A Mother's Premonition

Saturday morning was quiet in the Uchiha Clan compound.

Takuma had left on a mission two days ago and had yet to return. Shuo Ye sat alone in the living room, an academy textbook spread open before him—Basic Chakra Control Exercises.

He was not actually reading it.

His eyes were fixed on the words, but his mind was elsewhere.

Shisui.

Uchiha Shisui.

According to the timeline, Shisui should have already awakened his Mangekyo Sharingan. Kotoamatsukami—the strongest genjutsu in the world—was already dormant within his eyes. And Danzo, that rotten old man lurking in the shadows, was already setting his sights on those eyes.

Less than a year remained until Shisui leaped into the Naka River.

Shuo Ye set down the pen in his hand.

Its tip left an ink blot on the paper, slowly spreading outward.

"Shuo Ye."

His mother Shizuka's voice came from the direction of the kitchen.

"Can you bring Mom the onions over there?"

"Coming."

Shuo Ye got up, took an onion from the basket beside the counter, and walked to the kitchen doorway.

Shizuka stood before the stove, her apron dusted with flour. She was making bread today—not the rice balls or miso soup dishes common in the Hidden Leaf Village, but bread. The mother of this body before him—Shizuka—had been someone who enjoyed trying all kinds of cooking.

"Thank you." Shizuka took the onion, placed it on the cutting board, and picked up the kitchen knife.

Shuo Ye leaned against the doorframe and watched his mother chop vegetables.

Shizuka's knife skills were excellent. In her hands, the onion was swiftly cut into even, thin slices, the blade striking the cutting board with a rhythmic tap-tap-tap.

Then Shizuka's hand suddenly stopped.

The blade hung two centimeters above the onion slices, motionless.

"...Mom?" Shuo Ye asked.

Shizuka did not answer right away. She set down the knife, wiped onion juice from her forehead with the back of her hand, then turned around.

She looked at Shuo Ye.

It was not the usual way a mother looked at her son—gentle, smiling, natural.

It was a different gaze.

Careful. Scrutinizing. As if she were looking at something she had always believed she understood well, only to suddenly realize she did not.

"Shuo Ye," Shizuka said.

"Yeah?"

"Have you been... unhappy lately?"

She asked it softly.

It was not a test, nor was she beating around the bush. She simply asked him directly. Like a mother asking the person she cared about most a question she had held back for some time, only to finally ask it.

In less than a fraction of a second, countless thoughts flashed through Shuo Ye's mind.

Had he let something slip lately?

Had his mother noticed him spacing out at breakfast? Had she noticed that he spent more time sitting blankly in the hallway after school? Or had she heard him tossing and turning on the tatami next door last night, when he had thought he was already asleep?

There had to be cracks. More than one.

Because lately, he truly had been... unhappy.

The price of knowing the future was that happiness became increasingly extravagant. Every time he saw Naruto sitting alone on the swing, he thought of that child's fate. Every time Sasuke smugly showed off, saying, "My brother taught me another new technique today," he thought of what that child would become two years later. Every time he saw Shizuka smiling as she brought out a bowl of hot soup from the kitchen, he thought of how, after the night of the massacre, that bowl of soup would be gone forever.

Those thoughts did not merely appear from time to time.

They appeared every day.

He had thought he hid them well.

But mothers were different.

"I'm fine." Shuo Ye tried to make his voice sound like that of a seven-year-old—bright and carefree.

Shizuka did not smile.

She walked over, crouched in front of Shuo Ye, and placed both hands on his shoulders.

This put her gaze slightly below his—Shuo Ye was already seven, and he was not short for his age. But once Shizuka crouched down, her eyes were level with his.

"Shuo Ye." She said his name again.

Then she pulled him into her arms.

The hug was tight.

Shizuka's scent—the flour, the onions, a faint trace of sweat, and that indescribably warm scent that belonged only to a mother—wrapped around Shuo Ye all at once.

His body stiffened in that instant.

Not because he was unused to it. But because—

Because he knew.

He knew when and how this embrace would disappear forever.

The night of the massacre.

After that night, Uchiha Shizuka—the woman who made bread on Saturday mornings, who would suddenly stop cutting onions to worry about her son, who would hold him in such a tight embrace—

Would no longer exist.

Shuo Ye's tears nearly fell.

He bit down hard on his back teeth, forcing that sour ache back into his eyes.

Seven-year-old boys did not cry. At least, seven-year-old Uchiha boys did not cry.

But his eyes still dampened slightly.

Shizuka sensed it.

Not the tears—Shuo Ye had held them back quickly enough that she did not see them. What she sensed was his body going stiff for an instant in her embrace, then slowly relaxing, as though he had finally given up resisting something.

"No matter what happens."

Shizuka's voice sounded above Shuo Ye's head. Her chin rested on the top of his head, and when she spoke, a faint vibration traveled through his skull to his ears.

"No matter what happens, Mom and Dad will be here."

After she said that, the kitchen fell silent for several seconds.

The onion slices on the cutting board slowly oxidized in the air, their edges beginning to soften.

Shuo Ye opened his mouth.

He wanted to say, "Mm."

That was what he should say. A seven-year-old boy being held by his mother should make a muffled, nasal "Mm" at a time like this.

But though he opened his mouth, no sound came out.

Because that sentence—"No matter what happens, Mom and Dad will be here"—he understood better than anyone that one day, it would cease to be true.

Not that it might cease to be true.

That it definitely would.

On that night he had rehearsed a hundred times in his mind, that night when he would be powerless to do anything, those words would be completely torn apart.

His throat moved.

Then, at last, he made the sound.

"Mm."

Very softly.

Shizuka released him and stroked his cheek. Her fingers carried the faint sting of onion juice, but her palm was warm.

"Go get your father's book from the study. Mom wants to see where he left off last time."

"Okay."

Shuo Ye turned and walked out of the kitchen.

When he reached the hallway, he paused.

He looked back at the kitchen door.

Shizuka had already picked up the knife again, and the onion slices struck the cutting board with a tap-tap-tap.

Everything was exactly the same as before.

But Shuo Ye knew that some things had changed.

He reached the study, pushed open the door, and found the ninjutsu theory collection that Takuma had read halfway through on the bookshelf.

He stood in the study holding the book, not immediately returning.

Sunlight streamed in through the window, casting neat shadows across the shelves. Dust floated slowly through the beam of light, like tiny, silent, inconsequential lives.

Shuo Ye held the book against his chest and closed his eyes.

"No matter what happens, Mom and Dad will be here."

The words circled once in his mind, then sank down into a place he knew he could never reach.

He took a deep breath and walked back to the kitchen.