Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Thursday, 5:32 PM

The pharmacy’s fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, a low, whining hum that somehow always felt louder at the end of the day. Aria pressed the back of her gloved hand to her temple, willing the clock to jump forward. The line at the counter stretched past the cold meds aisle, each customer another minute between her and the quiet of her apartment.

Then came the chime.

She glanced up.

A man walked in. Mid-thirties, maybe. Hard to say. His face was... blank. Not cold, not friendly, just unreadable. His clothes were plain, loose-fitting, nothing that would stick in your memory. There was nothing in his hands. He didn’t look at the shelves or the signs, just headed straight for the counter with this steady, quiet kind of walk.

Aria straightened, slipping into her well-worn customer service tone. “Hi there. What can I help you with?”

He handed over a small, folded piece of paper. Typed. Not handwritten. The font was too clean, too impersonal. No pen marks, no crumpling—just a list, crisp and clinical:

— 3% Hydrogen Peroxide

— Isopropyl Alcohol

— Bleach

— Disposable gloves

— Cotton pads

— Zip seal bags

— Heavy-duty trash bags

Her eyebrows ticked up a little.

She gave a small, half-joking smile—autopilot mode. “Deep clean, or are we disposing of a body tonight?”

A pause. Then a shift at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile. Definitely didn’t reach his eyes.

“Garage cleanup,” he said. “Mold.”

Right. 

She cringed internally, it was a bad joke. He probably have a bad day. 

She gave an awkward apologizing smole and turned toward the shelves, but her skin prickled. Something about him, maybe his stillness, maybe how he his eyes look, made her chest tighten just slightly.

When she rang him up, he paid in cash. No hesitation. She tried to give him a receipt. Just a brief shake of his head when she offered one. The entire exchange took under four minutes.

By the time the door chimed behind him, she already couldn’t remember the exact features of his face. Only that he’d felt… off.

---

7:15 PM

The smell of garlic and roast chicken wrapped around her like a warm coat the moment she stepped into the house. Maya was sprawled on the couch in sweatpants, laptop on her knees and a bottle of wine open on the coffee table.

Aria headed straight to the bathroom, stripping off her pale green scrubs like she couldn’t wait to be rid of them. By the time she returned to the dining room, her mom was lighting candles and her dad was pouring wine like it was Christmas.

“You washed your hands, right?” her dad called out with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m soaked in hand sanitizer eight hours a day,” Aria said, grabbing the glass Maya held out. “I’m probably sterile at this point.”

“To the most sanitized sister in the world,” Maya said, clinking glasses with her.

“To the one with the fancy degree and the student loans to prove it,” their mom added with a wink in Maya’s direction.

Aria smiled and sipped her wine. She's so proud of her sister, she's been through so much to get her degree. Maya’s graduation was a big deal. Aria liked sitting on the edges of moments like this... just watching, listening, being part of it without being the center of it.

“So,” their dad said, spearing a piece of chicken, “what’s the plan, now that you’re officially a graduate?”

“Trying not to panic,” Maya replied. “I’ve got a couple interviews next month. Maybe law school if I survive the first few rejections.”

“Or,” Aria said, “you could move in with me. My cat’s been asking for a roommate.”

Maya grinned. “Winnie hates me.”

“She hates everyone,” Aria said. “Don’t take it personally.”

Their mom passed a bowl of potatoes. “Aria, you look a little run-down. Long shift?”

Aria shrugged. “Retail pharmacy. Every week’s a long week. It's mostly arguments about cold meds, questions about poop, and customers who think Google gives them a PhD.”

“Oh god,” Maya said. “My roommate diagnosed herself with malaria last week. Because of one TikTok. She doesn't even have a fever.”

Their dad shook his head. “When I was your age, you had a cough, you drank some tea, and water, water is always good, and prayed it wasn’t tuberculosis.”

“Really?” their mom asked, mock-scandalized.

“Shut up, Mel,” he said with a grin.

The laughter came easy. The conversation wandered—from Maya’s new shit to figure out to weird pharmacy stories to their dad’s growing obsession with red wine. When the chocolate cake appeared, Aria helped her mom plate the slices in the kitchen, away from the hum of conversation.

"This looks so good, Mom." She praised, "...seriously, I can't wait to dig in!"

"Oh it's pretty good if I say so myself. I am practically sure that your dad's developed diabetes from being my guinea pig this past few weeks."

A comfortable silence between them passed, along with clanks of plates and her dad's voice in the dining area.

“You’re staying, right?” her mom asked, casually.

Aria hesitated, slicing into the dense cake. “I can’t. I left Winnie with just enough food for tonight. She’ll destroy the place.”

“Put extra out next time.”

“She eats it all at once and then pukes on my pillow out of spite.”

Her mom leaned against the counter, her voice softening. “I just worry. That street’s so dark. And you’re always tired. You don’t say it, but I see it.”

“I’ll text when I’m home. I always do.”

“That’s not the same as knowing you’re just down the hall.”

“I’ll text, Mom.”

--

10:42 PM

The walk from her car to the apartment was short but always felt longer at night. The streetlight near her building still flickered uselessly, casting strange, stretching shadows across the sidewalk.

She didn’t notice the dark sedan parked half a block down, engine idling low.

Didn’t see the cigarette flare, then vanish.

Inside, the air was still and faintly warm. Familiar. Safe.

“Winnie?” she called out, tossing her keys into the bowl by the door. No response. Typical. 

The cat didn’t come. Probably hiding under the couch again. Or asleep in the laundry basket.

She kicked off her shoes and headed to the kitchen. The apartment was still warm from the day — stale and quiet. She pulled out a can of cat food, sliced the lid open.

That’s when she heard it.

A click.

Very soft.

Like a shoe on tile. But not hers.

She froze.

Then turned, fast — but he was already there.

The same man from earlier. From the pharmacy.

She screamed. Or tried to — but it caught in her throat. He moved fast. Too fast. Tackled her to the ground, her head slamming into the side of the counter.

Dazed.

Everything blurred.

She tried to crawl — to scream again — but something sharp jabbed into her neck. Cold flooded her veins. Not pain. Just stillness.

Her arms stopped working first. Then her legs. Then her throat.

She could still hear him breathing.

He cleaned her hands. Gloved her fingers.

He wiped everything she touched. Methodical. Practiced.

Then—

Dark.

---

Friday, 6:08 AM

Her phone buzzed against the kitchen tile, its screen still lit.

Mom: Just checking. You home safe?

Mom: Send me a dot or something. Anything.

Mom: Please.

Winnie padded into the kitchen, tail high. She sniffed the untouched food.

Sat beside it.

Waited.

Chapter Text

The kettle sang in a low, tinny whistle, not unlike a winded man trying to catch his breath. The baker exhaled slowly and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, hand braced on the weathered counter of his small kitchen. His wrists ached, the kind of deep, thudding ache that settled into the bone, earned from years of kneading dough long before sunrise.

He glanced out the narrow window. Mist still clung to the edges of the street, faintly blue in the morning light. War had painted everything in duller colors. 

She was still asleep in the next room, curled like a shrimp under too many blankets, one tiny foot inevitably poking out from the fold. She always kicked them off. Every night. And every night, he tucked her back in.

There was barley today, just enough for porridge. He stirred in dried shavings of sweet potato and a pinch of salt. He hoped he could taste that frugally used salt. The old ceramic pot clinked as he set it down gently on the hearth’s stone rim to keep warm.

A cough, muffled and small, came from the bedroom. Ans a soft thump followed by tiny shuffling feet signaled her awakening.

His daughter.

Himari.

She padded into the kitchen, rubbing sleep from her eyes, curls wild and lopsided from sleep. Her oversized shirt slipped off one shoulder, and her small hands clutched the sleeves to keep them up. She stopped at the doorway, blinking up at him.

“Good morning, sunshine,” he murmured. “You’re up early.”

“I smelted it,” she said solemnly.

“Oh?”

“The hot smell. Like…um…mmm,” she wrinkled her nose, eyes searching, “like morning rice but not rice. And not cinnamon.”

He snorted softly. “Barley porridge.”

“That’s what I said.”

They quieted. 

“Mmm… Daa?”

He crouched, wincing slightly at the stiffness in his knees, and opened his arms. Himari wobbled forward and burrowed into his chest with a content sigh. Her breath was warm and sweet with sleep.

"Tea first, then breakfast. Okay, ladybug?"

She nodded, her face still tucked into his shoulder. “Wadybug,” she repeated.

He smiled faintly and stood, shifting her to his hip with practiced ease. She was three, light as flour, but growing. He’d have to adjust the hem on her winter kimono soon.

The kettle whistled again—shriller this time. He set her down gently, grabbed a towel, and lifted the kettle off the heat. Steam puffed upward in curling spirals.

Himari climbed up onto her stool by the counter, little fingers drumming the wood.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked.

She nodded. Then paused.

“I had a d’eam.”

He turned toward her, pouring water into the teapot. “A dream, huh? What about?”

She squinted at the grain of the counter, as if searching for the pieces. “I don’t ‘member. But… I think I was fwying. Like a biiird!”

Her arms shot out in a swooping motion, and he chuckled under his breath. “A bird, huh? What kind?”

"A... a blue one. With pointy feef!" she declared. She paused, then added, "And it had a long, long tail of smoke! And it had lots and lots of people inside its tummy, zooming across the sky! Like a giant, loud dragonfly!"

"Feet," he corrected, pouring the tea. "Pointy feet."

"That's what I said!" she grinned.

They sat in silence for a moment, sipping tea. Himari’s cup was warm milk with just a drop of honey. He'd saved the last bit of it for her. Sugar was hard to come by these days—rations were tighter, and trade routes less stable.

She sipped solemnly, then sighed.

“Daa?”

“Hmm?”

“Is war bad?”

The question caught him mid-sip. He lowered his cup and looked at her carefully. Her brow was furrowed, lips pouted in thought.

"Where’d you hear that word, ladybug?"

“Hear it from the—the beside houses and there's uh bad in my dreams too, Da! They go like bang and boom! And people are ouchie!” she said, swinging her legs slowly. “They said it’s why there’s no ‘nanas.”

He closed his eyes for a breath. Even now, in the civilian parts of the village, war crept into the corners. Even into a child’s understanding.

“Yes,” he said. “War is very bad.”

“Why do people do it?”

He reached out and brushed her curls back from her face. “Because they’re scared,” he said simply. “And sometimes, when people are scared, they do terrible things. Or try to stop other terrible things from happening.”

"Huh?" She blinked at him. “Do we hafta do war?”

“No,” he said. “We bake bread.”

She considered this.

“Good,” she said at last.

He watched her finish the last of her milk, then wiped her mouth gently with a cloth. “Go wash up. We have deliveries today. You've gotta go to Auntie next door."

He delivered the last of the stale breads he has, if he could still call it a bread, to the shelter where orphans and elderly are residing. 

---

By mid-day, the bakery had warmed enough to shake off the chill. The air smelled of yeast and toasting grain. Outside, carts creaked along the main road. A shinobi passed by with a tired gait and blood on his sleeve. 

The baker didn’t watch long. He tended to his daughter.

Himari helped sweep the front stoop, then insisted on drawing “angry carrots” in the garden dirt with a stick before coming in the house. He sat nearby, mending the worn-out straps of his flour sacks with clumsy stitches, nodding along as she explained the carrots were mad because they got picked and eaten.

“I told them, ‘don’t worry, you’ll be soup, that’s special!’ But they’re still mad.”

“Understandable,” he said.

“Da?”

“Yes, ladybug?”

“Kaa-chan’s in the stars, right?” she asked suddenly.

His heart jerked. “Yeah.”

“She lookin’ at me?”

He hesitated. “I think so.”

She nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Then I wave.” She tipped her face skyward and flapped both hands. “Hi, Kaa-chan!”

"Kaa-chan! Hi!" 

She kept on waving at the sky.  

"Da! Say hi to ka'chan! She'll get mad like the carrots too!"

He could feel his tears welling up in his eyes. He looked away, blinking fast. The wind stirred the dust in the street.

“Yeah. Hi, Kaa-chan,” he echoed quietly. His throat tightening. How cruel this world could be.

Would all of this be more bearable if his wife were here? All he could do is just wonder now. All his daughter could do is wave at the skies now.

"C'mon, ladybug. We should nap, I'll take you to the market later, like that?" 

The girl's eyes lit up.

This world did not deserve his daughter.

---

Later that day, when Himari woke, they went to the market. Which seemed like a ghost town. Few people are wandering around. Nobody really liked going out these days. He would've stayed in his house too, however, food is a necessity that they cannot bear to ignore.

A friend came by earlier and said that streets are safe for now since a lot of ninjas went back for recovery and most of them took D-Ranks to pass the time. Which means less civilian crimes happening.

Now, he could atleast bring his daughter with him in buying necessities. She could use a change in her environment, albeit only for a moment. It's better than staying with the aunt next door who's got lots of things to do as well.

He held Himari’s hand tightly. She was talking to herself now, one doll tucked under her arm, the other being scolded for stealing imaginary dango. They passed by a couple eating some earlier.

“You have to ask, Bun-bun,” she said sternly. “Or Papa says no more.”

He let out a short laugh. “That what I sound like?”

“No,” she said without looking at him, still glaring at her doll. “You sound madder.”

He grunted and walked again, “Well, Bun-bun better listen next time.”

She soon demanded to be carried. 

When they passed the Inuzuka stall, a dog growled low. Himari pressed closer to his side. Most sellers here are shinobi, most people who do business these days are shinobi or civilians who are involved in shinobi business like medicine and weaponry. Right now, food are mostly being sold by shinobi clans. They have the resources to do that due to their wealth and food reserves. Most of them own a farm too.

Only a few of them stayed in Konoha though. It's mostly for caring to their young ones and added security just in case the village get inflitrated. Despite being the security for the village, they do not care for civilians crimes. 

They passed by a herb vendor, she tugged his sleeve.

“Da! Smells like our garden!”

He smiled and crouched so she could sniff the bundles of drying lavender and mugwort.

The old vendor, a grizzled woman with sharp eyes, peered down at Himari.

“This one got good nose,” she said. “Like a fox.”

Himari’s eyes went wide. “I’m not a fox! I’m a ladybug!”

The woman laughed. “Even better.”

They left with a small satchel of herbs as substitute for medicine and some rejected vegetables that are sold for cheaper price—paid partly with coin, partly with rye bread.

War had a way of stripping the world of its beauty, leaving behind a stark reality that was as unyielding as the steel that forged the weapons that brought it. The baker felt the heaviness in every step he took. His bakery, once a haven of warmth and sweet aromas, had become a silent sentinel to the passing days of scarcity. The oven, once a beacon of comfort, now stood cold, the flame of prosperity having been snuffed out by violent conflict.

As they walked back home, the sound of distant explosions rumbled like thunder that had lost its way. The tremor in the ground was faint, but it was a constant reminder that the peace they knew was a mere illusion.

"Da?”

“Yes?”

“Don't buy eggs?”

His heart broke a little.

“No, ladybug. Maybe next week.”

“Next next week?”

“Maybe.”

She was quiet a moment. Then, “I can wait.”

He smiled. But he's mad. Anger is simmering in his core. Yet he smiled, for his little girl.

“You’re a good girl,” he said softly.

“No, am a ladybug.”

“That too.”

Chapter Text

The morning began like many others—quiet, with smoke curling from the chimney and the sour scent of yesterday's dough still clinging to the walls of their small bakery. Dust motes danced in the sparse shafts of sunlight piercing the cracks in the wooden shutters. But even before the sun properly touched the rooftops of Konoha’s civilian district, Himari was already stirring in her sleep, a restless murmur escaping her lips.

Takeshi, his forearms dusted with flour, paused in his rhythmic kneading of the day's first batch of bread. The gentle thud of dough against wood ceased.

"Daa..."

His hands stilled completely. "Hm?" he hummed, a low, questioning sound.

From the other room, her small voice called again, softer this time, like her dreams hadn’t quite relinquished their hold. He wiped his hands on a nearby cloth, the familiar comfort of his routine evaporating. Peeking around the doorway, he found her sitting up in her futon, hair a tangled mess, rubbing her belly with small, insistent circles.

"My tummy's weird again," she mumbled, her eyes still heavy with sleep.

He crouched beside her, his knees creaking. "Where's weird, my ladybug?" he asked, his voice soft, a stark contrast to the rough texture of his working hands.

She pressed just under her ribs. "Here. It goes all... buzzy. Like when you hold my tea cup too long. But inside." Her brow furrowed in concentration, trying to articulate the unfamiliar sensation.

He blinked. "Buzzy?" The word felt strange on his tongue, ill-suited to the context of a child’s stomach.

She nodded solemnly, her small face serious. "And warm. But not sick-warm. Just—funny-warm."

His hand hovered over her stomach, unsure, hesitant to intrude on this internal world. "Not ouchie?"

She shook her head firmly. "No ouchie. Just weird."

He offered a reassuring smile, though a flicker of unease had already begun to prickle him. He leaned in and kissed her forehead, the skin surprisingly cool. "Maybe it's growing pains, Himari-chan. You’re getting big."

But she wasn’t finished. Her next question caught him off guard, chasing away any lingering attempt at simple explanation. "Then why do my dreams grow too?"

He stilled, his smile faltering. "Dreams?"

"With the lady."

He sat back on his heels, the floorboards cold beneath him. "What lady?"

Himari’s eyes widened slightly as she recounted. "She talks weird. She has white things on her feet and she pokes glass boxes and light comes out and she eats noodles from cups with no water. Weird noodles." Her description was a jumble of disjointed images, yet delivered with an unnerving conviction.

He rubbed his jaw, a familiar gesture when perplexed. Another fantasy, probably. She'd always been imaginative, more so than other children her age, especially lately. He attributed it to the quiet isolation of their lives, away from other children, and the lack of proper schooling due to the war’s constant drain on resources.

"Did she hurt you?" he asked, riding along with his daughter's imagination.

Himari shook her head firmly, her eyes clear now. "No. She's me. But bigger. And bossier."

"She's you?" he repeated, he smiled. Little Hima is indeed bossy. 

"Uh-huh. But she says words I don’t know. I think she’s from a future. Or a library."

He chuckled, the sound forced. "A future or a library?"

She tilted her head, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Libraries are full of words, so maybe she crawled outta one."

The baker smiled, soft and lopsided. She was three, barely big enough to lift the bread basket, and already telling stories about glowing boxes and cup-noodles. Her face was pinched with thought, eyes too wide for her age—big, dark things like her mother’s, always seeing more than they should.

“Well,” he said at last, brushing a wisp of hair from her cheek, “if the lady’s from a library, maybe she should’ve stayed put. Sounds like she’s confusing my little girl.”

“I’m not little,” Himari said, nose wrinkled.

“You’re littler than the bread paddle.”

“Not for long!”

He tapped her gently on the forehead. “No more weird dreams, alright? Maybe it’s just from too much dried daikon. I told you not to steal from the stew.”

“I only had three,” she muttered.

“Uh huh.”

He stood again and returned to the kneading board, where dough was rising stubbornly slow in the cold kitchen. The fire had gone out during the night, and he hadn’t had the heart—or energy—to relight it before dawn. The war had taken most of the good wood. What little they had left he was saving for roasting sesame loaves for the hospital later.

He could hear Himari puttering behind him, dragging her feet across the tatami mat. She was quieter than usual this morning. Not sulky, just thoughtful in that unnerving way she sometimes got—like she was trying to untangle things no child should be bothered with.

“Can I draw her?”

He looked over his shoulder. She was sitting cross-legged, already pulling charcoal stubs from the wooden crate by the wall.

“The lady?”

Himari nodded. “Maybe if I draw her, she’ll stop yelling weird words. I think she wants me to know them. But I don’t.”

He exhaled, long and slow. “Draw after breakfast. First, wash your face.”

---

The morning passed with routine: proofing dough, cutting root vegetables, and boiling down bones for broth. Outside, the village had begun to wake—though "wake" wasn’t quite the word. Konoha stirred like a man bruised in his sleep: sluggish, aching, and ready to flinch at any sudden noise. Somewhere distant, a hawk cried, too high for the human ear to register as warning, but everyone knew what those cries meant now. Reconnaissance.

The war had drawn a taut line over everything. Food was tighter. Smiles, rarer. Children didn’t roam the dirt alleys anymore, and shopfronts kept cloth drawn over their goods even during market hours. There had been another raid last week—stone-faced shinobi carried limp bodies past the bakery steps. Civilians again. Collateral.

He’d shielded Himari’s eyes.

They hadn't gone out since.

Later that day, she drew. On the back of a flour sack, she scratched out a lopsided woman with strange rectangles on her feet, holding a stick like it was a magic wand. Lights sparkled out of it in jagged charcoal strokes.

“She glows sometimes,” Himari said, poking the drawing. “Right from here.” She pointed to her chest. “Like a lamp. And when she gets mad, the room gets all blue.”

“Blue, huh?” he said, folding dough.

“Like—buzzing blue. Like my tummy.”

He paused, fingers halting in the dough. “Still?”

Himari nodded, rubbing her sternum absently. “It’s like…I wanna breathe big, but not with my nose.”

He frowned. “You mean you’re short of breath?”

“Nooo,” she whined, as if he wasn’t listening. “It’s like something’s inside. But not a poop.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

She giggled.

He wanted to dismiss it. Kids said things. Kids dreamed up futures and libraries and lamp-ladies with rectangle shoes. But still. There was something strange in the way she said it—something that gnawed just a little behind his ribs. It was probably nothing. Just her mind running wild from all the quiet.

The village was a low murmur of smoke and dust, a constant reminder of the war that gnawed at the edges of their existence. War never quite reached them directly—not like the frontlines, where the earth was scorched and the air thick with blood—but it hung in the air like soot, clinging to voices and footprints. Supply lines were thinner, rationing was tighter, and people's patience shorter. The faces of the villagers bore the strain of constant anxiety. Ninja passed through the main thoroughfare, injured or grim-faced, their gazes blank, ignoring the civilians as though they were paper figures in the wind, a stark contrast to the pre-war days when a shinobi might offer a nod or a brief exchange of pleasantries.

A chill lingered behind his ribs long after she’d gone to play in the corner of the shop. He told himself it was nothing—kids cooped up too long made up the strangest things. And with the state of the streets lately, he couldn't let her roam. Not when ninja with blood on their boots stomped past his window twice a day. Not when you couldn’t tell which village the kunoichi in the alley belonged to. Not when an explosion in the east district last week had shattered the windowpanes of a florist’s shop—by accident.

The girl didn’t like being indoors all day. The confines of their small bakery, usually a source of comfort, felt stifling to her boundless energy. She'd taken to crouching by the small herb patch behind their shop, a scant few feet of earth where he tried to coax medicinal plants and culinary herbs from the strained soil. She would touch every leaf with a strange fascination, her small fingers tracing the veins of mint and basil, as if seeking answers from their green stillness. She was bright, quick-witted, but there was something else lately—a hyper-focus, an intense concentration, as if she were listening to the ground or waiting for something in her blood to tell her secrets.

Once, he caught her squatting in the dirt, palms pressed flat against the earth, eyes closed, a peculiar serenity on her face.

"What are you doing, little one?" he asked, his voice soft, not wanting to startle her.

Her eyes fluttered open, still distant, as if returning from a great distance. "Listening."

"To what?"

"Me," she replied simply, then closed her eyes again.

He’d laughed, a short, nervous puff of air, but she hadn’t. Her seriousness was unnerving. He watched her for a few more moments, the strange sense of detachment in her posture, before calling her back inside for a meager lunch of watered-down miso soup and stale bread.

That night, the fever came. It wasn't the slow creep of a common cold, but a sudden, violent assault.

She had barely touched her rice, pushing the few grains around her bowl with a listless finger. Her cheeks were flushed, but not with the glow of a hot bath; it was a crimson burn that spoke of internal turmoil. Her small frame shivered, despite the thickness of her futon, as if the room were suddenly full of ghosts.

"Daa... my bones hurt," she whimpered, her voice thready.

"Lie down," he said quickly, his own heart thrumming with a sudden dread. He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. Too hot. Alarm bells screamed in his mind.

He sat by her side long after she fell asleep, a damp cloth cooling her burning skin. Her lips trembled, tiny, almost imperceptible movements that spoke of inner turmoil.

Then the mumbling began. It wasn't the sweet, nonsensical chatter of a child's dream. This was frantic, edged with fear.

"Stop… stop that, I'm not—I'm not ready yet…" Her words were slurred, she's muttering words he doesn't know.

He leaned in, his ear close to her lips. Her brow was furrowed, mouth tight, a crease far too old for her little face. It was the expression of a woman in distress, not a child of three.

"I said I locked it… you can't be here…!" The whisper was desperate, a plea.

His stomach turned over, a cold dread seeping into his bones. "Himari?" he whispered, touching her arm.

She whimpered, a small, choked sound, and rolled away from him, pulling her arm from his grasp. He touched her shoulder gently again, trying to soothe her.

"No!" The sound was sharp, a sudden cry of raw terror that ripped through the quiet room.

He froze, his hand still suspended in the air.

She was crying now, small hiccuping sobs that wracked her tiny body, still deep in the grip of sleep. He whispered to her, murmuring reassurances, holding her small hand in his.

"Hush, it's fine. You're okay, ladybug."

She stilled eventually, her breathing evening out, but he didn’t sleep at all, sitting rigid by her side, listening to the desperate rhythm of her breathing, the strange words echoing in his mind.

By morning, the fever had worsened. Her skin burned beneath his touch, a fiery testament to the battle raging within her. Her eyes were unfocused, glazed over, occasionally flickering as if catching glimpses of something unseen.

He knew he couldn’t wait any longer. Gently, he wrapped her in a thick shawl, shielding her from the pre-dawn chill, and ran, Himari’s limp weight a burning ember in his arms, toward Konoha’s hospital.

Konoha's hospital was a blur of motion and misery, a stark microcosm of the war-torn world outside. The waiting hall was overcrowded, the benches overflowing with a grim tableau of suffering. Civilians, shinobi, children with hastily bandaged arms, mothers with blank, vacant stares. The air was thick with the cloying scent of antiseptic, the metallic tang of drying blood, and the raw, unwashed smell of sweat and fear. Cries, ranging from guttural groans to the keening wails of children, echoed from behind the hanging cloth partitions that offered scant privacy.

He approached the front desk, Himari a hot, fragile burden in his arms. Her breath was shallow, uneven.

"She's burning up," he managed to say, his voice rough with exhaustion and fear.

The woman at the counter, her face gaunt, her movements mechanical, barely looked up from the ledger she was updating. "Name?" she asked, her voice flat.

"Takeshi. This is Himari. She has fever, hallucinations, she’s—"

"Sit. Wait." Her finger pointed vaguely towards the overcrowded waiting area.

"Wait? What do you mean wait?! She's a child. She's delirious!" His voice rose, a desperate edge to it.

"Everyone's waiting," she replied, her eyes finally meeting his, utterly devoid of sympathy, hardened by the constant stream of suffering. "We're understaffed. Overwhelmed."

Behind her, a medic with dark circles under his eyes pushed a stretcher down the hallway, someone groaning atop it, their leg twisted at an unnatural angle. The sounds of pain were a constant, pervasive hum.

He looked around, his gaze frantic. Two mothers sat huddled together, cradling sick infants, their faces etched with the same silent terror he felt. A young genin, barely older than a teenager, clutched his side, blood leaking sluggishly between his fingers, staining his flak jacket. There were not enough medics. Not enough beds. Not enough pain medication. Not enough anything. The hospital, usually a place of healing, felt like another casualty of the war, a monument to their collective helplessness.

He sat down on a sliver of bench space, Himari clinging weakly to his chest, her head resting on his shoulder.

"Da... it's buzzing again... hurts..." she whispered, her voice barely audible, laced with a new kind of urgency.

He rocked her gently, trying to soothe her, his own heart a frantic drum against his ribs. "Shh, baby. It's just a fever. You're okay." He repeated the words like a mantra, trying to convince himself as much as her.

She shook her head weakly against his chest. He could almost feel the pain of his baby. "No... hot, Daa! Hurts!"

He touched her forehead again. Still burning. Hotter, even. The flimsy shawl offered no comfort against the internal fire.

An hour crawled by, each minute an eternity. The air grew heavier, the cries more insistent. Himari occasionally whimpered, her body jerking subtly in his arms. He could feel the small tremors running through her.

He couldn't take it anymore. He approached the counter again, Himari still clutched to him. "Please. She's getting worse. She's having seizures now." He knew it wasn't a full seizure, not yet, but he needed to exaggerate, to break through the indifference.

The woman didn’t look up this time, her hand still flying across the ledger page. "You're on the list. We call names in order of severity, as assessed by the triage medic."

"She's hallucinating. She's not breathing right. Her eyes are rolling back!" he pleaded, his voice cracking.

A medic, looking utterly exhausted, brushed past him, his arms laden with sterile cloths. Takeshi grabbed his sleeve, his grip desperate. "Please! Just check her. Five seconds. Please. Just five seconds! She’s a child, a civilian. This isn’t a battle wound!"

The medic pulled his arm away, his expression grim. "Everyone here is suffering. Get in line like everyone else. We have shinobi with collapsed lungs and missing limbs. We're doing what we can."

"She's my daughter! She's all I have!" His voice cracked, a raw cry.

Someone behind him, a shinobi with a bandaged arm, muttered darkly, "So's mine, civilian. Get back."

The world swam around Takeshi, the noise and the pain overwhelming his senses. He felt a wave of nausea, a dizzying mix of fear and helpless rage. He sat down again, clutching Himari tighter, burying his face in her hair.

"Daa..." Himari whispered, her voice barely a breath, her eyes glassy, unfocused.

"I'm here. I got you, lady bug. Just hold on. I got you, I got you."

She mumbled something else, the words slurred, barely intelligible. He leaned close, straining to hear over the din.

"Don’t open it… he’s waiting outside… please…"

His mouth went bone dry. The cold dread returned, intensified by the precise, terrifying imagery.

"He has the knife again… I locked it… but he broke it…"

"Winnie..."

A chilling tremor ran down his spine, not from the cold of the room, but from the icy tendrils of terror. He looked around, as if someone might explain what she meant, who "he" was, what "it" was that she had locked away. But no one was looking at him. Everyone was lost in their own pain.

Then her small body gave a violent jerk, a full-body spasm that jolted him. Her breath hitched, a sharp, gasping sound. Her eyes rolled back in her head, showing only the whites.

He stood up, screaming, his voice ragged, hoarse. "HELP! SOMEONE, PLEASE! SHE'S SEIZING!"

Everyone in the waiting room turned, their faces a mixture of weariness and alarm. Himari was twitching violently now, her small limbs thrashing, her breath coming in sharp, shallow gasps. A thin trail of foamy saliva appeared at the corner of her mouth.

"Himari! Himari!"

This time, a medic finally rushed over, a young woman with a harried expression, her eyes widening in recognition of the severe, convulsive movements. "Put her here! On the cot!" she ordered, pushing aside a stack of supply boxes.

Takeshi stumbled forward, placing Himari gently on the cot, his hands trembling. Himari gasped, her small body arching, eyes fluttering wildly, still showing only the whites.

The medic immediately took Himari's pulse, her fingers pressed firmly against the tiny wrist. Her eyes narrowed, assessing the child's desperate struggle. "Internal flare. Severe. Her chakra pathways… they’re being violently agitated. She's reacting to something… but there's no wound?" she murmured, her voice tight with concern as she ran her hands over Himari's body.

"She's just been home! She's my baby! She’s never been exposed to… to anything!" Takeshi stammered, the word "chakra" echoing in his mind, alien and terrifying in relation to his civilian daughter.

Another medic, older and more experienced, arrived, drawn by the commotion. He quickly examined Himari. "Could be a spontaneous chakra release, or perhaps a delayed reaction to a highly potent residual chakra signature. Rare in civilians, but with the war, there's ambient chakra everywhere… even more so if she's unknowingly absorbing it."

"She doesn't know anything! She's three!" Takeshi protested, his voice rising in desperation, the explanation making no sense.

They didn't argue. They nodded, already moving with practiced efficiency, their faces grim. One placed something cool and moist on her neck, a chakra-absorbing paste. The other began a series of hand signs, her palms glowing faintly, attempting to gently stabilize Himari’s internal network.

He stood frozen beside her as they worked, muttering to each other in low tones, a language he barely understood: Chakra. Internal flare. Elevated response. Systemic shock. Need for immediate suppression. This is unusual, even for a civilian. His daughter, limp and twitching on the cot, her life hanging by a thread.

And all he could do was hold her small, convulsing hand, praying for the terrifying ordeal to end. He couldn't bear to lose anyone again.

That night, after she was finally stabilized, the violent tremors subsiding into a shallow sleep, Himari was moved to a small, isolated observation room. Takeshi sat beside her bed, his hand still clutched around hers, not speaking, not sleeping, just watching her frail, pale face under the dim glow of the hospital lamp.

The dreams had taken something from her, he could see it in the set of her brow, the lines of worry etched into her tiny face, even as she slept. Her youthful innocence, once so vibrant, seemed dimmed, overshadowed by an unspoken burden.

He reached for her hand, his thumb gently stroking her knuckles. It twitched in his, a faint, almost imperceptible tremor.

"You’ll be alright, little ladybug," he whispered, his voice hoarse, tears pricking at his eyes. "You’ll grow. We’ll bake again soon, okay?"

Chapter Text

The awful lull of exhaustion had pulled his limbs down, as though someone had thrown handfuls of sand into his joints and meticulously packed it there. He hadn’t remembered the exact moment sleep claimed him, only the creeping paralysis that stole his awareness. His neck, a stiff, protesting column, ached with a dull throb. His eyes, gritty and raw, burned from the unblinking vigil. The hospital bench, an unforgiving sliver of cold plastic, had been far too short, forcing his long frame into an unnatural curve beside Himari’s cot. Each breath he took was a shallow, painful reminder of the vigil. But in that moment, none of it mattered.

She was breathing. A soft, rhythmic whisper of life that was the only sound that truly registered in the sterile quiet of the hospital room.

A soft, almost imperceptible shift from the cot. Then, that faint, familiar little cough she always made upon waking – a tiny, reedy sound that jolted him upright as if struck by lightning. He was at her side in seconds, his hand, trembling with a mixture of fear and profound relief, reaching to brush the damp, sweaty strands of hair from her forehead. Her skin, though still warm, felt less feverish than it had for days.

“Daa? Dada?” she croaked, her voice a dry, raspy whisper, impossibly small in the vast quiet of the room. It was the sweetest sound he had ever heard.

“I’m here, I’m here,” he whispered back, his own voice hoarse with unshed tears and frayed nerves. He dropped to his knees beside the cot, forcing himself to be eye-level with her, to meet her gaze directly. Her face, though still flushed with lingering warmth, was undeniably her own. Her eyes were open – dazed, confused, but undeniably open, the irises a familiar warm brown.

“How are you feeling, ladybug?” he managed, the pet name a shaky anchor in the storm of his relief.

Her tiny nose wrinkled in thought, a familiar, endearing habit. “My tummy’s hot. An’ my arms feel weird.”

A fragile smile touched his lips, a desperate attempt to counter the knot of tension that still coiled tight in his gut. “Weird how, sweet pea?”

She squinted at her hands, turning them over as if examining a foreign object. “Like… tickly but not funny-tickly. Like bzzzt. Like the mosquitoes.” The description, delivered with a child’s earnestness, was perplexing.

He didn’t understand what she meant—chakra? No, it couldn’t be. She was three.

He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but the door slid open, and the young nurse from earlier stepped in with a clipboard.

“She’s awake? Oh, thank the Sage.” She smiled tightly and gave a nod. “The attending doctor will be here shortly. We… we have some findings.”

He didn’t like that word. Findings. It had too many edges. Like they were discovering something about her he should have known.

A cold wave of self-doubt washed over him. Was it his fault? Had he missed some obvious sign, some subtle clue he could have deciphered sooner? Something he could have fixed, just by noticing? The questions clawed at his already raw nerves.

The doctor arrived not long after – an older man, his face a landscape of etched lines, weathered by countless years of war casualties and, likely, just as many sleepless nights as the baker himself had just endured. His pristine white coat, startlingly clean, was a sharp, almost jarring contrast to the faint, metallic scent of blood that seemed to linger in the very air of the hospital building. He looked at Himari, then at the chart in his hand, then back to the father, his gaze methodical, assessing.

“You're the girl’s guardian?” The question was direct, clipped.

“Yes. Her father.”

The doctor nodded and stepped closer, glancing once more at the girl. “She’s stabilized. That’s the important part. She’ll need rest and fluids, but the fever has broken, and the convulsions have stopped.”

He let out a breath. “So she’s going to be okay?”

There was a pause. Not long, not outwardly dramatic, but long enough. Long enough to unseat whatever fragile relief had just begun to form in his chest, sending a fresh wave of dread through him.

“We ran a few additional tests,” the doctor continued, his voice devoid of inflection. “Not just for infection—though she did have a minor viral agent, nothing too unusual for children her age. But what we didn’t expect was this.”

He produced a paper, holding it out. It was some kind of chakra diagnostic scan. The baker squinted at it, his eyes trying to make sense of the abstract patterns, but it meant absolutely nothing to him. Just a confusing swirl of colors and concentric rings, like a watercolor painting gone inexplicably wrong.

“She’s not a shinobi,” he stated flatly, the words an instinctive defense.

“No, obviously no, ” the doctor agreed, his gaze still on the scan. “But she has an unusually developed chakra system for her age. Complex patterns, well-defined pathways. Frankly, we rarely see this kind of chakra maturity in children this young.”

He stared, trying to reconcile the doctor’s detached scientific explanation with his three-year-old daughter. “So is she sick, or not?” The question was blunt, desperate for a simple answer.

“That’s the question,” the doctor admitted, a rare flicker of something akin to uncertainty in his eyes. “We don’t believe this was caused by a virus. Her chakra system surged in a way that suggests a kind of… internal defense mechanism. Almost like a failsafe.”

“A defense against what?” he pressed, the words tumbling out.

“That’s what we can’t determine. There was no sign of toxins, no external trauma. But her brain and body reacted as if she were in severe distress—a fight-or-flight response, except it was chakra-driven. We think her system may have responded to a psychological trigger.”

He looked down at Himari, who was still curled beneath the thin blanket, drifting in and out of a shallow sleep, her small chest rising and falling with quiet breaths. “You think this happened… because she was scared?” 

“In a manner of speaking. But it goes deeper than simple fear. It could be cellular memory, developmental trauma, or possibly—” The doctor hesitated, then pressed on, his voice dropping slightly. 

“Possibly a rare illness. Or a kekkei genkai in its earliest manifestation.”

The baker blinked. “A bloodline limit?”

“Yes. Though nothing currently recognized. It could be an unidentified anomaly, a chakra disorder, or—given her young age—a mutation still stabilizing. We’ve flagged it for further study, but we can’t determine a clear diagnosis at this time.”

“And if it’s… something dangerous?”

“We’ll monitor. She needs rest, low stress, and regular observation. That’s all we can say right now.”

He nodded numbly. The word “kekkei genkai” spun around in his head like ash in a windstorm.

---

They discharged her that very evening.

The walk home felt strangely disorienting, like stepping into a world that had subtly shifted without his permission. The familiar streets hadn’t physically moved. The clouds still drifted lazily above the rooftops, seemingly oblivious to the seismic shift in his life. But something fundamental had changed. And even as Himari skipped beside him, her small hand gripping his pinky finger, her steps light and careless, he couldn’t stop watching her, a new, protective anxiety tightening his chest.

She hummed something tuneless, a cheerful, wordless melody, stopping now and then to point out a particularly vibrant flower or an odd-shaped rock. Each moment of her innocent joy was a stark contrast to the heavy weight of the doctor's words.

“Da?” Her voice broke into his thoughts, a sweet, clear bell.

“Hm?” he murmured, his gaze still fixed on her.

“Can we get taiyaki today?” Her request was so innocent, so perfectly normal, it hit him with the force of a physical blow. She had asked for it so guilelessly, like she hadn’t just clung to the precipice of something terrifying.

His throat went tight. He imagined the sweet, red bean paste, the crispy, warm shell. “I’ll make you some at home,” he said softly, managing a small, wobbly smile. “We’ve got sweet bean paste left.”

“Yay!” She spun in a little circle, her arms flung wide, a whirlwind of pure, unadulterated delight.

She didn’t remember the fever, the convulsions, the hospital, or the fear. Or perhaps she was pretending she didn’t. Either way, he didn’t push. He couldn’t bear to shatter that fragile bubble of childlike ignorance.

---

Life, in its relentless way, somehow resumed.

He reopened the bakery two days later. There wasn’t much to sell – the ration flour still produced bread that tasted faintly of wet socks – but people came anyway. Bread was bread, a staple, a comfort. And the pervasive, warm scent of something baking felt like safety to most, a familiar anchor in a world still scarred by recent conflicts.

Himari stayed in the back room, a small, diligent figure. She meticulously stacked flour tins, her small hands dusting off imaginary grime, and drew elaborate faces on the rough plaster wall with charcoal nubs, her imagination blossoming even in the humble space.

Her fever didn’t return. There were no more strange, internal sparks under her skin, no more unsettling descriptions of “tickly” feelings. She was just a girl again, whole and vibrantly alive.

He’d almost, painstakingly, convinced himself it was truly over.

Until the recruiter arrived.

It was mid-afternoon, that quiet hour when the sun slanted through the bakery’s front window, painting the worn floorboards and dust motes in a warm, golden glow. The man wore a flak vest, but he didn’t look much like a hardened frontliner. He seemed more like a paper pusher, someone who had perhaps fought in the past but now oversaw lists and quotas, detached from the raw brutality of combat. His presence, however, was immediately unsettling.

The knock on the door was sharp. Businesslike. Unmistakable.

He wiped his hands on his flour-dusted apron, a nervous habit, and opened the door.

“Bakery’s open,” he said automatically, his voice a practiced, welcoming drone.

“I’m not here for bread.” The man’s voice was calm, polite, yet undeniably firm. He offered a slight nod. “I’m here on behalf of the Academy Recruitment Office and the Konoho Child Services. Regarding your daughter, Himari.”

He stiffened, every muscle in his body tensing. The warmth of the bakery seemed to vanish, replaced by a sudden, inexplicable chill. “What about her?” The words were clipped, defensive.

“We received a report from Konoha General Hospital,” the man continued, unperturbed, producing a scroll with the official, unmistakable Academy seal embossed upon it. The sight of it felt like a cold stone settling in his stomach.

“Due to a flagged chakra diagnostic and the possibility of a unique kekkei genkai or advanced chakra disorder, the Hokage has authorized us to perform a preliminary field evaluation.”

“She’s three,” the baker said, more forcefully this time, his voice rising with a desperate edge.

“She’s not gonna be a  shinobi. She’s not even old enough to hold a kunai.” The absurdity of it was infuriating.

“We’re aware. This is not a recruitment in the traditional sense,” the man assured him, his voice calm but unwavering. “This is about observation and care. Children who exhibit rare chakra anomalies must be documented, both for their own safety and that of the village.”

The baker’s jaw clenched so tightly it ached. “She just got out of the hospital. They said she needs rest.” He tried to cling to the doctor’s words, a flimsy shield against this new assault.

“And rest she’ll have. But we’d like to begin non-invasive assessments—chakra sensitivity tests, elemental markers, behavioral monitoring. All off-site, no Academy exposure unless approved.” The man’s tone conveyed an unwavering authority.

“Why so fast?” he demanded, suspicion coloring his voice.

“Because there are risks when these things go unnoticed,” the recruiter said, his voice dropping to a more serious register, the underlying steel becoming evident. “Chakra mutations, if unregulated, can cause long-term harm—to the child or others. Early cases can be misdiagnosed. We’ve seen what happens when a bloodline limit manifests without oversight. Sometimes it ends in tragedy.” The word hung in the air, a chilling echo of the doctor's earlier warning.

He stepped further into the doorway, instinctively blocking the man’s view of the back room, of Himari. “She’s not a weapon.”

“No,” the recruiter agreed, his gaze softening slightly. “But she might be a child who needs help. And you can’t do this alone.”

There was no venom in the words. No overt threat. Just a quiet, unyielding certainty that felt more potent than any shouted command.

He didn’t speak for a long minute, the silence punctuated only by the distant sounds of the street. But slowly, with a heavy, leaden feeling in his gut, he nodded. It was a hesitant, uncertain nod, a surrender more than an agreement.

Behind him, Himari peeked around the corner of the back room, clutching her drawing of the winged fox, her small face framed by the peeling paint of the doorway. Her eyes, wide and curious, flicked between the two men, sensing the unfamiliar tension.

“Da?” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

The recruiter’s demeanor shifted, softening almost imperceptibly. “That must be her. Himari-chan?”

She nodded slowly, a tiny, tentative movement.

“My name is Iseda-san. I’m from the village. I help kids who have strong chakra. Can I talk to you for a little while? Just talk, that’s all.” His voice was gentle, carefully modulated, designed to put a child at ease.

She looked up at her father, her eyes filled with a question he couldn’t answer.

He knelt beside her, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, trying to infuse his touch with all the reassurance he could muster. “You remember what we talked about? About how your body got sick, and we don’t know why yet?”

She nodded again, a faint frown creasing her brow.

“Well, this man might help us figure it out. Just talking, like a doctor. Okay?” He hated the half-truth, but it was all he could offer her now.

“…Okay.” She finally looked at Iseda-san, then back at her father, and with a brave little exhale, took his outstretched hand without hesitation.

He watched them from behind the counter as they sat at the shop’s front table, bathed in the lingering golden light of the afternoon. The recruiter was gentle, careful with every word, his explanations simple and reassuring. Himari responded with quiet curiosity, her brow furrowed in thought, her tiny fingers tracing the rough grain of the wooden tabletop.

He didn’t like it. He didn’t like any of it. He wanted to scoop her up, to carry her back to the safety of the back room, to protect her from this new, overwhelming reality. But he couldn’t deny the undeniable truth either.

She was different. Profoundly so.

And she would need more than just his love and the comforting scent of flour to grow up safe in this world.

For now, he watched. For now, she was still his little girl, drawing winged foxes and asking for taiyaki.

And he would be damned if he didn’t stay by her side for every single step of it.

Chapter Text

The afternoon sun, now a muted gold, painted long, softening stripes across the bakery’s worn wooden floor. The faint, sterile scent of hospital antiseptic still clung to Himari’s clothes, a ghost of recent fear. Himari herself, oblivious to the subtle tension between the adults, was absorbed in tracing the grain of the wooden table with a child’s intense focus.

Iseda-san, the recruiter, had subtly shifted his tone from gentle inquiry to precise, official business. He’d just finished explaining the preliminary chakra sensitivity tests.

"Her response to the preliminary chakra sensitivity test was quite notable, Takeshi-san," Iseda-san stated, his gaze sharp and direct. The casual air from before vanished. "It appears to confirm the atypical chakra readings reported by Konoha General Hospital."

Takeshi swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. "What exactly does this mean?" he managed, a hint of anxiety in his voice.

Iseda-san inclined his head. "It means we need to conduct a more comprehensive evaluation. The Hokage’s office has prioritized this, given the potential for an unidentified bloodline limit or a significant chakra anomaly. This assessment is critical for understanding her unique physiology and, more importantly, for ensuring her long-term safety and the village’s strategic preparedness." He paused, letting his words sink in. "I’ll return tomorrow morning, at precisely nine o’clock. I’ll be accompanied by a small, specialized team: experienced shinobi for observation, and a Yamanaka medical-nin for a detailed behavioral and psychological assessment. The Yamanaka clan's expertise in mind-body connections will be invaluable, especially with the hospital’s suggestion of a psychological trigger for her initial symptoms."

A cold dread settled in Takeshi’s stomach. A team? Shinobi? A Yamanaka? This was far more than just a doctor’s visit. “A formal assessment? What will it involve?” he pressed.

“It will remain non-invasive, as I said,” Iseda-san reiterated, his voice firm. “We’ll observe her behavior, interactions, and responses to controlled stimuli. The Yamanaka specialist will look for any irregular chakra manifestations, how her emotional state influences them, and any potential feedback loops with her nervous system. The main goal is observation, to understand her abilities. There will be no physical contact beyond medical necessities, and absolutely no combat training at this stage.” He offered a practiced, distant smile. "Our mandate is understanding, not immediate training. Not yet, at least."

Takeshi’s jaw clenched. "And if... if I refuse?"

Iseda-san's expression remained impassive, his gaze unwavering. "Takeshi-san, this isn't a request. This directive comes from the Hokage, for the protection of all involved parties. Undocumented chakra mutations, especially powerful ones, carry significant risk if not understood. History shows the tragic consequences when powerful abilities manifest without proper oversight, for the individual and the community. Our intention is to provide Himari with the necessary understanding and support. This is not a burden you can bear alone." The words, though not unkind, landed like a heavy blow.

Takeshi looked down at Himari, her small fingers still tracing patterns on the tabletop. She glanced up, her eyes wide and trusting, unaware of the conversation shaping her future. He knew, with chilling certainty, he had no real choice. He was a baker, a simple craftsman. This went beyond him. He could only hope these shinobi, this formidable village, truly had Himari's best interests at heart.

He exhaled slowly, resignation heavy in his voice. "Alright," he murmured. "Tomorrow, then. Nine o'clock."

Iseda-san gave a brief nod, a flicker of professional approval in his eyes. He rose, offered Himari a final, gentle smile, then, with a crisp, formal nod to Takeshi, he left. His absence left behind a silence heavier than before.

The next morning brought a crisp, cool air, but for Takeshi, the atmosphere felt unnaturally dense, almost suffocating. Sleep had been scarce, haunted by Iseda-san's solemn face, the sterile hospital report, and the chilling phrase "bloodline limit." He'd made Himari her favorite breakfast – warm, sweet taiyaki – hoping to keep her spirits bright, to shield her from the coming intrusion.

At precisely nine o’clock, a sharp, authoritative knock echoed through the quiet bakery. Takeshi’s stomach clenched. He took a deep breath, trying to project calm, and opened the door.

Standing on his doorstep was Iseda-san, his expression solemn. Beside him were three other shinobi. The first was Juro, a broad-shouldered man with a scar on his cheek, radiating quiet intensity. The second was Inori-san, a woman with sharp, intelligent eyes and a Yamanaka clan forehead protector, her demeanor sharp and analytical. The third was Ken, a younger, lean shinobi, alert and watchful.

"Good morning, Takeshi-san," Iseda-san greeted, his voice low. "Thank you for accommodating us." He gestured to his companions. "This is Juro, our primary observer. This is Inori-san, our Yamanaka medical-nin. And this is Ken, providing general support."

Takeshi nodded stiffly, stepping aside to let them in. The shinobi moved with an unsettling quietness, their presence filling the small bakery with a new, formidable energy. Himari, drawing in the back, peeked out, wide-eyed at the stern newcomers.

"Himari-chan," Iseda-san said, his voice softening. "Do you remember me? These are my friends. We're here to play some fun games and help us understand more about how your body works, remember?"

Himari, clutching her stuffed bunny, nodded shyly, her gaze flitting between the shinobi, lingering on Inori-san.

The assessment began quietly. Inoichi-san took the lead, her movements calm and deliberate. She sat at the front table with Himari, engaging her in simple, child-friendly activities. She used colorful blocks, asking Himari how they felt, what colors she liked, observing her motor skills, focus, and emotional responses. Juro and Ken stood back, their eyes constantly assessing, noting subtle changes in Himari's posture, expressions, or any faint flicker of energy around her.

Inori-san explained to Takeshi, in a low voice, that they were looking for any spontaneous chakra manifestations, hoping to see if the "internal defense mechanism" from the hospital would trigger under specific emotional or physiological states. She gently guided Himari through small tasks – drawing, simple puzzles, identifying scents from jars.

Takeshi hovered nervously, making stilted small talk with Ken, his gaze fixed on Himari, a silent prayer on his lips. The air in the bakery hummed with taut expectation.

Hours passed. The assessment unfolded with painstaking patience. Himari remained curious and cooperative, though Takeshi saw her growing weariness, the slight slump of her shoulders, the occasional yawn she tried to stifle. Inori-san was skilled at keeping her engaged, asking about her feelings, her favorite colors, what made her happy or sad. 

Then, during a quiet moment as Inori-san noted observations on her clipboard, Juro, the broad-shouldered shinobi, shifted. His foot caught on a loose floorboard, and he stumbled, his hand instinctively reaching to brace against the counter. His forearm slammed hard into the corner.

A sharp crack echoed in the silence, followed by a low grunt of pain from Juro. He clutched his arm, his face contorting. Even from across the room, Takeshi saw the alarming swelling. Clearly a bad sprain, possibly a fracture.

Himari, focused on her drawing, stiffened. Her head snapped up, eyes wide, fixed on Juro. Takeshi saw it then – a subtle shift in the air around her, a nearly invisible shimmer, like heat haze or a ripple in space. It emanated from her, a faint, warm, slightly pressurized stillness that expanded outward. Those in its radius might have felt it as a curious sensation, like being underwater or enveloped in a gentle heartbeat. This was the first, unbidden manifestation of her unique kekkei genkai.

Juro, still gritting his teeth, felt it too. The searing pain in his arm suddenly dulled. It didn't vanish, but became a distant ache, a muted echo. His muscles, previously spasming, relaxed. He blinked, confusion warring with relief.

"What...?" he muttered, looking at his arm, then at Himari.

Inori-san, closer to Himari, gasped softly, a rare display of professional astonishment. Her sharp eyes fixed on the subtle, almost imperceptible chakra threads blooming from Himari’s small body, spreading like a delicate web through the air, nearly invisible save for the faintest shimmer. This was it. The manifestation they'd been seeking.

Himari, eyes still wide with instinctive concern for Juro, swayed. A thin trickle of crimson seeped from her nose, mirroring the intense exertion of her power. Her face, already pale, turned alarmingly ashen.

Takeshi rushed forward. "Himari! Are you okay?!"

Iseda-san, his own eyes alight with professional confirmation and profound awe, quickly stepped between Takeshi and Himari, a hand raised. "Don't touch her yet, Takeshi-san! It's activating! Juro, report your condition!"

Juro cautiously flexed his fingers, disbelief on his face. "The pain... it's subsided. Not completely, but it’s like someone reduced the intensity. I can articulate the joint." He looked from his arm to Himari, then to Inoichi-san, his voice filled with quiet wonder. "This... this is a bloodline limit."

Inori-san nodded, her gaze glued to Himari, who was now teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. "It responded to his pain. An instinctive, powerful, and previously unknown response." She murmured, almost to herself, a blend of scientific awe and confirmation. 

Just as the words left her lips, Himari’s small body slumped. Her eyes fluttered, then closed. She crumpled, caught by Iseda-san before she hit the floor. He gently scooped her up, her small form limp and exhausted. The faint, shimmering chakra threads around her flickered, then vanished. The unique sensation of the chakra field dissipated, and a sharp, throbbing pain immediately flared in Juro's injured arm, making him wince.

"She's unconscious," Iseda-san stated, his voice soft as he held the fragile child. "Likely exhaustion. This level of uncontrolled activation is profoundly taxing. But we have our confirmation. A new kekkei genkai. It's undeniably real."

Takeshi stared, his daughter’s pale, unconscious face a stark, irrefutable testament to the immense power that had just manifested within her. He knew with chilling certainty that her path, and his, had irrevocably changed. The bakery, his quiet life, would never be the same. The village had called, and Himari, his little lady bug, had answered in a way neither of them, nor perhaps anyone, could have anticipated. She wasn't just Himari anymore. She possessed a bloodline limit. And the world of shinobi was about to claim her.

Inori-san moved swiftly, her medical expertise taking over. She gently took Himari from Iseda-san’s arms, laying the child carefully on a clean cloth Takeshi had instinctively provided. She quickly examined Himari, checking her pulse, breathing, and pupils. Takeshi watched, holding his breath, his hands clenching.

"She’s stable, but deeply exhausted," Inori-san announced, her voice calm and professional. "The nosebleed indicates significant chakra strain. Her system isn't accustomed to such output. Rest is paramount." She then turned to Juro. "Juro-san, let me see that arm."

Juro, his pain returning in full force, winced as Inoichi-san gently probed his swollen forearm. "Definitely a fracture, likely the radius, and a significant sprain to the wrist. It needs to be set and immobilized immediately. But," he added, still amazed, "the pain was completely muted. It was… extraordinary."

Inorii-san nodded gravely. "A remarkable effect. It suggests a direct neurological interaction, bypassing conventional pain receptors. This is highly unusual, even for established bloodline limits." She quickly applied a basic splint to Juro's arm. "Ken, please escort Juro-san to the hospital. He needs immediate medical attention."

As Ken led the injured Juro out, Iseda-san turned back to Takeshi, his expression now a blend of professional gravity and profound wonder. He gestured towards the back room where Himari now lay sleeping, oblivious to the momentous discovery.

"Takeshi-san," Iseda-san began, his voice lowered, "what happened here confirms our suspicions more than we could have predicted. Your daughter possesses a kekkei genkai, a bloodline limit entirely new to our records. Its immediate effect – suppressing pain and stabilization in response to acute trauma – is nothing short of revolutionary."

Takeshi stood rigidly, listening, his mind reeling. "What happens now?"

Iseda-san paced slowly, his gaze sweeping over the familiar, yet now alien, bakery. "Firstly, Himari will need to be observed at the hospital for about a week. Not because she’s sick, but for careful monitoring as her chakra system stabilizes after this activation. We need to understand its fluctuations, its baseline." He paused, then continued, his voice becoming more formal. "Secondly, due to the significance of this discovery, her formal entry into the Ninja Academy will be accelerated. Enrollment for the new class is set for three months from now."

Takeshi felt a cold shock. "Accelerated? But she's only three!"

"Precisely," Iseda-san countered, his tone unyielding. "Her age makes this even more critical. A nascent kekkei genkai of this power cannot be left unmonitored. Uncontrolled, it could unintentionally harm her, or others. Controlled, it represents an incredible asset to the village, especially in a medical or support capacity. Early integration into the Academy allows for specialized, highly supervised training tailored to her unique abilities. This isn't about making her a frontline combatant overnight, Takeshi-san. It's about nurturing her power safely, guiding its development, and ensuring she understands how to control something so intrinsically part of her."

"But... what if she doesn't want to be a shinobi?" Takeshi asked, his voice raw. The thought of Himari, his sweet, gentle Himari, in the brutal world of ninja, tore at him.

Iseda-san stopped pacing, his eyes softening slightly, a flicker of genuine empathy. "Takeshi-san, the choice to become a shinobi is ultimately hers, as she grows older. However, possessing a kekkei genkai isn't just a talent; it's a responsibility. The village, and the Hokage, have a vested interest in individuals with such unique capabilities. For her own safety, and for Konoha’s security, her abilities must be understood and managed. The Academy provides the structured environment for that. She'll receive the best medical care, advanced chakra control training, and dedicated instruction on how to live with this power. We'll ensure she isn't pushed beyond her limits, especially at her age."

He stepped closer, placing a hand on Takeshi’s shoulder. "This isn't a life you can prepare her for alone, Takeshi-san. You've given her love, comfort, a normal childhood. But this… this is beyond what a baker can manage. The village will provide the necessary resources to ensure her safe, guided growth. She will be a vital part of Konoha's future."

Takeshi looked towards the back room where Himari slept, her breathing soft and even. He thought of what she's been feeling, of the sudden dulling of Juro’s pain. Whatever and wherever her nascent power stemmed from, it had responded to pain, to distress. It sought to protect, to lessen suffering. It wasn't a weapon of destruction, but a shield, a balm.

"Will I... will she be okay?" he asked, his voice small, vulnerable.

"Of course," Iseda-san assured him, his voice firm. "This isn't an abduction, Takeshi-san. She'll still reside in your home. Her well-being, both physical and emotional, remains our priority. We'll ensure she has ample time with her family. This is about integrating her power into her life, not severing her from it."

Takeshi nodded slowly, the words sinking in. His quiet life, his simple bakery, were about to become intertwined with the intricate, often dangerous, world of shinobi. Himari, his little flame, was no longer just his. She was now a secret, a power, a potential asset to the village. The path ahead was uncertain, fraught with challenges he couldn't yet comprehend. 

The three months that followed were a strange blend of quiet routine and unsettling anticipation. Himari spent her week in the hospital, undergoing more tests, though she barely noticed, charming the nurses with her innocent questions and delighting in the occasional new picture book. The hospital staff, now keenly aware of her unique chakra, treated her with a curious mix of clinical observation and gentle awe. When she returned home, she was the same Himari, bright-eyed and eager for playtime, her brief moments of exhaustion and nosebleeds growing further apart, a quiet testament to her maturing chakra system and the gentle care she was now receiving.

The weight of the impending Academy enrollment, set for October 10th, hung over Takeshi like a looming cloud, a constant, low thrum beneath the surface of his days. But he refused to let it overshadow her upcoming fourth birthday, on October 1st. He was determined to give her one more perfectly normal, purely joyful memory before the path inevitably changed forever.

He spent days preparing. He kneaded the richest dough he had, using some of the precious specialty flour he usually reserved for his most discerning customers. He shaped it into tiny, intricate animal buns – plump, whiskered foxes with currant eyes, little birds with delicate sugar wings, and even a miniature taiyaki that Himari shrieked with delight at when she saw it. The entire bakery filled with the irresistible scent of sweet pastry, melted chocolate, and the comforting warmth of baking bread.

On the morning of her birthday, the shop remained closed, the usually bustling front door locked. Takeshi had decorated their small, cozy back room with a riot of colorful paper streamers he’d meticulously cut himself, and a few wilting wildflowers Himari had gathered from the nearby fields, their simplicity adding a touch of childlike charm. He lit the single, flickering lamp, casting a warm glow over the homemade decorations.

Then, with a flourish, he presented her with a small, wooden doll. It was carefully whittled and painted by a traveling artisan, dressed in a tiny baker’s apron just like Takeshi’s own, complete with minuscule flour smudges painted onto the fabric. Himari gasped, her small hands flying to her mouth, eyes wide with a wonder that stole Takeshi’s breath.

"Oh, Dada! She's so, so pretty!" she whispered, her voice a tiny, reverent breath. "Like me! And she's a baker, too!" She hugged the doll tightly to her chest, her face buried in its soft wooden head, then looked up at Takeshi, her face beaming with an unfiltered joy that brought tears to his eyes. "Can we eat cake now, Dada? Please?"

Takeshi chuckled, a genuine, warm sound that eased some of the tension he’d carried in his chest for months. "Of course, lady bug. It's your special day, after all."

He brought out the cake – a simple, perfectly baked sponge, frosted with fresh cream and adorned with four tiny, flickering candles. Himari clapped her hands, her excitement contagious, a small, bouncy ball of pure happiness. She squeezed her eyes shut, a tiny, determined frown on her face as she made her silent wish, then blew out the candles with an eager puff, scattering a wisp of smoke into the air.

As she devoured her slice of cake, sweet cream smudged on her nose and chin, Takeshi watched her, a bittersweet ache in his chest. Her laughter filled the small room, bright and unburdened, like the chiming of tiny bells. For this precious moment, she was just Himari, his beloved daughter, celebrating her fourth year in the world. The world of shinobi, of bloodline limits and accelerated enrollments, felt distant, almost unreal, a dark storm gathering far off on the horizon.

He scooped her up, holding her close, inhaling the sweet scent of cake and child, the comforting warmth of her small body against his. "Happy birthday, Himari," he whispered into her soft hair. "My precious lady bug."

She squirmed happily in his arms, oblivious to the unspoken farewell in his voice, the silent promise he renewed to himself. Just nine more days until October 10th. Then she would walk through the Academy gates. But for today, she was just his. And he would cherish every last second of this beautiful, fragile, ordinary joy.

Chapter Text

Dada said I get to go to school today. But my tummy feels funny. A little wiggly. He said I have to learn squiggly lines called hiragana and big numbers. But I already know how to count! I can count all my fingers and toes! Almost.

"One... two... three... four..." I whisper, my mouth feels like sand. "Five... six... seven? Or is it shichi?" I stop there. Eight is a sneaky number. It always runs away from me. Like trying to catch a bouncy ball.

My blankets are so warm, like a big, soft hug. They smell like the smoke from our chimney and the barley tea Dada drinks. It smells like Mama used to smell, warm and safe, before she went to the long-away place. My fingers wiggle on the edge of my old quilt. The bumpy parts feel like tiny stories in my fingers.

Outside, the sky is still sleepy gray. And little tiny ice spiders made white webs on the window. My breath makes a cloud on the glass. Today feels big. Like a really, really tall building.

I hear Dada humming. Mmm-mmm-mmm. It’s his nervous hum. Not the happy bakery hum that makes the bread dance. This one is quiet, like he’s thinking about something big. Maybe about my first day.

Tap-tap. He knocks just once, and then his big, smiley face peeks in. "Morning, ladybug! Ready for your big day?" His voice is extra sunny.

I sit up slow, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. The warm blankets are already letting go of me. He holds up my blue kimono. It has a tiny bumpy place where he fixed it after I caught it on the fence last winter. Dada fixes everything.

"Arms up," he says, a small smile playing on his lips.

The kimono slides over my head. It smells like rice flour and sunshine. Just like Dada.

"You look like a full moon in spring," he says, tying my sash. He makes the best knots.

"That means fat," I say. I heard that from a grumpy customer once.

He laughs, a big rumble from his tummy. He messes up my hair, but it doesn't hurt. "No, Himari. It means round and perfect. Like a happy ball." He gives the sash a last tug. "Are you feeling okay about today?"

I look at my wiggling fingers. "Will they like me?" My voice feels like a tiny mouse.

His hands stop. He gets down on his knees so his eyes are right with mine. His eyes are serious, but soft, like my comfy pillow. "You don't have to make them like you, Himari. You just have to be kind. And brave." He leans closer. "And if anyone, anyone, makes you feel tiny? You tell me. Okay?"

"Even the teacher?" That sounds like a really, really big person.

"Especially then," he says, like it's a very important secret. "No one gets to make my ladybug feel tiny."

I nod my head very seriously. That's a good deal. "Can I bring Bun-bun?" My soft rabbit doll is the best for hugs.

He shakes his head, but his eyes crinkle with happy lines. "Bun-bun is on flour duty today. Someone needs to supervise the yeast. She's the boss of the bakery until we come home. Making sure everything rises perfectly."

I giggle. My first happy giggle today! I squeeze his big, warm hand. "Okay."

We go outside when it's still quiet. The street is wet from the night-time rain, and the road looks like shiny glass. Only a few people are putting out their market stuff. We walk past the house with lots of dogs. They're all stretching and yawning, like sleepy fur puddles. One dog makes a rumbling sound in his chest, grrr, when we walk by. Then he sniffs the air with his wiggly nose. And then he just stares at me. Like he wants to ask a question.

Dada's hand squeezes mine a little. Just a little. He always knows.

Up ahead, I see the Ninja Academy. It's a big, big building behind lots of bare trees. Their pink flower petals are all gone. The building looks old. It smells like chalk and old wood and ink. Like serious grown-up smells.

Some bigger kids in dark clothes walk by. They laugh so loud! They look at me quickly, then look away. Like I'm just a little ant. I look down at my new boots. They feel too big.

Inside the building, we meet a tall man. He has a green vest and a shiny metal thing on his forehead. He doesn't smile at first. But his voice is soft. "Takeshi-san? And this is Himari-chan?"

Dada nods. He does a polite little head-bow. "That's right. This is her first day."

The man that looks really strong, bends a little to meet my eyes, and I see a tiny bumpy line above his eyebrow. "Himari," he says, his voice like a gentle bear. "I’m Shōta, you can call me Shōta-sensei. I'll be overseeing Class 3-B. It's a mixed-age group, mostly boys around 6 and 7. You're younger, but you were approved to audit the class. Do you know what that means, 'audit'?"

I shake my head. My braid wiggles. Audit. That's a funny sound.

"It means you’ll be here to watch and listen. To learn the rhythm of our days here," he explains patiently. He stands, looking at Dada. "She won't participate in physical activities today, and we'll keep her off the training roster until further evaluation. She'll observe first, learn the rhythm. I promise to keep an eye on her, Takeshi-san."

"Thank you, Sensei," Dada says. I feel his shoulders relax. Like a big sigh without a sound.

He kneels beside me again, pulling me close for a quick hug. "You got this, ladybug. You don’t need to be perfect. Just be you. And remember what we talked about."

I nod, squeezing his hand one more time. It feels warm and strong.

Then, Shōta-sensei opens the classroom door.

The room is already loud. So many loud voices! Laughter bounces off the chalkboard and the walls. The desks are in neat rows, like little soldiers, but lots of kids are wiggling in their seats or leaning to whisper secrets. Little white dust clouds, like tiny snow, float in the sunbeams.

Twenty-one kids! Fifteen boys. Six girls. And one of them is me.

When I take my first step inside, everything gets slow. The laughing sounds get quiet. The whispers get tiny.

A few heads turn.

"Who's the little one?" someone murmurs.

A boy with yellow hair in the back grins. A wide, sneaky grin. He pokes the boy next to him. "Looks like we got a new recruit, Ensui. Think she's got lost on her way to the nursery?"

The boy next to him, with dark, calm eyes and neat hair, just sighs, rubbing his temples. He has a deer picture on his uniform. "Eiji, stop being annoying," he mutters, his voice a low, even drawl, barely above a whisper. "It's too early for your silly tricks."

I freeze just inside the door. My face feels warm, like hot mochi. All the eyes are on me! My hands squeeze into fists inside my kimono sleeves.

Shōta-sensei clears his throat. A-hem! It's a big, loud sound that makes everyone stop. "Settle down. That’s enough. Everyone, this is Himari. She's been granted permission to audit the class. She’ll be observing for now, so please treat her with respect." He glances pointedly at Eiji.

No one claps. No one says "hello." A few kids look at me, their expressions unreadable, then go back to whispering, their interest already waning.

"You can sit in the back for today," Shōta-sensei says quietly to me. He points to a tiny, empty desk by the window. It feels like a quiet corner. "You don’t need to write anything unless you want to. Just absorb it all."

I nod, happy for the quiet corner. I tiptoe to the seat, trying to be as small as a mouse. No one talks to me. I don’t talk to anyone. I keep my hands folded in my lap, just like Shōta-sensei stands, very calm.

When everyone is sitting, Shōta-sensei walks to the front. He picks up a big paper roll. His voice projects easily, filling the quieted room.

"Today, we begin the first quarter curriculum," he says. "You will be trained across six primary subjects: ninjutsu theory, taijutsu basics, weapon safety and handling, chakra control, shinobi history, and written studies including language and arithmetic."

I sit up very straight. My eyes are so big. That sounds like so, so many things. Ninjutsu theory. Taijutsu basics. Chakra control. I looked down at my hands. I don't understand those big words. Are they hard? I'll ask Dada and Bun-bun later. They know it for sure.

"You are expected to complete weekly assessments in writing, perform regular drills in the field, and participate in group exercises that build teamwork and reaction strategy."

Groooans go through the room. A few boys flop in their seats. Eiji makes a big, loud, pretend tired sound, which gets a small nudge from the boy next to him.

"Chakra control exercises will begin in two weeks," Shōta-sensei continues, ignoring the complaints. "Physical sparring begins after the first month. Shuriken and kunai handling will only be permitted under supervision starting next quarter. And only after you’ve proven competency with safe handling protocols."

He lets that sink in. The room gets very quiet. Then he talks again. "For the rest of this week, we will be focusing on refining your basic kanji, movement posture, breathing control, and reaction training. You will also be assigned your rotating team groups by the end of the week."

He glances toward me, a quick, almost imperceptible nod. "Our new observer, Himari, will not be joining in any physical activities this month. Her placement here is evaluative, as you know."

Eiji catches Ensui's eye and makes a fake sleepy sound, zzzzzz. Ensui gives him another little elbow poke.

Shōta-sensei doesn't look at them. "Now, open your scrolls. We begin with kanji revision."

The class starts writing. Scratch-scratch-scratch go the brushes on the paper. Some kids whisper secrets with their heads close. The girl with two braids in front of me keeps looking back, like I might fly away. I try to give her a small, happy smile, but she just turns fast back around.

I don’t mind. I keep my hands folded. I watch the boy in the middle. He writes with his arm bent funny, and his tongue pokes out a little.

Suddenly, a tiny, squished paper ball lands right on my desk! My eyes get big!

t's Eiji. He grins at me, then nudges Ensui with his elbow. "See, Ensuu? Even the new kid is more attentive than you."

Ensui just sighs, rubbing his eyes. He slowly stretches his arm across his desk to retrieve the paper from mine. "Give it a rest, Eiji. My brain isn't awake enough for your brand of fun yet." He unfolds the paper. It's a crude drawing of a stick figure with a huge, spiky hairstyle, trying to write kanji with a tiny brush. "Is this supposed to be me? My hair isn't that spiky."

Eiji laughs. "It's a masterpiece. You just lack the artistic appreciation."

Ensui rolls his eyes, then turns his head towards me. His dark eyes are a little sleepy, but not unkind. "He's like this all the time," he murmurs, his voice a low, even drawl. "Don't bother listening to him." He shrugs one shoulder. "I'm Ensui, by the way. Nara. You're Himari, right? Shōta-sensei said."

I nod, surprised he even noticed. "Yes."

"Kanji is such a drag," he says, giving another soft sigh, as if the very thought of it exhausts him. He leans back in his chair, seemingly more interested in the ceiling than his scroll. "My cousin says it’s important for mission reports, but… really? Can’t someone else write them?" He gives me a small, almost imperceptible wink, a hint of dry amusement. "Anyway. Try to ignore Eiji. It’s too much effort to react to him. He loses interest eventually."

I blink, a tiny smile trying to form on my lips. It feels good to hear a friendly voice, even if it's a lazy one. "Okay," I whisper back. He's kind, I'll name one of my plants after hi

Ensui just hums a little, a quiet sound. He finally picks up his brush and makes some slow, sleepy lines on his paper. Then he stops again. He doesn't look at me again, but my shoulders don't feel so tight anymore. Eiji's quiet giggles don't feel so poky now.

When the writing practice finishes, Shōta-sensei shows us a big paper roll about the ninja rules. He writes the words "Loyalty," "Discipline," and "Restraint" on the chalkboard. They are big, strong words.

"These will be the foundation of all your training," he says, his voice serious. "Memorize them. Learn what they mean, not just the sounds, but how they apply to every action you take, every decision you make. By next week, we’ll begin applying them to team exercises."

He walks around the room as he talks, always calm. Like he's done this a million times before. I watch him closely, trying to understand how he makes each word sound so important, like it's a real, living thing.

He gives out little paper stories about the First Hokage and early Konoha history. I listen when he asks kids to read. One kid stutters, um-um-um, on the names. Another rushes so fast I can't catch his words. No one asks me to read.

I'm glad. My voice still feels stuck in my throat.

Lunch time comes late. The bell rings, and everyone bursts out the door like happy puppies! They run to eat outside on the benches. I stay in the classroom. I take out my rice ball Dada packed. I eat it slow and quiet, peeling the seaweed. No one asks me to come outside.

I don’t mind. Not really. It's too loud out there anyway.

Outside, I can still hear Eiji's loud, happy laugh. He's probably still teasing Ensui.

The rest of the day is just watching. We do breath control drills, where kids sit with their eyes closed, like they're sleeping. Just breathing in and out. And easy reaction tests where they have to hold up red or blue flags when Shōta-sensei calls out a color. I sit and watch. My eyes follow the flags, trying to learn the fast patterns.

At one point, a girl with really long, black hair and a serious face looks at me. Then she looks away fast when I look back. She has a tiny, tiny dot on her cheek. I don't know her name, but I wonder if she's quiet too.

When the last bell rings, ding-dong-ding, everyone rushes to the door! Bags slam shut. Brushes clatter. They are all so happy to leave.

I stay behind to pack my things slow. I carefully roll up the blank paper roll I brought.

Shōta-sensei walks over when the last kid is gone. The room feels so quiet now. "You did well today, Himari." His voice is kind. "You listened more than most of them combined. That's a strength."

I nod. I look at his kind eyes. "Thank you, Sensei."

He gives me a small, approving nod back. He starts putting his own papers away.

Dada is waiting in the hallway. He's leaning against the wall, looking a little bit worried. His eyes get really bright when he sees me! A big, happy smile spreads on his face.

"You survived," he says, pushing off the wall.

I nod. I walk to him. "I didn't do anything. Just watched. Like Sensei said."

"Watching is part of learning," he reminds me. He messes up my hair with his free hand, then takes my bag. "So, what did you see today?"

As we walk home, the sun is going down, painting our street orange and purple. I tell him about the writing, and the serious ninja rules, and the First Hokage. I tell him how fast everyone moves, and how they're so strong. I even tell him about Ensui, the boy who talked to me, and how he said writing was a "drag." Dada chuckles at that. He sounded a little sad.

"Dada, are you sad? Why sad?"

"Because you're growing a bit too fast, my ladybug. You're in school now!"

"But I still don't know h-hiragana and counting! I can only count to shichi? Dada!" He laughed at me. I pouted. "All o' them knows how to count, and math, Dada. I don't understan' what they saying."

"Shh, don't be sad ladybug. You'll soon master how to count. Let's go home quickly, okay? Bun-bun's waiting for you!" 

"Kyah! My Bun-bun!"

Chapter Text

By the third month at the Academy, Himari had stopped crying every morning before class. She still hated the wooden practice kunai, they left bruises even when the instructors swore they were harmless—but at least she no longer froze every time they were passed around.

Her classmates were slowly turning into something like friends. Or nuisances. Mostly nuisances.

“Oi, Himari,” Eiji called as they walked toward the training grounds, balancing his bento box on his head like it was some great performance. “Bet you can’t do this without dropping it.”

Himari frowned. “Why would I put food on my head?”

“Because it’s cool.” Eiji grinned, hopping forward dramatically. The box slid and nearly fell, but he caught it at the last second and puffed up with pride. “See? Ninja reflexes. Natural talent.”

“You just look stupid,” Ensui muttered from behind them, hands in his pockets, slouching like the weight of walking itself was unbearable. “If that’s talent, I’ll take being talentless.”

Himari giggled before she could stop herself. “Eiji, you’d lose to gravity before you ever made it as a ninja.”

“Ouch,” Eiji clutched his chest. “Insulted by a kindergarten. Ensui, back me up here.”

“I don’t back weak people up,” Ensui said flatly. “Too much work.”

Their bickering filled the walk until the training grounds opened up before them, already crowded. Today wasn’t just their year—older classes were sparring too. Himari’s stomach flipped at the sight of older kids throwing real punches, kicks landing with sharp cracks that sounded too violent for something still called “school.”

Their own instructor barked orders, splitting the groups. Himari was paired with another girl, tasked with basic striking drills. Her fists stung with every impact, and even though she tried to follow instructions—aim, control, don’t hesitate—the pit in her stomach grew heavier with each blow.

By the time they were given a break, she was nursing her sore hands and trying not to cry.

“Cheer up, Himari,” Eiji plopped down next to her, chewing rice balls like he hadn’t just spent twenty minutes flailing at his partner. “At least you don’t hit as hard as me. People should be grateful.”

“Grateful you’re weak?” Ensui deadpanned, lying in the grass with his arms behind his head.

“Grateful I have mercy,” Eiji shot back, flicking a grain of rice at him.

Himari sighed. “I don’t like this. Hitting people.” Her voice came out smaller than she meant.

“That’s the whole point,” Ensui murmured, eyes half-closed. “You fight, or you get hurt.”

“It’s still wrong,” Himari blurted, frowning hard. “Kids shouldn’t be learning how to hurt each other. We should be… I don’t know… learning math or drawing or something.”

Both boys turned to stare at her.

“…Drawing?” Eiji repeated like she’d spoken another language.

“Math?” Ensui raised an eyebrow. “That won’t stop someone from stabbing you.”

"But that's so child abuse."

"Huh? What's abuse? What's that mean?" Eiji asked completely confused about what the word meant. While Ensui raised a brow.

"Hmm." Ensui hummed looking strangely suspicious.

"Uhm, nevermind."

"You're a weirdo." Eiji said before focusing on the spar between two girls. They are holding each other's hairs and screaming.

Himari felt her cheeks flush. She didn’t know why the words tumbled out of her mouth, only that they felt truer than anything else. Like a memory of something she couldn’t quite reach.

Their instructor called them back after the sparring. This time for endurance training, running laps across the field. 

"Why do they make us run after sparring? What a drag." Ensuie muttered under his breath as he lazily moved his body.

Himari dragged her feet, exhausted halfway through, when she noticed the older students still training nearby. One boy in particular caught her eye. His movements were precise, sharp, faster than anyone else she’d seen. Blonde hair gleamed under the sun as he weaved through practice dummies like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Eiji followed her gaze and whistled low. “That’s Minato-senpai. Third-year. They say he’s already better than some genin. He's cool, I'm cooler though.”

“He doesn’t look tired at all,” Himari mumbled, half in awe, half in despair. Her legs are killing her.

“Some people are just built different,” Ensui said, not even pretending to keep up his run. He slowed to a jog, then a walk, then stopped entirely. “And some of us know when to quit. Ah, I'd love to nap.”

The instructor saw him.

Eiji groaned. “We’re gonna get yelled at. You sloth!”

But Himari barely paid them any mind. Her eyes stayed locked on the blonde kid, and for the first time she wondered—not if she could keep up, but if she was supposed to be here at all.

---

The classroom was louder than usual. Someone had brought sticky rice balls and the smell carried all the way to the back. Half the kids were swapping lunches before the teacher even left. I was trying to untie the knot on my chopsticks when Eiji leaned over the desk with a grin that was too smug for someone who hadn’t even passed the last kunai accuracy test.

“You see him? That Minato guy?” he whispered, eyes darting toward the far corner.

I glanced up. A group of older students had stopped by to speak with the instructor. One of them stood out — taller, confident, with hair that caught the light just right whenever he moved. Everyone else was rowdy, but he carried himself like he already knew he was better than us.

“What about him?” I asked, breaking the chopsticks unevenly.

Eiji smirked. “What about him? You’ve been staring for five minutes.”

“I wasn’t staring.”

Ensui, sprawled across his desk like he might just fall asleep there, cracked one eye open. “You were staring,” he said lazily, voice muffled by his sleeve.

I flushed, scowling. “I wasn’t. I was just… looking.”

“Looking at his face?” Eiji poked my arm. “Looking at his hair? Looking at—”

“Looking at how annoying you are,” I shot back.

That made Ensui snort. “She got you.”

Eiji frowned, then leaned closer like he was sharing a secret. “It’s okay. Lots of people have crushes on geniuses. My mom says it’s normal.”

“I don’t!” I shoved him lightly. “You’re making things up.”

“Sure, sure,” he said, nodding like he was some wise elder. “First it’s ‘I don’t,’ then next thing you know you’re writing his name in your notebook with hearts—”

I grabbed my rice ball and stuffed a bite in my mouth before he could finish. My cheeks burned, not because he was right, but because he was so annoyingly good at teasing.

Ensui yawned. “You two are loud. I’m trying to nap.”

“You’re always trying to nap,” Eiji said. “One day you’ll sleep througgra fight.”

“Sounds nice,” Ensui mumbled.

Their bickering rolled on while I chewed, but my eyes drifted back toward the older student — just for a second. He was talking to the teacher now, nodding politely. Everyone called him brilliant, but I didn’t even know his name. Still, there was something about the way other kids watched him — like he wasn’t just another student.

Before I could think on it, Eiji waved a hand in front of my face. “See? Staring again!”

I smacked his hand away, laughing despite myself. “Shut up.”

---

After lessons ended, the walk home was slower than usual. The sun dipped low, painting the sky with streaks of orange. Eiji raced ahead, trying to balance on the fence, while Ensui trailed behind, yawning every other step.

“You coming tomorrow?” Eiji called back.

"Huh, where?" I asked. Kicking dust and stones beneatth my feet as I walk.

"To play! In the park!" Eiji replied loudly. He's always so loud.

“Okay, I guess. After I help my Dada with deliveries.” I said.

He grinned, nearly losing his balance but catching himself at the last second. “Good. Someone has to keep you from drooling over—”

I hurled a pebble at him. He ducked, laughing so hard he almost fell off the fence this time. Ensui didn’t even look up.

I reached home and saw that my Dada is busy with customers. Instead of walking up to him and disturbing, I silently went to my room, showered, and laid in bed. 

My heart feels heavy. And my mind too. I clutched Bun-bun nearer.

The time passed.

---

Himari curled up under her blanket, her eyes wide open even though the house had long gone quiet. The day still buzzed in her head—Eiji being annoying, Ensui being lazy, the way she feels when something pops up in her head that is so familiar. All of it felt heavy, like a stone on her chest.

She pressed her face into the pillow, trying to push it down. But soon her throat ached, and when a soft hiccup slipped out, she bit her lip hard.

“Oi,” a low voice came from the doorway. Her father leaned against the frame, arms crossed, flour still dusting his sleeves. “What’s all this sniffling in my house? Don’t tell me my daughter’s crying ‘cause Eiji made fun of her again.”

Himari quickly rubbed her face with the back of her hand. “I’m not,” she whispered.

“Mm.” He walked in, the floorboards creaking under his weight, and sat on the edge of her bed. “Funny, ‘cause you look like you’ve wrestled with a bucket of onions.”

Despite herself, Himari let out a cry. Seeking him out. “Dada…”

He reached out and tugged the blanket down just enough to see her face. His eyes were warm, though his smile was crooked. “Alright, spit it out. What’s turning you into a soggy dumpling this late at night?”

Himari hesitated. Her chest tightened, but when she looked at him, the words finally spilled. “I don’t want to… to hurt anyone. I don’t want to be like that. Everyone says shinobi have to fight and—and kill, and I don’t want to!”

Her father leaned back, letting her words sit in the air. Then he scratched his chin thoughtfully. “You think every shinobi carries a kunai and spends their life stabbing people?”

She sniffled. “…Don’t they?”

He chuckled softly, shaking his head. “Nah. Some guard the gates. Some heal. Some carry messages faster than the wind. Some… well, some just use their brains so other people don’t have to fight at all. Being a shinobi’s not only about hurting. And besides—” He tapped her forehead gently. “—you’re still my Himari, my little ladybug. You get to choose your road. If you want to knead dough your whole life and bake bread till your arms fall off, fine. If you want to wear a headband but never raise a weapon, also fine. No one’s forcing you to be anything you’re not.”

Her lip trembled. “…Really?”

“Really,” he said firmly. Then, with a grin, he added, “Though, between you and me, I’d prefer if you became the kind of shinobi who brings her old man free dumplings from the market.”

And my daughter who wasn't supposed to live her life feeling old. They're slowly taking your innocence away, my baby.

Takeshi kept it all inside. His eyes tearing so slightly. He smiled.

That made her giggle through her tears. She wiped her cheeks again, and this time the heaviness in her chest eased a little.

Takeshi ruffled her hair until it stuck up in messy tufts. “There’s my girl. Now get some sleep, yeah? Tomorrow you’ll need all your strength to keep up with that Eiji brat.”

As he stood to leave, Himari whispered, “Dada?”

He paused at the door.

“Thanks. I love you.”

He gave a little wave without looking back. “I love you too, ladybug. And that’s my job. Now, no more soggy dumplings in this house.”

The door clicked shut, and Himari lay back down, hugging her blanket. Letting the disturbing dreams engulf her.

Chapter Text

I didn't know when the awareness began to fester, a slow, cold rot beneath the surface of my new life. But I knew the precise, crystalline moment the infection broke and the truth erupted. It was a Tuesday—a day stained forever in my mind with the smell of old chalk dust and the muffled thud of a dropped textbook.

​The classroom was a sun-drenched, humming cage. Dust motes danced in the thick shafts of light slanting in through the high windows, illuminating the earnest, unformed faces of the twelve-year-olds around me. We were at the Konoha Academy, the institution that filtered children into tools of war.

​Sensei, a man whose weary eyes suggested he'd seen far too many Tuesdays, clapped his hands together. “Everyone, today we’ll be learning about the human anatomy. Anybody who knows why we need to know this?”

​Before the last syllable had left his lips, Eiji shot his hand into the air with the violent enthusiasm of a firecracker. He was all vibrant energy and reckless motion, a boy who’d clearly never met a volume button. I watched him, a faint, inexplicable pressure starting to build behind my sternum.

​"Me! Me!" he insisted, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

​"Alright, Yamanaka," Sensei acknowledged with a tired sigh, already massaging the bridge of his nose.

​Eiji didn't pause. His face, usually a canvas of playful mischief, was utterly serious now, alight with the kind of focused intensity other kids reserved for cake. His answer sliced through the peaceful hum of the classroom like a razor.

​"To know how to kill them quickly."

​The air should have gone cold. A collective gasp should have erupted. Instead, there was a quiet, collective nod from the other children. A simple, pragmatic acceptance.

​I stared at Eiji. His smile was dazzling—wide, innocent, untroubled. He might have been answering a question about why we learn multiplication. How, I wondered, watching the bright, uncomplicated joy in his eyes, can a child say that? How could the casual acceptance of murder, the efficient planning for it, already be so deeply normal to them? How were they, these children whose hands still fumbled with shuriken, already so utterly desensitized to the brutal arithmetic of taking a life?

​It was in that moment, watching Eiji’s perfect, deadly innocence, that I finally got my terrifying answer.

​The first sensation was one of impossible splitting. My perception fractured. My surroundings blurred and stretched, warping like a bad print. The wooden desk beneath my palms elongated into a meaningless plane. It was as if the very fabric of reality—the air, the light, the gravity holding us all in place—was suddenly pulling away from me, thinning, dissolving.

​Eiji and Ensui, sitting beside me, were suddenly at the far, unreachable end of a shimmering tunnel. I could see the fine dark hairs on Ensui’s nape, the way Eiji’s collar had a tiny, loose thread, yet they felt miles away, unreachable even though I knew, with the cold, scientific part of my mind, that they were right there.

​The sound thinned. Sensei’s lips continued to move, forming shapes of serious instruction, but the words folded in on themselves. They became muted, meaningless whispers, then vanished entirely, like a radio station being violently tuned out. The world did not go quiet; it went hollow.

​The dulling was absolute. The bright primary colours of the classroom—the brown of the wood, the faint green of the blackboard—subsided into a flat, washed-out grey.

​Then the ache began.

​It was not a headache. A headache is a dull, familiar animal, a thudding drum. This was a jagged, high-frequency thing. It started as a pressure behind my eyes, then spread like a vein of cold, spreading quickly along the base of my skull. It felt as if someone had taken a fine-toothed file to the inside of my cranium and was working at it with patient, methodical cruelty.

​My hands—my traitorous, clumsy hands—flew up. They clawed and gripped at my hair because that is what hands do when the world goes profoundly, catastrophically wrong: they seek an anchor, a grip, a simple connection to a physical reality that is otherwise dissolving. A thin line of blood ticked warm against my temple where a frantic nail had dug in.

​The pain became a physical, screaming presence—like fire under my skin, like my bones wanted to claw their way out from the constraining flesh. It was the pain of becoming or perhaps unbecoming.

​"Hurts." The word was a wet, soft thing, barely a whisper.

​"Himari. Hey, you okay?" Eiji’s voice, though still distant, pierced the glass of the silence. It was ringing, anxious, yet still felt miles away, as if shouting from the bottom of a well.

​Then, the uncoiling. Something deep inside me, a tightly wound spring of panic and power, snapped. I felt it first as a profound pressure change—a hot, animal force rolling out from the center of my being. My lungs demanded to empty themselves and then refill in a single, impossible, gasping breath. My chest was compressed by an invisible, gloved hand, then shoved outward, then compressed again in relentless, agonizing tides.

​"Hurts, Eiji," I called out, but the name was a raw screech. It felt as if something precious and vital was being violently ripped apart inside my soul.

​I reached for the desk, desperate for solidity. But my fingers—my fingers moved, but not according to the simple, dependable rules of muscle and bone. A thread of light—chakra—not like smoke, but like liquid crystal, slid from my palm. For a disorienting, terrifying second, my hand was not a hand at all. It was a conduit, a leaky tap.

​Needle-like shapes poured out of me. Slender, quivering tendrils, pure white and translucent, caught the slanting sunlight, fracturing the light into tiny, ephemeral rainbows where they passed.

​"H-hurts! Stop! STOP!" I was gripping my hair so tightly now that I felt the warm, coppery wetness of blood flowing from my nose, a tiny, hot stream.

​The pain was absolute, driving me to a breaking point.

​"Argh! pAIn! PAIN! Sensei! Make it stop, please!" I tried to reach for him, for help, for rescue, but instead of my hand, a cold thread of light shot out, extending and snaking across the polished wooden floor.

​The strange shapes flickered at the edge of my vision, manifesting from me. They felt like limbs, but they were not mine. They were something alien, yet entirely born of me, reaching across the room. I could not tell their intent: were they searching to soothe the agony, or to seize and stabilize? But when they brushed the flesh of my classmates, the contact was not gentle. It took away more than warmth. It stole sensation.

​Sensei was moving fast, rising from his chair, a trail of white chalk dust scattering in his fist. I saw the worry crease deep at the corners of his eyes, but his voice remained a soft thing under glass. The desperate words forming on the edges of his mouth dissolved before they reached my ear.

​Around me, a dozen small noises went hollow. A pencil dropped and thunked, but the sound didn't echo; it simply ended, flat and dead, though the pencil lay clearly where it fell. Eiji’s mouth was open in a silent scream, his eyes gone glassy, unfocused. Ensui slumped forward, his shoulders losing their silent, long-fought battle with gravity. The children nearest to me blinked once, and then simply stopped, like lanterns being gently snuffed out.

​Panic arrived as a new, overwhelming layer. I felt it cascade like an electrical current, rushing through the extending tendrils back into my own chest. “No—no—no—” I tried to form the denial, the plea, from somewhere very far away. The panic was sharp enough to cleave my fractured mind into shattered pieces.

​I desperately wanted to pull the tendrils back, to suck the violent, leaking light inside me and clamp it down with iron discipline. But the movement didn’t obey my will. They moved the way storms do—by their own titanic force, indifferent to whoever gets wet, or swept away. Each time a luminous tendril brushed a classmate’s arm or cheek, that person folded inward. Fingers went slack, knees hit the wood with a dull, muffled thud, breathing shallowed and faded like someone struggling to swim through treacle.

​The pain became absolute. It filled my mouth and my throat and my ears. It tasted metallic, like a copper coin left on the tongue for too long. The knowledge—the terrifying, cold, singular knowledge of what I was doing and what I was becoming—slammed through my skull with the blunt, undeniable force of a slammed door.

​"ag—aAAA! Hel--AHHH!"

​I screamed because I had to, because the pressure of the uncoiling truth demanded expression. The sound that came out was raw, ragged, an animal noise that sounded like me chasing me out of myself. It stripped the inside of my head clean.

​And then—before I could even form the thought of how to stop it, how to reel the storm back in—the pressure at the base of my skull turned into a cold, diamond needle. Something pressed there with cold, final precision, and the rest of the world went black, as if a massive hand had closed tightly over a sputtering lamp.

​The last thing I saw before the engulfing dark was Eiji’s face, a centimeter from mine, his glazed eyes unfocused, his lips forming a sound I didn't catch. He was so strong, yet he was falling.

I was scared.

​Then I fell, too.

÷÷÷

​

​I woke to the sterile, oppressive smell of antiseptic, a scent that always promised the body would survive but offered no guarantee for the soul. The sound that anchored me back to reality was the steady, heavy creak of my father shifting his weight in the uncomfortable wooden chair beside the cot. His head was resting against his hand, the lines of worry etched deep around his eyes, his free hand still loosely holding mine—a grip that was both protective and profoundly weary.

​The room was the sickly, institutional white of the village's hospital, sparsely furnished and very small. The silence here was different from the hollow silence of my breakdown. 

​When the door slid open, Inori-san stepped in, moving with the quiet, efficient glide of someone who knows the true weight of her own presence. She carried a standard clipboard, its pages already covered in the cold, dense language of reports and incident logs. She wore the standard shinobi vest over dark clothes—a uniform that immediately communicated rank, danger, and official sanction.

​She gave my father a small, almost imperceptible nod, a professional courtesy that contained no genuine warmth. She pulled up the other chair and pushed up her simple, wire-rimmed glasses, a gesture that signaled she was about to get down to the unpleasant business.

​“You’re awake,” she stated, her voice even, not unkind, but devoid of any excess emotion.

​I nodded, the motion a simple confirmation of my unwelcome return. My throat felt like sandpaper. I didn't need to ask why she was here. I knew. I had ruined the simple illusion of normalcy.

​She didn’t waste time with comforting platitudes. “Yesterday, you lost control during the Human Anatomy lesson. Most of your class became unconcious, in a span of under five seconds. Three children were technically injured—gashes, minor abrasions. Nothing that won't heal completely, but the parents are, understandably, deeply distressed and fearful.”

​Dad’s grip on my hand tightened sharply, a silent flare of defiance. I could feel him readying himself to speak, to defend me, to minimize the damage.

​“The Academy will have to file a formal report. The tower is already aware of the situation. From this day forward, you will be under direct, mandatory supervision. It is not punishment, Himari,” she added, her eyes meeting mine for the first time, “this is an internal process that has been processing for quite a while now, ever since your arrival. This incident merely hastened the inevitable.”

​I stared at the pristine, white hospital blanket covering my legs. The words she spoke felt heavy, like stones pressing on my chest, yet there was a strange, muted relief, no one was seriously, permanently hurt. The damage was contained. For now.

​Inori shifted, directing her focus to my dad. “The parents of the injured children have been—vociferous. They require reassurance. I’ve personally informed them that Himari will be monitored closely, that her abilities will be tracked and stabilized by high-ranking personnel. That seems to have quelled their immediate fear.”

​Dad slowly exhaled through his nose, rubbing his forehead with a thumb and forefinger, a gesture of profound weariness. His voice was a low, protective growl. “I don't understand why you are saying this in front of a child, Inori-san.”

​“A child?” Inori-san questioned, her tone neutral. Then, the clinical truth, "You and I both know that your daughter is not an ordinary child, Takeshi-san. I guess you are not quite understanding of it yet but I have spoken to you about the dangers of this, Takeshi-san. This not an argument about her age but her ability to put herself and other people around her in danger. She needs to made aware of it, ignorance can not be tolerated especially to a fledgling ninja."

Right, a ninja. That's what I am now. A four-year old training to be a killer. How funny. How funny. My head and my chest is overflowing with disgust. 

I lowered my head, it's sickening. I remember the lessons from the academy, God. They are sending children to war. Children, small, fragile kids in war. I bit my lips.

I could feel my stomach drop and my hands shake. Water starts to fill my eyes as fear and anger envelope me. 

Why did I have to be in this world? Why is it that they have to do this to children? To brainwash them into thinking that killing is normal? That burying a ten year old war hero is normal?  wHY? wHY? WHY WHY WHY WHYWHYWHWYWHWY.

"Himari." I flinched. Dad whispered to me which broke me from my stupor. 

She paused for a bit and took a deep breath. "Anyhow, this is not about blame. We will take full responsibility internally. It is our negligence that allowed this uncontrolled manifestation to occur on Academy grounds. You won't have to worry about the immediate repercussions from the Council.”

​She stood, the chair scraping slightly on the linoleum floor. She tucked the clipboard under her arm, the silence returning, heavier than before. “Rest. I’ll come back tomorrow to discuss the next steps, the assignment of a permanent mentor.”

​The door slid shut, closing us into a fresh, terrible silence. For a long, indeterminate while, my father and I just sat there, two isolated islands in a hostile sea. 

​Finally, he lifted my hand and pressed it briefly to his lips. He muttered the nickname he'd given me, the only piece of genuine warmth in the room.

​“We’ll be okay, lady bug.”

​I couldn’t answer. The lie was too big, the burden too heavy for simple words. But I squeezed his hand back, and looked at him. My father in this world is young. But looks so tired and weary. His eyes showing worry and love. 

He caressed my hair and smiled, "You know, if you get out of here soon, I can make you your favorite cake?"

A strained smile was all I could give. That night, I curled my self to bed as fearful and angry tears burst from my eyes. 

I am so scared.

÷÷÷

​The next morning, the "next steps" were revealed. The mentor assigned to stabilize the ticking time bomb that was my body and soul would be Senju Tsunade. The legendary Sannin, the woman of impossible strength and medical genius. The irony was a cold, sharp blade, I, who had once lived a life of peace, was now being protected by a living god of a world drenched in blood.

​I remember everything. Every flicker of the first life.

​It was bewildering, a cruel form of intellectual haunting. One instant, I was a person—a simple, predictable twenty-something—living with a temperamental cat in a modest apartment. My life was defined by my job, the smell of cheap coffee, a family that was happy, and a younger sister who’d just graduated. 

​The next instant, I was here. An avalanche of things that did not belong in the hands of someone so small. I possessed the deep, complicated knowledge of a life much older, crammed into a body that had only been alive for a handful of years. Living in a place where violence is so normalized and easily forgiven. The sheer scientific impossibility of it should have been a comfort, a sign of hallucination. It wasn't.

​I existed in a state of rolling, desperate panic. The core realization was this: I was living and co-existing with people—children!—who would inevitably have blood on their hands. And probably, so would I. I was being trained to be a killer.

​I hated it. That hatred was a pure, burning coal in my chest. I wanted to die again, if it meant escape. If it meant not being in a place where murderers lived so freely, where the only consequence of killing was a successful mission report. The memory of my peaceful life, filled with mundane things like traffic jams and grocery runs, became my impossible sanctuary.

​But then—

​“Lady bug, I brought you your cinnamon rolls. Your favourite. And bun-bun. You missed her, no? Your friends, Eiji and Ensui were here just awhile ago. You were asleep, so I told them to come back some other time.”

​My father's voice. The familiar scent of cinnamon, the sight of my chipped, beloved rabbit plushie, Bun-Bun, sitting patiently on the bedside table. It reminds me so much of my cat. 

​I had a family here. An anchor. People who were trying to build a safe, loving architecture around a creature who knew too much and was too unstable. 

But what about my family there?

​I broke down completely. It wasn't the jagged pain of the chakra, but a deep, mournful, human crying. I remember sobbing into his shoulder, nothing coherent to say, the hysteria ripping through me until I couldn't pull air into my lungs. His arms around me were a solid, secure comfort, a bulwark against the terrifying, overwhelming knowledge of both worlds.

​In the far away life that had ended, this feeling—this security, this unconditional love—was the bedrock of everything. I remembered peace. I remembered never being exposed to violence beyond casual fist fights and the occasional, sharp disagreement. I remembered the mundane quiet of a life that did not demand a kill count. And then I remembered my brutal, confusing death, the one thing that connected the old reality to the new.

​Three years have passed since the incident in the classroom. Three years of supervised training, of medical evaluations, of Tsunade’s terrifying, matter-of-fact instruction.

​The first year was a blur of dissociation. I would space out constantly—sometimes in the middle of target practice, sometimes over a quiet dinner, sometimes while walking through the crowded, chaotic streets of Konoha. The village bustled with color and noise, vendors calling out over the delicious, greasy smell of grilled skewers , women gossiping by the sidelines with arms full of groceries, and the omnipresent, silent flickers of shinobi moving across rooftops like fast-moving shadows.

My dad would make try his best to make me laugh, and my friends are there but I’d drift through all of it like a bewildered ghost, constantly running the same “what if” phrases in my mind.

​What if this was all a shared hallucination? What if I could just wake up and find myself back in my old apartment, my real cat pawing impatiently at my face for breakfast? What if I could live peacefully again?

​To be dead and then not to be dead is a strange, illogical math. The numbers never quite added up. I kept thinking about the life that ended, and I kept thinking about this other life that had the strange powers, the violent mandate, and the kids practicing shuriken in the yard.

​I could not reconcile with it at first. It felt like a bizarre, violent dream. And all I did was wish. With every day spent waking up to the same wooden ceiling, with every aching muscle from morning drills, I wished for an escape hatch that didn't exist.

​Then, slowly, I stopped wishing. I chose a different path— exhaustion.

​I spent my time training relentlessly, using the company of the friends I’d made here to anchor me. I pushed my young body to its absolute limits every single day, completely astonished by the non-scientific logic of my new strength, my impossible endurance. Every day was spent like I was chasing some goal I never really knew—a target, a minute where my brain was too tired to remember the other life.

​And one day, I realized the wishing had simply stopped.

​“Kami, Eiji, can you not? How many times do I have to tell you I don’t care about that Minato?!” I snapped, glaring at him as I tightened the leather strap on my kunai pouch. The irritation was genuine, a testament to my successful immersion.

This kid could really get into my nerves, every single fucking time.

​Eiji only smirked, his eyes crinkling with satisfaction. He had become an expert at finding the fault line in my defenses. “And how many times have I caught you staring, huh? Huh? Don’t you miss him, though, now that he’s already a Genin? Doesn’t the great Himari pine for the cool older boy?”

​I rolled my eyes with such force it actually strained the muscles in my head. “You’re so monumentally, tragically dumb, Yamanaka.”

​“Hey! That’s below the belt! I am smart! I know I'm smart! My mom said so! Take that back!” he squawked, clutching his chest dramatically, a performance refined over a hundred shared training sessions.

I could hear him grumbling behind me. ​I ignored him, focusing instead on the sheer, solid mechanics of the present. I hurled another shuriken at the target. The thunk of metal sinking deeply into the dried wood felt satisfying, a tiny, perfect piece of order in a chaotic world.

This is the kind of life I'm living now. I don't know what to do around it, much less escape it. 

​“Ah, there goes our little genius again. Practicing. So hardworking. Running from her feelings,” Eiji mocked, his voice a sing-song taunt.

​I ripped my sweat-soaked towel off my neck and flung it at him. He ducked, laughing, the fabric landing harmlessly on the dry grass.

​“Ugh! Go annoy Ensui or something!” I shrieked, pointing to where Ensui was talking to someone at the edge of the yard. I squinted, trying to place the face—tall, familiar, vaguely bored.

​“Later. He’s with his cousin. That guy’s scary as hell,” Eiji muttered, bending to gather his scattered kunai. His tone had dropped, the playfulness momentarily replaced by genuine deference.

​“Shikaku?” I asked, recognizing the tall boy with the dark hair and a lazy, almost aristocratic look in his eyes.

​“Yeah, why? Interested in the grumpy, shadow-wielding type?” Eiji smirked, shooting me a sideways glance.

​“I was just asking! You give meaning to everything, buttface. It’s exhausting,” I huffed, sitting down beside our pile of gear bags. The exertion was a good kind of pain now, a pain I could control.

I looked at the guy, again. I raised my brows. He looks interesting, I guess? 

"How can I not when you stare at them like that, huh, tadpole?"

I looked at Eiji dead in the eyes, "The fuck you called me?"

He rolled his eyes.

"A tadpole, are you deaf? And when did you to curse? Didn't I teach not to say that? The kids will hear." He said teasingly. Clearly, trying to annoy me. Well, he succeeded.

I stood up and cracked my neck, "You've got the nerve to repeat that, huh? You cockroach. You're so fucking dead."

"We—we—WAIT A MINUTE!"

I ran towards him and of course, as stupid as he is, he knows how to run from someone who's got ill intentions.    

​A few minutes later, Ensui jogged over, the subtle, loose-limbed grace of the Nara clan already evident in his movements. He dropped onto the ground beside me with a relieved groan. “Done practicing?”

"Practicing? Are you, blind, huh? Ensui?!" A panting Eiji said, who's now lying a bit far from me. Which now has a lump on his head.

Ensui tried to look clueless, "Huh? What do you mean?"

I giggled. He's such a bad actor. 

"You guys are the worst." Eiji groaned.

It's nice to be around them.

"How's your kekkei genkai going?" Ensui asked and laid beside me, hands under his head, looking at the clouds.

I shrugged my shoulders, "Progress is slow, I mean, Tsunade-shishou and I are trying to experiment more with it but since I am the first to have whatever this ability is, it's kinda hard to find more ways to use it."

He nodded, Eiji spoke beside him scratching his head. "I kinda understand that, Dad's been teaching me too but it's hard, y'know? You've got to understand how the brain works, and then what type of chakra do you need. It's so complicated."

"Not like we've got a choice." Ensui muttered, sounding like an old man. "Ah, it's better to be sleeping under the clouds."

"You've got it under control then?"

​I nodded, flexing my sore, rapidly toughening fingers. “It’s what I do every day. It gets boring, but it’s the only thing that might keep me alive. That and… well, this.” I lifted my palm, and without conscious effort, faint tendrils of pale, translucent chakra curled and swayed, ghostly and obedient now, unlike the violent ropes from three years ago.

I feel like Elsa. I chuckled inwardly.

​Ensui’s brows rose slightly, "Nice, we won't be visiting you on the hospital anymore."

I punched his shoulder for that.

"Ow! Tsk. Troublesome woman."

Eiji leaned closer, his eyes wide with unadulterated awe and a touch of envy.

​“It’s so cool,” he muttered, his voice quiet. “I wish I had that too. It looks like you can touch the wind.”

​I snorted, stuffing the chakra back into its quiet, contained place within my core. “You literally have the power to crawl into people’s heads and puppeteer them. A brain, Eiji. Do you even realize how insane, how terrifying, that ability is? You can own a person.”

​He pouted harder, kicking a clump of dirt. “Who wants to own a person? So lame!"

"You've got no idea." I said with a smirk.

He hmphed at me, "Still. Yours looks cooler.”

​“Ensui’s is cool too,” I said, turning to my other friend, the steady, reliable anchor. “Aren’t you training with your dad now? With the Shadow Jutsu?”

​Ensui sighed, a long, dramatic exhalation worthy of a dramatic kid like him. “Yeah. Total drag. He wakes me up at five in the morning now.”

Such a drama queen, really.

​“Sucks,” I winced, feeling a strange camaraderie with his pain. “Guess we’re all doomed to work, whether we like the work or not.”

​The sun was high and hot now, beating down on the Nara's yard.

Chapter Text

Training ground eight reeked faintly of churned earth and old sweat, a scent that never quite left the humid summer air. My stomach still burned with a hollow ache from the drills Tsunade-shishō had put me through. A smart part of my brain knew better than to complain; complaining only gave her another reason to double the exercise—or invent a new one specifically for my suffering.

“Those eyes are fucking creepy,” she muttered, watching me from the sliver of shade cast by a large oak.

I laughed, a breathless, shaky sound. It was true. When I activated my kekkei genkai, the change was jarring: my pupils contracted to pinpricks of coal, and the whites turned a glassy, unnatural white, with translucent veins glowing a faint, sickly blue beneath the skin. It made me look less like a fighter and more like a ghost halfway through possession.

“You’re so rude,” I said, dragging in a shaky breath. “You’re supposed to encourage me, shishō.”

Her eyebrow twitched, the universal sign that I was pushing my luck. “Encourage you? You look like an escapee from the psych ward. Focus, brat.”

I pouted and flopped dramatically onto the grass, relishing the brief, cool relief of the damp earth against my burning skin. “I thought you loved me.”

“Loved you when? Who said that?” She barked out a harsh, humorless laugh. “Get up and show me something worth loving. You think an enemy’s going to stop and cry just because you look pitiful?”

I groaned, forcing my heavy limbs to obey. I peeled myself off the dirt and refocused, drawing on the ability that was both a curse and a terrifying blessing. Tsunade had confirmed it: my kekkei genkai wasn't chakra-based. It was purely stamina, eating through my endurance like fire through dry paper. When I pushed it too hard, I didn’t just tire—I collapsed like a sodden ragdoll.

Still, what it could do… it was terrifying.

It had started as a raw, overwhelming numbness. Touching someone long enough, I could strip away their most basic sensations: heat, cold, the sharp, vital language of pain. Tsunade had helped me refine it. Now, with practice, I could localize the effect—dulling the nerves in an enemy’s hand until their grip faltered on a weapon, or numbing their legs until they staggered as if walking on water. Push it a little longer, and they became sluggish, disoriented, heavy like they’d been drugged with swamp water. Too long, and they risked full-body collapse.

It wasn’t just a weapon. “The medical potential is immense,” she’d pointed out. Taking away agony from broken bones. Sedating a patient without tools. Giving relief when no medicine was available.

But today wasn’t about healing. Today was about fighting.

“Enough stalling,” Tsunade snapped, stepping into the ring. “We spar. Let’s see if you can actually use that freakish trick of yours before I regret wasting my time.”

I gulped, tightening the strap on my kunai pouch. My hands were already slick with nervous sweat. “You’re not going to go easy, are you?”

She gave me that infamous, terrifying smirk, cracking her knuckles. The sound was like two stones grinding together. “Not even a little.”

The spar began fast. Too fast. She blurred toward me with a speed that stole the air from my lungs. I ducked instinctively, shoving chakra into my legs to execute a clumsy roll across the dirt. The ground shook violently where her fist landed, a crater of pulverized earth splitting open just inches from where my skull had been seconds before.

“Focus!” she barked, her voice flat with lethal control. “Your enemy won’t wait for you to think!”

I scrambled to my feet, the dirt gritty on my palms, forcing my weary body to move. Kunai in hand, I dashed forward, aiming to graze her arm. Just a touch—that was all I needed. If I could make contact, I could spread the numbness like a creeping frost.

But Tsunade didn’t even glance at my weapon. She simply swatted me aside like a bothersome fly. I landed hard on my back, the impact driving a gasp from my chest.

“Again!”

I staggered up, sweat stinging my eyes, my chest heaving like a bellows. I forced myself to push forward, ignoring the screams of my muscles. This time, I feinted high with my kunai and darted low. My palm brushed her outer thigh for a bare, vital second.

Her step faltered. Just a fraction, but enough.

“Good,” she said flatly, her eyes like chips of jade. “Do it again. Stronger.”

We went like that for what felt like an eternity. I barely survived each round, my body screaming for cessation, but the small victories were there. Tsunade’s fingers twitched uncontrollably when I numbed her hand. Her powerful kick slowed by a discernible degree when I dampened the nerves in her calf. She still demolished me in the end, of course—her final palm strike knocked the wind clean out of me and sent me crumpling to the ground in a useless heap.

Flat on my back, staring up at the distant, perfect blue of the sky, I groaned, “I hate you.”

She crouched over me, entirely unimpressed. “You should. That means I’m doing my job.” Then she sighed, rubbing the back of her neck, a gesture of grudging relief.

“Alright,” she said, her voice dropping some of its usual steel. “Get up. That’s enough for today.”

I blinked, taking a shaky, rattling breath. My entire body felt like a bag of loose, wet sand. Even my eyelids seemed weighted down. “You mean… I’m done?”

“You’re done. Don’t push it, brat. You’ll be useless for a week if you collapse here.” She stood up, dusting the dirt from her trousers with a single, sharp motion. “You showed improvement. The contact was quicker, and you spread the effect faster. You're starting to learn how to manage that stamina drain better, too. You only almost died three times instead of five.”

I managed a weak, sarcastic grin. “Wow. High praise.”

“Don’t push your luck. You still move like a drunk hippo, and your defense is nonexistent. If I hadn’t pulled that last punch by ninety percent, you’d be spitting out teeth and praying for a medic.”

I rolled onto my side and slowly pushed myself up to a sitting position, leaning my head back against my drawn-up knees. The veins in my eyes pulsed once, then faded, leaving my vision crisp but exhausted. “I got a touch on your leg, shishō. And on your hand. And that one time on your shoulder, remember? You flinched.”

Tsunade looked away, folding her arms across her formidable chest. “A flinch isn’t a victory. It means you surprised me. I want you to make me stop. I want you to make me fall, gaki.”

She walked over to the tree where her water bottle was hanging and took a long, unapologetic swig. When she looked back at me, her expression was serious, devoid of its usual mocking edge.

“Your ability is incredibly powerful, kid. It takes the most fundamental thing away from a fighter—their connection to their own body. An opponent can’t feel the grip on their weapon, or the ground beneath their feet, or the pain that tells them they’re broken and need to stop. That’s a nightmare to face.”

She paused, then continued with a pointed look. “But it costs you everything to use it. That’s the balance. If you don’t end the fight quickly, you lose. You have to be precise, you have to be fast, and you have to know exactly where to hit them to get the most payoff for the least amount of effort. You can’t afford to waste stamina numbing their elbow when numbing their ankle or their core will drop them faster.”

I nodded slowly, letting the cold, necessary logic sink past the haze of exhaustion.

“So, what’s next?” I asked. “More sparring tomorrow?”

“No,” she said. “Tomorrow, we’re switching focus. Your attacks are too basic. You rely on the kunai as a crutch, but you need to think beyond it. You need a way to guarantee contact.”

She tossed me a small, tightly wrapped bandage from her pouch.

“Get that on your forearm. Tomorrow, we focus on taijutsu. You need a close-quarters fighting style that lets you stay on top of your opponent, forces them to block, and gives you opportunities to land your touch without getting yourself killed. Something quick, scrappy, and based on distraction.”

I caught the bandage and slowly started unrolling it, already picturing what that might look like—a barrage of strikes designed to make a person cover up their head and chest, leaving an opening for a quick palm-strike to the thigh or the ribcage.

“And listen up,” she added, her eyes narrowing. “Stop being so dramatic about the pain. I know those drills hurt. I want them to hurt. You're draining your own body when you fight. You need to know what it feels like to push past that absolute limit and keep moving. Your body is a weapon, and like any weapon, it needs to be tempered by fire.”

She turned abruptly and started walking toward the path that led back to the village.

“Go home. Eat something. Get some actual sleep. If you’re late tomorrow, I’ll have you run laps until your kekkei genkai spontaneously implodes.”

I watched her go, then lay back down on the cool dirt, my cheek resting against the earth. Even the smell of the moist, dark soil felt better than I did. But she was right. A small, thrilling heat sparked beneath my fatigue. I had touched the legendary Tsunade. She hadn't even been trying, but for an Academy student, it was a profound, tiny victory.

Taijutsu, I thought. Never in my two lives did I think I'd be going through this.

I closed my eyes, already seeing the possibilities, the new ways to fight, the new moves I’d have to learn to incorporate. When the numbness finally receded from my own body, I’d be ready.

I dragged myself back to the house to change. My clothes were stiff with dried sweat and stained with ground-in dirt; I felt sticky and gross from head to toe.

The bell over the bakery door jingled as I stepped in, and the rich, warm smell of sugar and yeast wrapped around me like a heavy, comforting blanket. It was warm inside, and my muscles, already aching from the trauma of training, decided to remind me precisely how alive they were with a chorus of dull throbs.

Dad was behind the counter, his sleeves rolled up, dusted in flour up to his elbows. He looked up when he heard the bell and smiled, that soft, lopsided kind that always made me feel five years old and safe again.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said, wiping his hands on his apron. “You look like you lost a fight with a dirt field.”

“I did,” I muttered, slumping onto the nearest stool. “Tsunade-shishō’s idea of ‘light training’ is what most people call torture.”

He chuckled, shaking his head as he reached for the cooling tray. “She’s the same woman who can break a boulder with her pinky. What’d you expect?”

“I don’t know… mercy?”

He barked out a loud, healthy laugh. “Good luck with that.”

He set a plate down in front of me—two red bean buns, still steaming, their tops shiny with glaze. “Eat. You look like a scarecrow that got dragged through a hedge backward.”

“I’m fine, Da. And besides, I'm too pretty to be a scarecrow.”

“Uh-huh, eat,” he said again, in that low, firm tone that didn’t leave room for argument.

I tore one open. A rush of hot steam puffed out, and the sweetness hit me the moment I bit in, a warm, sugary balm for my fatigue. My stomach—the traitor—responded with an embarrassingly loud growl.

He tried not to laugh, but his shoulders shook. “See? You sound like one of those stray cats again.”

“I’m a shinobi in training,” I said through a mouthful of bun. “And cats are cute and graceful.”

“Cute and graceful,” he echoed. “Sure. Looking like that?”

I glanced down: covered in sweat, my hair a bird’s nest, a smear of mud on my cheek.

“Still cute and graceful,” I shot back automatically.

“Uh-huh.”

We fell quiet for a while. He went back to arranging the next batch of bread, and I just watched him—the way his hands worked without him even looking, how he hummed the same low, slightly off-key tune he always did when the day was almost over.

The shop looked smaller than I remembered. Maybe it was because I was taller now. Or maybe it was the light—softer, dimmer, an amber haze that made dust float in lazy spirals. Outside, the sky was quickly turning violet, and shadows were beginning to crawl up the windows.

“You’ve been training late a lot,” he said after a bit. “You sure you’re keeping up with school?”

“Yeah,” I said, swallowing the last bite. “It’s just… a lot. But good. I think Tsunade-shishō’s proud of me.”

He turned, arms crossed, pretending to be serious. “She told you that?”

“I mean, she didn't yell at me with volume ten out of ten.”

“Ah,” he said, a smile breaking through. “The true mark of affection.”

“Exactly.”

He smiled again, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes this time. “Just don’t forget to rest, alright? Being strong’s useless if you burn yourself out. Take care of the machine, Himari.”

“I won’t.”

He reached out and brushed a bit of flour onto my nose. “You’re still my kid first, shinobi second.”

“Dad!” I swatted his hand away, but he was already laughing, the sound echoing lightly through the empty shop.

Somewhere outside, a hawk cried—sharp, distant, and lonely. The sound lingered for a second too long, but neither of us noticed it.

I hopped off the stool and grabbed my cloak from the hook. “I’m going to the Nara compound. Ensui and Eiji are probably waiting.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do I even want to know what kind of trouble those two get into?”

“Probably not.”

“Be back before dark.”

“I will!”

The bell above the door jingled again as I stepped out. The evening air hit my face, cool and faintly metallic, like it might rain later. The streets were quieter than usual, though I didn’t think much of it. The faint, sweet smell of bread and home clung to my clothes as I started walking.

\
The path to the Nara compound wound through the quieter part of the village—wide stone streets, lined with old, moss-covered wooden fences and the pervasive, clean smell of pine sap. The air felt different here. More peaceful, maybe, which is why Ensui prefers napping with the deer.

By the time I reached the gates, the sky had slipped from amber to a deep, bruised violet. Lanterns glowed softly along the path, casting a warm, buttery light on the trail into the woods. Somewhere deeper inside, I could hear the low, snuffling calls of the Nara deer. I reached the clearing and saw them: Eiji sitting on a fallen log, his arms waving wildly as he argued with a boy-shaped shadow leaning against a tree. Ensui, of course. I could tell from the masterful, effortless slouch alone.

“—I’m serious!” Eiji insisted. “If you throw the shuriken just right, you can make it curve.”

Ensui’s voice came back flat, almost bored. “Physics doesn’t work that way.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

Eiji threw his hands up in exasperation. “You never believe in the power of imagination!”

“I believe in gravity,” Ensui said. “You should try it sometime.”

I was laughing before I even reached them.

Eiji spotted me first. “Himari! Tell him he’s wrong.”

“About what?” I asked, brushing dirt off the edge of the log before sitting down.

“About shuriken curving in the air.”

Ensui gave me a sidelong look that was pure resignation. “You’ve seen him throw. You already know the answer.”

“Hey!” Eiji protested.

“Last week,” Ensui continued mercilessly, “he threw one so far off target it almost hit a bystander's… anatomy.”

“It was windy!”

“It was shameful.”

Eiji kicked a pebble at him. “You’re just jealous I have flair.”

“Yeah, flair that cuts off a guy’s—"

“Okay,” I cut in, stifling another laugh. “Let’s not kill each other before the war even gets here.”

That made them both quiet for a second, and I instantly regretted the words. “Sorry,” I added quickly. “Bad joke.”

Eiji waved it off with a quick, forced grin. “Nah. If it happens, I’m taking Ensui down with me.”

“I’d trip you and walk the other way,” Ensui said.

“Wow,” I said, pretending to be impressed. “Such loyalty.”

“Realism,” Ensui replied with a shrug. “A proud Nara tradition.”

Eiji rolled his eyes and reached into his pouch. “Here. To prove I’m useful, I brought something.” He tossed me a small bag. It landed in my lap with a soft, sweet-smelling thud.

I peeked inside. “Dango?”

“The last three from my mom’s secret stash.”

“That’s actually generous,” I said, surprised.

Ensui frowned. “Suspiciously generous.”

“It’s called sharing,” Eiji said, mock-offended.

“It’s called bribery,” Ensui countered. “You want something.”

Eiji hesitated. “Okay. Maybe.”

“What?” I asked, popping one of the dango balls into my mouth. Sweet, sticky, and perfectly chewy.

“I heard the Nara got a new shipment of imported seeds,” he said, leaning closer with the air of a spy. “If I bring my mom a rare flower, she might forget I shattered her priceless vase yesterday.”

Ensui gave him a flat stare. “You think bribing your mom with more plants is a good idea after you murdered one of her favorites?”

“She doesn’t have to know it was me!”

“She always knows.”

“She’s psychic!”

“She’s a Yamanaka. Worse.”

Eiji pointed at him. “Exactly.”

I tried not to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. They were impossible together. Eiji was a storm, and Ensui was the steady tree it kept crashing against—and somehow, that volatile balance worked.

The laughter eventually faded into a comfortable silence, the kind that doesn’t need filling. The sun had fully set now, and the fireflies looked brighter, blinking like stray stars against the darkening trees. I leaned back on my palms, breathing in the smell of wet grass and a faint wood smoke drifting from a nearby house.

“You know,” I said, looking up at the first few visible stars. “It’s weird. Everything feels… slower lately.”

Ensui hummed low in his throat. “You noticed that too?”

Eiji tilted his head. “What do you mean? Feels normal to me.”

“Does it?” Ensui asked. “There’ve been more patrols lately. My uncle’s been called in for meetings almost every night. The air feels heavier.”

Eiji shrugged. “Your uncle’s always in meetings.”

“I mean, yeah,” Ensui said. “But this feels different.”

The air between us changed, the quiet stretching thinner than before. I can't even hear the deer's anymore.

“Anyway,” he said, like he was physically trying to shake it off. “There’s a rumor going around. About the Academy.”

Eiji groaned. “You and your rumors, man. What now?”

Ensui picked up a twig and spun it between his fingers. “Some of the instructors were talking to my uncle. He said the Academy might shorten our training period.”

“Shorten?” I repeated, the sweetness of the dango suddenly gone. “As in—”

“Graduating earlier,” he said simply.

The words dropped like stones in my chest. Even Eiji stopped moving.

“That’s stupid,” Eiji said finally, his voice lacking its usual spark. “Why would they do that? That Hatake kid just graduated, they couldn't wait? He's five. We're nine, Hima's eight.”

Ensui shrugged, kicking at the dirt. “You tell me. I don't even wanna think about the reason.”

I glanced between them, fighting the sudden chill. “It could just be talk. You know how rumors spread. They may just have changed the curriculum or something.”

“Yeah,” Eiji said, forcing a laugh that sounded brittle. “Probably that.”

But none of us sounded convinced.

The wind picked up, a cold sigh rushing through the tall grass, and the deer near the fence stirred, their hooves crunching softly against the dirt. The sound was almost too calm, too peaceful, and for some reason that made it worse.

“You ever think about what happens after?” I asked quietly. “After we graduate, I mean.”

Eiji picked up a pebble and tossed it into the pond. The ripple spread wide, shivering under the moonlight. “We go on missions,” he said lightly, but his eyes stayed fixed on the dark water. “We get headbands. We get strong.”

“Hopefully, I could just lounge around,” Ensui said, his voice dripping with that well-known laziness, but even that felt like an act.

Eiji gave him a look, part confusion, part irritation. “You’re so weird, Ensui. Always laying around, don't you get bedsores from sleeping too much?”

“No,” Ensui answered. "..don't you feel embarrassed fighting with a tree?"

“It attacked me first,” Eiji said indignantly.

“You tripped on its root.”

“Which is a kind of attack!”

I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. “You actually fought a tree?”

Eiji pointed at me. “Don’t take his side. That root was malicious.”

“Yeah,” Ensui said dryly. “I heard the ANBU are looking into it.”

No one said anything after that. The silence that followed was the comfortable kind this time.

"I hope we don't graduate yet," Eiji said with a genuine, sad look on his face.

“You two worry too much,” I said softly, almost to myself. “We’re just kids. Nobody’s sending us out there yet.”

“Yet,” Ensui echoed, staring up into the night sky, his face unreadable in the dim light.

Eiji sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Okay, enough. This is depressing. Let’s talk about something that doesn’t make me want to throw myself in that pond.”

“Like what?” I asked.

He grinned suddenly, the mood lifting just a little, the darkness momentarily banished. “Like how I beat you in the kunai accuracy test last week.”

“That was luck,” I said.

“It was skill.”

“Skill doesn’t involve closing your eyes.”

“They were half-closed.”

“Still counts.”

Ensui snorted. “I was there. You hit the dummy’s ear.”

“Better than missing the dummy entirely,” Eiji shot back.

“That was one time!” I said.

“One time too many,” he teased.

We bickered for a bit longer, and for a few minutes, it almost felt like nothing had changed. The easy laughter came back, not as bright as before, but real. When the lanterns along the path started dimming, Ensui stood, brushing grass from his pants. “We should go before the guards start doing rounds.”

“Yeah,” I said, getting up. “Dad’ll worry.”

Eiji stretched his arms behind his head, pretending to yawn. “If my mom catches me sneaking in again, I’m sleeping in the shed.”

“You deserve it,” Ensui muttered.

“True,” I added.

Eiji looked mock-offended. “You two are terrible.”

We started walking back through the trees, the gravel crunching quietly beneath our feet. The night was cooler now, carrying the faint smell of smoke from far-off forges—metal and ash. Somewhere in the distance, a hawk cried again, sharp and lonely. None of us said anything for a while.

Then, quietly, Eiji said, “You think that rumor’s real?”

Ensui didn’t look at him. “I hope not.”

I didn’t say anything. But for the first time in a long while, I wished the world outside the village walls would just stop turning.

The next week after that conversation, we received the news that we're graduating.