The sky was clear tonight without a cloud in sight, the moon casts its spotlight on the once abandon Compound now thriving with life. Sasuke Uchiha stood just outside his compound watching as five silhouettes came into view. If someone had asked him where he'd be in eighteen years he would have told them: married to Sakura, living as Uchiha Compound, with one kid.
For a while that had been his picture-perfect family, he had always thought that he'd be with Sakura. However, it seemed like fate had different plans for him. The man glanced down at the eldest of children as he reached them before his mother and sibling. Akira Uchiha, he was the perfect son, at thirteen he was at the top of his year, a chunin, and they suspect he'd be a jonin by the end of this year.
He was an honorable boy, a little arrogant and headstrong yet when your father was an Uchiha such traits were expected. The only problem with Akira was that he looked more like a Hyūga than an Uchiha. He had long blue-black hair he kept tied behind his head with bangs that hid his face when he dropped his head or bowed.
Both his eyes held the Byakugan, he wore black sleeves shirt and standard issued shinobi pants and open toed sandals. Sasuke, although not the greatest when it comes to showing affection, wouldn't change he eldest for the life of him, but giving Akira the title as heir to the Uchiha Clan was troubling without the Sharingan.
His daughters, Sasunata and Himawari trailed not too far behind their older brother. Sasunata was a year behind her brother, she had the typical Uchiha features complete with Sharingan and was often told she looked like her father over her mother. With a rather stoic attitude and wasn't big on smiling, however, was an honest and level-headed kunoichi. Sasunata, although only a genin, was considered an elite genin and third in her year.
Himawari was four years behind her sister and looked closer to a Hyūga rather than an Uchiha, unlike her older sister who had onyx colored hair, eyes and wore glasses, Himawari had dark blue hair and lighter purple tinted eyes with visible pupils with the Byakugan. Himawari was still training as an academy student, and was catching up to her older siblings at an alarming rate. She has proven to pack quite a punch with gentle fist technique. She was the most mature out of her sibling and had no problems helping around the house and doing the chores.
Hinata Uchiha showed up on his right and silently looped an arm around his with a warm smile on her lips. The former Hyūga had let her hair grown out and touched her waist, she wore a dark blue jacket with a black tank top underneath it. A matching skirt that cut off mid-thigh with leggings and black fingerless gloves. Since marrying an Uchiha, her choices in clothing has become bolder and form fitting.
She has maintained her sweet and caring side although has obtained a frightening amount of confidence in both herself and her skills as Kunoichi. She had retired as an active shinobi in order to take care of her family, having taken interest in medical ninjutsu, she's been studying underneath Sakura as a medical-nin. It was mostly thanks to her Kekki Genkai and her incredible chakra control, that she had become nearly on par with her mentor in medical ninjutsu.
Sasuke was very proud of the family he had made with Hinata, he would have no other to carry on the name of the Uchiha clan. The head of the Uchiha clan didn't like to pick favorites, he knew how that felt with own father but couldn't deny the fact that there was one he tended to be more mindful over the other three. He felt the muscles in his newly acquired left arm twitch when a small hand slipped itself into his.
Both his eyes, the one hidden and visible, dropped down to the 'runt' of the Uchiha family. The six-year-old, Ryuu Uchiha, was the spitting image of his father and could have been the poster child for the Uchiha clan. Ryuu was the most considerate and emphatic out of all of the Uchiha children, unlike the other three who dealt with Sasuke's hectic life as a Shinobi in their own ways, Ryuu was not put off in the slightest by his father rather cold and indifferent personality. He did not try to shower their father in affection like Himawari did, he did not bend or bow his head in utmost respect like Akira did, and he did not get mad and lose his temper like Sasunata did.
He read in between the lines, very much like how he did with the book in his hand, and found little things that were acceptable to express his love without bothering or keeping the man at a distance. Like now for instance, whereas the other three huddled and walk beside their mother, he was 'allowed' to walk beside and hold his father other hand. Inwardly, he was rather happy that his father had decided to fix his left arm, normally Ryuu was stuck lightly gripping the back of his father's shirt.
Feeling the eyes peering down at him, the child tore his own from the book he was reading and tipped his head upwards to look up at the single black pupil staring down at him. At one point in his short life, Ryuu would have swiftly pulled his hand back and ducked behind his mother's leg with such a look, but now after observing his father for the additional two years the man was kept in the village, Ryuu could read his eyes and expressions no matter what they were.
He offered Sasuke a tender hearted smile that mimicked his mother's own not too long ago. Ryuu was special, besides the obvious fact that he had no problem connecting with his father, he was the first child to ever hold two different Kekki Genkai in his eyes. The left one was a darker purple than an average Hyūga eye, but between the color and the lack of pupil evident made him appear less of an Uchiha which had prompted him to hide that eye behind his bangs.
The right eye was currently a dark black but often bled red when he was under a lot of pressure or activated it. The boy was the true prodigy of the family, having already surpassed both his sisters, he was currently being personally trained by Sasuke and would be taking the next Chunin exam when the time came. His sisters simply accepted him, but due to this the eldest Uchiha child loath the youngest.
Ryuu wasn't able to fully comprehend what Akira hated him about so much, he just knew that they did not get along. He assumed this hatred stemmed from the fact that he was catching up to the older boy rapidly in skill, the truth in why he had finished with the Academy so earlier was because he was tired of constantly being picked on for his odd eyes. Kids were mean and words tended to cut straight through his heart, being called a freak, half-breed, weirdo. His Academy days we not filled with joyful memories.
Ryuu returned his eyes to his book as Sasuke took to leading his family into the village and to the Hyūga Compound. Hiashi Hyūga had retired to the Clan Council not long after the Fourth Shinobi War. Hanabi had taken over as the clan head and was often taking the time to invite Hinata and her family over for dinner. Even though Hinata and her children were very much welcomed into the Compound, there was still a great deal of distrust and fear of her husband among some of the Hyūga and council members.
The four were well aware of this father's past actions and of their late Uncle Itachi, it was their history and their right to know yet none of them let that define them. Sasuke was atoning for what he had done or tried to do, he was steady working to repair his relationship with this village in small ways. It was not for his benefit but for his family. He did not want his past actions to affect them here and now.
As the family walked through the streets of Konoha they were met with nods of approval and friendly smiles. Ryuu pulled the book down slightly to watch the faces as they passed by. Ryuu wasn't fully updated on the situation but he did know there was a new threat coming to the Shinobi world. One so dire that it had resulted in putting the 7th Hokage, Naruto Uzumaki, into a coma that not his wife could bring him out of.
That was about two years ago, the village had watched their hero and Kage being carried in by best friend and sister, Sasuke. It was also the day his father lost the use of his Rinnegan, details on why and how were not given to him. He just knew the basics he had gotten from over hearing conversations around the village.
Sasuke had taken up the mantle as the temporary Hokage until Naruto returned which bound him to this village. No matter how much the Uchiha asked and begged Kakashi Hatake refused to return to the seat as Hokage. The remaining members of Konoha 11 had all agreed that Naruto would want Sasuke to step in for him, ultimately, it was Shikamaru Nara who had convinced him and the Konoha Council that Sasuke was the best choice to watch over the village in Naruto stead.
The man still couldn't get used to being called Lord Eighth nor how fickle people could be. Not that long ago he was the Traitor, now he was their Savior and their leader. He didn't like it yet put up with it for Naruto's sake.
As they turned down the path and entered through the open gates that led into the Compound, the doors were opened at once with two Hyūga guards stationed at the entrance. The family stepped inside and Ryuu couldn't help but feel a little unnerved inside the home. He had a hard time believing that his mother had grown up here and had turned out so caring and nurturing, the inside of this place was rather bland.
The boy slowly dropped his father hand as the Head of the Clan showed herself with the former Head and greeted them as warmly as a Hyūga could. After the brief exchange, they all went to the dining room to eat together, somewhere in between eating and chatting Ryuu would dismiss himself to explore the Compound with his parent's permission. Unlike his siblings, he was not very good at socializing preferring books to people.
The boy's bare feet were muffled by his chakra as he ran down the hallways. He had mapped out a decent amount the clan's home but there were still places he had yet to find. Unfortunately, they had rules about activating their Kekki Genkai for privacy reasons, when not training, within the compound, so Ryuu was stuck remembering where he had and hadn't been without the aid of his Sharingan. The young Uchiha stopped completely when he felt that he was deep enough and rotated his head to look around.
He saw white and brown, everything looked the same here he wondered if any of the Hyūga ever got lost in this place. He began walking at a leisure pace down the right hallway and kept his eyes constantly in motion as he searched for what he wanted to find. He never told anyone the real reason he always left as soon as he was done eating to look around the Compound.
He had only seen her once or twice, it was the fact that he had caught sight of her with his Sharingan that made her so real, the ghost that is. She was dressed head to toe in white and always faded from his sight before he could catch her.
He had asked when he was still considered a mere baby(about three years ago) why Aunt Hanabi didn't have any children for them to play with. His mother had told him that her sister was unable to have any children after an accident during her active Shinobi days. The woman had supposedly adopted a Hyūga child as her heir but no one outside the Hyūga clan has ever seen the child before which included his family.
He suspects the girl in white and this heir were one and the same, but until he had solid proof he was making an assumption. Today he swore he'd get down to the bottom of this mystery. He had even left his book behind at the dinner table to fully focus on this task. After what felt like the fiftieth time of walking down the very same hallway something new showed up in his peripheral vision.
He twisted his neck around so fast he might have gotten whiplash if his training had not kept as limber and flexible as he was. In the center of the hallway floated a ball of blue fire. It was a perfect ball with flames dancing and jumping at the top of it. Ryuu, unconsciously, activate both his eyes. The left one remained unseen as chakra pumped through the veins at his temple. The right one shimmered crimson as the tomoe in the middle begun spinning rapidly around the pupil.
He found that the ball was made up of a chakra but it was unlike any chakra he has seen before. Instead of vanishing, like Ryuu expected, the ball of fire fled, floating down the opposite hallway at a speed a civilian's eye would never be able to keep up with. In a burst of chakra to his feet, Ryuu bolted down the hallway and after the blue orb.
Ryuu, who's has had been told countless times that he had the speed to rival his father, couldn't come within five feet of the ball. The child Uchiha, constantly praised for his skills, had some flaws one of his worst is his single-mindedness. Once he sets his sights on something he gives all his attention to it and nothing else.
It was no surprise when the ball of fire suddenly stopped and then disappeared right before his eyes. Between his momentum and speed, Ryuu was unable to slow himself to a graceful stop and found himself taking a rough tumble directly into a wall. He heard a creak as his face connected with the hard surface and felt the pain as he went down flat on his back. He felt tears stinging his eyes as he reached up and grabbed his nose, it was slightly slanted where the bone had broke.
The pain throbbed, but it wasn't anything he hadn't felt before. He pulled up the bottom of his shirt and placed the hem in his mouth as he counted to three and gave his nose a yank. He tensed feeling the bone pop back into place and pulled light green healing chakra from his center and pooled it into his hand. The pain died away and once he was certain it was in place and as fixed as he could get it, he dropped his hand and the shirt in his mouth while wiping away the blood dripping out of his nose.
Ryuu let out a soft sigh as his nerves calmed down and scoped the area out. The Uchiha flipped himself onto his stomach and then pushed upward to stand, beyond his nose he didn't seem to have anything else broken or harmed. Now then where was he? As the black pupil scanned around he decided that wherever he was it was not a place he had ever been before. The walls had long since crumbled and in their place stood thick beams of wood, blackened and charred from where what he assumed had been flames licking at them.
Above him, he could see holes some smaller and others larger where the light of the moon shined inside. Even the flooring was charred beyond recognition, how he had not noticed this place before was an astonishment to him. As he walked through the scorched remains of the back of the Compound, his feet led him to what might have been door outside. The deck he stepped on was just as black as the inside, but outside it looked like nothing had been touched in fact he was sure he was in the biggest formal garden he's ever seen.
The lake-side air was pungent with the fragrance of jasmine. This was no natural basin filled with melt water, but the luxury addition to a formal garden by an someone with both copious leisure time and money. In the center, there was a pond as large as a small lake with flowering lily pads and a wooden bridge that crossed the middle so you could look down at the koi carp. The flower beds were a riot of May color and even on close inspection, they were weed-free.
Ryuu wanted to get a better look at the pond and maybe go over the bridge a few times before his parents and siblings come looking for him, just as he was ready to step off the blackened deck there was a sound. He froze and tipped his head so that his ear was angled towards the sky. It was a giggle, feminine and soft, fluttering around a large tree whose twigs hung is odd ringlets.
Ryuu drew his foot back on the deck and stared intently in the direction of the tree and that's when he saw the blue orbs of fire. There were about nine of them bouncing and flying in circles around the tree, although, not moving nearly as fast as they had been when Ryuu had been trying to catch the one, their movements were lazier.
Behind them was what looked like a little girl, from under long white bangs were two large translucent violet eyes that looked to take up the majority of her face. The girl had a button of a nose The bridge was so low-profile as to be barely there at all; so that on a face of skin all the same milky hue, her nose was a bump just above her dusky pink lips. There was no doubt about it, she was cute maybe as cute or cuter than Himawari, of course, he would never say that to his sister.
He stood there long enough for the girl to circle the tree three more times, her feet were bare and seemed to be the only imperfection on her little body. With the Sharingan, he could see every little detail of her feet they were crisscrossed with more scars than he could count, some of them larger and others so tiny they weren't even really there. 'Why was she running around outside without sandals anyway and what are those glowing balls' he thought to himself before taking the plunge and stepping down into the grass.
He swore as soon as his foot touched the grass the girl's head snapped directly over to him. He tensed and felt the muscles in his hands twitch as the girl's foot caught on the hem of her kimono she was wearing and she went down hard. He could see it happening in slow motion, her front teeth sinking down into her bottom lip, breaking the skin and blood pooling out of it. He was in front of her before his mind had made any conscious choices, he grabbed her underneath her armpits and hauled her up effortlessly.
Now closer, he noticed the girl was really tiny, perhaps half his size and Ryuu was small for his age. If he had to guess her age he'd say she was around five or four maybe younger. As soon as he got her on her feet she turned around and made a run for it, her foot once again, stepped on the hem of her dress and she was flung forward instead of connecting with the earth, Ryuu's arms shot out, caught her around the waist and pulled her backwards perhaps a little too strongly. His rear fell against the grass painfully with the little girl seated in between his legs, his tail bone hurt almost as much as his nose had.
He ignored the pain, distracted when he felt the girl's body shaking under his touch. Ryuu leans over the elfin sized girl and finds clear tears streaming down her face like a waterfall. Her bottom lip where she had bitten it was gushing out the scarlet liquid that color as his right eye. That looked like it really hurt.
"I'm going to fix your lip, okay?" He asked gently although wasn't waiting for an answer as he focuses chakra into his left hand creating a small ball of healing chakra. "My Kaasan taught me how to use Chiyute no Jutsu, she said that great Shinobi need great medical-nin too." He continued talking aimlessly in hopes of putting the girl at ease as he lightly pressed the green chakra against the outside of her lower lip.
She stopped trembling but the tears didn't stop flowing even after the lip was healed. He wasn't all flustered or troubled by the tears she spilled, Himawari cried more than most Uchiha and he supposed he had his moments as well. Tears were a natural reaction when hurt or sad so you should not feel ashamed no matter your gender for spilling them, or at least that is what mother said. He just wasn't sure how to get them to stop, her lip shouldn't hurt anymore.
The six-year-old deactivated his eyes, Ryuu felt a great deal of guilt for being the reason she had tripped and hurt herself in the first place. He tried to remember what mother did when things like this happened.
Oh! The ravenette scooted backward so that the girl was no longer sitting between his legs. He crawled around her to kneel in front of her and offered her a tentative smile, "I'm sorry for making you fall I didn't mean too." The children sat there in complete silence for a minute or two and then the girl finally raised her puny arms up and brushed away the tears the stray tears that lingered on her eyes.
"Dats okay, I bergive you." The airy voice answered, making Ryuu smile a little brighter. She talked funny maybe it was because of her lip? He didn't care too much because she had no more tears falling free.
"What are those balls?" He asked, attention shifting back towards the nine floating orbs circling over the girl's head. They were kind of distracting.
"Balls? Oh! My friends." The girl got up carefully and held out her hands, two of the fireballs drifted down to hover right over her palms. Ryuu stood up and made to touch one, but the tricksters dipped out of the way and went back to hovering in the air. The girl let out a joyful laugh as the pair left and joined the others. Ryuu wasn't as happy with their departure and watched them carefully as while they flew around. "Ramen gave me them." She informed him happily.
"Ramen?" He repeated, was she talking about noodles? "Who's Ramen?"
"My fox friend." She seemed rather ecstatic to be able to talk to him as more words poured out of her mouth. "He lives inside me so you can't see him." She pressed both hands against the obi where her belly laid.
This girl was strange, cute, but strange. Ryuu noticed that when she talked to him her eyes were looking over his shoulder or down at his feet. He wasn't sure what to make of her. "I think I've seen you around here before. How come you never come out and play?" This girl had to be the little ghost once he's seen when exploring the grounds.
"Strangers are scary, I don't know if they're the bad peoples or good peoples. Hanabi Okaasan also says it safer if I stay hidden and Ramen doesn't like the peoples either he says they're mean to him." Ryuu simply decided to accept these answers, he'd ask his mother about this girl later. "You wanna play? Ramen and me were playing tags with them." She pointed in the direction of the blue orbs of fire. Seeing as he didn't have his book and it has been a while since he had someone to play with, Ryuu agreed with a smile and nod.
The two ran all over the vast garden trying to catch the little orbs for hours. Ryuu even cheated, using his chakra, and still didn't come any closer to catching one. Once in a while, one of them would simply slow itself speed and be 'caught' by the little girl much to her delight. Ryuu should have been a little more spiteful about this, yet listening to the girl's shouts of glee and laughter evaporated any such thoughts and feelings.
As time passed them by the two grew tired and took a rest beneath the large tree. Somehow Ryuu ended up being the one leaning against the rough bark with the small girl sitting in between his legs and resting her head on his chest. The nine glowing orbs drifted around, seemly having lost their energy, and circled the two in an almost protective embrace. The little girl had already fallen fast asleep against him.
Ryuu felt an unusual warmth buzzing around in his chest, it was rather comforting. He wondered if this was what it was like to have a younger sibling? Ryuu felt like he'd make an excellent older brother or at least better one than his current brother. He's already asked his mother about another baby but she said go and ask father and all he got from him was one of his infamous 'hn'. Ryuu was getting better at learning what those meant, the hn' he had gotten most likely referred him back to his mother.
The boy hadn't bothered returning to his mother he knew this game, the asking game, it literally got him nowhere. He did not know why they wouldn't just go and get him another baby, it was disheartening. The child let out a long yawn while pulling the little girl closer to him, maybe he should ask for one as a birthday present? The little boy drifted off with that thought in mind, unaware of the several pairs of eyes watching them in the distances.
So I had more for this, but I cut it off because it was getting pretty long. This is two years after the prologue. I don't have a Beta so sorry for the errors, I checked it but I am only humans. I enjoy criticism on my writing over my story(or my pairing), if you see anything wrong let me know or ignore it whatever. I don't normally update once a day, but I felt like I needed a chapter one up so here it is. Hope you enjoy.