Chapter Text
Prologue
花が咲イタヨ
(A flower has bloomed)
⋆˖⁺‧₊𓂃˖☽˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆❀⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳☾˖𓂃 ₊‧⁺˖⋆
They weren’t supposed to take her. They’d all but promised Mebuki that they wouldn’t. And yet they came anyway, their shadowy figures looming over her and the small, crying bundle wriggling in her arms. The moment she’d seen those men, she knew what they’d come to do.
Mebuki leapt to her feet and backed into the corner of the shelter. The other refugees merely watched with hollow eyes as her shouting bounced off the bunker’s concrete walls. “No, no. You said you wouldn’t! What about all the precautions? Lord Minato assured me himself-”
One of the men, a jounin captain with a solemn frown and deep black eyes, met her gaze. There was a hint of grief in his grim expression, but it almost certainly wasn’t for her. “Lord Minato is dead.”
As if in reply, her daughter began to scream. A few of the other civilians stirred. There were a few shocked gasps and muttered prayers, though her own sorrow was stifled by panic.
“And what about my husband? Where’s Kizashi?”
He continued on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Your daughter is needed,” he insisted. “Quickly, before the barriers are broken.”
The press of cool stone against her back turned her blood to ice as she trembled beneath their impassive stares. Hopeless as it was, her eyes darted for any sliver of an escape route.
Somewhere in her reeling mind, she pictured the Fourth Hokage sitting behind his desk, a polite yet firm frown on his young features. He’d tried to soothe her then, using words that any shinobi of his station knew well.
Honor.
Last resort.
Sacrifice.
He wielded them like weapons, disarming any protests she or Kizashi might have used in their own defense. And if they had still dared to dig their heels in and deny their Lord his authority, then the Anbu lurking at their sides had every right to intervene.
A quake rocked the earth, sending dust and silt tumbling from the bracers embedded in the ceiling. Somewhere outside, that cursed hulking demon roared in fury. It was soon drowned out by another screech from her daughter.
Mebuki grit her teeth, fingers digging into the blankets like claws.
Damn him. Tears rolled down her cheeks, her breath nothing more than a low hiss. Damn that Lord Fourth and damn the village! You are not taking my daughter.
Had she noticed the flash of anger in the jounin captain’s eyes, she would have realized she’d spoken those words aloud. Instead she ducked her head and lunged at the shinobi. They closed ranks immediately. An unseen hand struck her neck, the blow as swift as a snake bite.
Numbness raced down her limbs. Her arms and legs suddenly went limp. She sprawled to the floor, a gasp wrenched from her throat as her baby flew from her hold. One of the captain’s men snagged her before she hit the floor. At a signal from the captain, he began his swift exit, ignoring the small pink fists thrashing from the folds of the blankets.
Mebuki writhed against the dirty tiled floor, cursing and spitting at the shinobi’s feet as they retreated. The other villagers averted their gazes. Only the captain lingered, his silhouette swallowing up the light of the passage outside the bunker as another wail rose in her throat.
“My baby girl! That’s my baby girl! Please let me go with her, my daughter, please I-”
The captain knelt and pressed his fingertips to her forehead, tilting her head back so that she was forced to meet his cold, dark eyes. Tears ran down the bridge of her nose, wetting the smudges of dirt clinging to her cheeks.
He blinked and his eyes changed in an instant to a deep, bloody red. Black flecks swirled in his irises, dancing around his pupil in a circular motion. The sobs died in her throat. Even the hum of panic dulled in her veins. She fell still, entranced.
“You must be confused,” he murmured. “You don’t have a daughter.”
The realization washed over her, leaving her cold and hollow. Suddenly, she knew without a doubt it had always been true.
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Fire and desolation. Everywhere Hiruzen Sarutobi looked, he found flames and rubble in the place of where his village once stood. He perched atop the domed roof of the Hokage’s Office, surveying the destruction with the stone faces of his predecessors at his back and sent a silent request that they lend him strength.
Over the tops of the trees a flurry of tails lashed against the glimmering purple dome of a barrier jutsu. The Kyuubi gave another roar and stamped its enormous paws. This time the barrier was enough to contain the shockwaves, but the vibrations still sent a shudder through the forest.
Hiruzen’s grim frown deepened. Where was the child? Fugaku’s team needed to hurry. The barrier team could only contain the beast for so long.
A dark blur crested the rooftop to his right and landed silently atop the railing. “Lord Third.”
He turned and found himself face to face with one of his Anbu, a single red sharingan gleaming through the left eyehole of his hound mask. “Kakashi.” The boy stiffened, but never mind the breach in protocol—they were alone. “I thought I gave you an order to wait with the others in the civilian bunker.”
“I had to know if it was true. Lord Fourth, is he-?”
“Lost,” Hiruzen confirmed with a slight dip of his head. It was the only acknowledgement of his grief he could spare at the moment. The time to properly mourn all those they had lost this awful, awful night would come later.
“And Lady Kushina…” Kakashi’s shoulders heaved, the red gleam behind his mask flickering as he blinked back tears.
“Her child lives, I’ve been told. A son.”
At that, the boy tentatively left his post atop the railing and joined Hiruzen’s side. Together they watched a string of shadows flit across the rooftops and take a sharp turn towards the woods where the beast awaited. Over the faint roar of the blaze, a babe’s cries pierced the humid air.
“I’ll see to his upbringing,” Hiruzen said, hoping his words would reach Lord Fourth and his wife, wherever their souls had drifted off to. “He’ll have every chance to live up to his father’s legacy.” Then, breaking from his reverie, he approached the edge of the roof.
“Lord Third?” Kakashi followed several steps behind.
“Join me, if you wish. I must oversee the birth of our village’s new jinchuriki.”
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Fugaku’s squad was already lined up in formation with the barrier team by the time they arrived. Two bodies lay a short ways away in the grass, covered by white sheets. Kakashi stiffened at the sight of them, but his attention was quickly pulled away by a squalling baby boy in a woven basket. A group of medics knelt beside him, trying and failing to get him to hush.
A similar sized bundle was nestled in Fugaku’s arms, though it had fallen silent upon approaching the barrier.
Kakashi lingered in the center of the clearing for a moment, torn between the covered corpses and Lord Sarutobi who calmly strode toward the barrier. He decided to follow Sarutobi and only caught the tail end of his conversation with Fugaku.
“...Fourth managed to seal away half of the Kyuubi’s chakra. A risky sacrifice, but ultimately necessary since the babe isn’t of Uzumaki descent.”
Above the canopy of trees, the beast in question glowered down at them from within its prison, the malice and spite radiating from its chakra so immense it nearly left Kakashi’s head spinning. When he glanced around, he noticed many of the other seasoned shinobi bearing grimaces at the discomfort.
The barrier team’s leader, a shinobi with thick goggles and a scarf covering most of his face, cleared his throat and approached Sarutobi. “Are you sure it wouldn’t be the wiser course of action to seal it in Lord Fourth’s son? If he inherited but a fraction of his mother’s-”
Sarutobi silenced him with a shake of his head. “Absolutely not. He is Lord Fourth’s firstborn and only son. For the sake of his father, he will not be used as a pawn in our moment of desperation.”
Somewhere, deep beneath the churning tides of denial and grief, Kakashi registered what Lord Third said and quietly breathed a sigh of relief. For all the suffering his sensei must have endured in his last moments, the village would be sure to honor his sacrifice.
“Another was chosen for this purpose ahead of time,” Sarutobi continued. “The plan moves forward as was originally agreed upon.”
At his word, the nearby barrier team shifted their formation and Fugaku handed off the babe to one of the approaching members of the sealing team, a kunoichi with a long blonde braid trailing down to the hem of her flak jacket. Kakashi followed Sarutobi to the side of the clearing, stealing a glance at a tuft of pink hair sticking out of the blankets as he passed.
“What’s her name?” the kunoichi asked.
Nobody answered her until Fugaku finally spoke up. “Sakura.”
“Clan?”
“Haruno,” Fugaku replied.
She sniffed. “That’s not a clan I’ve ever heard of.”
“It’s a civilian name,” another member of the sealing team clarified, but Kakashi didn’t catch who.
Once the sealing team assembled, they began the intricate process of weaving handsigns in perfect unison. Kakashi’s sharingan inadvertently traced the movements, committing them perfectly to memory merely through observation. At his sides, his hands twitched, itching to practice and take his mind off of every horrible thing he’d witnessed that night. A prickle along the back of his neck made him pause. When he turned, he found Fugaku eyeing him coldly. Kakashi immediately dropped his gaze and folded his hands behind his back.
The kunoichi holding the babe promptly flung away her blankets. Suddenly exposed, she cried out and began to thrash in her arms. On her bared stomach, an intricate network of black lines formed a swirled seal centered on her bellybutton.
Strands of chakra sprouted from each member of the sealing team and cast themselves at the barrier, forming a thick weave that melded with the barrier’s purple surface. The seal forming on the babe began to glow, flaring white hot with the sheer amount of chakra it was absorbing.
Inside the barrier, the beast’s tails began to thrash. It gave another roar, the force of its fury and anguish shuddering through the trees and sending leaves spiraling to the forest floor. Kakashi held his hands to his ears as the barrier slowly but surely began to shrink. And, to his amazement, the beast shrunk with it. In a blinding flash of light, the beast and barrier shrunk into an orb the size of a fist that glowed as bright and hot as the sun until it flew into the spiral seal and vanished.
Steam rose from the black lines as stray bits of chakra sputtered from her tiny balled fists like sparks. Red faced and howling, her cries were smothered as the kunoichi that held her quickly wrapped her back up in her blankets. Then she looked around, a desperate frown on her face as she tried to offer the squirming bundle to anyone who might take her.
Lord Third stepped forward, but was quickly outpaced by Fugaku who swept her up in his arms before turning to address the gathering crowd. “The Uchiha Clan volunteers to take the jinchuriki as its ward.”
Kakashi glanced between the two men uneasily as Sarutobi frowned.
“The jinchuriki is traditionally a ward of the village,” Sarutobi began.
“And the Uchiha serve the village faithfully,” Fugaku replied evenly. “Which we will continue to do, even at the risk to our own safety.”
“It isn’t merely a question of loyalty, Fugaku.”
“You’re right. It’s also a question of practicality. Madara once used the sharingan to subjugate the Kyuubi. It will be paramount to the village’s safety that the jinchuriki remains with my clan as we have the methods to subdue her if the need arises.”
A hush fell over the clearing. Even the jinchuriki child and Minato’s son ceased their crying. Several of the shinobi behind Fugaku hurled suspicious glares in his direction. And Fugaku withstood it unflinchingly, even going so far as to seek Kakashi out once again, his dark gaze as cold and sharp as flint. Kakashi was taken aback by the gesture until he remembered that his own borrowed sharingan could be offered up for the same purpose.
He turned away from Lord Third suddenly, hoping that the man wouldn’t give him such a responsibility. He’d earned enough ire from the Uchiha as it was.
“Very well,” Lord Third relented. “I see the soundness of your reasoning and will entrust you to oversee the jinchuriki’s training and wellbeing. Though she will ultimately remain under the custody of the village.”
Fugaku deferred to him with a nod. “Of course, Lord Sarutobi.”
“Now that the matter is settled,” Sarutobi said, turning his gaze back toward the pillars of smoke still rising into the night sky, “I believe we have a few fires that need putting out.”
The others departed without further instruction, whisking away into the night and leaving Kakashi and Sarutobi alone with the bodies of Lord Fourth and Kushina. A breeze stirred the clearing. One of the sheets fluttered and revealed a bloodied hand drooping from the cuff of Minato-sensei’s sleeve. Kakashi’s last shreds of denial—that there had been some sort of mistake, that Minato-sensei had actually lived—withered at the sight.
Lord Sarutobi sighed, drawing him out of his reverie. “Danzo will be most displeased.”
Kakashi glanced at the older man warily, uncertain if he’d actually meant to share that thought aloud while his own reply rang loudly in his head. Danzo is not to be trusted. He bit the inside of his cheek. After the destruction they’d endured that night, the village should be focused on working together, not flinging accusations that would tear them apart.
“I know you must find it difficult to believe at times,” Sarutobi said, “but Danzo and Fugaku are equals in their desire to protect this village.” At Kakashi’s continued silence, he smiled. “Perhaps you see the self-interest lurking behind their actions, yet as far as I have known them both, the end results of those actions have always been the same. Our village would not be as protected nor as strong without them striving to keep the peace.”
With that, he folded his hands in his robes and headed for the trees. Kakashi made his way over to the bodies under the sheets. There he knelt for a time, in the midst of uprooted trees, flames, and smoke, and wondered just how much that peace might cost.