The stone projectiles screamed toward his face—jagged, brutal, final. But months of Hiashi's unrelenting drills had seared reflex into muscle. Tsukihiko twisted, not away, but down , collapsing into the sucking mud as the lethal barrage shrieked overhead. A single shuriken grazed his abdomen, slicing through fabric and flesh like paper.
He didn't feel it yet.
Tsukihiko rolled, wrenched his injured foot beneath him, and rose. His small body trembled—not from fear, but from the strain of motion against pain. Sora stood across the marsh, chest heaving, hands still forming seals. The older boy's eyes burned with something beyond rage. Grief. Purpose. A finality too heavy for either of them to bear.
Tsukihiko saw the chakra turbulence before the technique formed—a ripple in the earth beneath Sora's feet. He moved without thinking. The Byakugan pulsed in his skull, mapping veins of disturbed energy underfoot. Tunneling. Mole Hiding Technique. Sora was going underground.
A heartbeat later, the marsh exploded upward.
Earth erupted like a volcano, a column of mud and water bursting skyward. From its heart surged a serpentine construct of packed soil—Stone Serpent Jutsu . It coiled midair, fangs bared, aimed straight for Tsukihiko's throat.
His mind raced. It's not just brute force—it's precision. Controlled collapse. He's shaping the earth mid-flight.
There was no time to counter. Only movement.
Tsukihiko dropped low, sliding under the serpent's arc. His palm shot forward, fingers splayed. Chakra needles lanced outward, striking the creature's core. The impact destabilized it, but not enough. It crashed behind him, tearing a furrow in the earth.
Sora emerged from the crater, kunai flashing. "You killed Kaito," he spat. "Now you die."
Tsukihiko sidestepped, barely. The blade sliced his sleeve, revealing the hidden kanji stitched there—抗.
Resist.
The word burned in his mind as he ducked another strike. His Byakugan flickered, tracing Sora's chakra flow. The Iwa genin was exhausted. Overextended. Every move was fueled by grief, not stamina.
Tsukihiko feigned retreat. Let Sora chase.
One step. Two. The marsh shifted beneath them.
Then—he pivoted.
With a burst of speed born of desperation, Tsukihiko darted inside Sora's guard. His palm struck the boy's solar plexus. Chakra needles pierced deep, disrupting tenketsu points in rapid succession. Sora gasped. Tried to pull back.
Too late.
Tsukihiko's second strike found the base of Sora's neck. The boy staggered, eyes wide, then collapsed face-first into the mud.
Silence returned to the marsh.
Tsukihiko stood over both corpses, chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. His foot throbbed. Blood soaked his shirt. Yet he felt nothing.
Not grief.
Not triumph.
Only absence.
He turned.
Hiashi and Hizashi stood at the edge of the battlefield, watching.
Hiashi's expression was unreadable. Hizashi's was not. Relief warred with horror in his eyes. He stepped forward first, scroll in hand.
"Tsukihiko," he said softly.
No praise. No condemnation.
Just recognition.
Tsukihiko glanced around. Only now did he see the full scope of what had happened here. Not a field of battle. Not even a massacre. Just bodies. Dozens of them. Hyuga and Iwa alike. All dead by Gentle Fist.
They looked… peaceful. Like they were sleeping.
But one corpse caught his eye.
Takeshi.
The branch family guard who had shielded him during the initial ambush. Now lifeless, crumpled beside a fallen Iwa jonin.
Tsukihiko stared at Takeshi's face. So still. So pale.
The branch guard lay sprawled beside an Iwa jonin, his Hyuga robes soaked crimson. Tsukihiko approached, each step a leaden chore. Takeshi's eyes were open, vacant, still locked on the enemy he'd died fighting. A hero's death. Pointless. Tsukihiko remembered Takeshi from the compound—gentle, always slipping him sweets after training. Now just another corpse in the mud.
Hizashi's voice broke the silence. "Tsukihiko."
He turned. Hiashi stood rigid, arms folded, face carved from stone. Hizashi knelt to inspect Sora's body, his hands trembling faintly as he unrolled the sealing scroll.
"Why seal the corpses?" Tsukihiko asked, watching Takeshi vanish into the parchment.
Hizashi hesitated. "A shinobi's body holds secrets. Tenketsu patterns. Chakra imprints. If the enemy learns them, they'll exploit our weaknesses."
"And if they're family?" Tsukihiko pressed. "Does their death still carry value?"
Hizashi flinched. Hiashi answered instead, voice glacial. "Value is irrelevant. Duty is eternal."
Tsukihiko tilted his head, studying his father. He sees these bodies as equations. Wins. Losses. Not people. The realization settled like ice in his gut.
"Takeshi protected me," Tsukihiko said softly. "He was branch family. You branded him with the Caged Bird. Yet he still died for me."
Hiashi's gaze sharpened. "That was his purpose."
"And if I refuse to be yours?"
For the first time, Hiashi's mask slipped—a flicker of irritation, then nothing. "Then you'll die irrelevant."
Hizashi sealed the last corpse and stood. "Come, Tsukihiko. Let's get you cleaned up."
Tsukihiko allowed himself to be led, but his Byakugan lingered on the battlefield. The corpses glowed faintly in his vision—fading embers of chakra, still flickering with the residue of their final emotions. Takeshi's was warm, a fading ember of loyalty. Sora's was cold, a frozen scream.
-----------
Back at camp, antiseptic stung the air. Tsukihiko wandered the perimeter, his bandages damp with blood and sweat. The medics had called him "miraculous." No. I'm just good at pretending I'm not breaking.
He wasn't three.
He was someone else. Someone who had read about war in books. Watched documentaries. Studied philosophy. Believed he understood death.
He hadn't.
Now he did.
Near the supply tents, a chunin sat alone, sharpening a kunai with obsessive precision. His left sleeve hung empty—amputated at the elbow. Tsukihiko sat beside him without invitation.
"You fought today," the chunin said, not looking up.
Tsukihiko nodded. "Two genin."
The man snorted. "Lucky you."
"Why?"
"Kids die easy. Clean. They haven't learned how to cling to life yet." The chunin finally glanced at him, eyes hollow. "You're Hyuga. That explains the confidence. But not the eyes."
Tsukihiko frowned. "What about my eyes?"
"They're old. Too old for that face."
A silence stretched, thick as fog. Tsukihiko traced 抗 in the dirt with his toe. "What do you fight for?"
The chunin shrugged. "Family. Country. Maybe just the next sunrise...." He sheathed his kunai. "Does it matter? Everyone fights for something. And everyone loses something."
Tsukihiko watched the sun dip below the horizon, casting the camp in bruised purples and blacks. He raised his hand and drew the kanji in the air again, slower this time.
抗
Resist.
The chunin squinted at it. "What are you resisting, kid?"
Tsukihiko didn't answer. He was resisting the pull of Hiashi's expectations, the weight of Takeshi's death, the ghost of Sora's scream. Resisting the truth that war didn't just devour lives—it devoured the self , carving away pieces until nothing remained but a hollow vessel, filled with blood and duty.
He stood, dusting off his robes. "Thank you," he said quietly.
The chunin grunted. "Don't thank me. I'm just another ghost waiting to happen."
As Tsukihiko walked away, his Byakugan flickered. The camp glowed with chakra turbulence—flickering blue despair, jagged red rage, dull gray resignation. He saw himself in the reflection of a water barrel: a tiny figure wrapped in bandages, eyes too large, too dark. ironic considering how white and pure they were supposed to be.
Three years old.
Two lifetimes old.
He limped toward his tent, the kanji 抗 burning behind his eyes.
抗
抗
抗
Resist.
But to what end?