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He Of The Six Eyes

Reader mode
Firewillreign said:
Sorry, I promise the payoff for next chapter will be worth it - we only have one more prologue to get to before we start having Satoru's POV, and then the story proper.
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I honestly don't even need Gojo's pov all the time, seeing character's reactions to his unnaturalness and powers especially at a young age is great. It's just that he's already demonstrated how unnatural he is and saved the day with cursed energy and it was basically ignored.
Nevertheless I'm looking forward to next chapter.
 
grime said:
I honestly don't even need Gojo's pov all the time, seeing character's reactions to his unnaturalness and powers especially at a young age is great. It's just that he's already demonstrated how unnatural he is and saved the day with cursed energy and it was basically ignored.
Nevertheless I'm looking forward to next chapter.
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Thanks for the faith!

And for what it's worth, the events of his birth weren't ignored because Kanna and Fuyuko didn't care, they were ignored because they had zero explanation at all and knew nothing could come of questioning it - what where they going to do, ask a baby how he saved his mother's life before he was even born?

Even in a fantastical world like Naruto's that'd be wild.
 
finally there's an update. I was thinking the story was dropped.
 
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Firewillreign said:
Nah, man, those are fighting words! Put'em up! XD
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Honestly, even if Gojo doesn't come back, having Gojo give the fucking king of fuck mothering curses ptsd would make me laugh.

I also saw a theory of Gojo fucking up Sukunas domain expansion to the point where he's face is tied to its full activation(since it felt like him activating it in the most recent was him activating his wide range version to try and counter boogie woogie. Unlike the weaker, smaller version he used to kill choso.)

Having Gojo shake him to the point that it changes sukunas domain would be fitting for that blue eyed bastard(affectionate) Even in death, he alone is the honored one.
 
I am mostly here to watch disgusting pieces of shit from naruto to die and suffer. So we got some on the list for sure, the Hyuuga and in extension Konoha which I highly approve of. Honestly the first time I watched Pain destroy Konoha in anime I dont feel the horror/terror the show is trying to deliver instead I am rooting for that emo edgelord motherfucker to actually fuck konoha up. But then I got slapped by the harsh reality of naruto being shonen and all kinds of bs including ressurection got pulled out.
Second the Kusagakure. No idea who they are, what they are just know they are typical shinobi village with special mention with their torture of Karin alongside her mother. Another ninja village destroyed, Yay! Shinobi is a fucking mistake, chakra their source of power is something brought by aliens intending to prey on them. They train and develop simply to become agent of chaos, kill, plunder, destroy and nothing else. Just like their origin they are all mere parasites that has been delegated by the local government as their glorified stick to oppress the populace and indulge in war motivated by pettiness.
 
Wonderful update, hell of a cliffhanger and making me all the more eager for another one.
 
Man it wasn't sukuna having ptsd but Yuta going desperate but cant fault him for that also what was the flashback of gojo killing the Elders I thought Kenjaku did it or was it their replacement
 
Firewillreign said:
Here after chapter 261

Gege, you son of a bitch. 😭 What have the fans ever done to you?
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After releasing the JJK0 story which was supposed to be a one shot, Gege's ex editor and the fans basically forced Gege into a binding vow to flush out an entire manga (Gege was not a famous mangaka then and JJK0 was an unexpected massive hit, so it's at least partly to help pay for whatever "career" torturing readers can be considered) Also Gege works wacky odd jobs before too, so I think he's taking out his customer service rage out on us lol.
 
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Firewillreign said:
Have a chapter to celebrate the return of the GOAT!

You know what I'm talking about!

Four and a half years later:

The day that kicks off the sequence of events that would quickly send Fuyuko's newly peaceful and much-appreciated second chance right to hell in a hand-basket starts off perfectly.

Because of course it does.

The sun is rising, the birds are chirping on the sakura tree planted out front in the garden, and the early morning light streaming through the windows paints the kitchen with warm, golden-blue hues.

It's all downright scenic.

"Kids! Breakfast!"

Well, almost.

Morning call successfully delivered, Fuyuko turns her attention back to the stove and gets back to stirring the ungodly amount of whisked eggs she has cooking on the pan, humming a jaunty tune under her breath as she works her magic.

Though magic is relative. She's never had much of a taste for the things herself, but they were good for growing children (or so she'd been convinced) and there were only so many ways to overcook eggs before the lesson stuck.

The fact that the three she and Kanna have between the two of them aren't actually all that picky and tend to mow down just about anything so long as it was this side north of edible probably helps too.

And speaking of cute little brats...

"Oi" She cranes her neck and hollers down the hallway again when no little feet come running down their way. "Last one to the table is getting tossed into the koi pond!"

A snort tugs her attention to Kanna, who's sitting at the dinner table and leafing through another one of her cheesy novels, a cup of tea at her side.

"Let them sleep. You know how they'll get if they wake up cranky."

"They're already up. They're trying to make a pillow fort but Karin and Satoru keep fighting over the blankets, and Miya's hogging the pillows and refusing to fork'em over unless they do it her way."

Kanna takes a second to digest that and blinks "How?- ah."

She sighs in understanding when Fuyuko taps the side of her temple.

"Those eyes are a shameless cheat."

Fuyuko smiles smugly and her friend laughs.

"Showoff. It won't be long before they're too old for you to check in on them like that. You're going to end up traumatizing them if you do."

"Possibly." Probably. "It'll keep them on their toes."

"Fuyuko."

"What?

"Fuyuko, no."

"A little trauma is good for character." She protests, but her lips are already twitching.

"It's really not."

"Worked wonders for me."

"Shinobi."

"What's wrong with shinobi?"

The look she gets for that one is drier than Suna's deserts at the height of summer and she just about pops a blood vessel trying not to cackle.

She's kidding, of course - Fuyuko could write entire books on all the way shinobi were twisted - but trying to exasperate Kanna's civilian-born sensibilities is one of the greater joys in her life and she's not giving it up without a fight.

She's just about to suggest gifting the twins and Karin a set of shuriken for New Year's - she'd had her first at six, it wasn't even that far of a stretch - when there's a loud screech and all three come tumbling out the hallway in all their glory.

"First!" Karin crows gleefully, and Kanna forgets all about her and just about melts at the sight of her daughter's smile. "I win!"

Fuyuko would rib her for it, only that she's no better. Satoru and Miya's little faces scrunch in identical displeasure at the other girl's win and she suddenly finds herself having to bite the inside of her cheek not to smile or, kami forbid, coo at them like an undignified sap.

"Were not!" "Cheater!"

Karin sticks her tongue out and Miya scowls and turns to Fuyuko in a way that has her itching to pick her up and cuddle her shamelessly.

"Mama, Karin's a cheater!"

"Am not! You're just slow! Yu-Yu-oba-san, tell her!"

"Miya, Karin won fair and square." Her daughter shoots her a look of betrayal "Don't give me that, she did. You'll win next time. Preferably after we've all had some - Satoru, don't even think about it!"

She turns around right in time to catch her son freeze in place, stilling where he'd hopped up onto the kitchen counter and managed to pry the lid off the pot of sweets she'd made the mistake of leaving out in the open. Sage only knew how he managed to make it that far without tipping her or Kanna off.

"What?" The sly little thief has the gall to grin innocently, cool as a cucumber, never mind that she'd caught him with his hand quite literally stuck in the cookie jar "It's time breakfast."

Kanna lets out a strangled, high-pitched sound and presses her face into her palms, shoulders heaving slightly.

"Nice try. Cookies come after breakfast." Her eyes narrow "And you get one."

"Two."

"One."

"Three."

"Satoru, one."

"Let's meet in the middle and say four."

Kanna turns away entirely while Fuyuko just blinks.

In what world is that meeting in the middle?

"That's not how negotiating works, kiddo."

Her son seems to stop and consider that logic, a serious furrow to his brows.

Then it clears and he shrugs. "I'm being ambitious."

And evidently that's about all Kanna can take, because the ridiculous red-head finally bursts and nearly laughs herself off her stool.

Real helpful, that one.

"You get one. One. There's only a few left and I am not baking another batch this week."

He perks up. "I can help make more!"

Fuyuko snorts "Not a chance in hell."

"Why-"

Quick as a whip, she body-flickers the short distance across the kitchen - no hand seals needed, because she wasn't an amateur and hard work paid off when you put your damn back into it - yanks the jar out of his grip and heaves it onto the highest shelf across the from the counter before the second word makes it past his lips.

"-not-huh?" Satoru blinks at his empty hands, blue eyes flickering (Fuyuko pointedly ignores the glint of something that lights in them before flashing out of existence) and glares indignantly. "Hey! That's not fair!"

"Tough. Welcome to life, oh precious spawn of mine "

Karin and Miya start laughing, grudge forgotten in the face of someone else getting screwed. Bless their vicious little hearts, they'd take them far in life.

Fuyuko winks at the pair and bends down to and snag Satoru off the counter, slinging him over one shoulder (Dyed soft black as it always was, because even as relatively far out in the middle of nowhere as they were, snow white hair was still the very opposite of inconspicuous) and ignores his protests with practiced ease. "And you don't get to make cookies, Satoru, because if we let you get anywhere near the batter you'd load it with enough sugar to kill a horse."

"Would not!"

He would too, and everyone in the house knew it.

Sometimes she had to wonder where Satoru's obsession with all things sweet came from. Her little girl preferred savory foods and the occasional sour treat, and Karin didn't care just so long as she had enough to keep up with her voracious appetite - the perks of an Uzumaki metabolism - but Satoru went after sugar like a fish after water. If he had his way, he'd probably collapse his liver from excessive intake within a year.

It might be a real problem if Fuyuko didn't keep a razor-sharp eye on everything stocked in the pantry at all times.

"Right then. Table. Eggs. Eat." She nods gravely. "Or start holding your breath now, because I wasn't kidding about the koi pond."

And the kids take the hint and shuffle to the table.

Finally.

...​

"Mama?" It's as if they're just about to that Satoru goes to speak again. He'd just cleared his plate before turning to her, an oddly pensive look on his face.

"Hmm?"

She's expecting another round of bargaining for cookie rights or something equally familiar.

The usual stuff.

"Can we learn how to do...that?"

Her breath catches. Across the table Kanna stills where she'd been wiping the corner of Miya's mouth with a napkin, and the little girl frowns up at her.

"What do you mean?"

It's a stupid question - a weak delaying tactic.

She knows exactly what he means - the body flicker technique, the shinobi arts.

It's not the first time it's come up - every once and again Fuyuko would slip into old habits. Unseal a storage scroll to pull out some supplies in Miya's line of sight, flicker across the room to catch Karin before she took a nasty fall... she'd even let Satoru catch sight of her walking up the ceiling to patch up a layer of plaster.

The kids would be suitably amazed, they'd ask pointed questions with stars in their eyes, and Kanna and Fuyuko would deflect and deflect until they forgot all about it, which she should do right now... and yet.

She hesitates, and Satoru pounces.

"You know. The thing. things." He waves his arms in frustration, looking for the right word. "The... techniques."

Fuyuko's brows rise all on their own "Where'd you get that word from?"

"I dunno. Sounds right, though." There's a surprising amount of confidence there as if he was teaching her some new and irrefutable fact. There's also plenty of excited anticipation when he opens his mouth and says "So can we? Learn, I mean?"

"..."

Fuyuko doesn't know what to tell him, and that could be a problem

She's never made an effort to hide chakra and what she can do with it from them, but that wasn't because she trusted their ability to keep a secret - it was and is because she doesn't make a habit of using her skills beyond the necessary and what little of them they'd already seen could and had been explained away easily.

But they were bright kids, getting brighter every day, and if Satoru starts asking pointed questions that would need lies for answers then their lives would get painfully inconvenient and flush with headaches real quick.

"Maybe." Kanna saves her just as Miyabi and Karin turn to her and start putting the pieces together. "You should ask again after we get back from the park."

The girls leap up in delight. "We're going to the park?"

The strain behind the answering smile is so well hidden, even Fuyuko would have missed it if she hadn't known to look for it "As soon as you wash up and get changed-

But Satoru still looks determined, and he goes to speak again, so Kanna swoops in with the killing blow.

"-and we'll get dango on the way back."

Predictably, the promise of sugary goodness derails Satoru's interest instantly. She can almost see the way his eyes lose their eerie focus as he completely switches tracks.

"Dango!" Her little hooligan roars, and then he's leaping off his chair and charging to his room to clean up, the other two hot on his heels.

"It's a good question," Kanna says in the quiet they leave behind.

"It is."

That's why it's so galling to realize that she doesn't have a good answer.

"When are you going to start training them?"

"I don't know." She says aloud, and both of them fall into another contemplative silence.

It wasn't because they lacked the power or the aptitude for it

She'd looked them over with her byakugan when they'd been born and made regular checks since then for years. The twins had the kind of chakra reserves most other clan-grown brats could only ever dream of and Karin had taken it three steps further on account of her Uzumaki legacy and made out like a bandit - she had almost as much as the twins combined.

It wasn't because they couldn't be taught so young - she'd started basic katas and chakra control exercises when she was even younger, and it certainly wasn't because they didn't have the brains for it.

So what was it?

(The answer is obvious, but she avoids it like the plague.

She could train them, but all their oddities wouldn't change the facts. Karin's dual kekkai genkai, Miya's Byakugan and unnatural sturdiness, whatever the hell was going with Satoru's decidedly not byakugan eyes -none of that mattered.

The only way Fuyuko could teach them was to train them as she had, and to do that... she'd have to teach them how to kill)

"Will you join us?" Kanna asks when the quiet lasts too long for comfort and the mood has silently but thoroughly plummeted, but it's more a silent offer than a question.

"Not right now."

Her smile is about as genuine as the platitudes Kagen Uchiha offered her un-dearly departed bastard of a father at that one clan council meeting she'd ever had the shitty misfortune of attending, and Kanna can read it too because she frowns heavily.

"I'll catch up. I always do."

And that was that

(For now)

...​

Golden Rye Town.

For a settlement named for its being right smack dab in the heart of Grasscountry's wildlands, the name was a little on the nose.

Still, Fuyuko and Kanna had chosen it because it was perfect for their purposes. Sparse enough that no threats could move about unseen, populated enough that they could fit in with the masses, and far enough out of the way of anything of importance that the chance of anyone who Fuyuko couldn't handle chancing upon them by luck was slim.

The math did itself

As far as the locals were concerned, Fuyuko and Kanna had merchant relatives who worked across the country and occasionally visited throughout the year (The wonders of basic genjutsu in a town where everyone was susceptible to it) and their kids were no more special than anyone else's was.

Their cover was as good as it could have gotten.

It should have held.

(It didn't)

Miya was taking a break after romping about a game of tag with a few of the local kids (Not because she was tired of playing - but because everyone else was. She'd hardly broken a sweat). Satoru was off wandering wherever it was he tended to wander when he grew bored of others his age (and that was often), and Kanna was stretching herself thin trying to keep an eye on all three of them.

That's why she misses it when it happens.

Karin had been stomping about in a short grass field only a little distance away, trying to look for earthworms to slip into Miya's pillow that night - It would serve her right for calling her a cheater.

And that's when someone grabs a handful of the girl's hair and yanks back.

"Ow!"

When she looks back, Karin sees a boy who couldn't have been any older than her grinning meanly - one of the few who'd tried to roughhouse with Miya and gotten soundly thrashed for it, probably there to try and pick on her for payback.

"Hi, Tomato hair."

And then the idiot gives her hair another tug.

Her hair.

And Karin, who'd grown up with a role model who'd made it clear that she shouldn't take shit from anyone promptly chooses violence and retaliates to this heinous offense by decking the little bastard in the face hard enough for his nose to break nastily.

He lets go, clutching his nose and glaring murderously before flinging himself at her full tilt. They collapse into a pile of heaving, clawing, and biting, each giving as good as they get before the bastard is yanked off of her so quickly he squawks like a stupid little bird.

Satoru smiles, hands in his pockets, and where exactly did he come from?

"Hi, Karin. How's the fight?"

And then something strange happens.

"Hey!" The bastard glares at them both, stumbling to his feet and looking ready to jump at them again-

And then Satoru turns around, and something strange happens.

"Oi." Her annoying baby brother's voice is mild as milk, but Karin suddenly feels very, very small. Across from them, the other boy goes white, and he feels scared.

(Karin doesn't know how she can tell, but she does. Everything feels scared, even the air.)

"Go away, and don't come back."

The bastard doesn't need to be told twice. He takes one step back, and then another, still looking terrified, and then he bolts.

And then Satoru looks back and smiles at her again, and the strange feeling vanishes like it was never there at all.

"So, where ya winning? I didn't see."

Hot indignation flushes through her and she forgets about the oddness that had just occurred.

"Of course I was!"

Still, though. She rubbed her hand and grimaced, pulling her sleeve down before Kaa-san saw the mark there and got all huffy.

"He bit me. Jerk"

Her brother hums in agreement "Nasty. But at least you got his nose good, right?"

"Duh!"

(Neither of them realizes that, as he flees, the boy's nose is no longer broken. They also don't notice the figure who'd been slumped against the bench across the clearing from them, and who'd seen everything. )

...​

His name is Hanako Tamaki.

Right now, he's a nobody - old and half-broken, and missing half a leg to boot.

He also happens to be a discharged shinobi of Kusagakure, discarded by the current administration and thrown to the wayside once he grew too old and broken for the top brass to use.

He usually kept himself nice and drunk in pubs across Grass Country, and only recently come into town to visit his disappointment of a civilian daughter's family - and maybe pocket a few of their valuables.

Somehow along the way, he'd been roped into watching his squalling brat of a grandson while his daughter busied herself being a housewife, because according to her, it was 'the least he could do'

Ungrateful wretch.

But just this once, he'll let it slide without consequence.

This was supposed to be a babysitting nightmare.

Instead, as he inspects his grandson's formerly broken nose with one hand and keeps both eyes on the two children walking away, he realizes that he's struck fucking gold.

...​

It happened two days later.

The kids go out, and Fuyuko lingers to order the mess around the house, grab a drink and just think.

It's all routine.

Then she hears it.

A loud crash, and something trips through the undetectable Fuinjutsu wards on the front doors as they barge into the house.

She flickers from her room to the entry hall in less than a second, and there she sees-

Two figures. Grey flack jackets and metal bands around their foreheads, emblazoned with a row of long, interconnected reeds.

Kusa.

Fuyuko registers that, and then she stops thinking entirely and just moves.

The first one dies before his eyes even have time to widen. She flickers behind him, wraps her hands around his head in an inescapable hold and twists. Her grip is so brutal her fingers break through his skull and dig into the soft brain tissue below even as his neck shatters from the vicious wrench.

The second leaps back before his comrade's body hits the ground - there's real terror in his eyes. They'd been expecting a cowering civilian at best - But Fuyuko doesn't let him live long enough to regret the choices that led him here.

She blitzes him before he can get so much as a proper stance in, and her hands lance out for his tenketsu. Chakra sings through her veins as it answers her call, coating her fingertips and burning off the blood coating off them in a wave of red mist that accompanies her Byakugan's activation.

The Hyûga gentle fist is all elegant brutality, but there's nothing elegant about what Fuyuko does next - her blows break down and carve through muscle, and the last remaining shinobi falls dead with a mangled corpse after only one mangled half-scream that rips its way out of his shredded throat.

She doesn't register it.

She doesn't allow herself to register it.

Instead, her head snaps to the side as her Byakugan's range expands, flaring across town in search of - there.

The next infinitesimal moments are the longest of her life

She doesn't go out the door, she explodes through it - and through three more walls after that between whistling air and the light of the setting sun, uncaring of the way she carves her way through the center of the town, unheeding of the screams and chaos she leaves behind her as she runs like she never has before.

And then she reaches them.

Stops dead-still across from the smirking shinobi who's got a kneeling, distraught Kanna by the hair, Karin and Miyabi crying at his feet with faces blooming with bruises, and Satoru nowhere in sight.

Her friend was in danger. Her babies were hurt.

Fuyuko sees bloody, dripping red and lunges.

(She never makes it.)

An almighty presence slaps down between them, and everyone, shinobi and child alike, gets blown off their feet and flung back like ragdolls, bodies crashing into hard rock and dirt.

Fuyuko leaps back to her feet almost the very second her head hits the ground, heart seizing in terror for the kids and Kanna,

Just in time too.

Satoru stands there, right smack dab in the middle of this unyielding nightmare, face inhumanely blank and eyes glowing like brilliant stars in a swirling cosmos.

Then he stretches a hand. Just the one.

"Blue."

The world lights up in brilliant hues of sapphire and space itself implodes.

...​

Have a chapter to commemorate the return of the Goat!

You know what I'm talking about!

As always, leave your comments and ideas and if you don't like it, please be courteous.

If you feel like it, please consider supporting me on Ko-fi: Firewillreign
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And watched this was clean asf
 
Prologue - Part 4
  • Threadmarks
    • Me sliding in after a Three months plus Hiatus:




    Fuyuko had started moving the second her son appeared, pushing past the freezing, graceless pressure that Satoru's very presence had heralded with his impossible reappearance, but she might as well not have bothered.

    It's all over so quickly that, were it not for her own dojutsu, she might have missed it entirely.

    One second, her son is extending a single palm out, eyes-burning, unearthly chakra strangling the very air with otherworldy malice so unnatural it couldn't possibly be human, and the next-

    "Blue."

    -The world tints in hues of sapphire, and their surroundings flicker a heartbeat before the nin implodes.

    There's no other word for it - His form folds and twists violently, like a macabre origami display, and with her Byakugan blazing Fuyuko can see the very instant that his body is crushed inwards by inexorable force and reduced to an uneven and rapidly shrinking sphere of pulverized flesh and compressed gore.

    Kami

    Fuyuko only manages to latch onto Kanna and yank her clear of the carnage and just about loses her footing for it - which should have been an impossibility because her chakra is anchoring the soles of her feet to the earth beneath them like dead weight, Kanna's weight cradled in her arms virtually nothing to her strength, but in the split second that follows it feels as though her traction goes to shit and she's suddenly being drawn headfirst into a void she can't see but knows with instinctual certainty is deadly.

    It makes her blood scream in her veins and her skin crawl in raiton-quick alarm even as she readies to flicker back -

    Satoru finally seems to catch sight of them, radiant gaze unblinking.

    - and then it's abruptly over.

    The pull vanishes and the surging, heady power lacing the air surges and swells only for an instant before it sparks out of existence if it was never there at all. The ruined slop that had once been the enemy nin slips out of the air with it and hits the ravaged dirt with a wet, almost underwhelming thud.

    Fuyuko stares at it blankly, long and hard, before she steadily lowers the equally silent Kanna to her feet.

    Across from them, her son angles his gaze down to the utter mockery of a corpse he's left in his wake, tilts his head consideringly... and scoffs.

    "Weak."

    ...

    The next few seconds crawl by like centuries - still and silent and deceptively void of anything. A fool could even mistake the lull for serenity.

    But there's nothing serene about any of this.

    Fuyuko's fists clench, and it's the only tell she allows herself. Besides her, Kanna flitches, no doubt sensing the utter frothing maelstrom that her chakra has become in her veins, but there's jackshit Fuyuko can do to control that, because Satoru still isn't looking away from the carnage he's sown and the few feet between her and the child she loves more than she's done for her very life feel like an incomprehensible chasm.

    She can't even bring herself to ask how.

    Fuck.

    Fuck, fuck, fuck, what the fucking fuck!?

    "Satoru?"

    Satoru's expression flickers - disinterested apathy bleeding into something far more attentive, far more human, and he starts as though only just remembering that he wasn't allowed.

    Miyabi is still curled into Karin, hunched into the quivering older girl for safety and comfort both, but her skin is still two shades too pale and sallow and her eyes are so very wide with disbelief and terror.

    (Later, Miyabi will understand - that the world can be an ugly, ugly place and that it often calls for more of the same. That her brother had only acted to protect her - that he would always act to protect her, and she'll know that she is loved.

    But not now.

    Now, Fuyuko's little girl stares at her beloved twin and fears.)

    "What did you do?"

    Satoru's expression crumples in uncertainty and the beginnings of confused hurt, and the sparking light in his eyes finally goes out.

    "I-"

    His voice breaks as the words die in his throat. Fuyuko feels her heart break with it, but the sensation is still enough to settle something inside of her.

    Enough.

    Her resolve hardens, the unmoored incredulity pushed aside in favor of cold, shinobi-grade practicality.

    She could deal with this later - the way she always did - but right now, they needed to move.

    Kusa nin had attacked them, and that wouldn't have come out of the blue. there were eyes on them now, and it wasn't safe to linger where reinforcements could swarm them - and they would.

    The Byakugan and the rest of their collective gifts were a genetic lottery worth their weight in gold - and blood, and Kusa would spill rivers of it to get their hands on them.

    Fuyuko would shed oceans more to keep her family safe.

    Mission objective - get the hell out of dodge.

    Her hands blur through familiar hand seals as she summons a pair of shadow clones with a familiar puff of smoke.

    Satoru doesn't resist as she scoops him up into her arms, limp and unresisting, and Miya's much the same. She tries not to show how fucking relieved that makes her feel even as her one of her clones seize Karin with her free hand and the other slings Kanna over her back entirely

    "The children's things - the supply scrolls." Kanna murmurs, dazed, and Fuyuko purses her lips.

    "I'll send a clone."

    …​

    Her clone doesn't make the trip unaccosted.

    There's an intruder in their home - an old man, gaunt and sallow-cheeked and with a posture that screamed former nin training - practiced, but long since rusted.

    When he catches sight of her, he doesn't hesitate to draw a kunai and charge.

    In response, Fuyuko disables him in five moves and grounds him with a sixth. She doesn't even bother with questions as he collapses, blood welling up in his mouth as he goes down.

    "Monster." He gurgles hatefully, pale and on the verge of death.

    "The worst of them all." Fuyuko's clone agrees dryly, and then raises her foot and crushes his skull like an egg.

    Good fucking riddance.

    Then she retrieves everything, sets the house that had been their home for years ablaze with a katon jutsu and joins up with the original and the rest of the family on the outskirts of the village.

    From there, they make like bandits into the night.

    …​

    It's late into the night - really on the verge of dawn - when Satoru finally speaks up again.

    By this point, they'd left the town in their dust hours ago, and Fuyuko had set up a low campfire - risky and borderline amateurish, but she had seals to deal with the smoke and her byakugan was flared to its peak as she kept a lookout.

    The idyllic years of peace had dulled her senses before, but nothing and no one was getting a drop on them again, and anyone with the balls to try would pay in blood.

    Karin and Miya are attached to one another in their sleep, and Kanna is curled around the pair protectively - Not that there was much protecting she'd be able to do if an enemy managed to get past Fuyuko, impressive bloodline limit or no, but she supposed it was the thought that counted.

    Her son hadn't slept. Instead, Satoru seems to content himself with staring into the campfire blankly, the crackle of flames reflecting off his cerulean eyes

    Then he speaks up.

    "Are you scared of me?"

    It's as though someone's driven a kunai into her heart.

    "No" He's in her arms almost faster than she can process the thought, unresisting face tucked into the crook of her neck "No, darling, no."

    The very question is as ludicrous as it is agonizing.

    Because of a power, she couldn't recognise? Because of a dead enemy nin?

    She was from Konoha - ridiculous bloodline limits were her bread and butter, and the mangled corpse had made of the attacker was a far kinder fate than the one Fuyuko would have visited on them all.

    It's not even an exaggeration. She would have readily, gleefullyslaughtered her way through his bloodline starting from immediate relatives and up to the most distantly related cousin if that's what it had taken to keep her family safe.

    He doesn't try to break her hold, and his next words are muffled, but she still hears them loud and clear.

    "It's okay if you are." He murmurs lowly. "I know Miya is."

    "Your sister is scared, but not of you." It's half a lie, and she has the sickening feeling that they both know it, but it doesn't matter. "She'll understand what happened soon and she'll be all the better for it."

    Not training the kids was a mistake, she can see that now. Hindsight is a vindictive, vengeful bitch.

    None of the children had been prepared for the night - none of them should have been, a part of her thinks, but it's the sentiment talking.

    She coddled them all too long, let them rest in a veneer of safety and peace - And it was all ripped away in an instant.

    Never again.

    "She'll never fear you," Fuyuko tells her son, discarding the thought for the moment. "You're her brother, and her protector."

    ".... Okay."

    There's a pause, fraught with tremulous emotion.

    "Satoru?"

    "Mmh?"

    She hesitates to ask - she's not even sure if she should.

    "Do you know... how you did what you did?"

    Do you know how you killed a man?

    She doesn't have to elaborate - thank kami for that - because Satoru stirs in her grip and shifts in place.

    "I just did."

    Helpful, that.

    "But do you know how?"

    "No. It's my technique. My blue. I just knew. I always know stuff like that." He shrugs answer, utterly nonchalant and seemingly forever at ease. "Throughout Heaven and Earth, I alone am the Honored One."

    It's not just words, she knows immediately. There's a certainty there, nestled in that... proclamation, and for the life of her, she doesn't know what to do with that.

    "But what does that mean?

    She's not expecting an answer, and that's probably for the best, because the one she receives is earnest in its lack of anything worthwhile.

    "Mama, I have no idea. Isn't that cool?"

    "… I suppose it is."

    She makes no mention of how hollow the smile she receives is for all that it tears her up inside.

    Another moment passes

    "Mama?"

    "Yes?"

    "Who were those people?"

    Just like that, she finds herself at a crossroads.

    For just a second, she's tempted to lie, or misdirect, or give a half-answer. Whatever it took to stop herself from pulling the last of the wool from his eyes before she was well and ready and willing to.

    Blue.

    And then the moment of weakness passes when she remembers that it's already far, far too late.

    "They were shinobi."

    And then she tells him just about everything.

    …​

    When all is said and done, she's expecting a litany of questions.

    About the Hyuga clan. About Konoha.

    Even just about her, before her children and the circumstances behind their birth.

    All of those would have made sense.

    So naturally, her son goes for the one farthest from expectations and the most painful to answer.

    "But you're not a shinobi anymore. You've left that behind." He frowns. "So why can't they leave you alone? Why can't they leave us alone?"

    And what exactly is she supposed to say in answer to that?

    That greed was a staple of the world? That blood and suffering took first place in the race against? That any notion of individuality was wishful thinking at best, suicidal naivete at worst - at the most common?

    "Because," she says with some grim finality "That's just the order of things."

    It's the only answer she can give him that doesn't reek of despair - no more than the bare minimum.

    ...

    The silence lingers after that.

    But it doesn't last. Satoru doesn't let it last.

    (It's about time Fuyuko learned the truth. That barring exceptional circumstances her son would never let sleeping dogs lie - and woe to anyone who got in his way)

    "I refuse."

    "Oh?"

    She looks down in contemplative confusion, brows furrowed, and then she blinks in surprise.

    Because her son meets her stare and grins wildly, and for the first time since this kami-damned ordeal began, she recognizes something distinctly unhinged to it.

    "The order of things? Really?" His eyes light up. "Says freaking who?"

    And the die is cast.

    ...​

    Baby Satoru readying himself to square up against the entirety of the elemental nations.


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    • Firewillreign said:
    Prologue 4
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    Nize. I thought this was done for for sure. It was a pleasant surprise to see it updated. Next up is either the last prologue with training montage or we skip to the cannon timeline directly. Can't wait to see how the Honored One will screw up the Elemental Nations! LOL
     
    Okay I'm going to have to reread this because I had honestly forgotten about it.
    But yeah, little Satoru bout to square up against the whole Elemental Nations, that's gonna be a hellva showing
    Nah, I don't think Naruto's talk-no-jutsu will be enough to get through his Infinity
    Honestly I'm just waiting for him to just... Hollow Purple a village into nothing but memories
     
    Satoru's sheer raw power and lethality was shown really well. Satoru was excepting his mother to reject him and the fact that she didn't was wonderful for him.

    I think she made the right choice in telling Satoru about the Hyuuga Clan and Konoha, it's something he needs to know and deserves to know.

    Her saying that it was the order of things really pissed Satoru off because he doesn't accept that kind of thing.
     
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