London was a city of shadows, though most people never noticed. They saw the glitter of Mayfair ballrooms, the polished streets of Kensington, the steely confidence of the skyscrapers at Canary Wharf. But Mikela Kael noticed. She noticed because she had been raised in those shadows, born into a family where truth was as rare as love, and lies were the currency traded over breakfast.
She was the first child of Dominic Kael and Helena Rothschild-Kael. To the world, they were untouchable—Dominic, a magnate who owned stakes in ports, banks, shipping firms, and half the luxury hotels in the city; Helena, the golden-haired socialite with Rothschild blood who graced every fashion magazine. Together, they were London's answer to royalty.
But royalty demanded heirs. Real heirs. Male heirs.
When Mikela was born, she was not celebrated as a miracle but tolerated as a mistake. Her father's first words upon seeing her tiny face were not joy but irritation: "A girl." Her mother wept—not from love but vanity, mourning her figure and complaining that the birth had "ruined" her.
That was Mikela's welcome to the world.
By the age of three, she had learned that the soft touches given to other children were not for her. She learned not to cry, because her tears brought only scolding or indifference. She learned to sit still in stiff dresses while her mother paraded her for cameras, the perfect doll in staged photographs.
But the cameras turned off, the lights dimmed, and the doll was left in silence.
At seven, she understood her value. She was not loved, but she was an asset. One who could be polished, displayed, used.
And then came her seventh birthday.
It was not really her birthday—it was just another gala. The chandeliers of the Kael mansion glittered as lords and businessmen drank wine older than the servants pouring it. Her father laughed, his booming voice carrying across the marble hall, while her mother glided from guest to guest like a swan, every smile rehearsed.
Mikela sat in the corner, a slice of cake untouched on her plate. She knew better than to complain. Birthdays were not for her; they were for the Kael name.
That was when she saw him.
The assassin moved like a shadow, slipping through the servants' corridor, blade hidden along his arm. No one else noticed. The guests were laughing, the guards distracted. But Mikela's blue eyes, sharp even then, caught the glint of steel.
Her small hands trembled—but her mind did not. She knocked her glass of juice to the floor. The spill forced a servant to kneel, blocking the assassin's path just long enough. Mikela darted forward, tugged her father's sleeve, and whispered, "That man has a knife."
What followed was chaos—shouts, guards rushing, blood sprayed against marble. The newspapers called it a burglary. But her father's eyes lingered on her differently that night. Not with love. Never with love. But with a flicker of something new: recognition.
And from that night on, the attempts never stopped.
At boarding school, her chocolates were laced with poison. On a rainy drive back to London, the car's brakes failed on a hill. Once, the dormitory she slept in filled with gas, a "faulty pipe." Always, always there were enemies.
Mikela learned quickly. She memorized the layout of every building she entered, noted exits, escape routes, blind corners. She carried a knife hidden in her garter. She taught herself to read people—their eyes, their lies, the tiny flickers of betrayal.
She had no one to protect her. So she protected herself.
By twelve, she was sharper than most adults. By fourteen, she had turned survival into an art.
Other girls her age scribbled love notes. Mikela scribbled codes for her discreet bodyguards, men loyal not to her father but to her. She paid them from her own allowance, bought their silence, ensured their lives were safer with her than without her.
At school dances, boys were drawn to her midnight-blue hair, her cool, cold beauty. She let them whisper secrets into her ear, let them believe she might care, then delivered those secrets to her advantage. She ruined rivals with nothing but a glance and a well-timed word.
They called her heartless. Cold. A girl of stone.
They were wrong. She burned—but her fire was not for warmth. It was the fire of survival, of a girl who knew she could never afford softness.
And yet, even fire leaves ashes. In the silence of her room, when the curtains were drawn, she had nothing but her laptop and the glow of its screen.
That was where she found Naruto.
At first, it was a distraction. A silly anime. But soon it became something else. A mirror, a warning, a puzzle she could not look away from.
Naruto's story was meant to be hopeful. But to Mikela, it was a tragedy.
She saw the Third Hokage, hailed as wise and kind, yet he let Danzo thrive like rot in Konoha's heart. He watched clans vanish—the Senju, the Uzumaki, the Uchiha—and smiled as though nothing was wrong. He raised Naruto in neglect, not because he had to, but because it suited him.
She saw Itachi, brilliant yet blind, slaughtering children because men in power whispered it was "necessary." She saw Shisui, so trusting he gave his life to a system unworthy of him. She saw Fugaku, a man of strength but not cunning, blind to the manipulation around his son.
Mikela sat in the darkness of her room and whispered to herself: They are fools. All of them.
Because strength without a mind was wasted. And a mind without strength was powerless. To survive in such a world, one needed both—the sword and the brain, the fire and the ice.
She began to imagine herself there. Not as a hero like Naruto, not as a pawn like Itachi, but as something else. The shadow in the court. The hand behind the throne. Someone who could see through the masks and play the game better than anyone.
And then came her twenty-first birthday.
The Ritz glowed with golden light. Politicians, bankers, aristocrats gathered to celebrate her father. Mikela was perfect in emerald silk, diamonds glittering at her throat, her lips painted red. She smiled, she laughed, she listened. She was a mask made flesh.
But the poison slid smooth down her throat before she realized.
Her hand trembled on the glass. The fire spread through her veins, icy and burning at once. She knew instantly.
Her eyes scanned the room. Her father's mask, her mother's perfect smile, the vultures watching. Not one would save her. Not one would grieve.
She excused herself with a polite smile, every step heavier than the last. In the restroom, she gripped the sink, staring into her reflection. Midnight-blue hair. Cold, sharp eyes. And fear, raw and naked, for the first time in years.
"So this is it," she whispered. Her voice was steady, almost amused. "Poison. How predictable."
Her knees buckled. She slid to the floor, breath shallow, vision tunneling.
But her mind did not falter.
She thought of Naruto. Of the lies, the masks, the waste of bloodlines destroyed. She thought of what she could have done, had she been there. What she would have changed.
Her last thought was not despair, but defiance:
If there is another life, I will not be powerless. I will take both strength and cunning. And I will never—ever—be a pawn.
The world went dark.
And somewhere, faintly, a baby cried.
---
The room smelled faintly of sandalwood, the smoke of incense curling like silver threads through the air. The walls were lacquered wood, sliding doors painted with cranes among wisteria blossoms. It was beautiful—too beautiful, too polished to belong to anything as mundane as a hospital ward.
Mikela's newborn body stirred, the weight of silk and softness foreign against her skin. She could not speak, but she could feel: the overwhelming hum of wealth, of a household built on power and secrets. Even without words, she sensed that she was no longer in the same world.
But she did not yet know which world.
"Exquisite," a maid whispered, bowing so low her forehead brushed the tatami mat. "My lady, the child bears the eyes of the Imperial line."
On the dais, seated like a queen in silken layers of deep violet and silver-grey, Lady Kaede's lips curved. The smile did not reach her eyes—it never did—but it was enough to terrify and reassure at once.
"She is… luminous," another maid murmured. "The gods favor you, my lady. A daughter of such rare beauty will surely command the heavens themselves."
Kaede tilted her head, silver hair cascading down her shoulders like moonlight. Her lilac eyes, cold and precise, did not soften as she gazed at the infant in her arms.
"Beauty," Kaede said at last, her voice sharp as a blade hidden in velvet. "Beauty is nothing if it cannot be sharpened into power. Still…" Her gaze flicked to the child's eyes—deep, cold blue, unmistakably the mark of the Imperial bloodline. "She has the look of destiny. That much is mine to shape."
The maids murmured their agreement, their voices hushed, reverent, and fearful. In this palace, where every word became rumor and every rumor a weapon, their praise was more than flattery—it was acknowledgment.
Kaede had succeeded.
---
Lady Kaede of the Fujiwara was no ordinary consort. She had been born into a family of scholars and politicians, groomed from infancy not only in the art of refinement but in the art of survival. The Fujiwara were famed for their cunning, their way of bending the written word and law until it served them like a well-trained hawk. When the Daimyō sought a wife of noble standing, Kaede had stepped into that role not as a blushing maiden but as a strategist who knew the stakes of the game.
And now, with this child in her arms—this daughter with Imperial blue eyes—her position was secured.
She leaned back against the pillows, her smile refined, the perfect picture of maternal grace. But her mind was far from gentle. Already she was thinking of the other wives: the Second Consort, with her sharp tongue and endless ambition; the Third Consort, younger, prettier, who sought to gain influence through softness. Fools, the both of them. Neither had produced a child that bore the Imperial mark. Neither could stand against this.
"My daughter will be raised not as a trinket, but as a sovereign jewel," Kaede murmured, more to herself than to the maids. "She will stand where others stumble. I will see her placed upon a pedestal so high that none may drag her down."
The maids bowed again, their whispers echoing like ripples in water. Already, the rumor would spread: the First Consort had birthed a child worthy of legends.
---
Mikela—though her infant mind could barely hold coherent thought—sensed something in her new mother's hold. Not warmth. Not softness. But purpose. The kind of purpose that burned cold, like steel left out in the night air.
And she felt eyes on her. The maids, bowing, whispering, praising. Words like exquisite, rare beauty, destined.
It reminded her, in a strange way, of the boardrooms and dinner parties of her past life. How people smiled too wide while watching, weighing, measuring. She could not speak, but in the tiny, fragile spark of her consciousness, she thought:
Again. I am being measured again.
And yet, this world was different. Too different. The architecture, the silk, the hair colors of the women before her—silver, not natural in her old world—hinted at something… other. But Mikela did not yet know the name of the stage she had been thrust onto. Not yet.
---
Kaede adjusted the infant in her arms, her expression sharpening, her mind already racing.
"She will not be weak," she said. "I will not allow it. If she inherits the Imperial name without strength, she will be eaten alive by the Court. And I will not have my daughter devoured."
Her tone was soft, but the words were iron.
The maids shivered. They knew Lady Kaede's cruelty. Behind her polished elegance lay a mind that played politics like a board game, sacrificing pawns without hesitation. If she could be so cold with her rivals, what would she be like with her own blood?
Yet as the infant stirred in her arms, Kaede's hand moved with surprising gentleness, brushing a midnight-blue strand of hair from her daughter's tiny forehead. Not love. Not tenderness. But the touch of a craftsman examining the perfect jewel they had unearthed.
"You will not be like the others," Kaede whispered, her lilac eyes gleaming. "You will rise above them all."
And in the quiet of that lavish chamber, with incense curling and whispers echoing, Mikela Kael—the girl who had once ruled boardrooms in another life—took her first breaths as the jewel of the Imperial House of Fire.