The funeral was three days later.
Uzumaki funerals are different from what you might be used to. We don't burn our dead or bury them in the ground. We send them out to sea. The body is wrapped in white linen, placed on a small boat made of driftwood, and pushed into the current. As the boat drifts toward the horizon, the mourners release paper lanterns into the water. Each lantern carries a prayer, and if the prayers are strong enough, the lanterns will follow the boat all the way to the edge of the world.
That's what the priests say, anyway. I don't know if it's true. I was five, and I was more focused on not dropping my lantern than on the theology behind it.
My father stood beside me on the cliff. He didn't cry. I didn't see him cry once during the whole ceremony. He just stood there with his face like stone, watching the boat get smaller and smaller until it disappeared into the haze.
Kushina was with the nursemaids. She was too young to understand what was happening. She probably just wondered why everyone was being so quiet.
I held my lantern for a long time after everyone else had let theirs go. The flame flickered in the wind, and I thought about what I was supposed to pray for. A safe journey? A peaceful afterlife? I didn't know what those things meant. I just knew that my mother was gone, and I wanted her to come back, and no amount of lanterns was going to make that happen.
I let the lantern go. It bobbed on the water for a moment, then drifted after the boat.
"She's gone," I said.
My father didn't answer.
"Are you going to leave too?"
He looked at me then. Really looked at me, the way he used to look at my mother. Like he was seeing something precious and fragile.
"No," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."
He didn't say "I promise." I noticed that even then.
The days after the funeral were a blur of visitors and condolences and endless, exhausting small talk. The whole village seemed to want to pay their respects. Uzumaki from the outer islands came by boat. Representatives from Konoha came by hawk. Even some people from Kiri showed up, though they weren't exactly welcome—the tension between Uzushio and Kiri had been simmering for years, and my mother's death wasn't going to smooth things over.
I hated every minute of it. I hated the way people looked at me with pity. I hated the way they whispered about me when they thought I couldn't hear. "Poor boy," they said. "Losing his mother so young. And with that Sharingan in his eyes. Half Uchiha, half Uzumaki. What a strange combination."
They didn't say "cursed," but they thought it.
The worst part was the elders. Elder Shiro, Elder Hana, Elder Takeshi—three old people who had been running the village behind the scenes for decades. They came to see me three days after the funeral, while Kushina was napping and my father was out training.
"Ren," Elder Shiro said. He was blind—had been for years—but he always seemed to know exactly where to look. "You know that you are the heir now."
"I'm five," I said. "I'm not anything."
"You are the son of Akari Uzumaki. You are the bearer of the golden chains—though they have not yet manifested, we have seen the signs. And you carry the blood of the Uchiha, which gives you eyes that most men would kill to possess." He leaned forward. "You are not nothing, child. You are everything."
I didn't like the way he said "everything." It sounded like a weight I didn't want to carry.
"The village is in danger," Elder Hana said. She was the kindest of the three, but her kindness had edges. "The war with Kiri is not over. It's only paused. They will come for us again, and when they do, we will need every weapon we have."
"I'm not a weapon."
"You are the heir. That makes you a weapon whether you like it or not." She reached out and touched my cheek. Her fingers were cold. "Your mother understood this. She accepted her duty. Now you must accept yours."
I didn't answer. What was I supposed to say? I was five. I wanted to play in the garden and eat mochi and annoy my sister. I didn't want to be a weapon.
But the elders didn't care what I wanted.
"Training begins tomorrow," Elder Takeshi said. He was the youngest of the three, but his face was lined and hard. "Elder Hana will teach you fuinjutsu. Your father will teach you taijutsu and shurikenjutsu. And I will teach you the history of our people, so that you understand what you are fighting for."
"What about Kushina?" I asked.
"Your sister will be cared for by the nursemaids. You need not worry about her."
"I do worry about her. She's my sister."
The elders exchanged glances. I couldn't read their expressions, but I knew they were talking about me without words.
"Very well," Elder Shiro said. "You may spend your evenings with her. But your days belong to us."
And that was that. I became the heir of Uzushio, not because I wanted to, but because there was no one else.