all heroes end up martyrs. NARUTO

"OLD THINGS HAVE STRANGES LONGING"

Namida Uchiha couldn’t remember a single day in her life when her mother wasn’t sick.

Illness wasn’t something that came and went like passing storms; it was a constant, a shadow that clung to Aeri Uchiha, suffocating her slowly, day by day. It had rooted itself so deeply in her body and mind that even Namida, in her earliest memories, couldn’t separate the woman from her affliction. It twisted her from the inside out, warping her beauty into something the world revered and feared in equal measure.

And yet, for all the frailty in her limbs and the glass-like fragility of her existence, the people of the village never failed to comment on her beauty. Their voices were soft but never kind, their words a bitter mixture of admiration and judgment.

“It’s a shame,” they whispered just loud enough for Namida to hear as she walked past, her head bowed, her small hands clutching the hem of her shirt as though it would anchor her. “Such beauty wasted on madness.”

Namida didn’t understand those words when she was younger, but she learned their weight quickly enough. It was true, after all. Aeri Uchiha was beautiful in the way that snow on a battlefield could be beautiful—serene and deadly, pure yet stained by the blood it covered. Her long, dark hair spilled down her shoulders and back like a river of ink, and her sharp blue onyx eyes glimmered with an intensity that could pierce through anyone who dared meet her gaze.

But that intensity was not always beautiful. It was terrifying when it turned wild, cruel, and unrelenting. When those sharp eyes fell on Namida, brimming with a venomous light that promised pain, it carved something deep into her heart. A wound that never quite healed.

Namida knew well that she shared her mother’s beauty. It was a cruel inheritance, this pale skin that seemed almost translucent, these sharp eyes that looked far too knowing for her young age. And yet, there was one thing that marked her as different. One thing that set her apart, that made her not quite her mother’s reflection.

Her hair.

It was white as snow, a stark contrast to the midnight black of her mother’s locks. It should have been a mark of purity, something unique and untouchable, but Namida could never see it that way. It felt rotten somehow, a tainted white that bore the weight of judgment, whispers, and shame.

Her mother’s beauty was undeniable—the kind of beauty that poets wrote about, that artists tried to capture but never could. It was a beauty that commanded attention, demanded reverence. But Namida knew the truth: no amount of beauty could shield her mother from the weight of the whispers.

“Beautiful,” they said with a mixture of awe and pity.

And then, softer, like the blade of a knife slipping between ribs, “But a sinner.”

Namida had heard it all her life. The word “sinner” clung to her mother like a second skin, a label that no one ever fully explained but everyone accepted as truth. Aeri Uchiha was a sinner in the eyes of the clan, though no one dared to say it to her face. They didn’t need to. The weight of Aeri’s sins hung in the air like a storm cloud, oppressive and suffocating, its details obscured but its presence undeniable.

Namida didn’t know if her mother’s beauty was a blessing or a curse. Perhaps it was both. Perhaps that was why she found herself caught between love and hate for it, unable to reconcile the two. Because to the world, Aeri Uchiha was a vision of perfection—elegant, ethereal, untouchable. But to Namida, her mother was a broken figure, a porcelain doll with deep cracks, her sickness not just rooted in her body but etched into the very core of her being.

It was in her mother’s sharp words, venomous and cutting, in the wild light that danced in her onyx eyes during moments of madness. It was in the way her delicate hands trembled, not from weakness but from the weight of something unseen, something oppressive.

Namida had learned to brace herself for those darker moments, when her mother’s illness flared and cruelty seeped into her voice. She’d learned to stand still under the weight of Aeri’s words, to let them wash over her without breaking. But even then, they left marks—small, invisible scars that no one else could see.

And in those moments, when the air between them turned cold and heavy, Namida found herself wondering if the world was right to call her mother a sinner.

And if that made Namida herself a sin.

Wasn’t that what a mother did? Birth her pain, her sins, her curses? Pass them on as though they were inevitable, unavoidable? Namida carried the weight of that thought like a stone in her chest, heavy and unrelenting.

As if the Uchiha name hadn’t already been cursed enough.

The legacy of the Uchiha loomed large over them, an inescapable shadow that no amount of light could pierce. Namida often thought her mother had paid its price in full. Madness, the price of love warped and twisted until it became something unrecognizable, was etched into the fabric of their family. Perhaps Aeri’s beauty had never been a blessing at all. Perhaps it was simply a mask for the ruin that lay beneath—a facade the world clung to so they could turn a blind eye to her suffering.

Namida hated it. She hated that her mother had been devoured by the curse of their bloodline, that Aeri’s beauty could not protect her from the rot inside her. And yet, a part of her feared it. Feared that the curse was not hers to escape, either.

Because no one escaped the weight of being an Uchiha. Not even the beautiful ones.

And yet, despite everything, Namida loved her mother. Loved her with an intensity that frightened her, a love so consuming it bordered on pain. Because for all her mother’s flaws, her madness, her cruelty, Aeri Uchiha was hers.

Wasn’t she doomed to hate what she was fated to love?

And wasn’t the relationship between a daughter and her mother the perfect relic of doomed love?

In the end, Namida adored her mother, because she had no choice. Because in her darkest moments, when she looked in the mirror and saw her mother’s reflection staring back at her, she knew she was bound to her. Bound by blood, by legacy, by the unbearable weight of love and hate entwined.

And deep in the quiet, suffocating night, when the world outside their home lay wrapped in a blanket of shadows, Namida found herself staring at her mother’s fragile form. Aeri lay curled on her side, her back turned to her daughter, the rise and fall of her breath uneven, like a melody out of tune. The moonlight spilled through the paper-thin walls, pooling around her still figure, painting her pale skin in an otherworldly glow.

Namida’s fingers dug into the cold, unyielding ground beneath her, her nails scraping against the dirt and tatami as though she could anchor herself against the tide of her thoughts. Her chest ached with the weight of a question she was too afraid to ask aloud.

Was kindness the cure? Could it mend the cracks in her mother’s fractured mind, smooth over the sharp edges of her words, and chase away the darkness that had swallowed her whole?

She wanted to believe it could. Desperately.

Because if kindness wasn’t the answer, then what was? What hope did she have, a child born into a legacy of blood and grief, to fight against the madness that ran through their veins like a poison? If love alone wasn’t enough to save her mother, then maybe kindness—a softer, gentler thing—could reach where love had failed.

The thought burrowed into her, both comforting and cruel. Comforting because it gave her hope, no matter how fragile. Cruel because deep down, in the hidden corners of her heart, she feared that nothing could heal the wound that was her mother’s soul.

Aeri shifted in her futon, the movement so small it was almost imperceptible, but it sent a ripple through the air between them. Namida held her breath, her eyes fixed on the curve of her mother’s back, her fists tightening against the ground.

“Would it be enough?” she whispered into the silence, her voice so soft it barely escaped her lips.

The question hung there, unanswered, swallowed by the cold night.

Namida was three years old when she first became aware of the strange, invisible force that everyone spoke of—chakra. At that age, she didn’t understand it, not in the way the older ones did. But she could feel it. The pulse of it, like a distant, steady rhythm, calls to her as instinctively as a newborn’s cry calls for its mother.

She had been walking through the garden, small feet brushing the grass beneath her, careful not to step on her red kimono, which swayed with her every movement. It was one of those days when the sun hung low in the sky, painting the world in soft hues of amber and gold. Her mother sat at the edge of the garden, on the swing that was placed just beside the ancient sakura tree. Her form was still, her onyx eyes fixed on something far beyond the horizon, something that Namida could not see. Aeri Uchiha was always like this—distant, lost in thoughts that Namida couldn’t understand, yet never failing to captivate her attention.

With each quiet step, Namida’s tiny hands reached toward the air in front of her, instinctively trying to touch something she could not see but felt—something that seemed to pulse from her mother’s form. It was strange. It felt warm, and yet it also felt distant, like the soft brush of a feather against her skin. It tugged at her in ways she didn’t yet know how to describe, like a newborn bird flapping its wings in the hope of flight, reaching desperately for its mother.

“Gold,” she called aloud, her voice soft and full of wonder. The word came to her like a prayer, a string of sounds attached to an unspoken feeling, a wonder she didn’t yet have the words to define.

When she reached her mother, she raised her little hands, a smile wide and unburdened on her face, her joy radiating pure innocence. “Gold,” she repeated again, her fingers reaching for the aura surrounding her mother, drawn to it like a moth to a flame, her eyes wide with fascination as she stared at the shimmering energy that wrapped around her.

But before she could get any closer, something sharp and painful lashed across her cheeks.

Aeri Uchiha fell to her knees with a suddenness that made Namida’s breath catch in her chest. Her mother’s fingers, nails like daggers, dug into Namida's face, the force so fierce it almost seemed unnatural.

“Shut it, pitiful thing!” Aeri screamed, her voice wild, a raw, unhinged fury in her words. “Don’t say it again, don’t look at it!”

The words were a whirlwind of venom, striking Namida’s young heart with a force she had no way to defend against. Her little face burned where her mother’s nails sank deep into her skin, her breath coming in ragged sobs as the pain blossomed.

Namida tried to scream, to cry for help, but the words wouldn’t come. Her face felt raw, the pain unbearable, as though her very soul had been torn open. But in the moments before the world went dark, she felt only one thing—confusion. Why was her mother hurting her? Why was the gold—the thing that felt like warmth, like something she was meant to touch—now something so dangerous?

And when the darkness took over, claiming her thoughts and drowning out the pain, she woke again on her futon, her body cold and stiff.

Bandages were wrapped around her small face, sticky and rough against her skin, and her heart pounded in her chest. The confusion and the hurt still clung to her, and the faint sting of her mother’s anger echoed through her young mind.

From that moment on, something shifted deep inside Namida. She looked at the world differently. Chakra, the thing that had once felt like a strange and beautiful force, had become something dark, something poisonous. She saw the way her mother’s chakra twisted and burned, like an infection that consumed her slowly, like a fire that devoured everything in its path, leaving only ash behind. It was that fire that had driven her mother to madness, to cruelty, and at that moment, Namida made a decision.

Chakra was a poison. A poison that had no cure. Just like her mother’s madness and the world's cruelness.

Her mother wasn’t to blame. Namida knew that, deep down, as much as the world tried to paint Aeri as a villain, as much as the whispers of the village called her a sinner, Namida understood the truth in the quiet spaces of her heart.

Aeri Uchiha was not born wicked. She was not born with madness coursing through her veins. No, her mother had been poisoned, slowly, methodically, by the very thing that defined their existence—chakra. It had twisted her, turned her into something she was not. It was the shinobi world, with its endless demands and its broken systems, that had corrupted her mother’s mind.

The world was to blame. Not Aeri. Not the woman Namida had been taught to revere as her mother, though she had seen the cruelty that lurked behind her eyes, the madness that bubbled up when her chakra consumed her.

Namida had learned this truth when she had watched her mother slip further and further away, each time the darkness in her eyes would take over, each time the cruel words would spill from her lips, laced with venom, aimed at nothing but the pain inside her.

It wasn’t Aeri's fault. She hadn’t chosen this madness. She hadn’t chosen to be consumed by the very power that made her a Uchiha.

The same power that created legends, that built nations, but destroyed families.

It was the Shinobi world that had poisoned her, and it was the same world that had tried to poison Namida. They had been born into it, thrust into its endless cycle of war and hatred, where people were raised to wield chakra as weapons, but never taught how to heal the scars it left behind. They were broken by the very force they revered.

The Shinobi world saw chakra as a tool. But for those like her mother—those who were too sensitive, too connected to its essence—it was a curse, an invisible poison that slowly drained them of their sanity, their humanity. And Namida had learned this truth when she saw her mother’s pain and understood that it was not her mother who was broken, but the system that had forced her into this mold.

Aeri hadn’t chosen this fate. She hadn’t chosen to lose herself to chakra, just as Namida hadn’t chosen to be born into this legacy. The Uchiha bloodline, the strength that came with it, the rage and the power—it had always come at a cost. But the cost was more than they could bear.

And the price wasn’t just madness. It was the betrayal of self, the stripping away of everything pure and good inside, until nothing remained but the endless pull of chakra, demanding, consuming, controlling,a cycle of hatred.

Namida would not blame her mother. She would not blame the sickness that ate away at her from the inside out. She would not blame the madness that flickered in her mother’s eyes, the wildness that would come and go like a storm, because she knew what it was really—an illness, a product of a system too broken to heal itself.

It was the Shinobi world that had created this nightmare. It was the shinobi world that had turned her mother into a shadow of who she once was, a woman caught between her beauty and her pain, between her love and the madness that overtook her. 

And in that dark moment, when her hands shook with the memory of her mother’s touch when she could still feel the sting of her nails on her cheeks, Namida understood the truth fully. It wasn’t Aeri who was to blame. It was never her mother. But the Shinobi world.

Aeri had been a victim of the very thing that was meant to be her gift. The Shinobi world had twisted what should have been a blessing into a curse, a poison coursing through her veins, corrupting everything pure within her. 

It was the world that had broken her. The world that had stolen her from herself.

At three years old, Namida Uchiha came to the harsh realization that the world was corrupted beyond repair. The systems that governed them, the systems that created monsters like her mother, were rotten to the core. She knew that, in the depths of her heart, the world that existed—the one that reveled in violence, war, and endless suffering—could never be saved by those who lived within it. It was broken, and perhaps, always had been.

But in that moment, a flicker of something else bloomed in her chest. A small, fragile thought—a dream. She wondered, just for a fleeting second, if kindness could be the cure.

A system built on kindness. Could that really change anything? Could it break the chains of hate that bound them all? Could it undo the pain that had already been wrought?

She knew it was foolish. She knew it was a dream—one that could never be realized in a world so steeped in blood and cruelty.

Namida, with her young heart still raw from all she had seen, understood that kindness might never be enough. The Uchiha name alone was a curse, passed down through generations, and the legacy of hate and pain could never truly be erased.

But, even at that moment, when the shadows of her mother’s madness still clung to her, Namida dreamed. She dreamed of a world where kindness wasn’t a lie, a dream where gentleness could break through the violence and the suffering. A world where a system rooted in compassion could truly heal what had been broken.

But was it madness to think so? To wish so desperately for something the world would never offer and accept?

Maybe. Maybe she was already mad. Maybe the Uchiha blood that ran through her veins had already twisted her mind before she had even learned to walk before she had even spoken her first word. Perhaps she was doomed from the beginning, like her mother, doomed to inherit the curse that danced in the bloodline’s legacy.

After all, how could anyone raised in this broken world hope for something better?

Namida Uchiha had no answers, no way to mend the shattered pieces of her world. She didn’t know how to fix the sickness that consumed her mother, or the weight that crushed her own small shoulders. She was only a child—a three-year-old with trembling hands, trying to soothe a mother lost to madness, whispering dreams of kindness into the void, clinging to fragile fantasies that the world would never make real.

But perhaps that was her true curse—hope. A desperate, aching hope in a world that had long forgotten how to heal, where even love was drowned by the relentless tide of pain and hatred.

Namida Uchiha was four years old when the weight of her fate was fully realized. It wasn’t spoken softly, nor was it hidden behind gentle words. It was declared coldly, matter-of-factly—the elders’ command, unwavering and final. She was to begin her training at the Academy, to step into the world of shinobi, and to become what the clan had always intended her to be: a weapon, a tool, a product of the Uchiha bloodline, destined to serve in a world built on power and bloodshed.

The first time she wore the Uchiha crest, sewn carefully into the back of her black kimono, it felt like a weight pressing against her very soul. The sharp red fan, emblazoned on the fabric, was a reminder of what she had inherited—a legacy of war, madness, and violence. She had never asked for it, but it was hers all the same. The fan was not just a symbol of her heritage, it was a reminder that she was a child forged to be both a wielder of power and pain.

She would grow up to be a tool—nothing more, nothing less.

Her long white hair, so unlike the dark tresses of the Uchiha clan, marked her as something different. It cascaded down her back, a stark contrast to the rest of her family. In the dark, deep shadows of Uchiha eyes, her white hair felt like a reminder of her isolation, of the distance between her and the others. It felt like a symbol of everything that was wrong with her.

A stain on her bloodline, a mark of something that would never be fully accepted, no matter how much she tried to fit into the mold they had crafted for her.

It was a burden Namida hated. She hated how she stood out, how her very existence reminded her that she was different, that she was an anomaly. And yet, there was no room for defiance. No place for her to carve out her own path. She was Uchiha, and that meant her life was not hers to command.

The elders had spoken, and the world of shinobi would shape her.

With every passing day, she felt her connection to her mother slipping away, like sand through her fingers. Aeri Uchiha was lost in her madness, her sickness, and Namida couldn’t do anything to help her. The thought of leaving her mother behind in such a state tore at Namida’s heart. Her small fists clenched at her sides, as if she could fight fate itself, but there was no escape. Her mother would be left behind, alone with her demons, and Namida would have to go, because the clan demanded it.

Namida was just a child. How could she understand the weight of her mother’s madness, the depth of her family’s expectations, or the future they were preparing her for? What could she do when everything around her, every moment, seemed to be pulling her further from the one person she had ever truly cared for?

She couldn’t even voice her fear—no one would listen, not when war was coming.

The days at the Academy blurred together in a haze of training, harsh lessons, and the relentless weight of her bloodline’s expectations. Namida Uchiha walked the halls with her head up, her thoughts heavy with the knowledge that she was being shaped into something she had never wanted to be. But that was the price of being an Uchiha—there was no room for weakness, no room for dreams that didn’t align with the clan’s vision of power.

She had seen it in the eyes of every instructor, every elder who crossed her path: they were building soldiers, not children. And soldiers did not have the luxury of dreaming.

Itachi Uchiha, even at his young age, seemed to glide through it all with ease. His composure was unnerving, his silence a mask that none of them could break. The way he stood apart from everyone—observing, always observing—was something that made Namida curious.

She wondered if he too questioned the legacy they were being forced into. Perhaps he didn’t feel the weight of it as she did, or perhaps he had already made his peace with it. She didn’t know which one terrified her more.

Each time she saw him, something inside her stirred—something fragile and trembling, something she couldn’t quite name. He was like a reflection of what she might have been, if not for the white hair, the madness, the isolation. Itachi was a product of the same bloodline, but his serenity seemed almost otherworldly. A part of her hated him for it. Not because of anything he had done, but because he embodied everything she was not and could never be.

One day, during an afternoon training session, Namida found herself alone with her thoughts, lingering in the training yard after everyone else had left. The sounds of laughter and the murmurs of gossip faded, leaving behind only the rustling of leaves and the weight of her thoughts.

She looked out across the courtyard, her gaze distant, lost in the haze of her own conflicting emotions. She had trained relentlessly, honing the skills she needed to survive—chakra control, taijutsu, and the basics of ninjutsu. But even as she improved, the knowledge that it was all in service of war made her stomach twist.

There was no room for peace here. Peace was a dream, a fragile thing that could never exist in a world ruled by power and control. Namida knew that better than anyone. But still, that question lingered in her heart: Was there no way out? No way to break free from the chains that bound her to this blood-drenched legacy?

She had heard enough to know that the Shinobi clan was not a place of peace but of endless conflict. And yet, as the darkness of the world closed in on her, Namida clung to that faint, fragile hope—that perhaps one day, peace could be more than just a fleeting thought. She couldn’t reconcile it with the life she was leading, with the lessons she was being taught. But deep down, she couldn’t give up on it either.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Uchiha Obita cursing after Kakashi Hakate.

Namida watched from a distance, her gaze lingering on the lively scene before her. 

Obito Uchiha, for instance, was a constant source of amusement and perplexity for her. He was a strange, almost out-of-place figure among the more serious faces of their clan. While others were bound by duty, by honor, and by the weight of their bloodline, Obito seemed to laugh it all away. He wasn’t fazed by the pressures of being a Uchiha. In fact, he seemed to thrive on it, wearing the name with a kind of wild, youthful arrogance that Namida couldn’t quite ignore.

It was amusing to watch him clash with Itachi Uchiha, a boy who carried the weight of the clan’s expectations like a mantle too heavy for anyone to bear. Itachi, calm and collected, would always respond to Obito's challenges with that serene, unreadable expression—neither angry nor amused. It was as if he didn’t need to react at all to Obito’s antics. But then, Kakashi Hatake, the ever-irritable child of the clan’s other famous bloodline, would swoop in. Kakashi’s sharp words and even sharper kicks would knock Obito down, both figuratively and literally. And yet, despite the bruises and the defeat, Obito would always get up with that goofy grin, completely undeterred, and try again.

Namida couldn't help but smile at the sight of it.

Obito was a source of light in a world that seemed full of shadows. His carefree nature, and his refusal to conform to the somber expectations of the Uchiha, made him an anomaly in their midst. It was almost as if he were immune to the things that had crippled the others—namely, the expectations placed upon them simply for being born into a bloodline of power and violence.

She found herself envying him, in a way she couldn’t explain. Namida, who had been marked since birth as a product of war, who felt the weight of her mother’s madness and her clan’s legacy pressing down on her every step, envied how effortlessly Obito could carve his own path. He didn’t seem to care about the things that mattered to the elders, the things that made the Uchiha name a thing to be feared. To him, it was just something he was born into—something he had to defy—but it didn’t define him in the way it defined others.

She had caught herself smiling at him more than once when he wasn’t looking, at how he would grin through every challenge, at how he seemed to hold onto that spark of youthful hope that most others had long ago lost.

In a clan built on blood and pride, Obito was a contradiction, and she couldn’t help but admire it.

Namida knew that if she were in charge of the Uchiha clan, if she were the one wielding the power and making decisions, she would want someone like Obito by her side. It wasn’t his strength in battle that drew her—no, it was something deeper. It was his ability to stand apart, to still believe in something beyond the dark legacy of their clan.

He was a dreamer, a person who somehow held onto kindness even in a world that seemed to crush such things.

Could anyone blame her for thinking that way? When Obito smiled, it was like the world itself softened. He made dreams seem possible, even in a world that thrived on pain and bloodshed. His very existence seemed to challenge the grim reality of their world, and in that, he was a force of nature—a person who could inspire something better, something warmer, in the hearts of those around him.

It was a thought Namida would never dare to voice aloud, not in the presence of the elders, not in the harsh world of the Shinobi. But deep down, she knew. Obito was different. And maybe, just maybe, he was the kind of person who could change the world—if only the world could learn to accept him for the bright, naive spark he was.

For a moment, she allowed herself the luxury of a soft sigh, a fleeting wish that someone like Obito could change the world—someone who could bring light to a place so consumed by shadows. Namida knew it was an impossible thought, a dream far beyond reach, but sometimes, it was the only thing that kept her from drowning in the weight of her legacy.

And so, as Obito fell once more, knocked down by Kakashi’s relentless skill, Namida turned her gaze away. The sound of their sparring faded into the background, but her mind lingered on the strange storm of emotions swirling within her—admiration for his resilience, envy for his unbroken smile, and a longing that she couldn’t quite name.

Obito’s laughter, even in defeat, felt like a rebellion against the crushing weight of the world they were born into. It was defiance, simple and pure. She envied it, that spark of freedom in his grin, the way he seemed to carry hope as if it weren’t a fragile thing.

Namida couldn’t imagine what it was like to live without the burden of the Uchiha name. What would it feel like to breathe without the heavy shroud of expectation, to exist without the curse of their bloodline pressing down on her soul? What would it be like to smile like Obito, to find light in a world consumed by darkness, to dream of something more without the fear of madness snapping at her heels?

The thought was fleeting, fragile, and as she stepped back onto her path, she let it slip away. She would continue forward, as she always had, as she always would.

But in that moment, in the quiet space between dreams and despair, she let herself wonder.

Then again, a mad girl could dream.

That night, Namida Uchiha dreamed.

It was strange, foreign even, for in her four years of life, her nights had always been barren—a void of blackness where dreams dared not tread. But this night, her sleep was torn apart by a fever dream, its claws sinking deep into her mind, dragging her into a world of shadowed hands and fractured visions.

She dreamed of a boy—a boy with a voice that trembled under the weight of a thousand sorrows. His face was obscured by a strange orange mask, but his bloody, tear-streaked red eye with multiple irises burned through the hollow hole, staring out at a wasteland of ash, war, and ruin.

“Forgive me, Kakashi.”

The words carried a pain so raw, so unrelenting, that Namida felt it as though it were her own. She could see it, feel it, the way the grief clawed through the boy’s chest, splintering his soul into jagged pieces. There was too much loss, too much pain—it consumed him, swallowed him whole.

And in the chaos, Namida felt herself drowning too, dragged into the tide of anguish until the pain became unbearable.

She woke with a gasp, her small body trembling violently as cold sweat clung to her skin. Her breath came in short, panicked bursts, and tears blurred her vision as she stared into the suffocating darkness of her room.

Her tear-filled eyes drifted to the faint outline of her mother, lying on her futon just a few feet away. The sight of her mother’s back—still, silent, unyielding—offered no comfort. It was a wall, a boundary, one Namida could never cross.

And so, in the quiet aftermath of her dream, Namida hugged her knees to her chest, trembling beneath the weight of emotions too heavy for her small frame to bear. She stared at her mother’s back, longing for a warmth she knew would never come, and let her tears fall silently into the night.

The next day, as the first light of dawn stretched across the Academy’s training grounds, Namida stood alone, her small frame lost in the cool embrace of the morning air. The world around her seemed to hum with life, but she was still, like a shadow caught between light and darkness. Her eyes, dark and wide, fixed on the back of a silver-haired boy who stood at the center of it all, a quiet sentinel in the dawn.

Kakashi Hatake. A genius. A prodigy. A boy born into a clan that had once been powerful but was now barely a whisper of its former glory. What remained of a name when it was reduced to just a father and a son?

The question burned inside her, raw and bitter, but Namida quickly shoved it aside. It was a foolish thought, she realized. If a clan’s value was measured in numbers, in bloodlines, then her own existence was nothing. She was no more than a flicker of flame caught in the wind, something easily extinguished, like an ember long after the fire had died.

Aeri Uchiha was her clan, her only family. Her mother, broken by madness and bound by her sins, was the only tie she had to the name she bore. The Uchiha name. The same name that others carried proudly as a mark of honor, while she and her mother were cast aside, labeled as traitors, sinners. The ones who didn’t belong.

She watched Kakashi, his movements fluid and controlled, his body poised as if he was always prepared for whatever came next. His half-hidden face offered no sign of what he might be feeling, no hint of the struggles he had endured to get where he was. He was untouchable, a beacon of perfection in a world that would never ask for anything less.

For just a moment, Namida allowed herself to wonder if there was a part of him that felt what she felt. A soul weighed down by legacy, by duty, by pain. She wondered if he ever felt the pressure of being something he didn’t want to be. But the thought vanished just as quickly as it had come, buried beneath the weight of her own bitterness.

Kakashi Hatake was destined for greatness. He was the kind of person the world would honor, the kind of person who would never have to carry the stain of a broken family. He was someone who would rise above the ashes, someone who could be more than the legacy they were forced to carry.

And Namida? She was just a child, forgotten by the world, left to stand in the shadow of a name that had long lost its meaning.

But still, the memory of the dream lingered. The sorrowful whisper of forgiveness. The boy she had seen—broken and in pain, yet still trying to hold on to something. Itachi. Obito. Kakashi. The name she had whispered in her dream, the last prayer of someone who had lost everything. What did it mean to carry that kind of grief? What part did Kakashi play in the consuming ache of the boy in her dream?

Her thoughts were cut off by a voice, sharp and cold, piercing through the fog of her mind.

"What do you want?"

She blinked rapidly, taken aback. His eyes—those dark, onyx eyes—were fixed on her, unyielding and intense.

She hadn’t even realized she had been staring at him, but now that he had spoken, she felt a flush of embarrassment creep up her neck. Her hands tightened into fists at her sides, but before she could respond, he spoke again.

"You've been staring at me for ten minutes like a creep, so say what you want," Kakashi said, his tone cold.

Namida was stunned. Of all the people, of all the things she had expected, Kakashi Hatake was the first to speak to her, the first to acknowledge her existence amidst the elders who ignored her, the maids who pretended she wasn’t there.

She swallowed hard, uncertain of how to answer him.

And then he spoke again.

"Are you a fangirl of me, too?"

The words hit her like a slap, and she frowned, her brow furrowing in irritation. How dare he? How could he be so… so dismissive?

He seemed amused by her reaction, and for the briefest moment, Namida saw a glimmer of something beneath the mask—something almost human. Something playful. It was enough to unsettle her.

But before he could say anything stupid again, the words escaped her lips before she could stop them.

"Why the mask?"

Kakashi blinked at her, momentarily taken off guard by the question. He didn’t speak at first, his eyes narrowing slightly as if processing her words. Namida immediately regretted asking. What business was it of hers? It wasn’t like he would tell her anything.

Still, she couldn’t help but wonder: what did he hide behind that mask? What did anyone hide, beneath the surface? In a world that demanded so much, how much of themselves did they all give up in return?

"The mask is a gift from my father," Kakashi said simply, his voice softening at the mention of the man who had shaped his life.

It was a softness that surprised Namida, like a crack in a fortress she never thought would open. For the first time, the mask wasn’t just a shield—it was an emblem. It was a piece of someone he loves, something more fragile than the indifference he wore.

Namida blinked, her thoughts scrambling to catch up with his words. She had never expected such a raw answer from him, from the boy who seemed so distant, so unreachable. But there it was, a truth he hadn’t tried to hide.

"A gift?" she repeated before she could stop herself. Her voice was thin, fragile as glass, barely louder than a breath.

Kakashi’s brow furrowed, his gaze briefly pulling from the horizon to meet her eyes. He looked confused, almost a little lost, as if the very idea of not knowing what a gift was, was foreign to him.

"Yes. Did you never have a gift?" he asked, his words sharp but gentle, a reminder that there was still innocence in him—a quiet belief in kindness, despite everything.

Namida’s breath hitched. She felt the words before they left her mouth, the weight of them like stones in her chest.

"No," she said softly, shaking her head.

The truth stung. Her mother had been too consumed by her own suffering to offer her anything, too lost in her madness to think of anything beyond her own pain. And the clan... they had never looked at her as anything more than a reminder of something tainted. No, there had never been a gift for her.

The silver-haired boy’s face flickered with an emotion Namida couldn’t quite place. His lips tightened into a frown under his mask as if her words had offended him in a way she hadn’t expected.

She watched, confused, as he reached into his vest, the small movements deliberate and slow, like he was thinking deeply about something. His hand emerged, holding out a small, gleaming shuriken toward her.

"There," he said, his voice softer now, almost hesitant. "A gift."

The weight of his words, the unexpected kindness, hit her like a wave. Namida stood frozen, her blue onyx eyes wide in disbelief, her chest tight with emotions she couldn’t name. A gift. From him.

Her breath caught in her throat, her fingers trembling as she reached toward the shuriken, unsure if she was allowed to take it, if she was allowed to accept such an offering—something given without the expectations of war or bloodshed.

Her hand hovered in the air, unsure, as if the shuriken itself might burn her. The cold steel glinted under the rising sun, its sharp edges a stark contrast to the warmth in his voice. Namida had never been offered anything like this—never been given something so simple, so kind, without strings attached. No conditions. No manipulation. Just... a gift.

Her heart ached. It was a pain she hadn’t known how to carry, a yearning she had buried so deep that she’d almost forgotten it was there. And yet, in this quiet moment, Kakashi had reminded her that it was possible to give without expecting anything in return.

She reached out, her fingers trembling as they brushed against the cold metal of the shuriken. She felt its weight, its coolness, but it was the gesture that hit her hardest. The softest part of him, hidden behind his mask, had found its way to her. And in that moment, Namida was both terrified and grateful.

Her hand wrapped around the weapon, the metal sharp under her fingertips, but it wasn’t the blade that mattered. It was the offering—the first time anyone had given her something without pity, without the expectation of repayment. Her chest tightened, but it wasn’t just from the weight of the shuriken. It was from the rawness of it all—the unspoken understanding, the quiet, unacknowledged bond between them, fragile as it was.

"Thank you," she whispered, her voice barely audible, as though saying it too loudly would break the fragile connection they shared. And perhaps it would. Because in the silence that followed, everything that had been left unsaid between them seemed to hang in the air, heavy and fragile.

Kakashi said nothing, his eyes flicking back to the horizon, his posture still guarded, yet something in his gaze softened. Namida wondered if he, too, felt the weight of that brief, fleeting moment—the understanding that sometimes, kindness was the rarest and most precious gift of all.

And just like that, she stood a little taller, her heart a little lighter. A gift. A simple gift that was, for the first time, hers to keep.

At five years old, Namida Uchiha came to a quiet, almost painful realization. Kakashi Hatake, the cold, distant boy with silver hair and onyx eyes, was not simply the prodigy the world saw—he was someone who carried a kindness within him, a soft, hidden tenderness that had the power to make even the most desperate souls long for it.

She could see it in the way his gaze softened when he spoke of his father, the way the mask he wore wasn't just a shield, but a symbol of something deeper, something human. 

Namida studied him in silence, the realization settling in her chest like a weight she couldn’t lift. She knew, deep down, that someone like him—someone with that rare kind of warmth, buried deep beneath the surface—could one day be whispered about in awe, in longing, in prayer.

People would speak his name as if it held the answers to all their questions, as if it carried the weight of a thousand unspoken wishes.

And in that moment, Namida Uchiha realized something else, something softer, more vulnerable. She wouldn’t mind at all if, someday, she found herself whispering his name, calling out to him in the quiet of her heart, offering up her own silent prayer to the boy who had given her a simple gift under the light of dawn.

For in the kindness of that small gesture, in the quiet of the morning sun, Namida saw something she hadn’t seen before—a glimpse of what might be possible, even in a Shinobi world so heavy with pain.

War was a constant in Namida's life, a backdrop to her existence, like the oppressive weight of the air before a storm. It was something she grew accustomed to hearing about, to witnessing in the way the adults spoke in hushed tones, in the cold steel that lined their hearts and their weapons. But more than that, war was something she was fated to fight in, a destiny carved for her before her first breath.

In the Uchiha clan, children were not born to be loved, cherished, or raised to be something else. They were born as tools. Pawns on a battlefield that stretched across generations, their worth measured only in the value they could bring to the war effort.

Sons, daughters—what were they good for in times of war but to be weapons? To be sharpened and honed until they could kill without hesitation, without remorse. They were born to be used, discarded, and replaced when no longer of service. Children in the Uchiha clan weren’t expected to grow into anything more than warriors, their lives not their own, but woven into the fabric of the clan's endless thirst for power and revenge.

What was a child’s value when their life could be easily traded for another? When one could be sacrificed, replaced by a sibling, and the family would simply continue on, unaffected? To the Uchiha, children were no more than weapons—flesh and blood to be wielded, spent, and forgotten. They were not given the gift of childhood, of innocence, of joy. They were born with a purpose: to fight, to kill, to die.

Namida had learned this early. Too early.

She had learned that her worth, like the worth of every child in the clan, was measured by her ability to fight. Her ability to wield chakra, to use her Uchiha bloodline to kill, to survive. But no one cared about what that did to her. No one cared about the cost.

In the eyes of the Uchiha, Namida wasn’t Namida. She was just another soldier, another child made into a weapon. She could be molded, shaped, used, and then tossed aside when her time had come—replaced by another child who could do the same.

What did it mean to be a child in a world like this? A world where innocence was stripped away before it could bloom, where childhood was just a fleeting illusion crushed beneath the weight of blood and duty. What did it mean to have a mother who was more shattered than the world that birthed her? A mother whose beauty was a mask for her madness, whose fragile form had been broken by the same cruel fate that had twisted Namida’s own existence?

Namida wondered, in the quiet moments when the night stretched endless and cold, if her mother would even notice if she didn’t return. If she died on the battlefield like so many others, would Aeri’s onyx eyes ever search for her? Or would she sit beneath the same old tree, lost in the prison of her own mind, her daughter’s absence just another shadow swallowed by the sickness that consumed her?

Perhaps, Namida thought, that was the cruelest truth of all: she had been born to fight for a world that wouldn’t fight for her, to love a mother who could never love her back.

In the end, it didn't matter who she was or what she wished for. She was a tool, a weapon—a tool that could be replaced, discarded, and forgotten.

And that truth, that bitter truth, was something she would carry with her for as long as she drew breath.

Yet despite the weight of it, despite the unyielding reality of the Uchiha legacy, Namida longed for peace. It was a longing that surged through her veins, raw and aching, a desire too deep to ignore. It was a whisper in her soul, a quiet promise she repeated to herself, even in the darkest of times: kindness and peace could exist.

They could—if only someone, somewhere, would dare to try.

But what was peace in the Shinobi world? A world torn apart by war, by clashing ideals, by histories of hate and division. Nations fought for power, for pride, for lands—and no one was willing to relinquish their beliefs, their claim to the world they fought for. Their ideals were too different, too entrenched in their bones to ever bend for the sake of peace. And those who dared to believe in peace, who spoke of it in the quietest corners, were seen as fools, as dreamers, as weaklings.

What was peace in a world that couldn’t even tolerate the thought of it? What did it matter if one person longed for it when the entire world stood against her?

Namida could feel the weight of the elders’ voices pressing against her mind, their cold, contemptuous whispers shaping the very air around her. She imagined them, perched on their high thrones of judgment, eyes narrow, lips curled in disdain. She could almost hear their laughter, dismissive and cruel, echoing in her ears.

They would call her weak. Foolish. Traitorous. They would mock her for dreaming of something other than the endless cycle of war and pain. And they would punish her mother for raising such a child—her mother, who was already broken by the weight of her own madness.

The thought of her mother being punished again stung with the same old ache—a wound that never healed. Because the truth was that Namida wasn’t allowed to think differently. Not in this world. In a world where children were born to fight for legacies they didn’t choose, where honor was worn like armor and bloodshed was the price of survival, there was no room for kindness.

She could see it so clearly now: the honor the elders spoke of, the honor they demanded, was a hollow thing. Where was the honor in a war that left villages burning, families broken, people mad with grief and rage? Where was the honor when the only thing that mattered was obeying orders, keeping the cycle of death and destruction going, never questioning why?

Namida wanted to scream it, to ask them, to defy them all. Where was the honor in that? But she knew better than to voice such thoughts. If any of the elders ever caught wind of her musings, if they knew how much her heart rebelled against their teachings, they would punish her as surely as they had punished her mother. They would tear out her words, cut her tongue from her mouth, silence her forever. And her mother… Her mother would be blamed again, left to suffer even more.

To speak of kindness, to suggest that there could be peace in a world drowning in violence—such thoughts were blasphemy. To dare to dream of a different way of living would be a sin, one that would erase any hope for redemption.

But even as the weight of those thoughts pressed down on her chest, Namida couldn’t help but wonder: What if they were wrong? What if there was a way to break free from the endless bloodshed? What if kindness, what if peace, was the only way that could heal them all?

It was a dangerous question to ask. But it was a question that lived deep inside her heart, and it wouldn’t go away.

Yet Namida didn’t care. Even if the world couldn’t see it, even if the clan would never accept it, she couldn’t let go of that spark of hope.

Peace wasn’t something to be achieved by force, by domination, by victory over others. It wasn’t something that could be conquered with weapons or the will of the strong. Peace was something softer, something more fragile, but infinitely more powerful.

It was understanding. It was compassion. It was kindness, even when the world screamed for cruelty. And though Namida knew that, she also knew that her world was too broken, too cruel, for that vision to ever come true.

But still, she couldn’t stop the thought from blooming in her heart.

Peace could exist. And no matter what the elders said, no matter how many times they told her it was a fool's dream, Namida would hold on to that belief.

Deep down, a thought lingered within her, raw and bloody, like a wound that would never heal. When had her vision of peace begun? Was it something that had always been there, buried deep inside her, long before she had learned to walk or speak? A sickness that had taken root in her soul, a seed planted in the darkness of her birth, sprouting in silent whispers of a future she could barely comprehend.

Perhaps it had been there all along, a quiet, constant ache. She could feel it now, a gnawing presence that wouldn’t let her go, wrapping around her heart like a vine. In the dead of night, when the world was still and her mind began to wander, she would see it—visions of a future she wished to save, of a world free of bloodshed, free of madness. In her nightmares, she heard the voices, distant and mournful, calling to her from a time yet to come, as if the future itself had reached back to touch her soul.

It was maddening, this feeling that the world could be different, that there could be something better beyond the chaos and the pain. But how could she make them understand? How could she explain this deep, unshakable belief that peace—real peace—was possible, when all she had ever known was war and destruction?

Was it a curse, this dream? A dream that had no place in the world she had been born into, a world where children were raised to be weapons, where love and kindness were buried beneath layers of hatred and pride. Yet, Namida couldn’t escape it. It clung to her, haunted her, no matter how hard she tried to push it away.

And so, she wondered, as she stared into the cold, unyielding sky, When did it all begin?

Was it something she had carried with her through lifetimes? Or was it simply the cruelest trick the world had ever played on her—this impossible longing for something that could never be?

The thought echoed in her chest, unanswered, a question too dangerous to ask, too fragile to speak. But it was there, always there, like a fire that could never be extinguished.

"The Will of Fire," they called it—an arrogant man's dream of loyalty and honor. But Namida Uchiha knew better.

It was nothing more than a twisted dream—one she had shared with an old man under the cold, silent snow. A dream of kindness in a world that would never believe in it.

For what was she—what was anyone—if they didn’t believe in something better than this?

"THE HEROES HAVE ONE LEFT THING TO DO, DIE."