A most deadly blossom.
Prologue : A familiar taste of poison.
Uchiha Mikoto was watching little Sasuke play from afar until something pulled her attention.
A little girl, roughly her youngest son's age, smiles at her, before miming covering her eyes.
Intrigued, the Uchiha matriarch truly looks at the child, taking her all in.
She is a bit scrappy, like so many orphaned by the Kyuubi and left to the care of clearly overworked matrons were those days, clad in black, gray and brown patched up hands-me-down, with a mop a jade black hair and piercing violet eyes, surrounded by squishable chubby cheeks.
Mikoto smiles back at the little girl, who grins back in delight…
…Before disappearing right in front of the veteran ninja, like she never even existed in the first place, startling Mikoto badly, to the point that she reflexively triggers her sharingan.
The fact that she is barely able to see the child even after activating her dojutsu through her chakra pathways is…
Mikoto pauses, lost in thoughts.
…What has she been doing exactly?
"Kaasan! Look!" little Sasuke-chan yells wrench her from her thoughts, prompting her to look back at her offspring frolicking among his little friends with a smile.
Right, that was what she was doing, nothing else, nor out of the ordinary.
Just taking care of her youngest while forgetting about the reality of the worsening clan situation as the years went by.
Nothing more.
As she makes her way back toward the Uchiha compound while holding hands with her youngest son, Mikoto stops as she sees a strangely familiar child, one with jade black hairs and purple eyes, sitting alone and looking a bit forlornly at the playground.
Her looks, her presence, itches at the back of the Uchiha matriarch's head, which is weird.
And weirdness is always something of a concern for ninja, even retired ones.
She looks back at her youngest, feeling conflicted, before, with a sigh, deciding that she should at least look into what could become something of a matter for the Hidden Leaf's security.
The Uchiha matriarch crouches at her son's level, before giving him a sweet smile.
"Sasuke-chan," she asks, trying to appear as unconcerned as she can be, "Do you know who that child is?" she asks while discreetly pointing at the little girl, who's absentmindedly kicking her feet while staring ahead.
"Nn!" her youngest nods with a serious and no-nonsense air, trying to emulate her Fukaku which makes her squeal in delight on the inside, "That's Torika-chan, she doesn't speak much." he pauses, tilting his head in thoughts, "I think it's because she doesn't have any parents."
Mikoto keeps a serene smile on her face even as her heart aches for a beat, but she steels it just as soon as she remembers that she can't even take care of the orphaned child of her best friend.
Blasted elders, cursed Shimura Danzo.
"I see." she hums consideringly, still asking herself if digging into the matter further is even worth it, "And how is she at the academy?"
"Quiet, soft spoken, sometimes, I even forget she's here." the six years old shrugs, before looking back at her pleadingly, "Can we go home now? I want to show Itachi-nii my taijutsu!"
Mikoto hesitates, throwing another glance toward the strange girl, not finding her anywhere and she…
…What was she doing already?
An insistent tug at her sleeves makes the Uchiha matriarch look at her youngest.
"Kaasan? Can we go now?" he repeats, and her heart melts.
"Of course, Sasuke-chan," she answers sweetly, clasping his hand in hers, "Let's see if your Nii-san is back from his mission, alright?"
"Nn!"
Uchiha Mikoto gasps and jerks awake, before noticing that something is currently muffling her mouth as another something crawls in her recently open belly.
Her eyes widens and she starts to trash around, but the something -the hand, her brain helpfully points out- pinning her on the ground tightens its grasp and she freezes as her head is roughly angled toward its owner.
Mikoto's eyes lock into a pale, wooden skull shaped mask under a black cowl, and she forgets for a beat that she still has her dojutsu, long enough for the hand keeping her silent to dart in front of her eyes and snaps a sentence in sign language.
But not just any kind of sign language: Konoha's sign language, specifically, the one used by its ninja during missions.
It doesn't take more than a second to parse what she just saw.
Quiet. Healing. Enemies. Outside.
Mikoto stills, even as her heart starts beating frantically as she remembers exactly how she got injured.
Haltingly, she brings a hand in front of her, slowly signing back.
Child. Alive.
The creepy, expressionless mask stares at her for a beat, before giving her a slow nod.
As her motherly instincts make themselves known and she motions to rise while ignoring her pain, the stranger halts her once more.
The Uchiha matriarch's ire immediately peaks but the next sentence chills her to the bones.
Child. Trapped. Genjutsu. Low. Danger.
The stranger pauses once more, before slowly adding a few more signs.
Traitor. Deal. Child. Survive.
Slowly, Mikoto's head falls back on the ground and she starts to silently weep for who knows how long, knowing deep in her bones the reason why her eldest would go that far.
The Uchiha matriarch doesn't notice when the stranger disconnects their hand from her healed abdomen, nor when they disappear out of thin air, but, as the pain fades away, she precipitously launches herself into a mad scramble toward her youngest.
When she finds Sasuke, the eight year old is catatonic, and Itachi is already long gone.
Saying that Sarutobi Hiruzen was nearly apoplectic as he sees Shimura Danzo stroll, stroll, into his office without a care in the world would be putting it mildly.
Their strongest clan, gone, just to satisfy his oldest friend's paranoïa.
Even worse, his old comrade did it behind his back while usurping his own authority as the Kage.
The door closes and the two weary old men enter a staring contest for a length of time that seems to stretch for hours.
Finally, mentally exhausted after having settled events in motion to clean that absolute shitshow, Hiruzen is the first to crack and he slowly, exhaustingly, grinds out a question.
The sole question that matters in these circumstances.
"Danzo, why?"
His shadowy counterpart waits for half a beat, definitely longer than it is polite, before giving his answer.
"It was for the good of the Leaf." he succinctly answers in a not-quite monotone, as if he told himself the same thing so many times in front of the mirror that it had become his sole reason for even breathing.
"That's bullcrap, and you fucking know it!" Hiruzen hisses, badly refraining himself from sending his smoking pipe in his old friend's face, "That little stunt of yours just cost us Konoha's strongest clan since the Senju's withering into nothingness and I…"
Hiruzen pauses, feeling something weird.
His eyes widens and he darts a look toward Danzo-
-Only to see him just as caught off guard as him.
Then, it is as if all of his muscles suddenly give up on him, and a few muffled 'thumps' get heard outside the room as his hidden ANBU guards and Danzo's escort fall to the ground from their various hiding spots.
The last thing Hiruzen sees as his eyelids close is his old friend faceplanting just a breath before he loses consciousness himself.
"Hokage-sama, wake up." a slow, gentle shake of his shoulder awakened Hiruzen from his slumped position against his desk.
The Kage-level ninja instantly snaps awake, gritting his teeth at the aches of his body, his eyes locking into Wolf's mask.
"There's…" the ANBU hesitates, before soldiering, "Another situation that you should be aware off."
"What-" Hiruzen starts, before wincing, feeling like absolute shit, "What is it, Wolf?"
"Well," the ANBU answers, before looking pointedly in front of Hiruzen's desk, "I think you should see for yourself."
The Hokage slowly blinks, trying to chase away the killing headache going to town on his head, before looking in the direction his subordinate just indicated.
The Professor immediately blanches.
In front of him, roughly dropped onto another chair, lays Hiruzen's oldest friend, the ever permanent bandage on his face discarded and his eyelid peeled open, showing to the world a sharingan that is certainly not his own, his throat slit open like a bloody smile and the character for 'TRAITOR' branded on his forehead with the tip of a kunai.
"Shit." the Kage swears before dropping back in his seat.
Later that night, Hiruzen uttered the exact same word when news of what happened to Kahoru and Homura reached his ears.
In one of Konoha's orphanages, a figure suddenly materializes out of nowhere in one of the bathrooms.
They look child-like, if nondescript, clad in patched-up black clothes, and wearing a simple bone-white skull-shaped mask under a black cowl, a weirdly shaped hookfang look-alike dagger made of wood strapped at their side by a length of rope and a strange backpack made of wood and pieces of cracked glass, a sickly green liquid held inside.
Slowly, they bring a hand to their masked face, the other snapping a series of hand signs, making the wood wither and flake away, to reveal the tear-streaked, chubby looking face of a young girl with jade black hair and striking purple eyes.
For a beat, she stares into the bathroom's mirror, keeping silent.
Then with a silent scream of rage and despair, she strikes the mirror with all her might, shattering it.
When the orphanage matron, awakened by the sounds, finally made her way into the bathroom, she doesn't notice -ignore- the crying child huddled against the floor, still openly weeping.
[AN: A short snippet about a plot bunny that got in my head recently after watching a YT short popping on my feed.
The idea was to introduce into the world of Naruto something that is barely done in the OG settings besides one of the resurrected Kage in the 4th war: a ninja whose main strength is actually their fucking stealth.
Always sort-of drove me up the wall that the characters in-settings are more showmen than proper ninjas but I guess it would make for a shitty shounen if it was the case.
Let me introduce you to Buto Torika -'Torikabuto' literally means aconit in Japanese because I suck at naming things, alright?-:
Starting World: Naruto
Starting budget 365
Difficulty [6.25]
Legacy Difficulty 0
'Extra' with 1 additional cost -1 [364]
Power Swap to Venenum Assassin(T6) 49 [315]
Bindings
Company Stamp free [315]
Empty Hand --20 [335]
Talents
Body Tune-Up -5 [330]
Athletic -5 [325]
Martial -10 [315]
Science -20 [295]
Aesthetic -10 [285]
Soul -10 [275]
Psychic -20 [255]
Covert -10 [245]
Added Potential x2 [You have Mokuton Kekkei Genkai, Jugo's Clan Kekkei Genkai] -10 [235]
Template Stacking I[You have Imp/Aisha Laborn (Worm)] -20 [215]
Defenses
Body x2 -10 [205]
Wild x2 -10 [195]
Environmental -25 [170]
Creature -10 [160]
Stress -5 [155]
Mind -25 [130]
Possession -10 [120]
Soul -25 [95]
Information -25 [70]
Destiny -50 [20]
Defenses discounted for retinue members 4 [24]
Misc Perks
Sexual Calibration -2 [22]
Time-Saversᵈˡᶜ -2 [20]
Exit Stage Left -5 [15]
We Will Meet Again -15 [0]
Generic Waifu Perks
Power Swap free [0]
An extra-insert, power-swapped with a W40K Venenum Assassin(T6 base), template stacked with Imp/Aisha Laborn from Worm for added stealthiness via exploits of psychic bullshittry, with Mokuton and Jugo's constitution as her personal bs-powers -and access to chakra because PS do away with it otherwise- for offense, utility -have to got some way to craft those poisons with plants that don't fucking exist in the first place, so what better ways than to make them appear from thin air?-, bootleg healing for ally-saving and Sage-like constitution if you don't mind the monster-girl look -only downside since the 'oopsie, I lost it' should be handwaved by the WC-.
Because if it is Psychic, then it ain't Soul-based, so the locals can't do shit against it past a certain point, and the synergy between Imp's power, [Psychic Talent] and [Information Defence] is theoretically insane if you have a few years to build it up while being passively scrutinized by all manners of sensing abilities -like denizens of a ninja village do constantly on a regular basis- especially considering it was already pretty fucking strong right from the get go at T4. Imp's power is also the reason why she managed to avoid ROOT's attention despite being an orphan, and now that it is disbanded, she can start to really go ham.
As it is shown in the story, she's been here since 'birth' -a few hours after the Kyuubi's rampage-, and, by age six, she's already evading dojutsu -notably sharingan-/chakra-sensing capabilities, and by eight, during the Uchiha incident, she succeeded to avoid Zetsu's own sensing -who is near peerless until the very end of the story- but wasn't good enough to truly stop the massacre because her physique was lacking.
She did show Danzo and the Elders responsible for that what they earned with that bs, though.
She's also Empty-Handed, the Catalog being used just as a convenient CYOA that can allow me to bring this little monster into the light of day.
But, for now, she needs a hug, and I'm afraid that she won't get one until the next chapter.
Hope you enjoy, xoxo]