There is a room in Fort Iga, aside from the Study, that the genin teams hired by their Council appointed guardians never saw. The Uchihas have also never been inside this room, and do not know of its existence. This room has no proper name between the sisters. They do not need one for it.
It is a low, dim room made of stone and carefully hewn branches. There is a strange presence inside of it, an almost tangible weight that cannot be produced by any being that once was or yet remains mortal. It is more a cave or a lean-to than a proper room- a proper building. It, in all honesty, was not built.
Stones stacked on stones and braches like daub between wattle-stick boulders. Earth pounded flat by kneeling in prayer, a low altar of once-greenwood branches woven together, delicate fine and spinning; the great Eye of the Sun, there in twigs and sinew. It burns, but is not consumed, and it is not chakra that gives it its light. A ram's skull daubed with pigments and bee's wax, whispering in its blackened rings of things done in the dark for prices known and remembered and forgotten and borne on the strength of obedience; it's empty pate a room where secrets go to die in the dark. The voices it hisses with are voices of the dead- whispering inside a person's head, never deigning to confuse the meaning by letting paltry sound carry the message. Crystals glinting in the half-light, sparkings of other worlds- lightning born glass shards dancing next to chips of diamond, emerald, ruby, sapphire; the flickering of faint and brilliant stars, all aglow. There is a fortune in gemshards, pressed with care into the ceiling of that place.
(An Iga is an Iga so long as they Endure. A Koga is a Koga so long as they Obey.)
It is a place for praying, and listening. A place that the Iga flock tends to, and keeps the location of hidden, deep in the forested mountains. It is a temple, and a shrine. It is a place where the science of chakra gives way to the magic of faith.
(Gods are real, and demons too; spirits do yet roam the earth.)
In that room, and that room alone, sits a great wheel of fire, the painted skull of night, and the thickly scattered stars. Fortune, Fate, and Destiny. Luck, Death, and Life.
Fortune, the great wheel- to the Iga, fortune is akin to the sun; it may burn, or warm, or leave a body cold. The great wheel may, in rolling down a hill, catch a man and break his neck; it may, in pushing up a hill, take a man out from the wretched mud and lift him to a position of great and noble height. But always, always are the eyes of men blinded to the great wheel- just as no one can behold the sun without going blind, so too can no one predict the turning of the wheel without going mad.
Fate, the specter of the night- to the Iga, fate is always death; inescapable, sudden, swift. Undignified, abrupt- the greatest of thieves, ever watching, ever waiting, taking all the secrets a person may have and leaving darkness and echoes to the living's pleasure. Death may wear any color, and will take any form- the blade in the night, the gentle caress, the thin thread of chakra against the heart; all these and more are death's forms, and all these and more are assured to those who live. Those who are born must die; it is fated to be so.
Destiny, the thickly scattered stars- to the Iga, destiny is revealed independently of fate. Indeed, as fate is already known- in essence, death- destiny can only be the path a life may take in getting to that known and hated end. In the winding path of the stars, destiny is sometimes revealed; comets and glinting maids, the flickering of things that must become- this, written in the stars that brilliant the night sky with their pinprickle faces.
The Iga are beholden to the Sun, the Night, and the Stars. Their blood truly has no hidden secrets- the power of the Iga is a power birthed by faith. Their goddesses- Koun, Shi, and Seimei- gift the Iga that are Iga with their powers of perception. And only the Iga that endure are Iga- it is a name carried in bond and circumstance, not in blood; a name held by faith, not fortuitous birth.
As the Iga's gifts are of divine provender, not of mortal toil, they are gifted- or perhaps cursed- with powers beyond that of the normal. Iga Raiko cannot miss her shots; the Sun's gift to her. Iga Kirara cannot be found unless she wishes it; the Night's gift to her. Iga Yayoi cannot be deterred from her chosen path; the Stars gift to her.
Remember how we talked about Fetches and their purpose in the world? There are more spirits than just Fetches- in fact, a Fetch is hardly a spirit at all. A Raijin, a Fuujin, and a Yuurei are more in the vein of spirits. A Fetch is a filing system.
And sometimes things get misfiled.
On the strange night that was marked for the birth and deaths of Jiraiya no Sannin's only children, the rattling of godly dice was heard as thunder and seen as lightning and felt in the patter of the rain. The bolt that fell into the eldest, and weakest- that was a lucky seven.
(Who can tell what the thunder says
when the lightning strikes pale?
Or where the wild and home-free wind will blow?
Only dead men tell no tales,
And keep all the secrets that they know.)