Uchiha Yoru walked alone toward the village streets, Shisui's silhouette fading behind him. The temple's cold still clung to his clothes, but his thoughts drifted elsewhere—to the information floating in his mind's inner sense, a quiet ledger only he could read.
He checked his chakra reserves, his elemental affinities, the tally of the funds he'd scraped together over the years.He had gambled everything the night the Nine Tails attacked, pouring his entire savings into unlocking his dormant Sharingan. If he was going to awaken it, he reasoned, it might as well happen in a moment that fit the history books.
A single tomoe had cost him half his life's earnings.He still winced thinking about it.
The prices only escalated from there—two tomoe requiring resources most jonin never saw in their lifetime, three tomoe enough to buy a minor nation's treasury. The Mangekyō might as well have been a myth carved into a golden pedestal.
Yoru rubbed his forehead. If he converted earnings the way shinobi missions paid… he'd need several years of high-risk work just to reach the next stage.
One step at a time. Survive first. Grow second.
…
He paused outside a modest courtyard. A girl in dark kunoichi gear stood waiting beneath the awning—Yūhi Kurenai, her long legs wrapped in mesh, her garnet-red eyes faint with grief but steady.
"Yoru," she said softly. "I heard you awakened your Sharingan. Congratulations."
To an Uchiha, that was the moment one truly entered the clan's core. And Kurenai, who had lost her father during the Nine Tails attack, offered the words without bitterness.
Yoru scratched his cheek awkwardly. "Kurenai… I'm sorry about your father."
One congratulated him. The other mourned him. The imbalance stung.
He cleared his throat and handed her a small scroll. "These are the shuriken-throwing forms you asked about."
They weren't clan secrets, just refined techniques the Uchiha excelled in thanks to their ocular clarity. Without the Sharingan, the forms were simply good—not impossible to obtain, not forbidden.
Kurenai, however, blinked. "You… actually brought it? From your clan?"She hadn't expected him to take the risk, not after everything.
Her eyes softened for a moment—until his next words shattered the mood completely.
"Well, uh… you know how it is," Yoru muttered, rubbing his fingers together in that unmistakable gesture. "If the clan finds out, I'll be in trouble, so… payment."
Kurenai's expression froze. Then her jaw clenched.
"…Yoru. How much this time."
Every student in their class knew his reputation—talented, sharp-eyed, absolutely terrible with money. He treated jutsu favors like a marketplace, and somehow she, specifically, had been his longest-running source of income.
Yoru perked up immediately. "Look, Kurenai, we've been classmates for years. Fair payment keeps friendships clean. And remember that time I—"
He started listing previous "favors," cataloguing debts she barely remembered asking for. She pinched the bridge of her nose, caught somewhere between annoyance and unwanted amusement. The suffocating grief in the house eased a little.
"Enough! Yoru!" she snapped, finally.
He only blinked innocently, as if unaware he had just dismantled the solemn atmosphere of her home.
Years ago, she'd been naïve enough to trust him during academy days. He'd "protected" her from attention she didn't want… or from classmates he insisted were "after her," all while siphoning off her pocket money in exchange.
She stomped into the house, returning with a scroll she dropped into his hands.
The bold, single character on the binding read: Ken — sword.
"This," she said, crossing her arms, "is my father's notes on the Konoha-ryū sword style. That should cover your costs."
Yoru's eyebrows lifted. This was far beyond what he expected. Yūhi Shinku had been a renowned jonin, best known for his genjutsu, but his swordwork had been quietly respected across several divisions.
He tucked the scroll into his gear pouch with barely disguised delight.
Kurenai caught his expression and couldn't help smirking faintly. "Honestly… you really are a shameless money-boyfriend."A half-joke. A half-truth. Years of mutual entanglement wrapped into one complaint.
Yoru ignored the title completely, his mind already evaluating sword forms and mission budgets. But beneath his calculating demeanor, something more thoughtful flickered.
He glanced at her. "Kurenai… the village is watching everything the Uchiha do right now. Our connection might cause trouble for you. If someone starts digging—"
Before he finished, Kurenai cut in dryly:
"I'll just tell them I was tricked by a manipulative classmate who stole my allowance for years and even swindled my father's techniques. How's that?"
Yoru blinked. Then grinned. "That works. But for a lie that big… I'd need extra payment."
She hurled a cushion at his head hard enough to make even an Uchiha flinch.
"Get out, Yoru!"
He staggered toward the doorway, evading her halfhearted strikes, laughing as he backed into the sunlight.
"Kurenai—ow, hey—talk, don't throw things!"
But he saw it.She was no longer hollowed out by grief.Her anger had color, her breathing had strength, her eyes had life again.
Kurenai stopped at the threshold, watching him retreat down the street.
"I became a chunin a year before you," she called out sharply.
He raised a hand in surrender without looking back.
She shut the door gently.
Standing before a photo of herself and her father, Kurenai pressed a hand to the frame.
"I'll make you proud," she whispered. "I'll become a jonin worthy of you."
The sadness in her gaze straightened into resolve. Whatever came next, she would face it without wavering.