ii. monologue about damaged children
"HOME IS THE FIRST GRAVE."
The classroom hummed with the steady rhythm of youthful curiosity, the light tapping of pencils against paper and the soft rustle of small movements filling the air. But all of that vanished when Namida Uchiha’s voice broke through the quiet, sharp as a blade.
"Why are we fighting, sensei?"
The room froze. The usual noise—the scratch of chalk against the blackboard, the gentle murmur of half-bored children—vanished as though the world itself had hit pause.
Namida sat at the back of the room, small and quiet, her blue onyx eyes sharp and unyielding as they fixed on her teacher. It wasn’t a question that should have come from someone so young.
She was barely five years old, her voice carrying a weight that belied her years. Yet it was a question that felt like it had been plucked from the deepest wells of the human soul—one that no child should have to ask, but one they all should understand.
Iwana Akame stood at the front of the room, his back straight and his shoulders tense as though he, too, had been caught in the wake of something far greater than a mere question. For a long moment, he said nothing. His lone eye flickered to the white-haired girl in the back of the room, studying her with an unreadable expression.
Namida’s question had struck at something buried deep inside him. Something cold and painful. Something that he had tried, time and again, to bury. A lesson he had tried to teach to others, but never fully embraced himself.
The silence stretched between them, heavy and thick, until finally, Iwana’s voice broke the quiet, low and controlled, yet filled with something that no child could possibly understand but Namida did, as any doomed child did.
"The Second Shinobi War," he began, his voice steady, yet heavy with an ancient sorrow, "is not a war of righteousness. It isn’t about justice or honor. It's born from desperation."
He paused for a moment, as if the words themselves weighed too heavily for him to continue. And then, slowly, he pressed on.
"The Five Great Nations—Konoha, Iwa, Kumo, Kiri, and Suna—had been shattered after the First Shinobi War. Treaties were signed, but peace is fragile, especially when fear and greed rule the hearts of men. The villages needed power. They needed land. They needed to survive."
His gaze swept over the classroom, lingering for a moment on Namida, whose eyes remained locked on him, unflinching.
"And so the smaller nations, the Land of Rain among them, became battlegrounds. Whole regions were scorched and turned to graveyards, and children were buried in unmarked graves. Hanzō of the Salamander resisted, but the war didn’t care. It doesn’t care if you're a soldier or a child. It takes everything."
Iwana’s voice dropped lower, darker.
"Konoha fought to protect itself, just as every other village did. But if you ask me why—truly why—it wasn’t honor. It wasn’t righteousness." He paused, his tone almost bitter now. "It was fear. Fear of being weak. Fear of being conquered. Because in this world, if you are not the predator, you are the prey."
The words rang out like a gong, resounding through the very bones of the room. Namida’s small fists clenched under the desk as she stared at her teacher. His words, though harsh, were not new to her. She had heard whispers, and seen the shadows in the eyes of the elders—the ones who spoke in hushed tones as if the very act of speaking of it aloud would bring the darkness back.
But hearing Iwana’s voice gives it form, give it weight—it struck her deeper than she was ready for. A bitter taste rose in her throat, and she swallowed hard, forcing the emotions down. But the question was still there. Still burning.
She spoke again, her voice barely above a whisper. "Then why did the First Shinobi War happen?"
Iwana studied her for a long moment, his one eye intense, searching for something in her gaze. It wasn’t just curiosity he saw there. It was a hunger. A hunger for truth. A thirst for meaning.
"Because power was never meant to be shared," he said, his voice laced with sorrow that seemed to wrap around the very words themselves. "The moment the first shinobi villages were founded, the moment Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha built Konoha—the moment the other nations followed suit—war was inevitable. There was never enough land. Never enough power. And when one side grew strong, the others sought to tear them down. It was only a matter of time."
Namida’s hands curled tighter into fists.
"So we are trapped in a cycle of war and pain, sensei?" she asked, her voice trembling, but resolute.
Iwana’s eyes softened for the briefest moment. A flicker of something passed across his face—regret, perhaps. Or resignation. Something human. Something that had lived through too much.
"Yes," he murmured. "We are."
The air seemed to grow colder, heavier. The classroom had become a place of too many unspoken words. Iwana continued, but now his voice was thick, weighed down by the history he carried.
"The wars change. The faces change. But the reasons remain the same," he said quietly. "Hatred is inherited like blood. Vengeance is passed down like tradition. The cycle of war has existed longer than any of us, and it will continue long after we are gone."
Namida’s heart clenched, the realization settling heavily in her chest.
"So we’re doomed?" she whispered, barely able to get the words out.
For the first time, Iwana faltered. His fingers twitched, and something almost imperceptible flickered in his eye—a trace of hope, maybe, or perhaps the last remnants of something long forgotten.
"That," he said, his voice quieter now, "depends on the ones who come after us."
For just a fleeting moment, there was a glimmer of something in his voice—a sliver of hope, a hope he didn’t fully believe in himself.
But the moment passed.
Iwana turned back to the board, his chalk scratching against the surface once more. Namida, too, turned her gaze downward, her small hands trembling in her lap. She understood. They were not born into war. They were born from it.
Their voice broke through the air, sharp and certain.
"Maybe war isn’t the problem," Namida said again, her voice steady, though now tinged with something more—a dark realization. "Maybe it’s chakra. You said everything began when chakra was discovered, sensei."
The words struck the room like a thunderclap. The quiet gasps of shock rippled across the classroom. Even the most inattentive of students sat up, their eyes wide with disbelief. They hadn’t expected such a question to come from her—Namida, the quiet girl who had so often been overlooked.
Iwana’s one eye narrowed as he turned slowly to face her. His lips parted, but no words came at first.
"That," he said finally, carefully, "is a dangerous thought."
Namida didn’t flinch. She had known what he would say, but the question still hung in the air, raw and undeniable.
"But is it wrong?" she pressed, her voice still quiet, yet brimming with an intensity that caught the attention of every student in the room.
The classroom had gone deathly still, save for the faintest sound of the wind outside.
Iwana’s hand stilled, the chalk between his fingers, trembling just slightly as the gravity of her words settled into him.
"You’re not wrong," he admitted, his voice quieter now, laced with the weight of his words. "Chakra was once something pure—a gift meant to connect us all. But the moment men learned to control it, to mold it, to twist it into power… it became a weapon. And where there are weapons, there is war."
The silence that followed was thick, suffocating. The truth hung between them like a dark cloud. Namida didn’t look away. She couldn’t.
"Perhaps," Iwana murmured, his gaze distant, as if lost in a memory he could barely face, "if chakra had never been given to us, there would be no shinobi. No war. No endless cycle of bloodshed."
Namida’s heart pounded in her chest, the anger and confusion building like a storm inside her. Her fists clenched so tight her nails dug into her palms, but she forced herself to stay still. She couldn’t let him see how much his words were tearing at her—how much they made her question everything she had ever known.
Iwana’s eyes flickered with something darker, a shadow from a time he couldn’t escape. His voice broke the stillness, heavy with memories he wished he could forget. "But hatred… hatred is in every heart. If chakra had never been our weapon, it would have been something else—steels, fists, the hands of men. Every battle, no matter the form, has a core of wrongness. It’s always been there, even before chakra was ever twisted into something we could use."
As the silence stretched, a distant memory flashed in Iwana’s mind—of bloodied earth and dying men, of jutsu cast in desperation.
Namida felt the weight of his words—how bitter, how true they felt, like a cold hand squeezing around her chest.
The children of the clans, particularly the Uchiha, were not blind to the weight of Namida's question. The air thickened with tension, as the room became heavy with a shared, unspoken history. Some stiffened, their faces betraying the discomfort that Namida's challenge had triggered. The whispers had already begun—whispers of Arei Uchiha and the madness that consumed her, of the power and pride of the Uchiha bloodline, now stained by tragedy and ambition. Namida’s words were a direct challenge to that legacy, a challenge to everything they had been taught to revere.
Izumi Uchiha, wide-eyed and trembling, was the first to speak, her voice wavering with a kind of terrified disbelief.
"That’s blasphemy. To question chakra… it’s... it’s wrong," she whispered, her hand instinctively pressing against her chest as if trying to shield the very legacy of her ancestors from the poison of such a thought.
Kakashi’s eyes flickered toward Namida, his expression unreadable. He had always questioned the stories that the world told, the narratives they were all bound by. But this… this was different. Even his quiet mind, so often at peace with uncertainty, struggled to form a response.
Obito, standing just beside Kakashi, said nothing. His eyes, once filled with the spark of optimism, now seemed darker, burdened by a heaviness that neither he nor anyone else could easily explain. He felt it too—the weight of Namida’s words, the crack in the foundation of everything they had known.
But it was Itachi Uchiha who regarded Namida the most intently. His gaze was sharp, unreadable, as always. Yet there was something in it—something that suggested he, too, understood the futility of the endless cycle they were trapped in.
The world was not kind to those who dared to ask such questions. To challenge the very fabric of shinobi existence was to risk being consumed by it. But in his silence, Itachi seemed to acknowledge that the questions had already been asked, even if they could never be answered.
The tension in the room was palpable, thick with judgment and unspoken words. The words came like daggers, cutting through the fragile silence, aimed not just at Namida but at the very idea she had presented.
The Hyûga child’s voice rang out with venom, sharp and biting. "Are you crazy?"
The words felt like a slap, a sudden jolt to the chest. It was as if the entire clan had spoken in unison, their pride, their history, too fragile to entertain such a thought. The whispers that followed were laced with disdain, growing louder, as the room seemed to close in around Namida. The judgment was suffocating.
"I'm not surprised," another child muttered, his voice dripping with contempt. "It’s the sin of the Uchiha clan speaking. My mother always said that Aeri Uchiha, her mother, was a crazy woman who betrayed her clan."
The words slithered through the air like poison, sinking deep into Namida’s chest. The sting of them wasn’t just the venom in their tone—it was the truth behind them, the belief that had been etched into the very souls of these children. To question chakra was to question everything they knew, everything they had been taught to believe about power, about legacy, about what it meant to be shinobi.
Only a mad person would dare to do it.
The room had been still just moments ago, but now it was alive with the buzz of anger, confusion, and disbelief. The voices of children, born of proud clans, rose in a chorus of indignation.
"How dare you speak like that? You know nothing of our history, Uchiha!" A boy shouted, his face flushed with barely-contained rage. His eyes burned with anger, and his fists clenched at his sides. His body trembled with the force of his feelings, the weight of his history.
Kakashi’s head bowed low, his silver hair hiding his eyes as he retreated further into the shadows. His heart twisted with something unspoken, something buried so deep within him that for once, he couldn’t push it down. He had always seen the cracks in the world—the things people were too afraid to face—but now, in the wake of Namida's words, those cracks felt deeper than ever.
Obito fidgeted nervously, his brown eyes flicking between the faces around him and Namida. His mouth tightened into a thin line, torn between his desire to support her and his understanding of the world they had inherited. He wanted to defend her, to voice the thoughts that stirred in his heart, but the weight of the anger in the room made it impossible to speak.
Rin’s face was pale, her hands trembling slightly as she avoided Namida’s gaze. Her heart ached for the girl, for she too understood the weight of living in the shadow of war, of loss, of things they couldn’t change. But even Rin knew that questioning the way of the shinobi was more than just a dangerous game—it was a threat to everything they had fought for.
Izumi’s eyes were wide with fear, disbelief twisting her features. She had heard the rumors about Aeri Uchiha—the madness that ran through her bloodline. The whispers of betrayal, of ambition that had led to ruin. Now, hearing Namida’s words, she knew this was more than just a passing thought. This was a direct challenge to everything they had been taught to uphold. And it terrified her.
The room had become a pressure cooker, each word a spark that threatened to ignite the volatile mix of pride, history, and fear. Iwana Akame’s one visible eye glinted with a mixture of sorrow and anger as he watched the unfolding chaos. His gaze was not on Namida, but on the children around her—the ones who were too blind to see what she was trying to show them.
He had lived through the wars, through the endless cycle of bloodshed and loss. He understood the weight of the battle, the toll it took on the soul. And he knew the truth: they were trapped, all of them, in a never-ending dance of destruction.
Iwana Akame’s single eye flashed with a depth of emotion as he surveyed the room. His face hardened, the anger in his gaze directed not at Namida, but at the children who were too blind to understand. He had lived through it—through the pain of the First and now the Second Shinobi Wars, through the endless cycle of bloodshed and loss. He knew what it was to feel the heat of battle, to feel the desperate hunger for survival.
The sensei’s voice was cold, like ice over a wound, when he finally spoke.
"You speak of Aeri Uchiha," he said, his voice cutting through the chaos like a blade. "You speak of a woman who walked the same path you all follow—one of power, one of blood. But power is a fragile thing. It is built on the bones of those who came before, and it can break just as easily as it is forged."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the children, lingering on the Uchiha faces that flinched at the mention of Namida mother’s name.
"You are not wrong to be proud of your heritage," Iwana continued, his voice quieter now. "But pride is not the same as wisdom. And pride is not the same as strength."
Namida, still sitting at the back of the room, clenched her hands into fists. Her body trembled slightly, but her resolve was unshaken.
She had asked the question because it had been eating at her. She had known the answer before it left her lips, but hearing it from the mouths of the others—hearing it from them, their belief that peace was impossible—made her question everything. Was she the crazy one? Was her belief in peace a lie? Or had they all been swallowed whole by the same darkness?
"If you think peace is impossible," Namida whispered, her voice barely audible over the growing murmurs, "then why are we still here? Why are we still training to fight? To hurt?" She turned to Iwana, her eyes burning with an intensity that belied her young age. "What do we fight for, sensei? What is it all for?"
Iwana’s eye softened, just a fraction. He knew the pain she carried—the same pain that had made him question everything in his own youth. But he had learned to bury those thoughts, to bury those questions, because he had no answers. And now, he watched the same fire kindling in Namida’s eyes, the same fire that had burned in him when he had been a child.
"You’re right to ask," he said quietly, his voice thick with sorrow. "But the answer... the answer is not something I can give you. It is something you must find for yourselves. If you cannot see the truth, then you will never be able to fight for peace."
The weight of his words hung in the air, as heavy as the silence that followed. The other children stared at Namida, their gazes filled with confusion, anger, and fear. But it was Itachi’s eyes that lingered longest on her. He had heard the same questions echoing in his mind for years, but he could not bring himself to voice them. Namida, with her innocence and her fire, had done it for him.
And in that moment, as the room descended into chaos and confusion, something changed in the air. It was subtle—a shift, an undercurrent of something that neither Iwana nor the other children could quite name. The winds of war had been blowing for as long as they could remember, but Namida’s words had changed the direction. For a brief moment, there was a chance—a flicker of light amidst the darkness.
Izumi’s gaze never left Namida, her heart heavy with the weight of what had been said. Her own doubts about the shinobi world stirred in her chest, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak them. She wasn’t sure what was worse—the silence that followed or the words that had been spoken.
The questions Namida had raised would not be forgotten. But whether or not the world was ready to listen, that was another matter entirely.
The thought gnawed at Izumi, burrowing deep into her mind like a parasite she couldn’t shake. What if chakra had never existed? What if her father had never been pulled into the war, torn away from her by the very thing that had defined the shinobi world—chakra itself?
She froze, her breath catching in her throat as the image of her father flashed before her eyes. His face, strong and proud, smiling down at her as a child. The warmth of his presence, the safety of his love. What if he were still here? What if he hadn't been taken from her by the cruel, unending battles of the shinobi world, a world that was driven by power and chakra?
Her hands trembled, and for a split second, it was as if she could feel the weight of his absence pressing down on her chest. The loss—the ache—felt as fresh as it had been that day, when she had been just a girl, too young to understand why her father had gone away, never to return.
But no. She couldn’t let herself think like that.
Izumi squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head violently, as though trying to shake free from the thoughts that had no place in her mind. Namida’s words were still echoing in her ears.
Don’t listen to her.
Namida. The daughter of Aeri Uchiha, the woman branded as mad by their clan. The very woman who had nearly torn the Uchiha to pieces with her obsession, her inability to accept the world as it was, her radical views on chakra. Izumi's mother had always warned her about people like Aeri Uchiha—and by extension, Namida.
"You should avoid them," her mother had said with a firm, cold tone that left no room for debate. “The Uchiha bloodline carries the weight of madness. You’ll see, Izumi. They will lead you down a dangerous path, if you let them.”
Her mother had never been wrong about the Uchiha clan. Aeri Uchiha’s descent into madness was the perfect example of what happened when one let themselves be consumed by the very thing that made them shinobi—chakra. Power, pride, control—all of it fueled by chakra.
And now, here was Namida, standing before them all, speaking words that threatened to undo everything they knew. A small girl, but with eyes far too old for her age, asking questions that no one, not even her father, would dare to answer.
Izumi clenched her fists so tightly that her nails dug into her palms. She could hear her mother’s voice again, warning her, shielding her from the dangerous allure of people like Namida. The disgrace of the clan.
"She’s just like her mother," Izumi whispered quietly to herself, her voice thick with disgust. "She’s no different. She's just another echo of that madness, born into the same cursed bloodline. I won’t fall for it."
Her gaze flickered toward Namida, who was still sitting at the back of the classroom, her eyes unwavering, her questions still hanging in the air like an unanswered prayer. There was something about her—something unsettling in the way she spoke, as if she was unafraid of the truth, unafraid to speak what no one dared utter aloud.
It made Izumi’s skin crawl.
But Izumi Uchiha couldn’t let herself be swayed by it. She couldn’t let herself be like Namida, to question the very foundation of their world, their purpose. If she did, what would that make her? Would she be like her father, like so many before him, lost in the never-ending cycle of war?
The whispers around her grew louder. The children of the clans were still murmuring, some in offense, others in confusion, as the weight of what Namida had said continued to sink in. But Izumi shut it all out. She couldn’t afford to let those thoughts fester. The Shinobi world was not the enemy.
I will not be brainwashed by her, Izumi thought fiercely.
She was not going to let herself fall into the trap of questioning, of doubting. She was Uchiha. She was strong.
And she would never allow herself to be consumed by the same madness that had broken her Clan.
The cycle of war might never end, but there was one thing that would never change—the pride of the Uchiha clan.
Itachi stood at the edge of the training ground, his sharp gaze sweeping the scene before him. His heart tightened as his eyes fell on Namida, crouched low to the ground, her once-pristine white hair tangled and wild, her black kimono stained with dirt and something much darker. Blood stained the corner of her mouth, and a thin red line trickled down from her nose, marking the aftermath of her latest battle.
He knew exactly what had happened. The bullies had found her. They always did. Namida’s defiance, her refusal to adhere to the unspoken rules of the Uchiha clan, her unrelenting questions and unsettling curiosity, made her an easy target. She was a rebel in a world that didn’t tolerate rebellion.
Like her white hair, like snow untouched by time, always framed her face with an almost ethereal quality. The stark contrast to her porcelain skin only made her striking blue onyx eyes more intense—eyes that glared at the world with an unspoken defiance, as though daring it to challenge her.
But this time… it was different.
Itachi’s fists clenched involuntarily as he moved toward her. Every step felt like walking through a world that had shifted, one that felt increasingly foreign and unsettling. He could feel the weight of the moment pressing on his chest, the familiar tension in his shoulders, but something about this encounter stirred more than just his usual detachment. Namida's figure, hunched on the ground but still unbroken, struck him with a strange combination of anger, sympathy, and an unfamiliar kind of worry.
Her gaze flickered upward as he neared, meeting his eyes for the briefest of moments before her bloodstained hand wiped away the evidence of her pain. It was a small, quiet gesture, one that should have shown weakness, but there was nothing weak about the way her eyes met his—sharp, unwavering, defiant.
He stopped a few feet from her, his voice devoid of emotion, his words sharp and cold, yet heavy with an unspoken weight. "Why did you ask those questions to Iwana-sensei?"
Namida’s eyes darkened as she looked up at him, her expression steady despite the blood, despite the bruises. Itachi’s heart twisted as he studied her—the way she didn’t flinch, the way she didn’t back down. It was the same fire he had seen in his own reflection, but in her, it burned differently. Her questions, her defiance—they mirrored something he had always known, something that lived deep within his soul.
Her eyes—those striking blue-onyx eyes—were like a mirror, reflecting a past he never spoke of, a legacy he could never escape. Itachi saw it in her. The same darkness that had burned within Aeri, her mother—the same woman who had questioned everything, challenged the foundation of their world, and in doing so, had shattered the Uchiha clan.
Itachi had seen the madness in Namida mother’s eyes, and now, standing before Namida, he couldn’t shake the thought; Was she headed down the same path? Was she destined for the same fate?
"You should never have asked those questions," Itachi continued, his voice low but tinged with an edge of something gentle. "The elders will hear about this, and they will punish you. You’ve committed blasphemy. You’re questioning the will of the world. The Uchiha clan’s world. That... that is madness."
He loomed over her, the weight of his words heavy in the space between them. Namida didn’t flinch. She didn’t look away. Instead, she stared back at him with a gaze that only seemed to grow more intense, more focused.
"Madness?" Her voice was quiet, but there was a strength to it, a quiet storm that seemed to ripple through the very air between them. "Is it madness to want peace? To believe that we don’t have to keep fighting? Is it madness to ask if there is another way? Or is it madness to accept the cycle of violence because it’s all we’ve ever known?"
Itachi’s breath caught, his heart pounding in his chest. For a split second, it felt as though the ground beneath him had shifted.
Those words—those same words—were the ones that had haunted him for months. The same questions he had buried deep inside his heart, the questions he had never dared to ask aloud. He had been four years old when his father had taken him to the battlefield, showing him the brutal reality of the world—the price of survival, the price of being a shinobi.
Bloodshed had become a part of him, a part of every Uchiha, and he had long accepted that it was the only way.
But now, in front of Namida, those questions rose to the surface, unbidden and impossible to ignore. Was it madness? Was there truly another way? Could peace be possible? Itachi had buried those doubts for so long, thinking them foolish, idealistic, dangerous even. Yet hearing them from her—struck him harder than anything else.
He opened his mouth, but the words that came out were not the ones he had intended. "You have no idea what you're asking, Namida," he said, his voice now sharper, but tinged with something like regret. "The world we live in—the world of shinobi—is built on these battles, on chakra. Without it, we would be nothing. If you truly think there’s another way, another path, you’ll be crushed by the weight of your ideals. It will destroy you, just like it would destroy anyone else who dares to believe in peace."
Namida tilted her head, her bloodstained lips curling into the faintest, most imperceptible of smiles. Itachi felt something stir within him, something unfamiliar—an odd mix of admiration and fear tangled together with something more painful, something that tasted like the truth he had always feared.
"I’m not afraid of the consequences, Itachi," she said, her voice steady, unwavering. "I’m not afraid of them punishing me. What I’m afraid of is what happens when we stop asking questions. When we stop looking for answers, even the ones that scare us."
The words hit him like a physical blow. Itachi stood there, frozen, the weight of her gaze pulling at him like a tide. She was right, in a way. It wasn’t the consequences that terrified her. It was the silence. The moment they stopped questioning, stopped searching for a different way, that was when the world would be truly lost.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Itachi’s gaze moved from her intense eyes to the bruises that marred her skin, the blood staining her clothes. The words were caught in his throat, but the truth—that twisted, suffocating truth—pressed against his chest, suffocating him.
"Tell me, Namida," Itachi said softly, the voice he had always used to mask his doubts suddenly breaking free. "Do you truly think that a cure exists for the cycle of war? Do you believe that we can escape this?"
He had never asked the question before—not aloud, not even to himself. The answer had always seemed too far-fetched, too naive, too dangerous to even entertain. But in that moment, standing before this girl who refused to accept the world as it was, Itachi couldn’t help but wonder. Could there be another way? Was it possible for someone to break the cycle? Or were they all doomed to repeat the same mistakes, over and over, until they had destroyed everything?
For a long, heavy silence, Namida’s gaze never wavered. And then, unexpectedly, her lips parted, and a soft, bloody smile crossed her face. It was gentle, the kind of smile that should have felt out of place, given the circumstances. But it didn’t. In fact, it felt almost like a promise.
"Kindness," she said softly, her voice almost a whisper. "Maybe kindness could be the cure for all sorrows."
Itachi froze. His eyes widened, and then, a strange, hollow laugh escaped him—soft, yet strangely free. He laughed, but it wasn’t mocking. It wasn’t cruel. It was light, almost as if the weight of months of bitterness had been lifted, if only for a moment.
Kindness? Could it be that simple? That naive? That pure?
He laughed again, this time more freely, the sound almost foreign to his own ears. His eyes burned, but it wasn’t from anger. It was something else—something almost too fragile to hold onto. The walls he had built around himself began to crack, just a little, as he saw the world, for the first time in years, through the eyes of his baby brother eyes.
Maybe kindness could be the cure. Maybe it was the answer he had never dared to believe in.
But as quickly as the thought came, he pushed it away. He couldn’t allow himself to believe it. Not now. Not in this world.
And yet, as he turned to leave, the echo of her words lingered in his mind, ringing in the silence like a delicate promise: Maybe kindness could be the cure for all sorrows.
"Hear me, Itachi Uchiha, future clan head," she declared.
Itachi froze, his body stiffening at the sound of Namida's voice. Her words cut through the stillness of the moment, echoing in his mind like a thunderclap. Her voice was unwavering, filled with a fire that both challenged and pierced the cold walls Itachi had so carefully constructed around himself.
His eyes tightened, but he refused to turn around. He couldn't bring himself to face her, not yet. It felt as though something inside him was being threatened, unraveling at the edges. Her words—bold, almost prophetic—struck a chord deep within him, stirring a part of him he had long buried.
"I will be the one to do it," Namida continued, her voice steady, resolute. "I will change the will of this world. Itachi Uchiha, your reign will never be on a cycle trapped in hatred and war—I will change all of this!"
The weight of her words hit him like a gust of wind, raw and unforgiving. A wave of confusion and disbelief surged through him. He had never seen her like this before—no longer the fragile child bleeding behind the training ground, but someone with a vision, with a certainty that stood in stark contrast to everything he knew.
For a long moment, silence hung between them like a suffocating shroud. Itachi could feel the weight of her gaze, could almost hear the echo of her words in his chest, a sharp ache that threatened to consume him. He had always believed in the inevitability of the cycle—the necessity of it. He had accepted the reality of the world, as harsh as it was. But here she was, a mere girl, standing in the wreckage of that belief with the audacity to claim she could change everything.
His thoughts raced, scrambling for something to hold onto, to reject her claim, to remind himself that there was no other way. The world, he knew, could not change. It was too broken. Too twisted by blood and sacrifice.
The will of the shinobi—the pride of the Uchiha—was something that could never be defied, no matter how much he might wish otherwise.
But Namida... she was a force, unrelenting in her convictions, her words like flames licking at the foundation of his certainty. She was right there in front of him, standing tall despite the blood and dirt, despite the cruel world she was born into. And yet, there was something in her that was different.
Something burned brighter in Namida Uchiha, brighter than the hatred, brighter than the war.
Itachi's hand tightened into a fist, his nails digging into the palms of his hands. The pressure in his chest grew, squeezing the air from his lungs. There was a truth buried beneath her words, something he couldn't ignore.
His breath caught in his throat, and for the briefest moment, Itachi Uchiha—future clan head, the instrument of the Uchiha's darkness—wondered if she might actually be right. Could there truly be another way? Could he have been wrong? The question gnawed at him like a ravenous beast.
But he couldn't allow himself to entertain it—not now. Not when the stakes were so high. He couldn’t risk everything on a fleeting dream, he couldn’t risk Sasuke for a vision from a girl who hadn’t yet seen the full weight of the world.
And yet, deep within him, there was that voice—the voice of doubt, of longing—that kept whispering her words, even as he refused to acknowledge them.
Finally, he turned, slowly, his face a mask of calm that barely concealed the storm raging inside him. His eyes—those cold, unyielding onyx eyes—, too cold for child, too tired for six years old of existence, met hers.
They locked in a battle of wills, a silent confrontation that spoke volumes in the space between them.
“You’re dreaming,” Itachi said, his voice flat, controlled, but there was a tremor in it, a vulnerability he couldn’t quite mask. “You think you can change this world, Namida? You think you can change the will of the Uchiha? The cycle is not something we can escape. It’s ingrained in everything we do, everything we are. The pain, the war—it’s all part of the system. You can’t just wish it away.”
Namida didn't flinch. Her eyes, fierce and unwavering, held his gaze without hesitation. There was no fear in them, no doubt. Only a certainty that made Itachi’s chest ache with a kind of hollow longing.
“I’m not just wishing, Itachi,” she replied, her voice steady, as if she had already made up her mind, as if the battle had already been fought and won in her heart. “I’m not waiting for the world to change. I’m going to make it change. I’m going to change it, no matter what. Even if I have to tear it all down and rebuild from the ashes.”
Her words hung in the air between them, a challenge, a promise, a declaration of war against the very thing that had shaped their lives. Itachi felt his heart pound in his chest, the weight of her defiance settling over him like a shadow.
For a long, suffocating moment, they stood there, staring at each other—two children, two futures, two different visions of what the world could be.
Then, without another word, Itachi turned and walked away, the path ahead shrouded in the darkness of everything he knew, everything he had been taught. But behind him, Namida stood resolute, unshaken, and with every step he took, he felt the weight of her words follow him, the promise of something different, something beyond the cycle, echoing in his mind.
"I will change this, Itachi Uchiha," she whispered, her voice soft, almost ethereal, like an oracle speaking the truth of a distant, forgotten future. "For us, for you, for him, for the tragic future."
The words wrapped around him like a chain, binding him to something beyond the endless cycle of war and vengeance. In that moment, the cold walls of the world he knew seemed to crack, the weight of his legacy, his clan’s history, shifting just a little.
And yet, in the depths of his heart, there was a flicker of something else, something he had long buried beneath the surface. The idea that maybe, just maybe, she could be right. That the cycle wasn’t a destiny, but a choice—a path they all had the power to alter, if only they could see beyond the bloodshed.
But for now, Itachi would not allow himself to entertain that hope. Not when his duty to protect Sasuke was all-consuming, when every step he took was for the future of his brother, and when the weight of the Uchiha legacy hung heavy on his shoulders.
The question lingered, unanswered, like a quiet whisper in the back of his mind. Would the cycle always repeat itself? Or was there a way to break it?
Itachi didn’t have the answers. And maybe, just maybe, that was the hardest part of all of his existence.
From the moment she had been old enough to understand, Namida Uchiha knew the village—especially the Uchiha clan—hated her mother.
It was in the way their eyes turned to ice when Aeri walked by, in the whispers that slithered through the streets like venomous snakes. It was in the way the women turned their backs, their spines rigid with disdain, and the men refused to meet her gaze, as if she were something unworthy of acknowledgment.
Even the masked shinobi who lurked in the periphery of their lives, silent and watchful, did not stand as her protectors. No, they were not guardians—they were vultures, circling, waiting for the moment they could justify erasing her mother’s existence with nothing more than a silent order.
Namida had learned early that the world was cruel, but she had never understood just how deep that cruelty could cut—until tonight.
She felt it before she saw it.
A sickness in the air. A festering, rotting dread that clawed into her bones and whispered something ancient, something nameless, something wrong. The wind carried a scent that didn’t belong, something thick and acrid, something that did not belong in the golden glow of evening. The village was still bathed in soft light, the sky painted in hues of amber and rose, but the warmth did not reach her. It didn’t touch her skin. It didn’t chase away the ice settling deep in her stomach, thick and insidious like oil.
Namida walked faster. Then ran.
She didn’t know what she was running toward, only that she had to move, had to get there, had to save. Her feet pounded against the dirt, her breath caught in her throat, her heart thundered so violently she thought it might burst free from her ribs.
The Uchiha compound loomed ahead, its walls casting long shadows against the full moon, but despite the illusion of light, Namida felt nothing but darkness. Her fingers clenched her kimono tightly, her lungs constricting under the weight of an unseen force. Something was wrong.
Terribly wrong.
She ran again, faster.
The moment she crossed the threshold of their home, she knew.
The air was wrong. It was thick, tainted, reeking of something dark and foreboding. Then—three foreign chakras. Unfamiliar. Invasive. A sickness festering inside her home.
Namida didn’t think. She moved.
Bursting through the door, she barely registered the splintering wood beneath her sandals. The scent of crushed flowers and something metallic—something vile—assaulted her senses. Then—
She stopped.
The world shattered.
Aeri Uchiha—her mother, her untouchable, unreachable mother—was on the ground, struggling like a cornered animal.
Her once-pristine kimono lay in tatters, silken fabric torn away in jagged strips, revealing skin that should have never been touched by such filth. Rough hands roamed where they had no right to be, bruising, violating.
Her wrists were restrained, small fingers twitching weakly against the cruel grip of her captors. Her long, dark hair was tangled in the dirt, strands clinging to her damp, tear-streaked face. One man knelt over her, his disgusting fingers digging into her flesh, tracing the pale curve of her shoulder, her collarbone—lower. His breath was heavy, ragged with sick pleasure as he pressed into her, as though she belonged to him.
Her mother—who had never been anything less than steel, who had never bent for anyone—was sprawled in the dirt.
Her face was blank.
Not from pain.
Not from fear.
Something worse.
Her mother was gone. Her mind had already fled, retreating somewhere far away from the filth pressing against her, away from the heat of foreign hands mapping out her skin like they owned her. Her lips parted. Trembling. A name. Over and over. Soft. Broken. A prayer to someone who would never come.
And above her—
A monster.
Grinning.
"You won’t be so cold now, will you?" His breath was hot against her mother’s neck. "I’ll make sure of it."
His hand yanked at the last strip of fabric shielding her mother’s body.
Aeri flinched—but her eyes stayed blank. His hands crawling lower and lower-
Namida’s stomach twisted.
This wasn’t a robbery.
This wasn’t some random act of cruelty.
This was punishment.
For existing.
For being a woman in a world that wanted her silent.
For breathing when they wanted her gone.
Her body refused to move.
Then—
A hand fisted in her hair.
Yanked.
Her feet left the ground.
And then—
Pain.
Her skull cracked against the dirt. The world went white. A sharp ringing filled her ears.
Laughter. Cruel. Dark.
"Feisty one, huh?" The grip on her hair tightened, yanking her head up. A thumb dragged across her lips, slow, considering. "Buyers like spirit."
His other hand slid down her throat. Pressing into the hollow between her collarbones.
"Bet she’d fetch a high price with those—"
He never finished his sentence.
Because Namida snapped.
A void opened inside her. Deep. Endless. Hungry.
Her vision blurred—
Black.
Then—
Red.
She screamed.
It wasn’t the sound of a child. It was rage.
A void of darkness and fire.
Something ancient stirred in her blood, searing, unbearable. Pain lanced through her skull, molten iron pouring into her eyes, scorching every nerve. The world twisted and warped, painted in jagged, crimson fragments. A force—terrifying, all-consuming—coiled in her chest, clawing through her veins, thick and suffocating.
Then—
A snarl tore from her lips, guttural, primal. Chakra surged from her small frame, wild, uncontrolled. The air crackled. The earth splintered. The man gripping her hair was flung backward, crashing into the wall with a sickening crunch. His skull split against the stone, blood pooling beneath him, his body twitching once—then still.
Namida didn't hesitate.
Her vision sharpened, her focus a laser as the second man lunged toward her. Her body moved faster than thought, instinct taking over.
There was a sickening crack—the sound of bone snapping, the arm bending at an unnatural angle. The man’s scream echoed through the air, high and raw, as his body crumpled beneath the weight of the pain. But Namida didn’t flinch. She didn’t waver.
With brutal precision, she twisted, her grip tightening. In a fluid motion, she pivoted, her kunai flashing in the dim light before it buried itself deep into the man's throat. The blade tore through flesh and cartilage with an obscene sound—a wet, ripping noise as blood erupted in a gushing torrent, spraying across her face, coating her hands.
The man's scream was silenced in an instant, replaced by a bubbling gurgle as blood poured from his windpipe, flooding his lungs. His body jerked, a final desperate twitch, before it crumpled to the ground in a heap, a lifeless sack of flesh, the crimson tide pooling beneath him.
Namida stood over him, her breath steady, her eyes burning, as the blood continued to spread, staining the earth.
The last man hesitated. His terrified eyes met hers.
And in that instant, he was already dead.
His body jerked violently, his face contorted in a final, desperate scream that never left his throat. His limbs spasmed uncontrollably, his eyes bulging as blood poured from every orifice—his mouth, his nostrils, his eyes—rivers of red that mixed with frothy, bubbling foam. His body twisted as though every nerve was on fire, every synapse in his brain fried by an agony he could not comprehend.
Then—
Silence. Thick. Suffocating.
“Mother,” Namida whispered. Her small voice was barely more than breath, raw and fragile. She stumbled forward, her knees buckling.
But Aeri did not respond.
Her blank blue onyx eyes stared past Namida, beyond the blood-soaked ground, beyond the horror. Her lips moved, trembling, forming the same name over and over—soft, broken prayers to someone who would never come.
Namida’s hands, small and bloodstained, reached out.
She touched her mother gently, pulling the tattered remains of her kimono over bare shoulders that should have never been exposed to such filth. Her fingers, slick with the blood of monsters, smoothed down tangled strands of midnight hair.
For the first time in her life, Namida held her mother close.
For the first time in her life, her mother did not pull away. And as she sat there, arms wrapped around a woman who had never let herself be touched, Namida realized something.
The world had stolen everything from Aeri Uchiha long before tonight.
The scent of iron was thick in the air, mingling with the lingering echoes of pain and shame, sinking into her skin like a brand. Her hands—small, shaking, soaked in red—would never be clean again. She stared at them, at the blood drying in the creases of her fingers, at the way it cracked and darkened.
The world was quiet now. Too quiet.
She almost laughed.
Would Itachi laugh if he saw her like this? Would he mock her for believing in kindness, for daring to think it was the cure when she had become just like all the weapons of war?
Yet—kindness was no gift to men like the ones she had slaughtered.
Men who forced themselves upon the powerless. Men who reveled in suffering. Men who preyed on women, on children.
They did not deserve mercy. They did not deserve life. They deserved agony, torment, a pain so deep that even death would not be an escape.
A sharp breath rattled in her throat. The fire in her chest burned hotter, searing through every nerve in her body.
Even madness could not protect a woman from the cruelty of men. Even death would not have spared her mother from their greed.
Her eyes kept burning, blood leaking from them, glowing red in her shadow.
She could hear her ancestors laughing, their voices like echoes from the grave, shaking their heads in knowing pity. They had seen this path before, had walked it themselves, had burned in the same unforgiving flames. She had doomed herself to madness, her innocence the price paid in blood, her love and devotion the chains that bound her to a fate she could never escape.
But could they blame her?
Aeri Uchiha was her blood, her clan—her everything. Even if her mother had never once spoken her name with warmth, even if her prayers had always been whispered for a man Namida had never known, it did not matter. Love was not a thing of reason. It did not bend to logic, nor did it demand to be returned.
And so, Namida clung to the one thing that had always been hers alone—a dream.
A dream where her mother smiled.
A dream where Aeri laughed, where she lived in a world untouched by war, by chakra, by the endless cycle of hatred.
A dream where love did not have to be carved out in blood.
Tears of blood welled in Namida’s eyes, thick and searing, carving crimson trails down her pale cheeks. They burned—not from pain, but from something deeper, something raw and ancient, a grief that had festered into rage.
Her fists clenched, nails biting into her palms until they, too, bled. Her small frame trembled, seeking warmth where there was none, curling against the ghost of something that had never truly existed. She had always wished for warmth, for a touch that did not wound, for arms that did not push her away. But her mother, Aeri—Aeri had never been warm.
She had always been cold.
Cold like the madness in her golden chakra, twisting, warping, corrupting. Cold like the way the world had painted her a villain before she even had a chance to be anything else. Cold like the way she had looked at Namida—like she was a ghost haunting her for her sins.
The eyes burned, their cursed red glow reflecting in the suffocating darkness, casting eerie patterns upon the blood-soaked earth. It was more than power. It was a promise. A vow.
If the world had been cruel to her mother—then Namida would be crueler to them.
"She has the Sharingan!"
The words rang through the night, sharp and panicked, cutting through the thick silence left in the wake of her slaughter.
She heard the shuffle of feet, and the rustling of fabric as men approached. Gasps of horror, the sharp intake of breath as they took in the blood-drenched garden—the corpses, the twisted, broken bodies, the way the earth itself had been cracked apart by her rage.
"Call Fugaku-sama!" someone barked, voice taut with urgency.
A shadow moved. Hands reached for her mother.
Namida snapped.
A guttural snarl tore from her throat, raw and inhuman, the sound of something feral, something beyond reason. Her vision swam, the Sharingan burning like molten iron in her skull, searing, devouring. Her body ached, her limbs trembled, but she did not let go.
They would not take her mother.
Not again.
Aeri was all she had. The only constant in a world that had done nothing but take. The only presence that remained, even if it was distant, even if it was cold. Even if it hurt.
Namida’s breath came in ragged gasps, her vision blurred by the cursed tears that streaked her face. Her body ached, her muscles screamed, but she did not waver. She could not.
Because without her mother, there was nothing.
No warmth. No safety. No purpose.
Just a hollow, gaping void where something should have been.
And she would not let them take her. Not the village. Not the shinobi. Not the wretched cycle of fate that had already stolen too much.
"Knock her down!"
A voice. Distant. Commanding.
Then—pain again.
A burst of white-hot agony at the base of her skull, sharp and sudden. The world lurched, tilted. It swallowed her whole, a suffocating abyss that pulled her under, deeper, deeper—
Darkness swallowed her whole. Yet all Namida wanted, was her mother to be safe.
"Father, where are you going?"
Kakashi’s voice, quiet yet laced with uncertainty, barely cut through the stillness of the night. He sat up in his futon, his silver hair disheveled from sleep, dark eyes lingering on the broad figure of his father standing by the doorway.
Moonlight streamed through the window, casting a pale glow against the dark green vest Sakumo fastened over his shoulders.
Sakumo turned at the sound of his son’s voice, his dark brown eyes softening the moment they landed on Kakashi’s small frame. He offered a faint, almost apologetic smile, his voice as gentle as the hands that had always been there to catch Kakashi when he fell.
"I'm sorry, Kakashi. I didn’t mean to wake you."
But Kakashi shook his head. He was awake now, and something in his father’s demeanor told him this wasn’t just another mission. His father crouched beside him, the warmth of his calloused hands brushing against his unruly curls.
The touch was familiar, and comforting.
"The village needs me," Sakumo continued, his voice quiet but firm. "Something’s happened at the Uchiha compound. Rogue shinobi attacked Aeri Uchiha's mansion."
Kakashi stiffened, the name striking something deep inside him.
Aeri Uchiha. Namida’s mother.
The girl in his class who never spoke much, who never smiled, whose pale hair and striking blue onyx eyes set her apart from the rest of her clan. She had always been an enigma, an untouchable presence draped in solitude. And yet, Kakashi had noticed her.
He had noticed the way she carried herself, the way her hands clutched the old, worn kunai he had given her like it was the only thing in the world that belonged to her. Maybe it was. Maybe no one had ever given her anything before.
His hands curled into the fabric of his blanket as unease settled in his stomach.
"Is she okay, Father?"
Sakumo hesitated, something flickering in his gaze. It was rare for his father to withhold an answer, but tonight, he did. And that silence said more than words ever could.
"I don't know," he admitted, voice softer now, as if he didn’t want to place more weight on his son’s small shoulders. "But I need to go."
Kakashi swallowed.
He didn’t understand why he felt this way—why the thought of Namida being hurt sent a strange, hollow ache through his chest. He had never truly spoken to her, never dared to step close enough to breach the invisible walls that surrounded her. The only time he had was when she approached him, her piercing blue eyes locked onto his, and asked, Why do you wear a mask?
Of all the questions she could have asked him, of all the mysteries in the world, she chose that.
It had stunned him.
For a moment, he hadn’t known how to respond. His mask was just… there. A part of him, as natural as breathing. It was his father's gift, love. But when he realized—when he truly looked at her and understood—she had never received a gift before, something inside him shifted.
He couldn’t help but remember his father’s hands, the way they had always offered something, no matter how small. A book. A blade. A simple wooden carving. Gifts were his father’s quiet way of saying; I see you. I love you.
Maybe that was why, without thinking, he had gifted Namida a kunai.
A silent gesture. A connection he hadn’t been brave enough to put into words.
But that didn’t mean he hadn’t noticed the way she looked at the world—as if she had already accepted its cruelty. He had seen that look before, etched into his father’s face, in the quiet, heavy moments before Sakumo disappeared into the night, carrying the weight of something Kakashi had never been able to understand.
This morning, he wondered about Namida’s questions to Iwana-sensei—about her vision of a different world, one where chakra didn’t exist. It had felt like a harmless question at the time. Just a thought. A fleeting curiosity.
But now… with the events of this night unraveling before him, with the unease curling deep in his gut…
Had this happened because of her question?
Had the wrong people heard? Had the clan deemed her words blasphemy?
Had they punished her and her mother for daring to think differently?
The thought unsettled him more than he wanted to admit.
"Can I come with you?" he asked suddenly, his voice quieter this time.
Sakumo smiled. But there was something sad in the way his lips curved, something distant. He lifted his hand, brushing Kakashi’s hair back in a slow, thoughtful motion before shaking his head.
"Not this time, Kakashi. Stay here."
Kakashi knew that tone. Knew that when his father spoke like that, it meant there was no room for argument. And yet, for the first time, he wanted to push back. To insist. To demand. But he didn’t. Instead, he simply stared at his father, his heart pounding against his ribs in a way he didn’t understand.
Sakumo stood, his silhouette outlined against the doorway, his presence a quiet storm in the moonlit room. He looked back one last time, something unreadable in his eyes—something Kakashi would later come to recognize as regret.
"Go back to sleep, son."
And then he was gone.
Kakashi lay back down, but the silence was deafening now, stretching out endlessly around him. He stared at the ceiling, unblinking, listening to the ghost of his father’s footsteps fading into the night, away from their Clan compound. The unease in his stomach didn’t fade. If anything, it grew heavier, sinking deep into his bones like a forewarning.
All he hoped—all he could hope—was that Namida was safe.
Sakumo Hatake knew he wasn’t the best father in the world.
But he tried.
He tried with every fiber of his being to be the kind of man his son deserved, the kind of father who could be called "Father" without hesitation, without the shadow of doubt.
He tried to shield Kakashi from the unrelenting storm of the shinobi world, from the brutal wars and endless sacrifices. He had clung to a promise he’d once made to his late wife, to protect their son and raise him with warmth, even if the world around them grew colder by the day.
But deep down, Sakumo knew. He always knew. It was an impossible promise to keep.
Not in a world like this. Not in a world where survival was the only option, where the mere act of breathing was a form of service, and every step forward led to bloodshed. No matter how tightly he held Kakashi, the shinobi world would always find a way to sink its claws into him. It was inevitable. And yet, despite it all, Sakumo found himself praying, wishing against reason, that his son could somehow escape this fate.
Kakashi was too precious, too pure for a world so vile, so cruel, and so despairing.
There were nights when Sakumo would find himself whispering into the emptiness, his voice barely more than a breath, pleading with any god who might be listening to spare Kakashi from the pain and violence of the shinobi life. But he knew, deep down, that prayers in this world were nothing more than whispers swallowed by the wind, their echoes vanishing into nothingness.
Sakumo understood what it meant to be the last of a dead clan, the weight of his ancestors’ names pressing on him with every breath. He had woken every day knowing that the Hatake Clan existed only because he still lived. He had wondered, countless nights, what Kakashi’s life might have been like if the clan were still alive. What if their home had been filled with laughter and love, a family not lost to war but bound together by their ties, by their heritage?
But there was no clan. No home. No family.
There was only him. And Kakashi.
And so, in the quietest corners of his heart, where hope still flickered, Sakumo made his last prayer, a prayer for his son.
He prayed that when his time came, Kakashi would survive. He prayed that Kakashi would be free. Free of the war, free of the pain, free of the chains that bound them both. He prayed that his son would live long after Sakumo’s shadow had faded, that the legacy of the Hatake Clan would end with him, so that his son could forge a new future, one untouched by the past and sorrow.
Sakumo knew, deep down, that he and his son were not so different from Aeri Uchiha and her daughter, Namida. If there was a difference, it was that Sakumo was a man, and Aeri had been cursed to be a woman.
He understood more than anyone the price of being a man in the shinobi world. If his sacrifices had not been for the village, for Konoha, he too would have been branded as a madman, just like Aeri.
Aeri Uchiha’s name was whispered in the village with both fear and disdain, her legacy stained by the rumors surrounding her. She was a woman consumed by her own chakra, but the truth, is that Aeri was a woman who loved a man outside her clan. But deep down, Sakumo knew the truth.
Aeri had never been driven by madness, nor by rebellion. She had been driven by love. Love, pure and simple, without the mask of politics, without the boundaries of clan and bloodline.
And yet, the elders had dismissed her. The Hokage had cast a disapproving glance. Fugaku Uchiha, too, had turned his back on her, seeing her only as a traitor, a sinner who had birthed a child out of sin.
Sakumo often wondered in those quiet moments, when his mind wandered, whether the pride of the Uchiha clan had blinded them to the simple truth: Aeri had been a woman in love. Would their pride, their obsession with legacy and status, always blind them to the beauty of that love? Was it this very pride that had led them to reject her, to see her as nothing more than a threat to their clan’s purity?
Or, like him, had they been so consumed by their need to protect their families, their clans, that they had failed to see the very thing that made them human?
And if so, was that not the greatest tragedy of all?
Sakumo wondered, as the night deepened, if the true curse of being a shinobi wasn’t the violence or the bloodshed, but the way it hollowed out the heart of a person, making them choose between loyalty to their family, friends and loyalty to the world. Would his son, too, be faced with that impossible choice? Would Kakashi, like him, lose part of himself in the struggle to protect those he loved?
Sakumo didn’t know. But he hoped, with every ounce of his being, that Kakashi’s future would be different. That the boy he loved more than anything in this world would one day be free of the chains of duty and bloodshed.
As he thought about Aeri Uchiha, her love, and the legacy she had left for Namida, Sakumo couldn’t help but wonder how much of their lives had been shaped by the unforgiving demands of the village, by pride, and by the unforgiving expectations of their clans. Aeri had dared to love outside her clan, to choose a path that defied the rigid borders of tradition, and for that, she had been cast aside, her love branded as madness.
But what if the true madness was in believing that love should be bound by these rules? What if the greatest sin wasn’t loving outside the clan but allowing that love to be destroyed by something as transient as pride?
Sakumo understood her better than most. He had been forced to make his own sacrifices, to serve a village that would never truly understand the pain it had caused him. He had given his life to the cause, but what had it truly meant?
He had long since lost his clan, their pride and expectations turning to dust in his hands. He had lost his wife, the warmth of her presence fading into nothing more than a memory. He had lost his innocence, buried beneath the weight of his choices, his sacrifices, and the world’s condemnation.
All he had left—all that truly mattered now—was his precious Kakashi.
Aeri had given up her sanity, her identity, for love. And yet the village still called her mad.
Maybe they were all mad—caught in the grip of a system that asked for everything and gave nothing in return. They had all sacrificed so much for what? A name? A legacy? A place in a world that never cared about them?
The weight of his own choices, his own ideals, felt suffocating. Sakumo had always tried to walk the line between duty and love, between the shinobi code and his fatherly instincts. But in the end, what had he truly preserved? His son, yes—but for how long?
His heart longed for something different, something more. For Kakashi’s sake, for Namida’s sake, for all the children of the world caught in the web of war, Sakumo wished for freedom from this endless cycle.
The mansion of Aeri Uchiha was swarming with ANBU agents, their dark figures moving swiftly through the shadows of the compound. Sakumo could feel the familiar tension in his stomach, a crawling unease that twisted inside him. He caught a brief glance at them, but his eyes quickly flicked away, a silent prayer rising within him.
Deep down, he hoped, prayed even, that his son would never have to set foot in the dark world of ANBU. He couldn’t bear the thought.
The whispers of Uchiha men around him pierced the quiet of the night, each word heavier than the last.
“She killed them all…” a voice murmured in disbelief.
Sakumo’s gaze tightened, instinctively drawn to the source of the words. He stepped cautiously into the garden, his feet moving carefully as his eyes swept over the carnage. Blood soaked the ground, a gruesome testament to the violence that had unfolded here.
“She awoke the Sharingan at barely five years old!” someone hissed, their voice thick with both awe and unease.
“A prodigy,” another murmured, their tone laced with cold admiration.
“Or a monster,” someone else muttered darkly. “Did you see how she tore that man’s throat out?”
Then, the last voice—old, bitter, dripping with contempt. “Namida Uchiha is as dangerous as her mad mother, Aeri.”
Sakumo’s stomach twisted. He knew all too well the burden of a child born into violence, of a name weighed down by the sins of the past. But nothing could have prepared him for the sight before him.
Namida Uchiha lay sprawled on the ground, her small body battered, her face smeared with blood and dirt. Too still. Too silent.
Aeri, her mother, sat nearby. Awake. Breathing. But her eyes…Her eyes were hollow. Vast, empty voids, stripped of anything human.
The girl he once knew—the fierce, brilliant kunoichi—was gone. Swallowed whole by grief, by madness, by sorrow so deep it had rotted away everything she once was.
And for the first time in a long, long while, Sakumo felt it—not fear, but something worse.
A cold, creeping emptiness that settled in his bones.
Aeri’s kimono was torn and soaked in blood, the pristine fabric now a mess of filth and violence. Bruises marred her perfect face, along her throat and wrists. Sakumo clenched his teeth at the realization of what had happened here—the brutal toll the fight had taken on them both.
Despite the carnage, Sakumo stepped forward, each movement slow, deliberate, as if carrying the weight of the past with him. He crouched before Aeri, her face once radiant now marred by the ravages of grief and madness. The light of her youth, once filled with promise, had long since faded, leaving only the broken shell of a woman who had been consumed by the same world that had claimed so many before her. A faint, sad smile tugged at his lips, not from joy, but from the cruel and tender memory of what had been lost.
“Hi, Aeri-chan. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” His voice was soft, a whisper against the storm that raged around them. In that moment, time seemed to slow—there was something eternal in the silence between them, as though the world itself paused, unwilling to witness the tragedy unfolding.
Aeri blinked slowly, her eyes glazed, distant—no longer the sharp, fierce woman he had once known. There was something faintly familiar in her gaze, a fleeting spark of recognition, but it was as if the very essence of her had been ripped away, leaving only the shadows behind.
Then, in a voice hoarse with sorrow, tainted by madness, she whispered, “Kazuya?”
The name fell from her lips like a prayer, a plea to a memory long buried beneath the weight of her torment. Kazuya—the name that had once bound them together, like threads woven through time, full of laughter, camaraderie, and shared dreams. Now, it was a ghost, haunting them both.
Sakumo’s heart clenched, a sharp, jagged pain that pierced him deeper than the physical wounds he had long since grown numb to. Kazuya. That name—the one that had echoed through the halls of his life, now silent, lost to the winds of fate. The sorrow of it washed over him, filling the space between them with an ache that no time, no distance, could ever heal.
“No, Aeri,” he whispered, the weight of his own voice a burden. “It’s not him. It’s me, Sakumo Hatake.”
Her eyes, hollow and vast as the night, searched his face, her gaze devoid of the clarity he had once known. The madness in her flickered briefly—like a dying ember, struggling to survive in the cold. She sought something in him, some tether to the past, something to remind her that there had once been light before the dark consumed everything.
But that recognition, like so many things lost in the cruel dance of time, never came. It was a fading dream, slipping through their fingers like sand.
Sakumo could only watch, helpless, as she clung to the ghosts of the past. The desperation in her eyes was not for him, not for the man who had once fought beside her, but for a fleeting warmth, a flicker of the life she had once known. Aeri had been consumed by sorrow, by grief, by a world that demanded everything and gave nothing in return.
And it was only him, now. Only Sakumo, with the ghosts of Kazuya Senju and all the lost souls of the shinobi world.
For the dead never returned, not even for those left behind to mourn. The cycle of war and loss had claimed them all, had stolen their futures and turned their dreams into dust. The world had broken them, scattered their pieces like leaves in the wind.
After all, the dead never came back. Not even for the sorrowing widow.
"Your throat is raw from screaming to someone who will never save you."