Kouga felt ill as he waited for his mother to arrive. He stood alone and barefoot in the middle of the training hall, staring down at his feet in an effort to focus his mind on the day’s “training”. A little over a month ago, his mother had dragged him out of bed before the sun was even visible to begin the cycle of spars that was now his daily life. These spars were not the sole contributor to his warping stomach, however.

  Quick footfalls from a hallway signaled his mother’s approach, and he took one last calming breath to steady himself. Her voice echoed out in the large empty hall.

  “Let us begin.”

  The day began fast, but each hour slowly ticked away at an excruciating pace. Kouga’s entire body hurt as he continued his push to land a single hit against his mother, his eyes trained through brutal lessons to follow the attacks coming at him without looking away. He fell to the ground once again as he failed to duck under a flying staff, which clipped him by the crown of his skull.

  “Slow. Keep better track of your footing.”

  With only a second’s pause, Kouga responded.

  “Y-yes, mother.”

  That was how the rest of the day played out. Kouga endlessly attempted to strike his mother with his bare fists, and in return, he would be pummeled.

  Eventually, the training ceased.

  “Stop. We will resume this tomorrow.”

  With that cold finality, the woman Kouga called mother marched from the training hall, her boots clicking on the cold stone floor.

  When he heard the door at the end of the passage clamber shut, Kouga fell to the ground from exhaustion. Tears filled his eyes as he could barely feel his body below the neck. Blood was scattered across the ground, glimmering faintly in the light from the few sconces placed along the walls.

  Kouga stayed there on the ground out of necessity, unable to move for several minutes. When he finally felt enough strength to move, he carefully limped down the same hallway his mother had gone down. His pace picked up as he continued down various hallways, and several people passed him on their way to wherever. They kept their faces mostly neutral, but Kouga spotted a few flashes of pity, shock, and other disturbed visages. He vaguely heard a number of comments when the speaker thought they were out of earshot.

  “None of her other… well, none looked quite like that…”

  “She’s getting more brutal…”

  “Will he even last through basic training?...”

  “Even if he does survive, he will only be inheriting this war…”

  Eventually, Kouga reached a large hall filled with long tables and several smaller round tables, all with people sitting around eating or talking quietly. He spotted his mother sitting by herself at a round table, disinterestedly picking at the bowl of food before her. Two tall glasses of water were placed by herself and in front of the table’s only other chair. By that point, Kouga had gained control over his walking, and marched over to sit opposite of her. After a full minute of neither speaking to each other, a servant walked over and placed a bowl of hot stew in front of Kouga, along with a loaf of fresh baked bread.

  Turning, the servant spoke. “Will that be all, Miss Koyu?”

  She did not bother to glance up, only giving a curt nod in response. Kouga began eating quietly while his mother, who Kotetsu just learned was named Koyu, watched. Not long after, she began to eat as well, her own soup having gone cold.

  They sat and ate in silence. Kouga finished his food first, still feeling hungry despite the giant bowl of soup and whole loaf of bread. Picking up the glass of water on his side of the table, he downed it in several gulps.

  He put the glass down and wiped his face with a handkerchief. Standing from the table, Kouga bowed to his mother, marched back to his room, and prepared to do the exact same thing for the next day, leaving his mother alone at the table.

  —

  Kotetsu did not know how to feel about his father’s current state of living. He was not even sure if it could be called living, the constant cycle of waking up, getting beaten black and blue, eating, passing out from sheer fatigue, just to wake up and do it all over again. This was so far removed from the training Kotetsu had endured, which he felt had pushed his limits quite far. However, what became apparent as time went on, was the disturbing fact that Kouga continued to grow much stronger and faster by the day.

  Another important fact of the sequence of memories was Kouga’s own Chakra control. It was much greater than Kotetsu’s, to the point of him feeling unexpectedly jealous. He tried to brush off the feelings and simply focus on the way his father controlled Chakra, finding that their methods were obviously quite different. To begin with, Kouga was capable of infusing Chakra with hand signs, before leaving it to circulate along his Chakra network. Kotetsu didn’t recognise the hand sign nor did he know how it allowed Kouga to infuse Chakra at all. Despite his concerns, the method proved itself with the fact that its power boost to Kouga was comparable to the boost Kotetsu got when he used imagery, specifically during his duel with Keina.

  Something else Kotetsu discovered was Kouga’s current age. According to his father’s internal thoughts, his 11th birthday would soon approach. Which meant that Kouga’s Chakra control had been better than his own, even several years younger than Kotetsu. It also meant that he had endured all of this training at only 10 years old.

  Kotetsu had been watching what amounted to a montage of Kouga getting abused, suspecting that somewhere around a week had passed since the first memory. He mostly remembered the events leading up to his own current state of unconsciousness, and he wasn’t sure how long it would take him to recover. The next day was a montage of memories he already knew, for they were some of the first he had encountered.

  —

  Kouga fell over after getting smacked, a welt now present on the left side of his face. He just could not dodge the staff fast enough.

  “Terrible. Why did you fail?” Koyu’s voice rang out.

  Kouga thought for a moment, then answered.

  “Because I faltered.”

  “Next time, don’t act so weak. Face me head on. Remove my options for attack by forcing me to defend.” She commanded.

  “Yes, mother.” Kouga automatically responded..

  The rest of the day passed by like any other. Until around half way through, when something finally changed.

  Pausing after a particular exchange, Koyu backed away a few steps. Kouga watched with baited breath. On cue, she slipped forward with frightening speed, bringing the staff down in an arc that would end in Kouga’s head getting split open. Moving without thought, Kouga barely shifted his body just enough to step past the descending staff, stretching his right arm and foot forward in a motion that ended in…

  Thump.

  His fist hit an iron wall. The jarring sensation left him motionless for too long, and he was toppled to the ground by an elbow to an ear. Not immediately moving to recover, he felt a sense of elation wash over him. He had done it, barely managing to land a hit against Koyu, just as she wanted.

  “You did… well.”

  Neither Kouga or Kotetsu could believe their still ringing ears. Looking up with bright eyes, Kouga watched his mother as she stood in contemplation, touching her abdomen where Kouga had landed his punch. When she glanced up to meet his eyes, they were calculating, judging him. He shivered slightly as it seemed she could see right through him. For a moment, he thought that her yellow-orange eyes had a slight glow to them.

  “Do you want to get stronger?”

  The question, seemingly coming from nowhere, left Kouga with a sudden determination.

  “Yes.”

  Turning suddenly, she began to walk toward another hallway that Kouga had never been down before.

  “Then follow.”

  Pushing unsteadily to his feet, Kouga followed without further hesitation. The experience gave him confidence, and he thought that today would be the day. He would finally get an answer to his unvoiced question.

  After several twists and turns, Kotetsu recognised the part of the keep they were walking down. Sconces lined the hallway, occasionally interrupted by sealed off doors. Kouga silently followed his mother down the passage until they came across a large ornate wooden door. This time, Kotetsu was aware of the difference between his own feelings and that of Kouga’s, and vividly felt Kouga’s dread through the shared memory.

  “Your brothers and sisters all failed to succeed in the task I am about to give you, because they were weak.” Kouga’s mother stated.

  While they had been walking, Kouga had been working up the courage to ask his question. The statement by his mother made posing it easier.

  “If I succeed, I can see them again, right?” Kouga asked, overcome with a sudden meekness.

  “No. They failed. You will not.”

  The answer crushed Kouga’s hopes.

  Then, they entered the chamber. Kouga strapped himself down to the stone slab in the center of the circular room, and his mother appeared a moment later with the object that he would soon come to hate. Kotetsu noted that she held it with her bare hands, completely unaffected by its touch.

  “In order to survive, you must use your will…”

  Staring down at the black ebony rod, she glanced up to meet Kouga’s eyes.

  “If you fail, you’ll die.”

  And thus, began the process of forging a Cinder.

  —

  It was endless. Kotetsu had thought that the lashings he received from the Matriarch during his questioning had been painful, but that was nothing when compared to this. Again and again, Kouga failed to protect himself from the ebony rod. His mother would lift the rod to reveal a new patch of burnt skin, before pressing it down onto a new spot against his stomach. Eventually, she had to move up to his chest from the lack of room, and by that point Kouga had stopped bothering to repress his screams. She would press the rod against his body for a full minute, the agonising pain making it feel more like five, before giving Kouga a single minute to recover his breath.

  This was the cycle they repeated for nearly an hour.

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  At the same time, she spoke words that might have been encouragement, but sounded like orders to Kotetsu.

  “Focus.”

  “It’s the only way.”

  “Don’t move.”

  Kouga shed tears, but did not scream. He would not lose control like that in front of his mother, as that was unbecoming of the General’s son. The pain’s intensity never lessened, almost as if Kouga was re-experiencing the pain for the first time every moment. Academically, Kouga knew what the ebony stone was doing to his body. Its nature was to destroy…

  “So far, you have only failed. Have you learned nothing? Your only way out is to find your soul.” Koyu scolded.

  Nothing happened for the rest of that period. Eventually, the pain subsided after a particularly long break, Kouga barely even noticing that it had been several minutes since the last attack.

  “We are done.” The disgusted tone in his mother’s voice was easy to pick up.

  Kouga opened his eyes and looked down at his stomach and chest, almost completely filled with burns. Snapping his head up at a sharp sound from across the room, Kouga was just in time to see Koyu nearly slam the ebony rod back into its place on the weapon rack, before storming out of the chamber. He remained lying on the slab, as trying to make any movements hurt too much.

  After another hour, the pain had ebbed until he was left with a dull thud beating just under his skin. He didn’t even attempt to put his shirt back on as he was sure his nerves would have lit right back up with searing pain. Slowly, he made his way back to his room after reluctantly skipping dinner, laying down with extreme caution, opting to sleep without any blanket. Just laying down was difficult, and he wasn’t even sure he could sleep. However, pure exhaustion dragged him into unconsciousness.

  —

  Kotetsu was unsure why Kouga had been unable to parse the feeling of the ebony rod against his own will. For himself, it only took a single touch through that earlier memory for him to feel the distinct pressure. Even worse still was being able to identify the pressure during Kouga’s torture sessions, meaning that the feeling was there, he was simply not yet fully aware of it. Kotetsu very desperately wanted to get this part of the memory montage over with, especially since Kouga’s experience with this chamber went on for almost a full week.

  The days blurred by, and Kouga’s time spent in the chamber stretched on longer and longer. On the fifth day, the mother and son spent nearly 4 hours in the chamber. By that point, she had been fed up with his lack of progress. She barely offered any words to Kouga, instead just pressuring him with her gaze while pushing the rod down somewhere on his body. After the first day, she had moved to his arms. Then, his legs. Then his back, and now, they were working with his stomach again. She grew more agitated with each failure.

  For Kouga’s part, he had ceased all conscious effort toward solving the problem. He had thrown up on the third day from sheer panic after realising that this would be how he died. There was no way out, as far as he could tell. He was not made for this. He would never become a Cinder.

  By the sixth day, Kouga had burns across his entire body. He didn’t know how he could even still walk, and he feared that this day would be his last. Slowly and delicately, he laid down on the cold slab. Koyu did not offer to cuff him this time. Moving to his side, she barked an order.

  “Stick your hand out.”

  Kouga’s vision began to grow hazy as he did what he was told, too scared to disobey. He raised his left hand first. With a quick slap, she forced the rod down into his open palm, and Kouga let out a hiss as his hand remained in the air. His only thought was to not pass out. After a much shorter time than usual, she pulled the rod back.

  “You are doing this wrong. You need to look closer.”

  Her cold voice no longer held any hostility, or frustration. To Kotetsu, it almost sounded like she was pleading. Kouga paid more attention, trying to grasp on to any kind of solution. Pulling his own burned left hand up to his face, he inspected the new wound.

  “What do you see?”

  After several seconds of hesitation, he decided to answer bluntly.

  “A wound.”

  “And what can cause a wound?”

  “Getting hurt.”

  A moment of silence. Then, she spoke again.

  “Your other hand.”

  He raised it without question, trying to figure out what she was getting at. She began speaking in a low tone.

  “You must find your weakness, squash it out…”

  The rod began to lower toward his hand. In a fit of desperation, he re-examined everything he knew about ebony. Its purpose was to destroy anything spiritual, which included the soul and Chakra.

  Ebony destroys…

  Just like that, he had a revelation. Ebony’s nature was to destroy anything spiritual because it, too, was partly spiritual. Another way to destroy something was to attack it. Each time the ebony touched his skin, Kouga attempted to wrap that area with Chakra, making a feeble defence which the ebony tore through with its incoming attack. But the solution was not to defend, it was to fight back. That was what she was trying to tell him, he realised. The ebony rod was attacking him, so he needed to attack it back. There was only a slight problem with that. He had no idea how to fight back, or even where to start.

  Kotetsu knew the frustration. Much earlier in this sequence of memories, he had tried to see the effect with willpower sight, but nothing happened. This led him to believe that perhaps he could only see willpower when his father decided to use the sight– or perhaps it was because Kouga currently lacked the ability to see it. Kotetsu was always a silent viewer, unable to affect anything in these memories, but this time he felt truly helpless as he watched the rod continue its descent.

  This time, a radical change occurred.

  The low murmurs faded, and Kouga glanced up to find his mother’s utterly horrifying visage. Looking down into his face with rage unlike anything he’d seen from her, she spoke two simple words.

  “WILL IT!”

  A spontaneous shower of colours overlapped Kouga’s vision, and a distinction that he learned long ago in scrolls during study finally clicked in his head. Before the ebony rod could touch his hand, he shot out and grabbed it forcefully, wrapping his fingers around it. Yelling incoherent words, he squeezed, pouring into the rod all of his anger, fear, despair and every other miserable thought that had ravaged his mind.

  And it snapped.

  Kouga fell silent, the only noise in the chamber being the clattering of broken stone falling to the ground. He didn’t bother to bring his ragged breathing under control, as he was too confused about what had just happened. Kotetsu, too, had no idea what happened. The situations which gave them their willpower sight and the ability to distinguish willpower were nearly the same, which meant that Kotetsu had no clue what might actually be triggering the effect. For all he knew, it was caused by his grandma staring daggers down at someone and screaming angry words.

  Regardless, Kouga could now see willpower, just as Kotetsu. Looking down at his own body, Kouga found his skin covered in a translucent red hue. Glancing up at his mother, he found her body was also covered in red, with a large stripe of pure black running from her neck down her torso. That was new to Kotetsu, as he had not seen anyone with a black colour in their willpower body thing. Did that also mean that someone could have a white hue, or even grey? Kotetsu had no clue what significance the colour of someone’s willpower held.

  Kouga’s overlapping vision faded, with him blinking away the strange colours.

  “Good. You are now capable of undergoing the training to become a true Cinder. This is the best outcome.” Her face reflected sudden, polarising excitement.

  Those words brought a chill to Kouga, leaving him wondering if this was really the best outcome for him.

  —

  The Uchiha clan, three days after Kotetsu left.

  Eito had barely slept after discovering his child, wounded and unconscious just outside the clan entrance. He had questioned Tan’s boy quite harshly, as he had been the one guarding the entrance that night, but he knew little about what happened. All he had seen was Kotetsu rushing at him from the dark, before leaping up and over the entryway, being chased by Atsuo close behind. Eito had barely restrained himself from lashing out at the young man with his frustrations. At that moment, he felt less like the clan leader and more like a boiling pot. He just hoped it wouldn’t overflow and consume him whole.

  Almost a week later, Atsuo had yet to awaken. Fui, Eito’s wife, had barely talked to him after the first few days of constant arguing. Eito had gone over his own decision to allow Kotetsu to stay in their midst several times. The day that he had limped back to the clan only to find his son hovering over the boy like a guard dog, he should have thrown the Cinder-born brat out. He knew what that blade was, and guessed who the boy could be with that first glance. His own foolish nature led him to make a decision on a gut reaction, a misplaced hope that Kotetsu’s presence— the presence of the Azuchi Kingdom’s heirloom, could somehow strengthen the Uchiha’s image.

  He thought that his precautions would be enough to keep the boy in check. Under strict orders suggested by Tan, none of the adults in the clan were allowed to assist in or directly teach Kotetsu. His reasoning was partly to see how capable Kotetsu was in learning by direct action, and to make sure the boy wouldn’t become too large of a problem. Eito knew Kotetsu could not use his sword for an unknown reason, and that might have contributed to him not seeing the boy as a true threat.

  Eito knew what happened to those who survived an attack against a Cinder. Either you died, or you awoke with a visceral fear of combat that left you crippled for life. The chance for a miraculous recovery was reportedly slim, but Eito did not even know if such an outcome existed at all. Atsuo’s wound would not fully heal, staying open and allowing blood to rush out freely. The only way to keep him alive was to stitch and restitch the wound. Eventually, his body would give out. It was only a matter of time.

  Eito could not force himself to sleep.

  —

  Keina had felt numb at first after seeing Atsuo’s crippled state. She was unsure of what to do in the following days, watching the young man she had known most of her life grow more frail. A headache had bloomed in the back of her head shortly after the event. Constant yet slow, it beat at her psyche while she spent her time taking care of his body, cleaning him and carefully giving him water to reflexively drink.

  She had experienced that headache only three times now. The first was after her father died, leaving her to be alone. The second time was after Teruo’s death, lasting only a day but still hitting hard. This third time, the headache came immediately and refused to leave. She knew how to keep the ache at bay.

  She did not know how to act around Atsuo. Moving with mechanical stiffness, she carried out her duties when she watched over him. When she was done with her tasks, she would sit quietly and just stare at his face. She had seen the transformation as time marched on. Over the first few days, his lips would slightly move as if he was speaking. This had stopped completely after the first week. Occasionally, his eyes would slowly roll around beneath his eyelids, and that was now the only sign of activity he showed.

  Many had inspected Atsuo’s Chakra with their Sharingan, hoping to find signs that he was getting better. Over the first week, his Chakra kept within normal levels, only slightly changing in strength. Then came the shift. Suddenly, his Chakra began to lessen significantly, before shooting back up near his normal levels. With each pull on his Chakra, his body underwent difficult changes.

  Before anyone knew it, two weeks had silently passed. The clan was somber as a sentiment had begun to spread, and they worried about his ultimate fate. By that point, few thought he would wake up. His breathing had grown light, and he barely bled when his arm was restitched. His body had become rail thin. His eyes were sunken. His skin was clammy, and began to flake off. His Chakra levels had shrunk to a dangerous level.

  Having nothing to do but quietly sit with Atsuo’s unconscious body, Keina experienced dark thoughts about Kotetsu. At first, she was hesitant to blame him as he had been acting skittish ever since the village incident and Teruo’s death. However, as the days passed and she took her turn caring for Atsuo over several hours, her view of Kotetsu shifted further to resentment.

  She wondered about what could have been, if Teruo had not saved him. She sat kneeling over Atsuo’s body in the dark clinical tent, only hearing the thump of her own heart. She wondered what could have been avoided.

  Suddenly, in the gloom of the tent, she felt something shift in front of her. She sat bolt upright, straining to keep completely still, listening and feeling for anything. After a few tense seconds, and her heart pounding way too loudly, she heard footsteps from somewhere outside. Someone just walking by the tent. Her body shuddered, and all of her attention was absorbed by sudden rage burning within. The throb in her head threatened to consume her. Why did it have to be Atsuo? Or Teruo? Why her father? Why was it necessary for the universe to take all of the people she felt close to?

  “Gh…”

  A sound like rusty metal scraping came from somewhere in front of her. She froze. Her eyes grew wide as another sound came from the gloom.

  “Wa…”

  Panicking, Keina padded the area immediately around her, not finding what she was looking for. Turning, she ripped the tent flap open slightly and stuck her head out, glancing down and around.

  “Ter…”

  Finding the damned jug of water, she exalted as she tugged the cork off and moved back into the tent, leaving the flap ajar and letting light from the rising sun flow into the tent. Atsuo’s eyes couldn’t even open, but his lips moved back and forth, trying to form more words. Keina carefully lowered the jug to his lips, letting a tiny trickle of clear liquid fall into his open mouth. She felt elation, terror, and hope all vying for the position of most anxiety-inducing emotion in her head.

  Footsteps from somewhere behind slammed her way, and the tent flap opened further as another person entered. Eito did not disrupt her actions, and spoke softly. At least, that’s what he intended.

  “ATSUO’S AWAKE?!” He blatantly shouted mere inches from the back of her head. It took all of Keina’s patience to not set down the jug, turn around and slap the shit out of the stupid clan leader.

  Atsuo coughed, causing Keina to swiftly pull the jug back. His coughing fit lasted several seconds, and he barely opened his eyes, unable to keep them open for more than a moment from the sunlight. He tried to swallow several times, then spoke.

  “M… more… pl… ease…”

  Keina almost barked with laughter at his absurd attempt to be polite. Putting the jug back to his lips, she sighed. Everything she had kept bottled up unintentionally released all at once with that sigh. Tears flowed like a river, and a smile creased her face. Eito had retreated back out of the tent, presumably pulled away by several people based on the sound of loud arguing taking place right behind her. Looking down at Atsuo’s face, she didn’t care what he looked like at that moment.

  “I’m here…”