Bloodline

White Wax Town lay shrouded in a thin morning mist. Sea fog drifted in from the eastern waters, turning the eaves, treetops, and dock masts gray-white.

The blacksmith shop's chimney had yet to smoke, and the market stalls stood empty. Only early-rising seagulls perched on abandoned carts, pecking at fish scales left over from yesterday.

Only two people remained in Marcus's kitchen.

Damian had left before dawn. A shipload of cargo was due to be unloaded at the docks today, and the foreman had specifically come to their house last night to call for him, saying they were short-handed.

Barlow had followed the fishmonger's wagon to the market. Before leaving, he had tucked a piece of dry bread into his clothes and closed the door very quietly.

Mila came down the stairs barefoot, stepping on the white waxwood steps, their surfaces worn to a pale brown sheen by years of footsteps.

The kitchen was quiet. Roy sat beside the wooden table.

In front of him lay a canvas—or rather, a thin white waxwood board he had picked up from their father's workshop last year. Its back had been sanded down, barely rough enough to hold charcoal. He held a burnt charcoal twig between his fingers and slowly moved it across the surface.

Mila walked over and sat across from him.

There was a pattern on the canvas.

It was the Uchiha fan emblem from his dreams.

Roy did not look up. The charcoal made a dry scraping sound against the board.

"I dreamed again."

Mila propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her folded hands.

"Still that person?"

"Mm."

Roy set down the charcoal, closed his eyes, then opened them again.

His pupils turned blood-red, and two black Tomoe slowly emerged across his irises.

Mila looked into his eyes.

"That person told me these eyes are called the Sharingan." Roy's voice was soft. "They are the bloodline power unique to the Uchiha Clan, an instinct carved into the bloodline."

"Bloodline."

Mila repeated the word.

"Has our bloodline been changed?"

The Tomoe in Roy's eyes paused for a moment.

Mila stood and walked to the corner of the kitchen, then crouched down.

One section of the floor by the wall was loose, raised less than a finger's width above the other planks. No one would notice it without looking carefully.

She hooked her fingernail beneath its edge and gently lifted it.

Beneath the floor was a shallow compartment, just large enough to hold something the size of a palm.

A small box.

Mila took out the box, set it on the table, and opened it.

The Tomoe lay inside. A fine crack ran across its middle, with a streak of dark red, almost coagulated, embedded within it.

Mila stared at that dark red streak for a long time.

"Father injured his hand that day."

Her voice was flat.

She extended a finger over the Tomoe without touching it.

"His blood dripped onto it and flowed into this crack."

She pulled her finger back.

"Then the five of us all felt the same thing at the same moment. Deep inside our eyes, it felt like something was swelling."

She raised her head, looked at Roy's Sharingan, then pointed at the Tomoe.

"My guess is that this belonged to an Uchiha Clan member. His blood was sealed inside the crack. Father's blood came into contact with his blood, and then Father—and us, his blood relatives—awakened the Uchiha bloodline."

The kitchen fell quiet for a while.

"So our bloodline was changed," Roy said.

"Not changed. Awakened. Evolved. Call it whatever you want. Or maybe it was always supposed to be this way." Mila lowered her hand from the table.

"The blood in the Tomoe was the seed. Father's blood was the soil. The seed fell into the soil, and we grew from it."

She looked at the two Tomoe in Roy's eyes.

"The dreams, awakening the eyes, inheriting swordsmanship and Fire Release—they're all the same. They are all things grown from that seed."

Roy lowered his head and looked at the fan he had drawn.

He had been drawing it all morning. He had not known why while he was drawing; after waking up, his mind had been filled with this pattern, and unless he put it down on the board, he could not think of anything else.

"So are we chosen ones?" Roy asked.

Mila did not answer immediately.

She removed the Tomoe from the box. Like that night a year ago, the dark red crack across its middle looked almost translucent in the morning light, like an old scar.

"Chosen."

She put the Tomoe back into the box and closed the lid. The fan-shaped engraving on the lid sat in silence.

"I don't like that way of putting it."

"Why?"

"Being chosen makes it sound like someone else made the decision for us." Mila pushed the box back to the center of the table.

"But no one made that decision for us. That Uchiha Clan member died who knows how many years ago. Father's blood dripping onto it was an accident, and the changes to our bodies were the result. From beginning to end, no one asked whether we wanted this, and no one gave us a chance to choose."

She paused.

"But now, we can choose."

Roy looked at her.

"The thing is in our hands. The power is in our bodies. We have practiced swordsmanship for a year. You have awakened the Sharingan, and we can learn Fire Release too." Mila's voice was quiet, but every word landed firmly.

"How we move forward from here is our own business, not that dead person's."

Roy was silent for a while. Then he picked up the charcoal again.

"So this pattern I drew..."

"It's a family crest," Mila said.

"What?"

"A family crest—the clan emblem of that Uchiha Clan member." Mila pointed at the fan on the canvas.

Roy lowered his head to look at the canvas. The black charcoal lay against the gray-white background of the waxwood, like ink spilled across paper.

She turned and went upstairs, the wooden steps creaking softly beneath her feet.

After climbing several steps, she stopped again.

"Brother Roy."

"Yeah?"

"When you finish drawing that family crest, give it to me. I'll sew it onto my clothes."

Roy looked up. Mila stood midway up the stairs, morning light streaming through the window behind her and turning her into a slender silhouette.

"Okay."

Mila continued upstairs, her footsteps fading one step at a time.

Roy was the only one left in the kitchen.

He pulled the canvas closer. Morning light crept from the corner of the table to the center of the board, shining on the fan.

The mist over White Wax Town was beginning to clear.