The first thing Kuroha felt was pressure.
Not physical.
Though he could feel his body was different, he couldn't exactly tell how. Everything felt off.
He felt small, weak, and he was wailing without even realising it, gasping for air.
He felt like he was stuffed into a cupboard too small for him, like trying to fit a gallon of water into a cup, with the excess threating to spill over, pushing against fragile boundaries that weren't meant to hold this much.
He felt pain. He wanted to scream, but his lungs were still learning how.
`What happened? Where...When did I...`
The boy thought, overwhelmed like nothing before.
Young Kuroha's thoughts came fragmented, disjointed. Memories flickered and faded before he could grasp them. A life before this. He'd been somewhere else. Someone else.
He didn't remember dying.
But he certainly remembered being.
And now he was here, trapped in this tiny, helpless form, drowning in sensation he couldn't process.
The humid air pressed against newborn skin. Voices echoed, distorted and impossibly loud. Light burned through barely focused eyes.
And underneath it all, that terrible, overstuffed feeling, like his very existence was trying to tear itself apart from the inside.
His vision swam.
Darkness pulled at the edges of his awareness.
He felt himself being lifted, moved, pressed against warmth.
Instinct took over where consciousness failed.
He latched on and nursed, barely aware of the motion, his mind already slipping away into merciful unconsciousness.
The pressure remained, but dulled a little.
________________________________________
The mother was already seated, and was Kuroha nursing, when she was given a wooden bowl by another woman who had entered her room.
Steam rose from it, carrying a rich, if not slightly off putting, metallic, sweet aroma.
Clearly, Whatever this was, was probably an acquired taste.
"Eat." the woman said. "It's a new recipe."
The mother accepted it with a nod. Before eating, both women bowed their heads briefly in prayer.
After a few slow bites, the mother paused.
"You added more verdant mushrooms? Feels stronger than the usual." she said. It was not a question.
The other woman nodded.
"Yes. One of the elders returned with a method of cooking from the nearby village. They used it for Impure food. But the elders were able to make use of it."
The woman paused, before continuing with her explanation.
"Fermentation was what the elder called it. This is our first successful batch of Verdant shrooms that have fermented successfully."
The mother hummed in thought.
"They certainly feel stronger." She spoke, feeling the usual pain they caused.
Verdant mushrooms were difficult things to grow. An aggressive, toxic kind of mushroom that clung to flesh and attempted to root themselves within the stomach like parasites. They were painful to digest, dangerous to prepare.
For someone rather normal, ingestion would likely cause death, as the mushrooms grew inside the stomach itself.
The kind the clan had grown over the ages was even more potent.
Being watered with the clan's blood had turned their color even redder, over decades of farming. As if the mushrooms now hungered for human flesh.
And now, with this new way of preparing them before cooking, their potency was even stronger. If not for their kekkei genkai, and being used to consuming them, even their bodies might have found problems with ingestion.
To them, enduring such things was essential. The body had to suffer first, before tempering, according to the path their ancestors had walked.
"Are the bloodfruits ripening well?" the mother asked after a moment, inquisitive.
"That they are." the woman answered. "The eastern trees are deepening in color. On schedule."
The bloodfruit was a different kind of fruit, similar to a peach, or an apple.
Like the mushrooms, they had adapted to being watered with blood, as the relative darkness of the underground orchard, and the abundant energy within the clan's blood, made it a preferred source of nutrition.
Their fruits were round, and a deep, vermilion red. They had a sweet, iron like taste. Each tree's petals ranged from a dark pink to blood red, littering the open orchard with fallen blooms.
The clan's orchards lay deeper within the ravine, where heat and moisture pooled most heavily. The bloodfruit trees thrived there, their bark slick and red, their fruit dense and iron rich.
In fact,the wood was a incredible material, strong enough that regular axes struggled to cut into, as if all the iron that blood contained, had leeched into the trees, hardening them.
Fruit harvests were regular. Controlled. Every member of the clan consumed them daily, save for periods of intentional starvation.
Together with the verdant mushrooms, they packed a real punch. For someone else, this was a dangerous poison. To the clan, it was breakfast, dinner, and everything in between.
The mother exhaled slowly as the food settled within her, feeling the familiar burn as the mushrooms began their work. Her stomach would ache for quite a bit. Her body would fight the intrusion, breaking down what tried to take root.
It always did.
That was the point.
The other woman collected the empty bowl and departed without ceremony.
Alone now, the mother rose carefully and moved to the wall where her paintings hung.
She selected one of the unfinished pieces, a carving half rendered in faded brown streaks, the figure's arms only partially formed, its eyes still hollow.
From a low shelf, she retrieved a small, sharp knife.
Without hesitation, she pressed the blade to her forearm and drew it across in one smooth motion.
Blood welled immediately, dark and rich.
She let it drip into a shallow wooden tray set beneath, watching as the pool slowly grew. When enough had gathered, she set the knife aside, ran her finger along the cut as it visibly scabbed over unusually fast, and dipped two fingers into the blood.
The strokes came practiced and steady, as she switched between her fingers, and the occasional brush of her pen, for the smallest of lines that required precision, and width smaller than her fingers could do.
She painted with her own blood, layering fresh red over old brown, filling in the gaps she'd left weeks prior. The figure's third arm took shape. Another eye was added to its face, deliberate and precise. At a random point, she begun adding another head to the figure. Not one painting in her room had the same figure.
It was deliberate. The legends talked about their god. How it could sprout hands, mouths, and god knew what in a instance, it's vessel everchanging.
This was her devotion.
This was her prayer.
This was her way to give back to the divine figure she and the clan worshiped.
When the blood in the tray began to thicken, she cut again, refilling it without pause.
Her arm bore dozens of thin white scars, old cuts layered over older ones. A history written in healed flesh. Some were only half made, showing that some scars were healed properly and quick enough to not leave a true scar.
By the time she finished, the painting was complete.
She wiped her fingers clean on a scrap of cloth and turned her attention back to Kuroha.
He remained asleep against the bedding where she'd laid him, his small chest rising and falling in shallow rhythm.
When she lifted him again, he latched immediately, nursing with surprising strength despite his unconscious state.
There was no smile. Only the quiet satisfaction of a duty fulfilled.
The mother turned her gaze back toward one of the blood painted carvings.
Kuroha remained pressed to her chest, red eyes barely cracked open. Unfocused, yet aware. Staring into steam and shadow.
His breathing was steady now.
The pressure within him had not gone away.
But his body had begun to adjust.
Slowly. Painfully.
The room settled into silence, broken only by the distant drip of water somewhere deeper in the ravine and the faint crackle of oil lamps burning low.