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"Uzuki! You're the Senju's prodigy, right? Then let's spar!"
Kitsune grinned and spread his arms wide, bouncing on his toes.
"...Huh?"
Uzuki's brain crashed.
Complete system failure. Blue screen. No thoughts found.
Then the blood arrived. All of it. At once. Flooding her face, her neck, her ears, painting everything crimson from collarbone to hairline.
That's... that's what he dragged me out here for?
All that hand-holding. All that running through the forest. The secluded clearing. The wildflowers. Her imagination had been sprinting at full speed down a very specific road, and this idiot had been thinking about punching practice the entire time.
"You... you absolute..."
Her face darkened, but underneath the embarrassment, a small, traitorous part of her was relieved.
They were enemies. Senju and Uchiha. Whatever she'd been imagining was impossible anyway. Better that it stayed impossible.
"Hm?"
Kitsune caught the blush. Caught the averted eyes.
He was very, very smart. He understood exactly what had just happened inside her head.
He chose not to say a word about it.
Kitsune liked Uzuki. That was real. But buried inside that genuine affection was a thread of calculation he'd never fully untangle from the warmth. Surviving as an Uchiha orphan meant never operating on pure emotion. Even kindness got weighed.
"Come on, let's go! I need to know how far behind a real genius I actually am."
He settled into a fighting stance, voice earnest.
"I'm an orphan. No teachers. No family techniques. No Sharingan. Everything I've got, I scraped together on my own, piece by piece. But training alone only takes you so far. I need someone real to test myself against."
He looked her in the eyes.
"On this entire battlefield, you're the only person I trust."
The only person I trust...
Uzuki felt something in her chest go very quiet and very warm. The embarrassment evaporated. The complicated feelings simplified into something she could actually hold onto.
This boy had been beaten, starved, abandoned, and thrown into a war he had no stake in. And he was still fighting. Still growing. Still refusing to give up.
"Fine!"
She shook off the last traces of awkwardness, set her feet, and let blue chakra bloom around her fists.
"But don't cry when you lose. I'm not going easy on you just because you're pitiful."
She lifted her chin, a faint smile playing at the corner of her mouth.
"Wouldn't dream of it."
Kitsune's eyes sparked. His body coiled.
"Let's go!"
Two chakra signatures rose in the clearing. Blue and pale green, winding around each other like smoke.
Senju genius. Soft heart hidden behind iron fists.
Uchiha orphan. Wolf in sheep's clothing, starving for the chance to bare his teeth.
They clashed.
Several rounds later, Uzuki was staring at Kitsune like she'd never seen him before.
Because the boy who'd spent three years playing dead on every battlefield—the kid she'd assumed was barely functional as a fighter—had just fought her to a dead draw.
"Kitsune! How are you THIS strong??"
Her eyes were saucers. This didn't make sense. She'd trained under the best instructors the Senju had. She'd inherited their legendary physical strength. And this orphan with no backing, no resources, no teacher had matched her?
"Three years on the front lines teaches you things."
That thin, knowing smile again. The one that hid more than it showed.
"Back in the clan, nobody taught me anything. I had to steal techniques by watching. I didn't even know I had any aptitude. But once I got my hands on real ninjutsu at the front, everything just... clicked. One look and I'd have it down. Turns out I'm not the talentless nobody everyone assumed."
Kitsune shrugged like this was a minor observation about the weather.
He'd kept all of it hidden. Every scrap of talent. Every breakthrough. Displayed nothing but mediocrity to anyone watching.
"Why would you HIDE this?? With your ability, you could earn recognition, get promoted, stop being treated like disposable—"
Uzuki stepped forward, baffled and almost angry on his behalf.
Kitsune's smile froze over.
"Recognition?"
He looked toward the Uchiha compound in the distance. His eyes held nothing but winter.
"A clan that treats orphans like garbage. That measures your worth by whose blood you carry instead of who you are. That hands children weapons and sends them to die without losing a minute of sleep."
"You think I'd bleed for that? You think that deserves my loyalty?"
Uzuki went silent.
The look on his face answered every question she'd ever had about his relationship with the Uchiha.
There wasn't one.
........
Mount Myōboku.
"Based on what I'm seeing, Senju Uzuki looks like Asura's reincarnation this cycle. A female Asura, huh?"
Manji rubbed his chin, mildly surprised. That was a first.
He hadn't examined Uzuki directly. Just general observation. But the pattern was there—Senju, generational prodigy, drawn to bonds and compassion over raw power. Classic Asura template.
"The question is, who's Indra this time?"
No obvious candidate had surfaced on the Uchiha side. No flashy genius demanding attention. No lone wolf radiating that signature blend of brilliance and isolation.
"This generation's Indra is playing it close to the vest..."
Manji didn't push the investigation. Part of the fun was letting the pieces reveal themselves naturally. Hunting them down would spoil the game.
He shrugged and turned to his desk.
"Fukasaku and Shima are getting married? A toad wedding..."
The notice sat on top of his paperwork stack. He didn't need to attend personally. A written blessing would suffice.
His brush hovered over the paper.
"Wishing you a hundred years of happiness" was the standard line. But Fukasaku and Shima would both live for centuries. Wishing them a hundred years was like wishing a human a happy tenth birthday and leaving it at that.
"Wait... didn't I say that exact thing to Kaguya back in the day?"
The memory hit him mid-brushstroke.
Nearly a thousand years ago. Young, stupid, and overexcited. He'd cheerfully wished Kaguya and her partner "a hundred years of happiness and many children."
To a woman who would live for millennia.
That was essentially wishing someone would die young.
"Ha! Let's go with 'ten thousand years of harmony, until the seas dry and the stones crumble!'"
He finished the calligraphy with a flourish, set down the brush, and reached for his tea.
His hand never made it to the cup.
An emergency intelligence report materialized on his desk.
The moon. Something had happened on the moon.
The Ōtsutsuki branch family had gathered their collective Byakugan and fused them into a Tenseigan...
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