Kurama Setsuko

Setsuna first met Kurama Setsuko at the communal Cremation Ground outside the Uchiha Ancestral Graveyard.

The communal Cremation Ground was a stretch of packed earth, with four cremation pits dug side by side. Years of smoke and fire had blackened their bottoms and walls.

Cremation was an Uchiha tradition. The Sharingan was far too precious; burying their dead would inevitably stir the greed of those who coveted it and invite disaster. As a result, few people came here.

The Uchiha had fought no major battles that month. The only exception was the child blown to pieces by Explosive Tags during the last mission to deliver supplies to Hagoromo. His family had erected a cenotaph.

Aside from Setsuna's parents and his unborn little brother, only two people awaited cremation here-a fifteen-year-old boy and a sixty-five-year-old man.

The old man had his daughter and grandson there to see him off.

Beside the boy's cremation pit, however, stood only his four-year-old little brother, still sucking his fingers, unable to understand what death meant.

Toshihi stood outside the cremation pit with Setsuna in his arms. He had already explained, without inserting his own feelings, how Huorong had died saving Kurama Setsuko and how that related to what had happened.

Setsuna lowered his head and looked into the cremation pit.

Huorong lay quietly in his coffin, his long black hair falling smoothly beside his shoulders.

Shunzi lay in the coffin beside him, with a small wooden box by her hand. Inside it was Setsuna's little brother, who had yet to fully form. His mother's black hair, spiky as a sea urchin, still stuck out stubbornly even in death.

Setsuna instinctively rubbed his smooth scalp, mourning his shaved-off sea-urchin hair-it turned out he had inherited it from his mother.

Only now did he feel a real connection to this world.

He really did have parents. He was not some C-rank ninja conjured out of thin air, whose profile offered nothing beyond "the Uchiha's number-one rebel."

They had given birth to him, loved him, held him, and lived with him for five and a half years.

But today, a single fire would sever that bond of blood.

The tragedy that had befallen his parents and unborn brother had been caused by Kurama Setsuko's sudden mental breakdown.

Should I hate her?

Setsuna did not know.

He had hated the planners' favoritism, hated his pathetic stats, hated opposing players' massive AoE attacks, hated his own players' clumsy hands, hated his teammates' stupidity and idiocy, and hated botched moves during matches.

But he had never experienced this kind of hatred-the hatred between people born from losing family.

In this entire world, Sasuke Uchiha was the only one who lived bearing the hatred of losing his parents and his entire clan.

Setsuna began to understand, just a little, that boy who had nearly been crushed by hatred, whose mind held nothing but revenge.

Everything had been taken from him. Apart from revenge, he had nothing.

Now, Setsuna could no longer be someone who stood at a distance and mocked Sasuke Uchiha for thinking of nothing but vengeance.

But did he really have the right to hate Kurama Setsuko? She was the girl Huorong had sacrificed his own life to save.

Yes, a girl.

A girl of twelve or thirteen.

He had imagined every possible version of Setsuko-a gorgeous, sultry beauty who had captured Huorong's heart, or a pitiful-looking little manipulator who used her frailty as a weapon.

Yet he had never imagined Kurama Setsuko would look like the person before him.

Setsuna's gaze passed over the cremation pit toward the cordon outside the Cremation Ground.

That small, thin figure had been stopped beyond it.

She was not tall. She wore a gray-blue shinobi uniform, her brown hair tied into two braids, with cracked, round-framed glasses perched on her nose.

She looked both timid and dowdy.

The guard had stopped her outside the communal Cremation Ground. She stumbled over her words, unable to get out even a complete sentence.

"I, I... I'm... here to..."

The guard repeated the Cremation Ground's rules without expression. "Any outsider who approaches the Uchiha Clan's cremation pits will be treated as someone seeking to steal the Sharingan."

Tears welled in her eyes. Her lips moved as she tried to explain, but the more frantic she became, the less she could make herself understood.

In the end, Toshihi spoke up.

"Let her in. She's Huorong's partner. Let her see him off."

The guard hesitated, looking at Toshihi, then at the girl on the verge of tears. Finally, he stepped aside.

The girl hastily bowed deeply to Toshihi, fumbling to steady her glasses. She approached the cremation pit with short, hurried steps, unable to stop her tears from falling.

Setsuna clicked his tongue and looked away.

Just a little crybaby. Nothing to fear. With her being this weak, no wonder she'd broken down and gotten my whole family killed.

But how had someone so cowardly become a ninja? And how had she become partners with... Huorong?

"I hate you," Setsuna said, his voice muffled.

Toshihi patted his back, only to have Setsuna knock his hand away.

Setsuko paused, her tears falling even harder. "I know," she said.

"I hate you," Setsuna repeated.

Clutching the hem of her clothes in both hands, Setsuko knelt before the cremation pit, pressing her forehead to the ground and apologizing over and over. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Her tears struck the ground one by one, spreading into dark stains.

Setsuna squirmed, trying to slide out of Toshihi's arms.

"Setsuna? Your feet haven't healed yet," Toshihi called out worriedly.

Setsuna slapped Toshihi's chest. "Put me down. I don't want to show weakness in front of the person who got my parents killed."

Those words stunned both Toshihi and Setsuko.

Setsuna seized that moment to jump out of Toshihi's arms. Pain in the soles of his feet made him stagger several times before he found his balance.

He took a few stumbling steps, gritting his teeth against the pain, and stopped in front of Setsuko. He looked down at her trembling body, curled into a ball on the ground.

Kneeling before Setsuna, this twelve-year-old girl somehow looked smaller than the little boy who was only half her age.

She kept apologizing, as though "I'm sorry" were the only words left in her vocabulary.

"Stop saying you're sorry," Setsuna said. "It won't bring anyone back to life, and I won't forgive you."

The girl went still for a moment, then began trembling even harder.

"Please kill me." Broken sobs spilled uncontrollably from her throat.

Toshihi took a step forward, then stopped. He felt he had no right to prevent Setsuna from lashing out at Kurama Setsuko.

But Setsuna said something that took them both completely by surprise.

"Stand up. Live with dignity. Then show me what made you worth my whole family's lives to save."

Kurama Setsuko snapped her head up. For the first time, she looked intently at this boy who was not yet six.

A gray cloth robe far too large for him hung from his body. His baby-fat cheeks looked puffed with anger, and the whites showing beneath his irises made him seem perpetually furious.

Sunlight shone on his smooth scalp, making him look almost comical.

Yet the words this boy had spoken shook her to her core.

"Staying this cowardly would be the real insult to Huorong and Shunzi," Setsuna said.

The autumn wind swept fallen leaves across the ground.

"...Yes." Kurama Setsuko wiped away her tears and struggled to her feet. "I have to do right by Brother Huorong and Sister Shunzi."

"Hmph." Setsuna snorted coldly and turned away, looking down at his parents from the edge of the cremation pit.

The system's cold voice sounded in his ears-

Ding. Changed Kurama Setsuko's fate of dying to join the deceased. Rebellion points +15.

The guard's voice came from outside the Cremation Ground's gate, breaking the heavy silence.

"Clan Head."

A languid voice drifted in from outside.

"Am I late?"