The night Naruto Uzumaki was born, rain pressed softly against the tiled roofs of Konoha, as if the village itself were holding its breath. Thunder rolled far from the walls, distant and uninterested. Inside a modest building near the outskirts, a third cry joined the first two.
It was weaker than Naruto's, sharper than Sasuke's.
The midwife paused for half a heartbeat, then wrapped the child in cloth and handed him off without ceremony. There was no prophecy attached to this birth, no seal carved into flesh, no clan elders waiting outside the door. Just another infant, born as chaos crept toward the village.
His name would be Kiyoshi.
He would never learn the names of his parents. They died before morning, casualties of the Nine-Tails' rampage. No last words, no hidden inheritance, no scroll tucked away for later. By dawn, Kiyoshi was alone in a crowded orphanage, another mouth to feed in a village that would never truly look at him.
And yet, the moment his eyes opened, the world made sense.
Not emotionally. Not morally. Structurally.
The ceiling beams formed clean angles. The flickering lantern followed a predictable rhythm. The chakra in the air—thin, unsettled—moved like water disturbed by a thrown stone. Kiyoshi did not think these things in words. He simply understood them.
He cried, because newborns cried. But even then, something inside him was already watching.
Kiyoshi grew quietly.
The orphanage was loud, crowded, and poorly maintained. Children fought over food. Adults shouted. Windows rattled in the wind. None of it surprised him. Patterns repeated. People repeated. Anger followed hunger. Kindness followed guilt.
By the time he could walk, he could predict which floorboards would creak. By the time he could speak, he knew which caretaker would respond to politeness and which would punish it.
He learned early not to say too much.
When other children struggled to copy kanji, Kiyoshi watched their hands instead of the paper. Stroke order. Pressure. Hesitation. After seeing it once, he could replicate it perfectly. When a caretaker demonstrated how to mend clothing, he didn't need instruction. The motion, the tension in the thread, the reason behind each step—all of it settled into place.
No effort. No strain.
So he failed on purpose.
A smudged character here. A crooked stitch there. Enough to seem normal. Enough to be overlooked.
At night, when the lights dimmed and the village settled, Kiyoshi lay awake and listened. He could hear chakra in motion now, faint but distinct.
A distant patrol ninja stepping across rooftops. A civilian's tired breath. The echo of something vast and hateful sealed deep within the village.
He did not ask questions.
Understanding came whether he wanted it or not.
At five years old, Kiyoshi found Naruto being beaten behind the orphanage.
Three older boys had cornered him near the fence. Naruto's face was dirty, his eyes wet with fury rather than fear. He swung wildly, punches clumsy and desperate.
Kiyoshi watched from several steps away.
He saw the mistakes immediately.
Naruto leaned too far forward when he punched. His footing was wrong. His breath was erratic. The boys exploited it without knowing how, reacting on instinct rather than skill. One struck Naruto in the stomach. Another shoved him into the dirt.
Before Kiyoshi realized he was moving, he stepped forward.
He picked up a rock.
Not large. Just enough.
He threw it.
The arc was clean. He adjusted instinctively for wind, distance, the boy's turn mid-laugh. The rock struck the side of the attacker's head. Not hard enough to fracture. Hard enough to shock.
The fight froze.
Kiyoshi didn't wait.
He ran.
Later, as Naruto sat sniffling on the steps, Kiyoshi handed him a cloth. Naruto stared at
him like he was trying to memorize his face.
"Why'd you help me?" Naruto asked.
Kiyoshi shrugged. "You were losing."
Naruto blinked, then laughed through his tears. Loud. Unrestrained. "Yeah! I was!"
Kiyoshi smiled faintly.
He noted Naruto's resilience. His recovery speed. The way his chakra surged when emotional. He filed it away.
He would do that a lot.
The Academy accepted them years later.
Kiyoshi sat near the back of the classroom, posture relaxed, eyes half-lidded. Iruka's voice washed over him. Chakra theory. History. Basic taijutsu stances.
It was all… simple.
When Iruka demonstrated a stance, Kiyoshi understood not only how it worked, but why. The balance point. The muscle engagement. The intent behind it. He could feel how the stance would fail if pushed from the side, how it could be modified to counter that weakness.
He didn't move.
Around him, students struggled.
Sasuke Uchiha absorbed lessons quickly but with tension, his focus sharp and inward. Naruto flailed, loud and frustrated, learning through brute repetition. Others fell somewhere in between.
Kiyoshi stayed invisible.
During sparring, he lost often.
Not because he couldn't win.
Because winning attracted attention.
When a classmate overextended, Kiyoshi sidestepped too late. When an opening appeared, he hesitated. He let himself be knocked down, just enough to seem average. Iruka nodded, satisfied. Improvement would come with time, he said.
Kiyoshi agreed silently.
Time was abundant.
That night, alone beneath a flickering streetlamp, Kiyoshi practiced.
Not forms. Not techniques.
He watched his own chakra.
He didn't force it. He observed it the way one might observe breathing. The flow responded immediately. When he imagined rotation, it rotated. When he imagined compression, it obeyed.
The realization settled without fanfare.
Chakra followed understanding.
He stopped at once.
Too dangerous.
He let the flow return to normal, heart steady. No witnesses. No mistakes.
Above him, clouds drifted slowly across the moon.
Kiyoshi exhaled.
The world was full of secrets. Some were hidden because they were dangerous. Others because they were misunderstood.
His talent was neither.
It was something else entirely.
And for now, it would remain his alone.