The wind whispered through the dense branches of the Fire Country forest, bending the trees just enough to let the sunlight dapple the forest floor. In the clearing beneath a curtain of hanging vines, Ayame knelt barefoot, arms outstretched, guiding Sora's tiny hands through a flowing motion.
"Again," she said softly. "Push the chakra into your palm. Focus. Let it swirl."
Sora, barely a year old now, copied her, his brow scrunched in serious concentration. Most children his age were still wobbling as they walked. He had already begun chakra control training.
And not just begun—thrived in it.
Ayame's eyes, dull red with a single tomoe activated, tracked his movement, watching not just his physical gestures, but the quiet roar of his chakra moving unnaturally fluid through his coils.
He was a prodigy.
A terrifying one.
She should have been cautious. Any rational shinobi would. But Ayame was far beyond caution when it came to him.
She was attached.
Obsessed, maybe. Protective, always. Possessive… increasingly.
But in moments like this, watching him breathe in time with her, chakra dancing between his fingers like candlelight, she only felt one thing.
Pride.
She reached out and touched his cheek.
Sora blinked, momentarily losing focus as the chakra dispersed from his palm in a harmless flash. His eyes—still young, innocent—looked up at her questioningly.
Ayame smiled.
"Don't worry. We'll get it right next time."
He grunted and pouted. She chuckled, scooping him up effortlessly and sitting cross-legged with him nestled in her lap. He didn't resist. Sora rarely resisted her.
To others, Ayame was a ghost, a blade in the dark, a woman to fear and forget. But to him, she was warmth and safety. She was the only one who truly saw him—not as a monster, not as a weapon—but as hers.
That's why he never cried around her. Why his wails had turned to silence the moment she picked him up all those months ago.
He trusted her.
And she… she lived for him now.
"You're growing fast," she whispered, brushing his white-silver hair—an unnatural trait she never questioned aloud. "Too fast. You'll surpass me soon."
Sora reached up and tugged a lock of her long black hair. Ayame let him, smiling gently, placing a soft kiss on his forehead.
"You won't leave me behind… right?" she murmured.
He didn't understand. But the way his tiny fingers curled around the cloth at her chest felt like a promise.
---
Flashback – Two Months Ago
Blood had stained the grass.
A bounty hunter from the Mist had tracked them down—an A-rank shinobi who specialized in capturing Uchiha defectors. He had expected a fight from Ayame. He hadn't expected the child.
But what truly shocked him was what happened when he struck.
Ayame had dodged the first swing—barely—but a wind blade slipped past her guard, heading straight for the baby sleeping under the tree.
Sora's eyes opened.
No time to cry. No time to scream.
The wind blade vanished.
Swallowed by a sudden ripple in the air that appeared an inch from his face. Gone.
And then the hunter screamed as that same ripple twisted midair and sent the jutsu hurtling back at him—double the speed.
He died impaled by his own technique.
Ayame remembered holding Sora close afterward, her heart pounding, staring into his blank expression. His eyes had been empty. Unbothered.
He hadn't cried.
He had only watched.
---
Present Day
She held him tighter now.
"You don't even understand what you did… do you?" she murmured.
Sora leaned into her, dozing off in her arms.
"I won't let them take you," she said softly. "Not Konoha. Not the Uchiha. Not anyone. You're mine."
She didn't say it with the desperation of a dying woman or the madness of a lunatic.
She said it with the calm, final certainty of a killer.
Ayame's gentle touch caressed his face as he fell asleep, unaware of the storm she was slowly becoming.
---
Midnight
Ayame stood outside their cave again, blade in hand. Her Sharingan shimmered in the moonlight as she slashed through the air, silent, fluid. Practicing.
But her mind wasn't on the sword.
He swallowed a jutsu. Instinctively.
Sora's ability wasn't just chakra absorption. It wasn't sealing either. It was devouring—space, jutsu, objects, energy. She didn't know how it worked yet.
But she would find out.
And she would teach him.
Because if the world ever found out what he could do, they would do what the shinobi world always did:
Turn him into a weapon… or try to destroy him.
She wouldn't let them.
Not while she breathed.
---
Back inside, Sora dreamed.
In the endless void behind his thoughts, memories of another life stirred. A world of steel and fire. Of machines. Of death.
His soul trembled as echoes of that forgotten world whispered one name into the dark:
Devourer.
And outside, Ayame pressed her forehead to the stone wall and whispered:
"I'll kill for you. I'll die for you. I'll even burn the world… if I have to."
Her fingers trembled slightly.
But her touch, when she returned to him, was still gentle.
Always gentle.
Even if the rest of her wasn't.