal she had was a respectable mastership of the mystical palm jutsu and her current two tomoe Sharingan.

If she followed the same path again, nothing was going to change. Only fools do the same thing again and again and expect a different outcome.

It was obvious, since Toshiko would be almost certainly unable to fend off Itachi when he ultimately deigned to kill her along with the the rest of the clan, she would have to run.

Since she was currently not even an academy student, the village wouldn't give two dimes about her leaving. The clan, on the other hand, been wouldn't just let someone with a two tomoe Sharingan loose into the world full of eyeball thieves. Not that it mattered. Uchiha were not trackers, and with the current political climate of the village, they won't be asking for any help from the tracking clans.

It was a warm night of April, when after months of preparation, Toshiko chose to leave behind her home for all of her three lives. Trekking through the now almost familiar north forest, she came across the wall in a few hours. Any use of chakra on the walls would have been immediately detected, hence Toshiko used the tree right next to it, to make her escape.

Six hours later, after running almost continuously, in case of any pursuers, Toshiko relaxed and congratulated herself over her successful escape. She was still in fire country and had no intention to leave it. Despite her actual age, her body was actually five and very easy to kidnap by enemy nins in case she was recognised to be an Uchiha.

She also had to hide from the Konoha nin. Even if the village won't send hunter nin after her, any Konoha shinobi wouldn't leave her be if they recognised her as an Uchiha. She had planned for this though. Upon finding a suitable cave, she took out the blue hair dye she packed  and carefully applied it to her hair, including her eyebrows. It was a tad difficult with only the river to see her reflection in, but she managed.

A few hours later, Yamamoto Suzuki, a recently orphaned five year old, with bright blue hair, entered the nearby village looking for work.
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Yamamoto Suzuki lived the civilian life Uchiha Toshiko had always dreamed of. It wasn't as pleasant as she had expected it to be. As a civilian, she was poor, without any access to orphanages or orphan fund. She had expected that, but even when she worked (jobs that were deemed acceptable for a little girl) to earn, she was barely able to make both ends meet. She had to resort to hunting in the forest when she wanted to eat well. Secondly, civilians had a very archaic view on gender norms. There hundreds of things she wasn't supposed to do because she was a girl, at which nobody would have batted an eye in Konoha. Perhaps the civilians in Konoha also had the same mindset, but refrained from saying anything to the ninja who could kill them in seconds.

Suzuki had found that she was able to make most money when she travelled along with caravans, doing odd jobs for the merchants. This also provided her with the opportunity to learn about new places and cultures, all within the fire nation, ofcourse.

It was during one of such travels when she was eight years old, that she encountered Tsunade Senju, the Slug Princess. The child of one of the merchants had got his leg cut from kunai left in what was probably an old battlefield, and Toshiko had to struggle with her conscience to either keep her cover or save the child's life, who was undoubtedly going to bleed out if nothing is done.

At the end, it didn't matter because, a tall black haired women with bob cut appeared and used the mystical palm jutsu to heal the child. The merchant fell over himself to pay her back for the miracle, when she revealed that she was the student of the slug princess, and as a payment for her services would like her master's debt removed, which, judging by the merchant's expression, was considerable. He didn't look happy about it but agreed to waive off Tsunade's debt.

That was when Suzuki decided to approach the Sanin's student.

"Hello." She chirped out, trying to look as cute as possible.

It seemed the woman was a sucker for cute children because her face immediately softened. "Hello. My name is Kato Shizune. What can I do for you, little miss?"

"My name is Yamamoto Suzuki. Will you become my sensei?"

Confusion darted across Shizune's face before clearing up. "Ah, you want to learn how to heal people. I'm sorry Suzuki-chan, only ninja can learn that technique. Your parents wouldn't want you learning it."

"My parents are dead. Besides I can already do it a bit. See?" She countered, using the jutsu to make her hands glow green.

Shizune looked like someone had hit her over the head. "I would have to consult my master on this. Would you mind coming with me?"

Suzuki nodded before being whisked off to a bar. The Senju princess was there, already deep in her cups at ten in the morning.

"Shishou." Shizune started, approaching her. "This is Yamamoto Suzuki. She can perform the mystical palm jutsu."

Tsunade looked at Suzuki with narrowed eyes, and then snorted. "Don't the Uchiha think that teaching their children medical jutsu is something far below their status?"

Oh shit.

"Uchiha?" Toshiko (because she was Uchiha Toshiko, and always will be, no matter what she pretended to be) tried to think of the way to keep up the charade.

"I've lived a long time in Konoha, chibi. And living there meant seeing the faces of the red eyed bastards that are your family. I'd like to believe that I am capable of spotting an Uchiha behind a bad dye job." Tsunade replied.

"Fine." She sighed. She hadn't really expected her disguise to work on the sannin. "I am Uchiha Toshiko. I ran away from Konoha because I didn't want to become a ninja."

"How did you learn the mystical palm jutsu?" Shizune asked.

Toshiko shrugged. "The Sharingan can copy jutsu."

The master and student shared a glance before turning to her. "You can be my apprentice on the condition that you would swear not to act against Konoha."

"I swear." Toshiko agreed. "Wait, that's it? "
Tsunade smirked. " Yeah, that's it, brat. It's too dangerous for you to roam around own your own when you have the Sharingan. Plus, I can certainly appreciate someone running away from Konoha before even graduating."

Toshiko didn't stop the smile blooming on her face.

__________________________________________

Being Shizune's apprentice basically consisted of being a glorified servant for Tsunade, running away from debt collectors and tonnes and tonnes of medical knowledge that no one in the hospital had thought to impart to her.

Shizune was a perfectionist and slave driver. Apparently Toshiko's mystical palm while passable, wasted a lot of chakra and therefore she had to improve her chakra control. By improving, she meant perfecting.

Hundreds of hours put into the leaf sticking, tree walking, water walking and leaf spinning excercise, finally brought her chakra control up to a level acceptable by Shizune, following which she was grilled in various iryo jutsu. (Apparently medical ninjutsu consistent a lot more than just mystical palm jutsu)

Another interesting fact was that Toshiko had finally lived past twelve. They had heard the news of the Uchiha massacre, with only one surviver left, and Tsunade had asked Toshiko if she wanted to return to Konoha.

She didn't.

Tsunade had told her that her training would now also include taijutsu and strength training, in case Itachi ever came after her.

Toshiko didn't protest.

What followed her were the most painful years of her life. If Shizune was a slave driver, Tsunade was a devil from hell herself. During the training from hell, if Toshiko broke her bones or ruptured her muscles, Tsunade would heal them right up or worse tell her to heal herself the get back at it and stop whining.

At least, breaking the ground with a punch was cool, which she was able to do after she figured out (after an embarrassingly long time) that the trick was chakra augmentation, which required the perfect chakra control thankfully that Shizune had got her to master.

Toshiko was seventeen when they encountered Orochimaru, who had supposedly led the Sand Sound invasion of Konoha and killed the Sandaime. He wanted Tsunade to heal his arms (which had been rendered useless by the Sandaime by the death reaper seal), in return he would bring back her lover and little brother from dead.

Tsunade asked for a few days to think about the offer, and the next day Jiraiya arrived with the Kyuubi jinchuriki to recruit Tsunade for the post of the Fifth Hokage.

The blonde jinchuriki was evidently friends with Sasuke and couldn't stop commenting about how much Toshiko looked like Sasuke, even when he had a daunting time limit to successfully perform the fourth Hokage's jutsu to win the bet against Tsunade.

On the day Tsunade was supposed to meet Orochimaru, she snuck out after poisoning Jiraiya. Toshiko was pretty sure that the Senju wouldn't agree to Orochimaru's deal especially when he was responsible for the death of her sensei; but to be on the side of caution, she and Shizune healed Jiraiya (as much as they could) and led them to the meeting site.

The resulting skirmish turned into an all out battle between the Sanin and their summons, with Shizune, Toshiko and Naruto barely keeping up with Orochimaru's lieutenant Kabuto, whose mastery of medical jutsu rivaled that of Tsunade's.

At the end, Tsunade was able to overcome her fear of blood to protect Naruto, but Toshiko was unable to see the whether she accepted to become the Godaime, because at that moment she was pulled into the ground by Orochimaru's mud clone and lost consciousness.

It turned out that she hadn't been careful enough during the battle and had activated her Sharingan. Orochimaru wanted to occupy a body with a Sharingan and had already tried his luch with Itachi and was waiting for Sasuke to come to him for power. Toshiko was to be the backup if things didn't go his way with Sasuke.

If that wasn't bad enough, her body was to prepared for possession by Orochimaru, the first step of which was recieving a cursed seal, which had a survival rate of ten percent. For the first time in her life, Toshiko wished for death, partly because of the painful coursing of Orochimaru's slimy chakra through her chakra network and partly because if she lived, her body would be possessed by that monster.

It was a few hours before Toshiko's heart finally gave out.