The Color Wheel
Arc I, Childhood: Jade / Green
Synopsis: Biwako doesn't believe until her bracelet breaks.
On the day of her thirteenth birthday, years before she becomes a Sarutobi, Biwako receives a gift from her mother in the form of a pale stone bracelet. It is the kind that she sees old grandmothers and mothers wear, a circle of polished green that is too small to slide off, and she immediately doesn't like it.
"But I don't want a stupid bracelet," she whines, her nose scrunching up in distaste as she lets the too-large bangle slide off her hand and to the carpeted floor. "I wanted a katana for my birthday!"
He mother only smiles at her patiently, bending down to retrieve the bracelet and taking Biwako's hand. "Do you know what jade means, Bi-chan?"
Biwako sighs in exasperation, anticipating a lecture, but her mother firmly slides the stone jewelry onto her wrist again with a serious expression that catches Biwako's attention.
"Jade has a natural energy that is very close to your body's chakra," her mother explains, stroking the smooth green surface with her fingers. "It helps balance your natural chakra by filtering it through the stone, and it protects you from harm. When you are happy the stone becomes brighter and more beautiful, and when you are ill the stone turns dull."
At this, Biwako snorts. "Like some kind of mood ring? Yeah right, kaa-chan. Like some stone's gonna save me from a kunai or something."
The older woman raises an eyebrow at the girl's condescending tone and sighs. "Laugh all you want, Bi-chan. Jade protects you - it heals you and brings you safety."
"Oh really?"
"Do you remember your first mission outside village walls, the one where you came back in a coma for weeks before finally waking up?" Biwako sobers at the memory, remembering how the first thing she saw was her mother sitting at her bedside praying to the gods.
"You stayed with me the entire time," the girl says softly, and the woman nods.
"Yes." Her mother says, smiling sadly. "I prayed to the gods and to Kami-sama herself three times a day to bring you back to me. Ten days after your return the jade bracelet your obaa-chan gave me broke into pieces... lo and behold, a week later you woke up."
Her answer is a weary, impatient huff. "There's something called coincidence, kaa-chan."
Biwako rolls her eyes, and finally her mother stands up in resignation, sighing. "You can believe me or not, Bi-chan, but promise me you won't take it off. It'll ease my heart just a little more knowing you're protected when you go out there."
She is reluctant, but Biwako concedes. "I promise."
Despite her dislike for the clunky piece of jewelry, Biwako faithfully slides it on her wrist every morning. At first she has to tie the bangle to her wrist with string, but over the years the string becomes unnecessary and the bracelet will stay on her wrist of its own accord.
Biwako is eighteen when the bangle is finally too small to slip off her hand, and by then she has to get used to the feeling of having that very tiny extra weight on her left hand. She believes it will stay on her wrist forever, because at that age five years seems like a very long time and she doesn't think it will break anytime soon. And as the years pass, she comes to know the stone circlet like a part of her own body.
She hides it under her sleeve during battle, pressed against her skin, and it is a reminder of the home and family she is fighting for. She guards it subconsciously, protecting it under armored gloves, and at one point she nearly cries when she accidentally deflects a shuriken with the stone jewelry. But through it all, through the blood and sweat and tears, it remains whole and unbroken and solid, and Biwako begins to believe her mother's story about the bangle breaking was just that - a story.
She lets it hang from her wrist, open and proud as she takes the hand of her husband during their marriage ceremony, a reminder of her old family as she enters a new one. On their wedding night when his hands are intertwined with hers, the jewelry encircles her wrist like a promise of love, and the next morning Biwako wakes up to the sensation of cool stone and soft breaths upon her pulse, her husband's lips and fingers running along the beautiful, polished jade.
She breaks her own wrist in an effort to rip off the bangle when she discovers her mother's death by the hands of an infiltrating squad of Kumo shinobi masquerading as missing-nin. They were after her for being the Hokage's mother-in-law, and in knowing this Biwako cries and sobs and screams at her mother for foolishly believing in a stupid piece of carved rock. She cannot remove the jade bracelet without amputating her own hand, she discovers later, and she leaves it on her newly-healed wrist with a bitter heart and bitter eyes reflected in the stone's dull surface.
She vows to never give a jade bracelet to her daughters, if she ends up having any. When her first child is born, Biwako's first emotion is relief, relief that her child is a boy and not a girl, relief that she will not have to give her daughter a useless piece of jewelry for the sake of tradition and honoring her mother's memory. She names the child Ren, and in her joy and happiness she doesn't see the stone turn a brilliant, deep green.
She does not believe in the jade the way her mother did, but when the bracelet on her wrist loses all its shine hours her second child is born, Biwako cannot help the gripping fear in her stomach. She sleeps with one eye open every day afterwards, keeping little Asuma close to her chest as she waits and watches, despite her husband's reassurances. The feeling escalates until the day of the welcoming festival, and that is when she truly becomes fearful.
She does not see the bracelet cracking but she definitely hears it, and by then it is too late. The green stone ring shatters into pieces and falls into the dirt with soft thumps, and all she can do is stare and stare and stare at the broken remains of what was part of her for so long. The lightness of her left hand is odd, as if there are bones or muscles missing, and Biwako pastes a smile on her face to hide the panic she is feeling, panic that manifests itself all too soon when her world is lit in a chaotic explosion of smoke and fire... and suddenly, Ren is gone.
She thinks back to her mother as ninjas surround her to protect the Hokage's family from the enemy ninjas aiming to capture her and little Asuma. She thinks back to what her mother told her, how jade can protect and save someone, and for that moment Biwako forgets about how the bracelet didn't work to save her mother. She just prays for her son, hoping and begging to the gods to bring him back to her.
When the girl in the miko costume appears with little Ren cradled in her arms, the sense of relief and utter joy that comes crashing down on Biwako is overwhelming, so overwhelming that she stops her husband from being a Hokage and reminds him that he is a father, first and foremost.
Biwako visits her mother's grave the week after, bringing out a polished ring of jade from her robes and tying it to her mother's cremation urn with a red ribbon. The bangle matches the one encircling her left wrist, and after so many years of pretending and disbelieving, she finally understands.
She brings the pieces of her old bracelet to the best stone carver in Konoha, who takes the three largest pieces and shapes them into leaves, all etched in with Konoha's symbol. Biwako fashions the carvings into pendants and gives the two smaller ones to her sons, gifting the largest one to her husband.
He is not one to be superstitious, but nevertheless, he tucks the little piece of jade into his robes after a little persuasion with a humoring smile on his face.
"It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen." - Muhammad Ali