Chapter 8: Eerie Calm

Harry's first reaction at seeing that bright shade of red in a pair of eyeballs was to reach for his pockets to get his faithful Holly wand out and get ready for spellcasting. It took him two full seconds, after realizing he didn't have a wand, to break through the flashback of Voldemort's red eyes to notice the differences.

They weren't slit like Voldemort's. Sure, they were in the same shade of red, but they had perfectly round pupils and had three weirdly shaped dots in the iris. Tomoe, he'd heard it be called somewhere.

Only then did the tunnel vision gradually lessen as he took in the details of the person standing over the dying Sayuri.

The skin was pale, paler than his, but much tanner than Voldemort had ever been. The face was distorted in an expression of shock, disbelief and anguish. It was a young face and very painfully familiar.

He felt his heart twist in pain as he recognized that face. He didn't even need to look up to know that face would be framed with slick silver hair.

Tsukimi!

He rushed towards his sisters. There was too much he didn't know about the situation, but this wasn't the sort of situation that he would stop and assess. Not when one of his sisters was dying.

Sayuri had a deep gash on her torso at stomach level. Given the scent of acid, it had reached her stomach and it had been open for a while considering that some of the blood on the floor didn't look to be freshly spilled enough to be something that had just happened. She also had a wound on her temple.

This… she had lost too much blood and there was no telling if she would be fine if they healed her or if she would need transfusions. The head wound was also a big concern since she looked pretty out of it and no one was good enough a medic to fix brain damage.

"What happened?" He asked Tsukimi since she was the only one standing near them.

But she was still as an iced over waterfall, staring down at Sayuri in shock as he desperately and in vain tried to hold her would closed.

"… nii-san…" A feeble voice called out and turned back to see Sayuri, still dazed looking but trying to focus her eyes on him.

"Hei! How are you doing?" He asked lamely, desperate to keep her conscious as he figured out what he should do.

"… hurts… hurts so much…"

"I know. I know it hurts. But you'll be okay." He told her.

But he knew it was a lie and, by the look on her face she knew it too.

He turned to the trainers just to avoid the look of resignation on her face that was more efficient at destroying his denial than the cold hard facts he could observe. In barely leashed anger he shouted at them.

"Why aren't you doing anything!? Isn't it your job to make sure we're healed of our wounds if he aren't dead?"

But none of them moved. Not even when Nageki thrashed even harder after his shout, making him focus on the situation outside of his sisters.

Yuuto wasn't anywhere, probably still in another room doing a battle, so the only kid sapable of healing in the room was Nageki. Nageki who was being held in place and prevented from helping by a Root trainer. One of the same ones that should be ensuring that the kids strong enough to survive a devastating attack were healed to live and fight another day.

And then there was Danzou.

Danzou didn't attend their training sessions ever since the live prey battles started, preferring to see the payout. He still showed up once if a blue moon, but still rarely enough that his presence there at the moment, observing from the top deck in the room, expression as passive as usual but with the barest hint of hidden anger in the way his mouth was set.

He was watching… and he wasn't doing anything either. Just watching.

It was then that he had a superficial understanding of was going on.

He'd planned for this. Whatever part of it he had planned, if just a part or the whole thing, it was still planned by him. His sister was practically dead because of some sort plan from him.

"… nii-san…" His thoughts about whatever Danzou had planed for them were interrupted by his sister's pleading. It was highly unusual for her to call him brother, mostly because they were hiding how close they were around anyone above a certain age.

Harry dry-swallowed at her tone of voice.

"I'm right here, Sayuri." He said barely above a whisper so they would hear him.

"… make it stop…"

"Help is on the way. Just hold one!" He lied again and she saw right through his again.

"… too late… Just make the pain stop… please…"

He froze still and looked at her in disbelief over what she was asking him.

"No!" Was his immediate reply.

"… please, nii-san… it hurts too much… please…"

He almost instinctually said 'no' again but was stuck on her unfocused but pleading eyes.

She knew.

Somehow, in excruciating pain and very likely concussed and dying, and she still managed to see more than he had. Danzou wasn't letting this go. He wouldn't allow for her to be healed and the choices were either for her to die a slow agonizing death, or for a quick one.

There was a third choice of him putting her in stasis, but his emotions were too out of wack for him to properly concentrate. He'd been trying to get them under control all this time to be able to figure a way out. As things were, he wouldn't be able to put them under control before she was gone, since she was so close to death already.

He would still try, though the idea of him making her go through some of the effects of a badly done stasis spell chilled his breaking heart. He couldn't just not try.

She wouldn't know that, though. Only Yuuto and Nageki knew about the stasis spell he'd created and what he intended to do with it. It was probably better that she didn't he couldn't offer her hope only to fail because his emotions were wrecking hell on his self-control.

He spared a glance towards Tsukimi, who was still in a state of shock, with her weird red eyes watching their youngest sister's life draining away. He wanted to comfort her and tell her it was all going to be alright, but he couldn't. He had to try his best to concentrate on what he was about to attempt.

He stood up, trying to gather any sliver of self-control that he still had and focused him magic on his had to make it seem like an assassination jutsu, like he'd done those other times before.

That was the first time Tsukimi had any reaction ever since he'd gotten into the room. Her eyes briefly looked up at him, then his hand, only to return to Sayuri.

As he drew his hand back he felt something in Tsukimi had changed, but he couldn't split his attention in that moment. Not when Sayuri needed all of it.

What happened next seemed to go as if in slow motion. As his hand was descending onto Sayuri, he saw the light fade from her eyes and a part of him felt her soul disappear. Even before his hand touched her and put her in stasis he already knew she was gone. It disrupted his concentration a bit, but he was still in movement and with his hand enclosed in magic. His hand landed on her chest firmly, putting a dead body in stasis.

The spell had succeeded. He felt it hit right despite his emotions. It locked her as a dead body, still with traces of chakra in her due to how recent the death was, but with no soul. Her body could still be healed, technically, but it wouldn't matter. It would be like she'd been kissed by a Dementor. Still alive but so very dead.

He wanted to scream.

Like when Tori died, he felt his magic and chakra welling up and lashing out, trying to escape. It was far more tempting to unleash it now than it had been to unleash it then. He had the right targets in the room this time.

But Tsukimi needed him, so he had to reign himself in.

He looked up at her and froze. Her eyes were still red, but the pattern was different this time. This time the iris was split into six section by black lines coming from the center of the pupil, there was a triangle spanning the whole iris and finally there was a circle around the pupil encased by the triangle. But that wasn't the most shocking.

Her eyes were bleeding.

Before he could fully process what was going one, Tsukimi fell down unconscious and he barely had any time to catch her. That was his final nail in getting a hold of his emotions before they could slaughter everyone in the room. He would not abandon his remaining sister to rampage at their wardens like a werewolf during full moon.

He scooped Tsukimi up and left the room, heading to the medbay. It hurt to leave Sayuri's body behind, but Tsukimi needed him now and he could retrieve her body later. His path was unimpeded.

A brief glance behind him let him know that Danzou was happy with what had just transpired, the corner of his mouth set higher than usual and a malicious satisfied expression in his eyes.

Harry shut down that venue of thought before it could rile his emotions up again. He had a sister to take care of.

The rest of the day was spent in a state of numbness. Yurara came by once, asking for his cloak with a finger poke to his shoulder and no words exchanged and he was too emotionally wrung out to bother questioning her. Yuuto and Nageki were the most frequent visitors, trying to assess Tsukimi's state. Their expressions weren't promising.

Tsukimi was cleaned up and changed and brought into the dormitory later in the day. Harry stood by her side like a guard dog. Nageki stayed with them too, leaning onto him for comfort.

He held completely still up until he felt the last chakra belonging to root trainers disappear from his sensing field. Only when the very last one of them left did he break down.

He couldn't remember ever having cried like this before. Even with Sirius he spent all of his time raging, and then being neck deep in the bargaining phase, before being booted to the Dursleys where he couldn't express his sadness anyway. Even Cedric's death he didn't get to properly cope with. He'd been too numb at first and then, when the nightmares started, he was already at the Dursleys and revealing vulnerabilities to them was a big no-no.

He hadn't really dealt with his grief properly after that. There were always bigger things to worry about.

This time he couldn't resort to anger, and the numbness could only hold his emotions for so long. So as soon as he felt safe to feel, the dam broke and cried like he had no recollection of ever doing before.

He felt Nageki hug him as soon as the first sob escaped him. Soon other arms were joining hers around him.

He lost track of time for how long he stayed like that but eventually he composed himself, but eventually he was calm enough that he knew they needed to plan their next move.

"How is Tsukimi?" He asked in a rough voice, because he needed to know her condition before he did anything else

She's is a coma. Her eyes won't stop draining her chakra and she doesn't have enough for whatever it is that happened to her eyes yet. Nageki signed. We've been transferring chakra to her through Uzumaki's seals.

"What even is this eyes thing. Is it going to happen to me too?" Harry asked worriedly, because he needed to be awake to protect them all and he had no clue of what it was doing to his sister and how to stop it.

"Sharingan." He heard from behind him and he saw Yurara show up from beneath his cloak. "That's what those eyes are. They are a bloodline trait from the Uchiha clan. You won't be getting them. They came from her mother." She explained.

Harry remembered how she and Tsukimi had found the records about their birth mothers and how some were still trapped in this hell. He hadn't paid it too much attention besides the logistics of how to save a couple more women in addition to the kids.

"How do we turn it off?"

"I don't know. There's not much about the regular sharingan aside from what it can do and she managed to get the level above that, that has a nebulous description of having different powers for each. Nothing about how it works and how to stop it. She really should be able to keep her mangekyou turned on for so long and yet here she is. The only reason it's not draining even more of her chakra is because her eyes are closed." Yurara said in a frustrated tone before looking at him seriously. "We have to get her out of here as soon as possible. We all do, but she needs to leave yesterday."

Harry felt so tempted to hasten their departure.

"I… We're not ready. I managed to get plenty of food, but it won't be enough for everyone for a long enough time. We will end up starving if we leave now."

"I know, but Tsukimi still needs to leave." Yurara insisted. "If she remains the way she is, Danzou will consider her a waste of space, but he will not get rid of her without first taking her eyes. That's what he did with her mother. She's still alive but she's completely blind. Even if he lets her live, which I doubt, she'll still be blind as well as in a coma."

Harry really wanted to say fuck all the consequences and leave. He really, really wanted to. He needed his remaining sister safe.

Instead of giving her a decision, Harry laid down beside his sister under the covers wanting to be away from the situation, wanting not to be the one in charge anymore. He wanted his sister safe and that was clouding his judgement of the situation. He shouldn't be allowed to make a decision because he was pretty sure that if it came down to it, he would pick his sister, despite knowing they were not ready.

"What happened." He asked.

He didn't need to clarify what he was talking about.

"We were all sparring like always. But this time Danzou came to visit not long before you and Yuuto were called for your was weird. He was weird. There was something off about his behavior today but we didn't pay it any mind. Sayuri and Tsukimi wer sparring and everything was going well when suddenly Sayuri slipped and Tsukimi couldn't stop her motion. Or that was what it was supposed to look like, because Sayuri is the more sure-footed person here, trumped only by you and was Tsukimi's kunai. It cut Sayuri up like butter during summer. She fell and hit her head pretty hard on the floor. Nageki tried to help but they grabbed her so she couldn't. We spent almost an hour being forced to seem Sayuri scream in pain and beg for help."

Harry winced at the description.

"You know the rest." Yurara said with compassion in her voice. "I brought Sayuri's body. It's in the scroll."

"Why would he do this. It doesn't make sense, especially since me and my sisters come from a very hard to get genetic material. He wouldn't want to risk out potential." He asked because, for all the pain he was going through, that part just didn't make sense.

"I'm not sure. I couldn't find a specific reason why. The only thing I did find was that one of his favorite tools was rescued by the Hokage but I'm not seeing how that is connected to you." Yurara admitted.

"Ok…" He said and them turned around and tried to shut the world out by snuggling against Tsukimi.

He couldn't deal with anything else had tried, but he just couldn't focus enough on what needed to be done.

He thought that would be that until the next day.

He hadn't counted on being woken up only a couple of hours later by Aoi.

"We're leaving, right now. Pack what you need and get ready to do your teleportation thing." He "Wait what?" He said agape, considering if he might still be half asleep. Considering how used he was to snap aware at the barest thing, and Aoi's serious expression, that theory was most likely wrong. "We still don't have enough food to last us a long time."

"We all know that. We still made the decision." Aoi explained. "We all got to vote on it. Most of us voted to leave right now."

"Most?" He asked.

"Chiame and Arisu want to stay. Kyara doesn't really have an opinion and some didn't want to vote because they were too scared of making the wrong choice."

"We're ready." Yurara said, interrupting any chance for more clarifications that he could have. "All that is left is for Nageki, Yuuto and Satoru to return with the women from the breeding programs and for Uzumaki to return with the supplies from the med-bay and library."

"Yurara… are you sure?" He asked. It was all he needed to say for her to understand what he was asking.

"Yes, I am. We all are." She said with a surety that was almost enough to reassure him.

Almost. And she knew that too.

Then her expression gentled.

"You've done a good job of carrying everyone else's burdens on your own. You've let some of her to lighten the load slightly in the last few months, but I think it's time for us to carry it in your stead for once. Please let us." She asked.

He still felt reluctant, but he'd never seen Yurara being so warm with him. It stunned him.

Oh, he knew she cared. It wasn't difficult to see. But she was more of a brusque kind of caring rather than soft. So, he gave in. He really was too tired and sad to put up much of a fight anyway.

She didn't need him to say anything for her to know she'd won and started calling the kids in pairs so that he could apparate them to the safe house. He decided not to leave with Tsukimi right away. With both medics gone on a rescue mission of their own, there wouldn't be anyone to make sure his sister would be ok, on the other side.

Things were going smoothly.

And really, that should have been the first sign that something was about to go wrong.

Omake:

When Yurara had first met the kid that stubbornly started asking them to call him Hari, she'd been too distraught to really notice him. And then he'd humiliated her by using logic to force her to calm down. And she didn't want to be calm, dammit!

The weeks that followed hadn't helped in giving her reasons to trust him. It was why she challenged everything he had to say any chance she got.

But along the way things changed.

She wasn't quite sure when they had changed. She only knew that she was looking at him one moment as he laid out how far he'd gotten with his escape plan and she felt certain that with him in charge, they had a chance of escaping.

That still didn't stop her from feeling very surprised on how far along things were when he took her to the safe house so that they could create a walk-in freezer. She decided he wasn't advertising his successes nearly enough. If he was to maintain a grip on the most doubtful kids, he needed to show him how far along he was. Which was why she spread that knowledge around, leading to various kids requesting a visit.

Sure, those visits might delay things a bit, but they were essential to keeping the spirits up and it was up to her to deal with the pseudo-political side of their group of mismatched kids.

And then Jon died. That had hurt. Nageki might have been the most affected, but Hari was a close second.

She had been relieved that he was unable to take on everything himself. She know how it was all wearing him down and she wanted for his to share the burden. For Kannon's sake, the kid was five years younger than her. He was so tiny. He didn't diserve to be saddled with so many kids' burden the way he was. Kids that were all older than him. In fact, according to the data he'd gathered, only Sayuri had been younger than him. even Tsukimi was older, if just by a few minutes.

Things were going well and not even Danzou's odd actions as of late had managed to temper her hope. And then today had happened. Sayuri was dead. Tsukimi in a come and risking the chance of having her eyes ripped out if she didn't wake up anytime soon. And Hari was a mess.

He was a mess in a way she'd never seen him before, not even with Jon. But then again, he hadn't had to deal the finishing blow when Jon died. Yurara was disgusted by the repport that had been made on this day.

Danzou was happy with what he'd done today. Hari killing his sister and then looking unemotional about it made Danzou think he'd finally managed to break him and it was time for him to join the ranks. Yurara didn't tell Hari this. He didn't need to know. All she knew was that they needed to leave this place.

She waited until Hari was sound asleep to gather everyone in the Dojo.

"We are not ready." She said plainly. "We won't have enough food to last us a while so that we can get our own food supply."

"So we still have to wait. Big news." Datenshi, Arisu, said with an eyeroll.

"If it were Hari's choice we would. Because he wants us safe. Even with the risk of Danzou doing anything to his remaining sister, he would stay." Of that, she was sure.

He might falter a bit, but he'd eventually go back to thinking more about everyone's need over his own.

"He wouldn't ask you to risk your confort for the sake of his sister. Which is why I'm making this decision for him. I just need to know…" She trailed off, letting her eyes taking a deadly expression. "Are you ready to fucking helping him for once instead of leaving all the unpleasant chores to him? Because him alone won't be able to solve the food problem. He's worked tirelessly and mostly on his own to get us this far! Are you ready to finally getting off your asses and actually help him!?"

She could feel her words hit true as they fidgeted uneasily at the reminder that most of then hadn't spared a thought to how hard all the things that Hari was trying to accomplish really were, while they kept complaining that he wasn't going fast enough.

Good.

She asked for a vote to be made, then they all planned out how to gather everything they would need to take and who to send. Then another vote to make sure everyone was agreed on the same points.

She could do this!

For him!

A/N:

And so the reveal happens. Tsukimi is the Uchiha. I'd always intended her to have and Uchiha mother from the start and for her to wake her mangekyou too soon. Some people were thinking that Harry would be the one with the sharingan, welp! Sorry to disapoint ;P
Anyway, this mess, and the Root arc, aren't over yet. There's more to come, though not much more. I'm going to try at least finishing the Root Arc before my inspiration streak runs out.

Edit: Here two more drawings for your to see:
Tsukimi's Mangekyou: sta. sh/ 01by89faj7a1
Tsukimi's Regreat: sta. sh/ 01scaamdqdnc

Gensui (final look inspired in Hela from Norse Mythology, has power of Nuclear Radiation and controls it with her feelings, gets paired up with an empath for obvious reasons)|| Real name: Shakuren Kana;
Shin
(you know him, he's Sai's first and best friend,, this time his sickness correlates to radiation sickness that wasn't properly healed both due to lack of knowledge and, more importantly, lack of care for what repercussions he might have, gets paired up with Sai);
Yon
(One of Harry's sisters, mother unknown, definitely has a bloodline but... could she have two!? who knows! Gets paired up with her sister;|| Renamed: Tsukimi.)
Go
(One of Harry's sisters, mother unknown, definitely has a bloodline but... could she have two!? who knows! Gets paired up with her sister; || Renamed: Sayuri.)
Sai
(You defenitely know him, he joins team seven in shippuden, he isn't yet as socially retarded as he is in shippuden, but he still has a bit of it, gets paired with Shin);
Kyoukan
(I didn't inspire his looks on anyone in particular, I just wanted and empath on the team for reasons and after I developed Gensui I had even more reasons to have him here, gets paired up with Radiation girl) || Real name: Yuuto;
Negai
(someone once told me it would be a good idea to inspire my OCs inalready existing characters, well, here you have one inspired by Dreaming Mary, both in looks as well as powers, her back story isn't the same, though; she's partnered with unintroduced character with a canon kekkei genkai) || Real Name: Seishin Mari;
Shirayuki
(Mentioned only, but she is the girl that screamed back at Harry last chapter, she has a canon kekkei genkai and gets paired up Niji) || Real Name: Yuki Yurara;
Niji
(has chakra chains, his looks and some of his powers were inspired in a free online platform game named Rainbow, gets pai, red up with Shirayuki) || Real Name: Uzumaki Shinkisai;
Datenshi
(Inspired in Twisted Angel/Allison Angel from Bendy's ink machine, Sai sort of becomes her 'Bendy' in a way, gets paired up with Chiame) || Real Name: Arisu;
Chiame (inspired by Sachiko from Corpse Party, gets paired up with Datenshi, has Stokolm syndrome with one of the instructors and calls her mom);
Shinku (based on Frisk from Undertale; mute; gender neutral but biologically male; seems to have precog abilities and doesn't like fighting) || Code Name: Kettei;
Kyara (based on Chara from Undertale, still good with knives, still messed up from their death, even if this time is the methaforical death of their innocence rather than a literal one);
Tori (based on John Egbert from Homestuck) || Real name: Aokaze Jon || Dead;
Hebi (Heat vision, inspired on how people used to think, and still do, snake's saw this way. And, because of the way genjutsu works, basically imune to visual genjutsu because he doesn't see things the same way as normal people.);
Ningyou (Inspired on a ceramic doll looks-wise, with pheromones her power. She is more efficient against people with sensitive noses and animals);
Hitori (bloodline still a secret, has problems with his immune system and is sickly because of it, yet Danzou still finds him highly useful) || Real Name:Baizoubatsu Aoi;
Hai (inspired by the girl from Gris) - Main powers must be centered on singing, perhaps using the vibrations to stimulate chakra in the ambient around her (mostly small plants and boulders). Add abilities of turning into a square cube of stone or something, capability of holding her breath for a long time Real Name: Utatori Nageki.
Genkaku (inspired by Fran Bow) - civilian and a natural user of senjutsu, though sometimes has a hard time controling it and starts to turn into a tree because of it, because of several experiments preformed on her, she sometimes hallucinates. Her cat, Mayonaka, is a special type of summon that helps drain away the excess of natural chakra.
Jyuu San (Harry's codename, paired up with Kutsuu).