Chapter 31
Uzushiogakure.
The Village Cemetery.
Medori stood in front of a cold stone grave in complete silence. There were many other people scattered throughout the cemetery, and the atmosphere hung heavy and gloomy over the memorial grounds.
This place was constructed inside the cemetery after the invasion, at the centre stood a giant rock in which names of people whose lives were lost were carved.
Today was Haruto's fifth birthday, but it was also the grim anniversary of the invasion—the day countless lives were lost defending their home.
Medori came here every single year on this day, but today, she had chosen to bring Haru with her for the very first time. His presence was another major reason for the overwhelmingly somber mood.
She looked down. Haru stood completely still, his small hands curled into fists as he stared vacantly at the engraved stone. He was sad.
"Mom, who is she?" Haruto whispered, as he looked at the name on the grave.
"Asuna Uzumaki. She was a bright, beautiful girl and a true prodigy in medical ninjutsu. If she were still alive today, she would be working at the main hospital alongside Akane," Medori explained. Her voice softened with deep fondness and lingering grief. "And... she was the one who delivered you and the very first person to hold you when you were born. But war did not even spare that kind soul."
Haruto's mood dampened even further, and immediately, the surrounding gloominess physically thickened.
The other villagers in the cemetery, who had come to mourn their own dead, instantly felt the shift in the air. They turned, looking at Haru with sympathy.
Haruto was famous throughout the village. He would often go roaming with the older girls, or sometimes sneak out on his own to cause some harmless mischief. But the villagers were always genuinely happy whenever he visited them. He was the literal sunshine of Uzushio; wherever the boy went, smiles naturally followed.
Due to his unique chakra, he had a naturally soothing effect on everyone's senses—especially for the highly sensitive Uzumaki. Because of this, many had taken to affectionately calling him the 'Prince of Uzushio'.
So, when they saw that ever-smiling, radiant child standing utterly depressed in front of a grave, their collective hearts ached for him.
"Mom… why do people fight?" Haru asked quietly, looking down at his small hands dejectedly. "Is having power a bad thing?"
Medori sighed and looked at Haru again, and she gently rubbed his crimson hair.
"No, Haru, having power is not a bad thing. If anything it's the opposite. Having power gives you freedom to choose and the strength to bear the consequences of your choice," then Haruto looked up at her and she gave a reassuring smile, "Power in itself is neutral. It only amplifies who you are. There is no good and bad power, Haru. It's how people use it."
Then she crouched down and put a hand on his heart, and said gently.
"But we should never forget, power without restraint would destroy the world but too much restraint also would destroy you internally. So Haru, look inside you and find the balance and your anchors that would ground you to reality."
Medori knew her child was special, much more special than others think him to be, but it was also a burden to his small shoulders.
He sees much more, feels much more, suppresses much more and he is lost, trying to find his own reality.
"I will always be here beside you." she said with a serene smile.
Haruto's emerald eyes saw a brilliant gold radiating from his mother and he hugged her.
Medori also embraced him and gently patted his back, comforting him.
She then lifted him securely into her arms and began the quiet walk back toward their compound.
"As for your question about why people fight… there is rarely ever just a single reason. People are driven to conflict by many different things."
Haru listened quietly, his chin resting comfortably on her shoulder. He looked back one last time at the two delicate lilies resting atop Asuna's grave before the cemetery finally faded from view.
"I will only speak of the most common ones," Medori continued softly, her voice carrying the heavy wisdom of her past. "In my long travels, I have learned that humans mostly fight for three reasons: self-interest, survival, and fear."
Medori kept speaking in a calm, steady cadence, gently explaining the harsh realities of the shinobi world to her son, all while smiling and warmly returning the respectful greetings of the villagers they passed along the way.
*****
That night.
Tenka sat on the floor of her room, meditating. The walls were densely packed with fūinjutsu seals, isolating the space entirely from the outside world.
The space around her distorted and twisted unnaturally, but the seals contained her power, preventing it from leaking outside.
It was a top-tier fūinjutsu technique known only to a few.
Medori and Saki had worked together to create it for her so that she could train safely.
Because her power was so highly volatile, she had to be very careful, or she might accidentally destroy something.
After training for years, she could now comfortably use most of her power like teleport short distances and even take one—or, if she pushed herself, two—people with her.
The seal that was placed on her now mostly gone.
She was currently learning mid-distance teleportation and had some success, and now trying to consciously distort space to weaponize it. But for now, she could only manage to manipulate the space slightly.
As for weaponizing space itself—well, let's just say she had a long way to go. But she knew how destructive her power could be, and at first, she had been terrified of it. She still remembered the day it awakened.
A frown appeared on her face as she remembered the incident, and the surrounding seals glowed, suppressing the sudden fluctuations in her space.
Flashback
It was a normal evening. After finishing their daily training and studies, they had gathered in their secret hideout, located in a separate building just outside the main compound.
The room was relatively isolated from the main building—perfect for their activities.
Kushina and Konan were chatting on the couch, while Hiyuki and Mikasa sat in the chairs nearby, listening to their conversation.
Tenka sat on the main sofa with little Haru beside her; it was her turn in the rotation after Hiyuki. She hugged Haruto from behind, her hand in front of Haru, and he gently bit down on it.
Tenka felt her entire body rejuvenate as Haru circulated his chakra through her.
A strange, ethereal aura began to radiate around the two of them. The others paused their conversation, observing the glowing air. It was a common occurrence whenever Haru shared chakra with any of them, but it was a beautiful sight nonetheless.
But today, something was entirely different.
Tenka suddenly slipped into a deep, unresponsive trance. Beside her, Haru's little eyebrows drew together in a heavy frown.
He could feel something buried deep inside her actively absorbing his chakra. Something was trying to awaken.
And to awaken it, Haruto did something he was not supposed to do—at least, not this early.
Haru poured his own potent, dense essence—the very source of his power—directly inside her.
Suddenly, the atmospheric pressure inside the room increased. At first, the shift was so slight that no one paid it any real attention. Assuming it was just a normal fluctuation of Haru's power, they didn't intervene.
Inside her own mind, Tenka felt as though she were submerged deep beneath a heavy, silent sea. A single, powerful name floated to the surface of her consciousness, and her lips parted to murmur it out loud.
"Ame—"
The very millisecond that first syllable escaped her lips, the terrifying pressure spiked. Both Hiyuki and Mikasa instantly lunged into action.
Mikasa grabbed those nearest to her: Kushina and Konan.
Simultaneously, Hiyuki grabbed Haru by the collar and encased Tenka entirely in a solid block of ice, buying them a few precious, life-saving seconds.
Without missing a single beat, Hiyuki seized the back of Mikasa's collar, fully activated the glowing Tacet Mark on her thigh, and disappeared into a fog of snow.
Just as they vanished into thin air, the ice completely shattered, and Tenka finished her whisper.
"—no-Mitori."
Outside, Hiyuki froze the entire building, sealing it shut in solid ice.
The compound seals that Medori had etched reacted in an instant, locking down the perimeter. However, because the eruption happened inside, most of the external barriers were ineffective.
But then, the main compound building lit up. Fūinjutsu seals crawled from its walls, spreading across the grounds like a massive spider web, converging on the frozen building and binding it shut.
It all happened within the span of a few seconds. The whole compound was now sealed.
Then, the ice slowly began to creak, and the glowing seals strained as they began to shatter.
Hiyuki narrowed her eyes and flickered further away, aiming for the safety of the main building. But just as she was about to land, a cold voice stopped her dead.
"What happened?"
Saki asked, her voice dead serious. When Hiyuki turned to look at her, she froze. Saki was a stern woman—they were all very aware of that fact, as she rarely, if ever, smiled.
But now, Hiyuki wasn't looking at the strict sensei she knew; she was looking at a warrior forged in blood. A woman who was ready to burn the world down for the people she considered family.
Saki didn't pay any further attention to Hiyuki, who was staring at her with wide, owl-like eyes.
Her gaze locked onto Haruto, who was unconscious and dangling from Hiyuki's grip by his collar like a sack of potatoes.
"T-Tenka... she is inside," Kushina tried to explain, her voice shaking. "I think she—she awakened something."
"We will handle it. Now go inside the main building."
Medori's calm voice came from beside Saki. She appeared with a giant scroll strapped to her back, and cradled gently in her arms was the unconscious Haruto.
Hiyuki looked down at her now-empty hand with a shocked expression. She hadn't even felt a thing.
"I said, go! You all have a lot to explain later," Medori repeated, her voice now carrying the absolute authority of a ruler.
The children quickly nodded and with a last worried look at the frozen building, they all headed inside.
"We should have stopped them long ago when we discovered what they were doing." Saki narrowed her eyes as she watched the massive glacier of ice begin to aggressively crack and splinter.
Medori didn't look at Saki, replying instead as she continued to examine Haruto's condition.
"Well, we all saw the benefits for both Haru and the girls. So, we just let them be," Medori said. She frowned as she sensed Haruto's condition. "But it seems we failed to take into account that Tenka possessed something like this, and this reckless boy awakened it with his own essence."
"Essence?" Saki asked. It was the first time she had heard this term. She looked down at the unconscious Haruto. "And what happened to him?"
"He is severely drained." Medori looked at the frozen building. Massive, jagged fissures were now spider-webbing through the thick ice.
She spoke with dead seriousness. "So, be ready to face something boosted by Haru's power. If the worst comes to worst, the island might be swallowed by those spatial rifts."
She glanced back at the main building; the girls were watching from one of the upper windows.
Medori sighed. It was a small blessing that right now, only she, Saki, and the girls were present in the compound.
She vanished, appearing instantly in the room with the girls. Before they could even turn around, she gently placed Haruto on the bed.
"Look after him," she commanded.
Then she disappeared once more, reappearing right back at Saki's side.
"The ice will not hold her for long," Saki warned, her eyes locked on the splintering glacier.
"We don't have enough time to properly prepare a space-sealing barrier," Medori said, her expression grim.
The compound did technically have a space-sealing barrier, but it had been specifically designed to isolate the estate from the outside world, not to contain a spatial anomaly erupting from within.
'Well, at least the rest of the village will be safe for a few hours,' Medori thought grimly. In those few hours, she could potentially construct a more powerful, inward-facing barrier, but doing so meant the entire compound would be completely destroyed, and Tenka would be trapped inside the collapsed dimension.
"Start the preparation process… I will hold it back," Saki ordered, her voice leaving no room for argument.
Medori looked at Saki for a fraction of a second before giving a firm nod. She pulled the massive scroll from her back, unrolled it across the grass, and rapidly began weaving a complex blur of hand signs.
From the upper-floor window of the main building, the girls watched with bated breath as Medori sprinted around the perimeter, frantically etching glowing seals into the earth. Meanwhile, Saki stood perfectly still in the center of the courtyard, her eyes closed in deep concentration.
Suddenly, the spider lily seal on Saki's forehead bloomed.
Thick, red, ribbon-like markings aggressively stretched throughout her entire body. But then, something truly astonishing happened: instead of just covering her skin, the excess sealing script began to peel off her body and converge in the air behind her. The glowing script locked together, forming a slow spinning, floating ring—just like a divine halo, woven entirely out of black and crimson ink.
Saki snapped her eyes open, her crimson irises glowing with raw power. She extended her hand and began to trace her fingers through the empty space in front of her. As if she were writing directly onto the very fabric of reality itself, dark red, entirely incomprehensible symbols materialized in mid-air.
"Seal… Disconnect…"
Saki murmured the command through tightly gritted teeth. Instantly, the glowing red symbols shot forward, slamming directly into the expanding, cracking dome of ice.
From above, the girls watched with wide, terrified eyes, completely mesmerized by the sight of Saki glowing with a terrifying red aura. But as they tried to focus on the floating words she had written, their heads began to throb. A sharp, psychic pain pierced their skulls, as if their mortal minds were refusing to comprehend what was written.
The expansion stopped, but Medori did not relax. Instead, she drastically increased her pace to complete the fūinjutsu array. She knew from the look on Saki's face that they were on a timer; whatever Saki was doing would not hold for long.
After what felt like an eternity, Medori finally finished. She positioned herself over the massive scroll, clapped her hands together in a sharp seal, and slammed both palms down onto the parchment.
"Release!"
At her shout, a fresh wave of glowing seals stretched out from the epicenter, rapidly weaving together to cover the entire building in a dense, impregnable barrier.
Seeing the new barrier safely take hold, Saki finally relaxed and deactivated her technique. The exact moment she severed the connection, a violent wave of dizziness hit her. Her steps faltered, but before she could collapse, two strong arms firmly grabbed her shoulders.
"Are you alright?" Medori asked, taking in Saki's exhausted state.
Behind Saki, the halo of ink flickered and disintegrated into pieces.
"Yes, I am alright," Saki breathed out, desperately trying to steady herself. "It just… took a lot out of me."
Saki had to spend half of her colossal chakra reserves just to enter that state. Manifesting and maintaining those seals had drained nearly ninety percent of what remained.
Normally, she could comfortably hold that form for ten minutes. Tonight, she had forcefully pushed herself for over half an hour. She was way past her limit.
She was now suffering from a blinding, splitting headache, barely able to stand on her own two feet.
To this day, she hadn't found a cure for the backlash of this technique. Her healing bite and other medical jutsu didn't work on this specific pain.
The only thing that worked was Haruto. The agonizing headache always severely lessened whenever she was around him.
"Now, what should we do? Tenka is still trapped inside," Medori asked, her green eyes filled with slight worry.
"I don't know. But first, we should move those children—"
Before Saki could finish her sentence, a heavy, suffocating pressure descended upon the courtyard. They immediately snapped their gazes toward the source: the children's room on the second floor.
Then, in the blink of an eye, Haru materialized right in front of them. His eyes were a glowing, piercing ruby red, and his vibrant crimson hair defied gravity, flowing freely in the air around him. He looked calmly at Saki, then turned to Medori.
"Mother," Haruto said, his voice carrying an ethereal resonance that instantly soothed the turbulent atmosphere of the compound.
"You are not going inside," Medori stated in a firm, unyielding tone. Her green eyes narrowed as her sensory skills flared; she could clearly feel it. He was still exhausted. "Especially not in this state."
"Mother… It was my fault. My curiosity led to this. She was not ready for that power this early," Haruto replied, his ruby eyes filled with the maturity of an adult. "You taught us to live up to the consequences of our choices… and I am ready to face them."
Medori gritted her teeth, her gaze turning dangerously cold.
"So be it," she whispered with a clenched jaw before speaking in a frosty voice. "But remember this, Haruto. If anything happens to you… I will burn this entire world to cinders."
"Trust me, Mother. I am more than capable of handling it."
Haruto stepped forward. Saki watched with a worried face, but forced herself not to interfere.
As Haruto walked past the two women, Medori spoke again. But she wasn't looking at her son.
"Keep him safe," Medori commanded with absolute seriousness, her green eyes locked directly on the empty space right behind him.
Hovering silently behind Haru stood his guardian spirit, now transformed into a towering, ethereal woman. A single, elegant horn jutted out from the center of her forehead—more specifically, from her glowing Tacet Mark. Floating just above her head was a delicate, spiked halo forged from a crystalline material.
In her right hand, she wielded a long, ornate sword. The hilt was pitch-black, while the highly reflective, translucent blade shimmered and rippled exactly like flowing water.
This was his guardian spirit's second form: Fleurdelys.
Fleurdelys's galaxy-blue eyes met Medori's calm green ones. The spirit gave a nod of acknowledgment before continuing to glide silently behind Haru.
Haruto came to a halt in front of the massive fūinjutsu barrier. Fleurdelys gracefully raised her shimmering sword and brought it down in a single, fluid arc, effortlessly slicing through Medori's barrier, Hiyuki's glacier, and the violently warping space within.
Haruto paused. His ruby-red eyes met her galaxy-blue ones, and he gave a silent nod. Then, his gaze shifted past the adults, landing on Kushina and the other girls, who had just rushed out of the main building after he had vanished from their room.
He shot them a small, reassuring smile over his shoulder before stepping straight into the volatile spatial storm.
The exact moment he crossed the threshold, the barrier seamlessly fused back together, sealing him inside.
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A.N.
Sorry guys,
These past few days were very busy for me. First I had to attend my cousin's marriage in different state then my exams.
Ahh... It's exhausting.
So yeah. Bear with me for few more days.
Thank you for your support.