"HELP!" A woman's cry.
The man holding her adjusted his grip slightly to give her a reassuring squeeze before picking up his pace.
As the couple reach the hospital, the receptionist asks the male, "Hello, welcome to Konoha Hospital. Please state your-"
"MOVE!" the woman practically hollers before her voice broke out into another scream. The man swiftly moves with the woman and two surgeons through the hallways into a plain, white, room where he lays her down gently. He eyes her swelled stomach, eyes widening in realization.
The surgeons stand by for the possibility of an emergency c-section while they doctor is telling her to push and making no real effort to help, the man is racking his nerves and even chewing his colored fingernails, wondering what will happen after.
Finally there is a break in the scream, and the doctors hand the baby boy to the mother, and she holds him close to her breast and presses his ear to her heart, the smiles and cries, saying "He's so beautiful, he's so beautiful," repeatedly.
Then she abruptly stops and the baby is wailing.
The doctors tilt her head up, feel around her neck, press their ear to her mouth and nose, and place their stethoscopes on her heart, hearing and feeling no sign of life left in her.
They turn to the man, and one of the doctors says, "We're so sorry..."
But the man has left, and the baby—Ketsueki, named by his father-- is gone.
Just after this event, a man's relative is getting ready to go to bed when he hears newborn-sounding crying in the kitchen. He wonders what it could be, and when he gets into the white-tiled room, there is a newborn child now wailing on the glass table in the center with a rolled-up scroll by its side. He unrolls is and sees it's blank. He bites his thumb and draws his blood across the scroll, and kanji appears, fading in.
Hello Sensei.
I need your son to take care of Ketsueki for me. As you know I cannot, and his mother…she's died.
-Your 'little prodigy'
His eyes widen, and he calls his son. "Kenji! Get in here!"
***
I'm twelve now. I live with my foster parent, have no idea who my father is, but I know that my mother died after giving birth to me.
As I roam the training field, walking home, I wonder why Kenji won't tell me who my father is…and what other secrets he's keeping.
***
Ketsueki sprints home after school and bounces up and down on the kitchen table, with the exuberance only a five-year old has.
Kenji smiles and laughs. "What's up squirt? Whoa, calm down!"
"Kenchee, Kenchee!" Ketsueki says excitedly, mispronouncing his caretaker's name. "Who were my parents?"
Kenji sits down and clasps his hands together quietly and rests his chin on them, giving his foster child an odd look, as if examining him. He smiles and said, "They were extremely skilled shinobi, Ket."
Ketsueki makes a cute sigh and says, "Ken-CHEE, I know that. But who were they?"
Kenji grins, stands up and ruffles the kid's hair. "When you're ready, kid."
***
I run in the door and Kenji's there waiting for me, with dinner on the table. I wolf it down and grin, before he gets the chance to ask me how my day was. When he asks, I smile and imitate him. "When you're ready, dude," and we both start laughing, although I know he was serious at the time.
"No, seriously, Ket. What did you do today?"
I sighed. "Training again. Sensei is right…I need to practice my genjutsu more. But I'm only twelve, aren't I?" I can't even use my kekkei genkai around people, because Kenji says it's dangerous…and I can't find out where it's even from because Kenji doesn't want me asking to arouse suspicion, and he won't tell me either. "Besides, who cares if I can't use genjutsu? I know how to recognize and release it anyway," I finish.
Kenji sighs too, and tells me the usual. "All areas of training-"
"Are equally important and vital, I know, I know," I finish for him after cutting him off.
"Look, Ket, I've another meeting with the Hokage today…so I want you in bed by sundown, okay?"
I nod and smile, knowing I should obey him.
***
------
Danzo looks up from his papers at the council meeting. He looks at the man who is about thirty-one years old. "So you are the foster parent of Ketsueki Uchiha?" He asks with authority. The man nods subtly.
"Very well. And I assume you know why we have called you here? To report on the boy's skills?" Danzo asks.
Kenji nods. "He says he is strong in all but Genjutsu, sir."
Danzo stands up. "It's not enough! You know why we are interested in him and we need to know EXACTLY what he has been doing. He has his father's talent as well, does he not?!"
Kenji sits a little bit lower in his chair. "Then go watch, sir. I cannot as I must cover up all his tracks and there are too many for me to have extra time."
Danzo sits down again, and regains his calm and nods. "Very well, I will send one of our ANBU to watch him tomorrow at his training. You may leave now."
Kenji leaves the room, and Danzo and the two village elders are talking. "Who shall we send?" they ask each other.
They talk for what seems to be endlessly.
------
***
I'm laying in bed, about to fall asleep when I hear someone walk in our door. The steps are lighter than Kenji's, though…
My heart beats a little faster, because I know if it's a criminal I won't be able to defeat it.
As the wooden door to my room creaks open a bit, I hold my breath and tense my muscles, poised and ready to run.
A woman wearing a mask and with purple hair and a somewhat long sword—an ANBU, I realize—walks in slowly. "I know you're awake, Ketsueki." Her voice is rough yet calm.
I am speechless, so my mouth just hangs open. I get ready to jump out my window, still in my bed.
"I'm not here to hurt you…just…"
I hear the door open again and this time it's Kenji's footsteps.
The ANBU curses and tells me half a sentence. "Don't trust the —"
"Ket? You asleep in there or talking to yourself?" Kenji's voice calls from the kitchen, a little suspicious.
The ANBU is gone, and I am fast asleep.
***
The next day I train until sunset. As I'm walking through the training field heading home, I see an ANBU practicing some REALLY cool techniques—A red chakra spiral that looks like those things that people hang out of their windows that spin and it looks like it goes up and down—but this one is sideways.
I walk up to him and politely ask to learn it. He smirks and just tells me to watch again.
I open my red eyes without him seeing and I look at what happens with his chakra…and I keep trying it, even after he's left.
I hold out my arm and push my chakra outwards in the spiral that it's supposed to be, but it's not colored.
I stand in front of one of the Sakura trees, and practice and practice until the tree falls. As it falls I hear a crackle of leaves to my left, but as I whip my head towards the sound, as fast as it came, the clues were gone.