THE KUZUNOHA CLAN ELDERS
The gates of the Shinoda estate didn't even creak.
They are reinforced with centuries of seals and heavy iron, meant to keep the world out, yet they offered as much resistance as a spider's web.
He didn't wait for the guards.
He didn't wait for the ritual greeting.
He didn't wait for the clan head to announce him.
There was simply a flash of blue light, a ripple in the hot July air, and suddenly the "Six Eyes" was standing in the center of the hallway.
He is only a ten year old, a child , yet the weight of his presence makes the ancient floorboards groan like a mountain has been placed upon them.
"Where is she?" he asked. His voice flat, bored even.
No "hello, honoured elders".
No respect for the silence of the forest.
To him, the world is his playground, and he was tired of playing alone.
We can't stop him from going to Kiyomi, even though the safety protocols say otherwise.
But who's gonna stop him?
Further, He's a sibling to kitsune anyways.
We led him to the nursery, our hearts hammering against our ribs.
The Two Great Talents of this era will be finally in the same room.
As we reached there, We watched, staying still, as the boy who holds the Limitless stared down at the cradle of the Nine-Tails.
SATORU GOJO (Age 10)
So this is it?
The forest was a pain to get through, there were too many old seals, too much "mysticism."
But the closer I got, the more the air started to hum.
The Gojo elders would have taken weeks to "negotiate" an entrance, but I don't have weeks.
I don't even have minutes for people who move that slowly.
I walked past the Kuzunoha old men, they talk too much.
There she was, in a small wooden crib.
I stood over it.
She's tiny.
Smaller than I thought she'd be, wrapped in silk that prolly costs more than a car.
Her eyes are closed, her breathing is shallow and rhythmic.
And...
She's sleeping through my arrival.
Bold. Honestly.
But through the Six eyes, I can see it.
Beneath that delicate baby skin, I sensed her cursed energy, and it isn't like me.
Mine is a sharp and cold.
Hers is like a deep moving fog
- shifting and growing, with the faint silhouette of a fox tail flicking in the shadows of her soul.
"Hey, wake up," I muttered, poking a finger toward the space above her forehead.
I didn't touch her, what if she breaks by my power.
"You're making me wait, little cousin."
The Six Eyes are screaming at me, frantically.
She isn't just a sorcerer, Is she?
"Don't stay asleep for too long, Kiyomi," I whispered. "It's boring being the only one at the top. You better hurry up and grow so we can break something together."
NAOYA ZENIN (Age 9)
I heard he went.
Satoru Gojo actually left his high-and-mighty estate, bypassed the protocols of elders and travelled hundreds of miles just to visit a baby in the woods.
Pathetic.
My father and the elders are whispering in the halls since morning, their voices low but continuous.
They're worried.
I can see it in the way Father's eyes narrow every time the name Kuzunoha is mentioned.
If the Gojo and the Kuzunoha truly unite their "sibling" bond, the Zenin will be sidelined.
I gripped the hilt of my practice sword until my knuckles turned white.
A girl!?
A girl who sleeps while the strongest boy in the world watches her through his blindfold.
To have Satoru Gojo, the man who doesn't look twice at anyone, standing over her cradle?
She's either a genius or a fool.
Probably just a fool.
"Beauty," the scouts keep saying.
"Power", the scrolls whisper.
They talk about her like she's a sacred relic, something meant to be worshipped and protected.
I swung the wooden blade, a sharp crack echoing through the empty courtyard.
I'll believe the hype when I see her crawl.
I'll believe she's a threat when she can actually look me in the eye without flinching.
For now, she's just a decorative piece on Satoru's shelf.
Let him visit his little forest doll.
Sooner or later, he will get bored.
And when he leaves, I'll be the one to show her that in the Zenin clan, we don't care about your legends. We only care about who is left standing.
THE KAMO CLAN ELDERS
The reports are confirmed, delivered by a messenger.
The tea in the center of the table has gone cold, just like the dread settling over the room.
The Gojo heir has made contact with the Kuzunoha.
The "Sibling Clans" have reunited.
This is a political disaster.
We are looking at a future where the Kamo are squeezed between the brutal force of the Zenin and the combined mystical natural genius of the Gojo-Kuzunoha alliance.
"We must speed up the observations," The eldest among us started saying, "The true Kamo Heir, among all of the children, should be decades older in discipline. None of them can afford the luxury of a childhood. Not now."
If the heavens have given Gojo a sister, then the Kamo must forge a weapon.
We will bridge the gap with sweat and sacrifice. The true blood heir will be the master of his blood before he is the master of his own speech.
We cannot allow the "natural talent" of a sleeping girl to make the Kamo Bloodline look obsolete.
KIYOMI KUZUNOHA (The Newborn)
It's too bright.
Even with my eyes closed, there's a light that feels like a sun standing right over my crib, too close to me.
It's cold, but clear. Like ice-water.
Deep inside, the fox spirit stirred, again the same ticklish feeling.
It didn't growl. It yawned.
Like it recognized the presence of that sun.
I wanted to stay asleep.
The dreams of the forest are nice. The chirping birds, the flowing waters.
But then, a tiny pressure against my energy.
A poke.
It was annoying.
I shifted my head, my small hand grasping at the air, trying to catch the sunlight that was standing over me.
Who is making all that noise? Who's interrupting my sleep?
SATORU GOJO (Age 10)
I didn't move.
The elders were hovering behind me like nervous crows, their heavy breathing and the rustle of their robes making the room feel smaller, but I didn't care.
I dropped the Infinity just so I could lean closer. I wanted to feel her cursed energy without a barrier.
The Six Eyes are a curse sometimes.
I see everything.
The flow of her blood, the spark of her nerves, the way that Fox-fire energy is curled up in her gut like a sleeping predator.
Then, she stirred.
Her eyelids fluttered open, slow and deliberate.
There was no blue in her eyes. No six eyes glow, but they had a weight.
A gravity.
Just deep, dark silk - eyes so black they looked like they could swallow the light I was putting off.
We just stared.
Me looking into her soul to see if she was worth the hype.
I wanted to know if she was actually worth the "sibling" title.
Her looking at me like I was a weird, glowing intruder who had the nerve to wake her up.
For a second, it was quiet.
The kind of quiet that happens before a storm.
Then, she opened her mouth.
KIYOMI KUZUNOHA
Everything was blurry and too bright.
I was having a perfectly good dream, everything feeling light and cool, and then I woke up to....this.
The first thing I saw wasn't the soft wooden ceiling or my mother's face.
It was Him.
That face was hanging over my crib.
It looked like a human, but it felt like a mountain of something I can't name yet.
Two giant, glowing blue circles were hovering over me. Those eyes- they weren't normal.
They were swirling like the ocean, pinning me down, picking apart every bit of my energy until I felt naked.
The "sunlight" boy was staring too hard.
It was scary.
It was intrusive.
He was far too loud, his energy far too heavy, and worst of all - I was hungry.
So, I did the only thing I could do to defend myself against the strongest sorcerer in history.
I sucked in a breath and let out a piercing, glass-shattering wail.
THE KUZUNOHA CLAN ELDERS
The silence of the sanctuary was broken.
Kiyomi's cry didn't just sound like a baby's tantrum, it had a resonance to it.
A vibration of cursed energy that made the paper sliding doors rattle in their frames and the tea in the outer hall ripple, just a little.
"Satoru-sama! Please!"
Nannies rushed forward, frantic.
You don't just stare down a Kuzunoha heir.
Our children are sensitive to the spiritual weight of others, and Satoru Gojo weighs more than a damn planet.
"She's just a child," we hissed, half-terrified of the boy and half-protective of the girl.
One nanny scooped her up, tucking her away from those piercing blue eyes, trying to soothe the Nine-Tails spirit before it decides to manifest a tail just to swat him away.
The nursery was thrown into absolute chaos. The nannies rushed forward, bowing frantically to Satoru-nearly knocking their heads against the floor as they tried to soothe the crying heir. "Young Master Gojo, please! She is only a few weeks old!"
We (the elders) watched from the doorway, half-terrified and half-amused.
The strongest sorcerer in training, the pride of the Gojo clan, was currently being scolded by a newborn's lungs.
He looked annoyed, but he didn't leave.
He just watched her cry with a smirk that looked way too confident for a ten-year-old.
The bond has been struck.
It wasn't a poetic meeting of scholars.
It was a headache. Loud and messy headache.
Perfect. Just like family should be.
SATORU GOJO (Age 10)
I blinked, pulling back as the old hags swarmed the crib.
My ears were actually ringing. My ears. My poor, blessed Six Eyes ears.
"Hey, stop that. You're supposed to be a legendary kitsune, not a siren."
She's... loud.
And very, very much a baby.
How annoying.
I've survived assassination attempts, I've stared down Grade 1 curses without blinking, and I've handled the crushing weight of the Gojo clan's expectations since I was in diapers. But this? This was a whole different level of sorcery.
Still, I tucked my hands into my pockets, a small smirk pulling at the corners of my mouth.
She's got lungs.
And that spike in her cursed energy when she got annoyed?
That was beautiful.
I saw her face resting on a nanny's shoulder (who had practically pushed me to get to the crib). She looked absolutely exhausted from the effort of yelling at me.
"Relax," I said, turning my back on the chaos of the nursery.
"She's fine."
I started walking toward the exit, ignoring the elders' glares.
She's definitely a Kuzunoha.
Stubborn, loud, and she didn't even blink when the Six Eyes looked at her.
She just got mad.
I grinned behind my sunglasses.
Fine. You're a brat, but you've got spirit.
"Grow up fast, Kiyomi," I muttered to myself as I stepped out into the forest air.