Yashamaru showed no visible dissatisfaction with Rasa. Neither did Karura. That was simply the nature of both of them, a gentleness that absorbed difficulty without complaint and found ways to be at peace with circumstances that would have produced bitterness in most people.
In their eyes, Rasa's absence probably read as the natural consequence of important work. The village needed him. That was enough of an explanation.
Karura's first child would be Temari.
Over the years, Karura had looked after Yuji with a consistency that had nothing transactional behind it. When he was too busy to visit, she would cook and send bento boxes through Yashamaru, along with reminders to rest and take care of himself.
The affection was genuine and uncomplicated, the warmth of someone who saw a younger person who had lost his parents young and simply felt protective of him. Yuji was genuinely grateful for it.
Her feelings for Rasa had been clear for as long as Yuji had known her. They had grown up together, and she had carried those feelings through the years without expecting them to be fully reciprocated in kind.
She knew what Rasa was. She accepted it with the same calm she applied to everything. Yuji had never understood what particular quality in Rasa had earned that kind of devotion, but such things operated outside rational frameworks and were not something outside observation could change.
Rasa's recent interest in arranging indirect meetings through Karura was transparent in its motivation.
With the Third Kazekage gone and the village's succession question hanging open, Rasa was positioning himself aggressively, manufacturing presence before the senior officials, demonstrating tireless commitment to village affairs, and simultaneously trying to consolidate his relationship with Yuji, whose support would carry real weight in how the transition played out.
Using Karura as the channel was simply the path of least resistance available to him.
"The fetus is in excellent condition," Yuji said, after the examination was complete. "And I'll tell you a secret, it's a girl. She looks like you."
Karura's face showed relief first, then quiet joy. She didn't doubt the assessment for a moment. Yuji's medical reputation within the village made that kind of trust automatic.
Yashamaru's expression, standing nearby, carried something slightly complicated.
After seeing Karura off and letting Yashamaru take her home, Yuji waited until the man returned and found him directly.
"Given Rasa's personality," Yuji said carefully, "a girl probably wasn't what he was hoping for."
Yashamaru scratched the back of his head with a small, slightly strained smile and said nothing.
"Don't worry. As long as I'm here, since Rasa chose to marry your sister, I won't allow her to be treated badly."
"Thank you, Director." The gratitude in Yashamaru's voice was genuine and immediate.
He had sensed Rasa's disposition toward Karura for a long time. The gap in their positions had always made it difficult for him to do anything about it directly.
But Yuji occupied a different position entirely, equal in village standing to Rasa, with real influence over how Rasa navigated his relationships with the senior structure.
After Yashamaru left, Yuji sat quietly in his office.
Since he had come to Sunagakure, he was not going to allow the original story's tragedies to repeat themselves. Karura was not going to become a vessel and nothing more. And what had happened to Gaara, the sealing, the childhood of isolation and self-destruction, was not going to happen in the same way.
He had also observed something specific about Karura across their years of contact. Her chakra had an unusual quality to it. Something in her bloodline had produced a hereditary Yin affinity that hadn't fully surfaced yet.
She simply hadn't noticed it herself.
The evidence had been in Yashamaru all along. His Mental Energy during their mission together had been notably sharp, and after Yuji began teaching him Medical Ninjutsu, he had developed an unusually rapid ability to assess injuries, not through accumulated clinical experience, but through something more immediate, a kind of intuitive feedback that Mental Energy provided directly.
It wasn't the same as what Yuji could do through Kuroo's legacy. It was its own thing, and it pointed toward a bloodline trait that both siblings shared in different expressions.
Yuji filed it away and let his thoughts move to the next item.
Bunpuku.
Sunagakure's first Jinchuriki, the monk who had attained a level of spiritual cultivation that made him, in Shukaku's own estimation, reminiscent of the Sage of Six Paths. He had accepted imprisonment willingly, spending his remaining years sealed within the village to ensure the Tailed Beast caused no harm.
His moral character was genuinely remarkable, and his cooperation had made him as close to an ideal Jinchuriki as the village had ever managed to produce.
He had a few years left. After that, the question of succession would open.
In the original story, that succession had led to Gaara. Whether to follow that path or take a different one was worth considering carefully.
There was another option Yuji had been turning over, taking on the Ichibi himself. It would solve the chakra volume problem in a single stroke. The complication was that containing a Tailed Beast required substantial Yin Power, and his Yin Release development was still incomplete.
He had been thinking about addressing that through ocular techniques, which would also improve his sensory capabilities as a byproduct. The experience points generated by the Third Kazekage's death provided some material to work with in that direction.
These were considerations for later. The war came first.
He got up to find Sasori.
Sasori had been in isolation for nearly a month. Since the Third's death had removed the purpose of the Kage Guard role, he had stepped down from that position and withdrawn from active Anbu involvement as well.
Chiyo had taken charge of village affairs in the interim. Sasori had gone home, closed his door, and not come out.
He was converting his body into a puppet.
For a Puppeteer of his level, human flesh had become the limiting factor rather than the enabling one. The biological constraints on speed, stamina, pain response, and chakra output were all ceilings that a puppet frame could remove entirely.
Sasori had been building toward this conclusion for years, and the theoretical work had long been complete. Now he was doing it.
Only Yuji knew.
...
Bonus @100 PS
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