Kagerō rested quietly in his crib, sipping lazily from the warm bottle of milk held between his hands. The rain pattered lightly against the windowpane, quiet and relentless like the pulse of Amegakure itself. Today was six months since he was born. Six months since he'd opened his eyes to the drab ceiling of the orphanage ward, the stale smell of antiseptic, and the quiet mumbling of overworked caregivers.
Six months.
He was not sentimental. It was too soon for that. But it was difficult not to think back. His mind, however, confined in a small body, was still adult in its reasoning. Time held meaning for him. Progress meant everything.
And he had progressed.
He'd learned to control his food consumption, eating slowly and deliberately, balancing his body's growth against his energy output. Each spoonful of baby food was calibrated; not by amount, but by impact. How much physical energy did it provide him? How long could he flow chakra before his limbs began to throb and his eyelids drooped?
It had taken him weeks to have that ratio exactly. He still was growing behind the others, and Mera had caught on. She'd been sneaking him a bit larger portions. Additional mashed vegetables. Additional milk. He pretended not to know, and she pretended not to care.
Honestly, he appreciated it.
The chakra exercises were agonizingly dull. The same meditative stupor. The same tracing inside. The same rhythm of slow breath and soft circulation. He did it every hour he was awake, every moment he wasn't eating or sleeping.
He had even learned to crawl.
Slow at the beginning, then increasingly more sure of himself. It aided his chakra control. He'd begun applying chakra to stick things to him. Things like blankets, cutlery, and anything that was small enough to pull or lift. It was a basic exercise, but one which taught him about the mechanics of chakra interaction with outside matter.
Then there was the flip side of the coin.
Sticking himself to objects.
It had initially seemed simple. A wall. The ground. The wood rails of his crib. But the vacuum effect, created through chakra thrusting against gravity, proved too strong for his infant body. His small arms groaned with the strain, his joints hurt, and more than once he'd slipped back onto the crib floor in an ungraceful thud.
He soon abandoned attempting tree walking and focused instead on sticking objects to his body.
He understood something crucial: the forces were inverted. Object-sticking conditioned the inward pull of the chakra, keeping hold of outside targets. Surface-sticking conditioned the outward push, to counter gravity or inertia.
Two sides of the same skill.
It trained his control, direction and stability.
He did not have the body to train push, so he excelled at pull. Glueing things to his skin was now his favourite pastime. The material of his clothes, a wet napkin, even the handle of a spoon at one time.
Mera had reprimanded him at the time, thinking he'd done it with his hands. She'd been fleetingly surprised but attributed it to baby clumsiness. Kagerō stayed silent, only blinked at her, and saved her reaction for later.
She babbled a lot, Mera. A solitary woman who spoke to fill the void, to make sense of a world that would not. Kagerō had learned of the economic stresses between the Hidden Rain and the Rain Daimyo through her.
Evidently, though the nation was small and bloody, it wasn't really destitute. The Rain Daimyo gained riches through their advancement in infrastructure and architecture, a need born out of a nation that had to rebuild frequently.
They provided most of the construction services to the other nations.
The issue was war.
It always was.
Mera whispered as she wiped her face, her hands acting on muscle memory. "They want to draft the guards again. What'll become of the orphanage if the war comes here, huh? Who'll keep these children safe? The Daimyo doesn't care. He just assigns missions to Rain and calls it duty. Hanzo, that son of a—,"
She looked around in slight fright.
"He makes it work. But at what expense?" She continued in a low voice, almost afraid of completing her statement.
Her muttering ceased that afternoon.
She'd left the children in charge of the two orphanage guards, Kura and Rekan. Shinobi who were soldier more than ninja. The type you deploy on guard duty to intimidate bandits or waste time holding up actual dangers.
Kagerō knew their chakra. Rudimentary, a little seepy, the sort that was a result of men too exhausted to bother. They bent over his crib, looking down at him with a mixture of pity and interest.
Kura traced the edge of the seal on his neck.
"Poor bastard," He muttered. "Marked already. No choice left for him."
Rekan leaned forward, squinting. "You say that like we're better. We were the same. Only difference is, his misfortune came earlier."
"Yeah, but look at him," the younger voice, Kura exclaimed, bracing himself. "Hanzo's marked him. That's training. Actual training. Not like us, thrown into war zones with paper armor. Maybe he gets to be elite. We were cannon fodder."
There was a pause. The second man's face clouded.
"If the demi-god is so merciful," he sneered. "What if it doesn't work? What if the boy is sent onto the frontlines before he's even got teeth? You think Hanzo gives a shit? If he dies, they'll just say it was fate."
The first remained silent after that.
Their words stuck in Kagerō's head like a stain.
Hanzo.
A man revered and feared in equal proportion. The sole possession of Amegakure that could be termed power. They had no shield. Only Hanzo, the salamander. The demi-god of war.
He didn't know what to make of the man yet. He hadn't seen him since the mark had been given. But the name… it rang through the orphanage like thunder. Every adult winced at it.
Mera came back soon after, hearing the end of their discussion.
"Don't talk such rubbish in front of me," she snapped venom in her tone. "Hanzo who beat the Sannin… that Hanzo is dead and gone. All that's left is fear. Fear of losing what little authority he has. And that fear will kill us."
The men did not dispute. They looked at each other in grim understanding.
Soon, they departed with silence trailing behind them.
Mera sat next to Kagerō's crib, quiet for a while.
Then, for the first time, she leaned down and stroked his cheek. Soft. Tentative. Her eyes sparkled with moisture.
"I just wish you wouldn't die, too. Kagerō."
He had no idea why, but what she said cracked something open within him. His throat constricted. His tiny fists tightened, and then—
He wailed.
Loud and abrupt. Full of confusion and grief and something else he didn't know how to name.
Mera blinked and then gave a small, wet laugh.
"There, there. Still a crybaby, huh? Too early to grow up." She brushed his hair back gently. "You're safe for now. Just… for now."
Kagerō quieted. He blinked up at the ceiling, bottle long forgotten.
He had six months behind him.
And wars ahead.
But for the time being, there was warmth in his gut, heaviness in his arms, and the initial flavor of what feeling like was in this little, brittle body.
Enough to continue. For now.
Rain pounded at the window. Kagerō shut his eyes.