The mist settled thick over the treetops like a lingering breath from the dead. Aiko stood silently near the edge of the forest, her senses pricked, her hands clenched beneath the folds of her cloak. The wind howled faintly, whispering something indistinct. But one thing was clear someone had called her name. Not with a voice but with chakra.
She could feel it deep in her bones.
It wasn't Sasuke's.
Not this time.
Sasuke had gone to meet with Naruto in the outskirts of the Fire Daimyo's estate a mission that was supposed to last two days. Before leaving, he'd sealed the perimeter with his own chakra tags and instructed her not to step outside the main house unless absolutely necessary. And she hadn't.
Until now.
Something was wrong.
That feeling had returned like eyes watching from the shadows, like the ground was humming beneath her feet.
And then it called again.
"Aiko…"
It was like her name was woven into the wind itself.
She spun around.
Empty air. Trees. Mist.
No one.
But the pull was real. It yanked at her center, the same way chakra threads tug a puppet. Unnatural. Dark.
She grabbed the kunai hidden under her sleeve and stepped cautiously into the forest.
Meanwhile, Sasuke moved through the treetops with unsettling speed. Naruto had delayed him insisting they discuss intel from Sai's latest surveillance, something about renewed movements from Danzo's old root faction. But Sasuke had grown restless halfway through the meeting.
He felt it.
Not through chakra, not through logic something far older, far more primal.
Something was threatening her.
He didn't need proof.
He knew.
Aiko's sandals crunched the fallen leaves beneath her as she reached a clearing. She had no memory of how far she'd gone only that the pull hadn't stopped. Her breaths came sharp now, the forest heavier. Too quiet. Even the birds had stopped singing.
And then she saw it.
A man.
Draped in black. No hitai-ate. No village symbol. His face was covered in a half-mask, but his chakra… it felt wrong. Twisted. Root-like.
"Who are you?" Aiko demanded, kunai raised.
"You were never meant to disappear," the man said in a calm, detached tone. "Danzo marked you long ago. You think a simple marriage to Uchiha Sasuke makes you safe?"
Her heart pounded.
Danzo.
Sasuke had once hinted about Danzo's experiments how he'd taken orphans, outcasts, and turned them into weapons.
Aiko's childhood blurred in her mind how she'd always had gaps in her memory before the age of ten. The dreams. The fear of mirrors. The scar on her back.
"You're lying," she snapped.
The man didn't flinch. "You are property. Created, controlled, and now... reclaimed."
And then he attacked.
Sasuke saw the light before he reached the clearing a sudden burst of red chakra exploding like a silent scream into the sky. His eyes widened. Aiko.
He activated his Sharingan mid-air, chakra flaring so violently the birds fled in flocks. He didn't wait for trees he cut straight through them with his katana, branches and bark falling like snow.
Aiko's arms trembled as she tried to deflect the man's jutsu. His chakra was erratic like it had been stitched together with different lives. Each attack heavier, faster. He moved like someone trained under Root merciless, emotionless.
She wasn't strong like the others.
But she was no longer alone.
Not anymore.
She closed her eyes for a split second and remembered Sasuke's voice from nights ago.
"You don't need to be the strongest. You just need to survive long enough for me to reach you."
She pushed chakra to her legs and leapt back just in time to avoid a blade slicing toward her throat.
But she landed badly her ankle twisted. She fell hard, pain shooting through her leg.
The man stepped toward her.
"Time to go back," he said.
"I'm not going anywhere," she hissed.
And then
"Chidori Nagashi."
Lightning exploded through the air.
The man was thrown back ten meters, crashing against a tree.
Sasuke landed beside her, face darker than she'd ever seen.
His eyes were not just red they burned.
"You touched her," he growled. "You breathe near her again, and I will erase your existence from this world."
The Root agent staggered to his feet. "You don't know what she is what she was meant to become. She's a ghost, Uchiha. A living remnant of Danzo's sins. She's"
The words never finished.
Sasuke's blade pierced through the man's chest before he could utter another syllable.
He didn't even blink.
The man fell.
Dead.
Sasuke turned, kneeling beside Aiko. His voice softened.
"You're hurt."
Aiko nodded slightly, her breath shaky.
"I didn't go looking for him," she said quickly, guilt coloring her tone. "He… called me. Like chakra pulling me out here. It wasn't"
"I know," he cut her off gently. "You don't have to explain."
He reached down and lifted her into his arms.
She gripped his cloak tightly. "Sasuke… who am I?"
His jaw tightened.
She'd asked before, but now… now the question burned. After everything.
He looked into her eyes.
"You're my wife," he said. "That's all that matters."
"But what if there's more? What if Danzo what if I'm not just a girl from a village? What if I was made"
"I don't care what Danzo did. You are not his. You never were."
She wanted to believe him.
But deep down, she knew this was only the beginning.
That night, back at their hideout, Sasuke re-drew the seals on the windows. He layered the chakra tags fivefold. He barely slept.
And when Aiko finally drifted int
o slumber, her head resting against his shoulder, he whispered into the dark.
"If they want to come for you…"
He stared at the door.
"…they'll have to go through me."
The forest was quieter than usual.
Aiko's heartbeat thundered in her chest as she crouched behind the thick trunk of a sakura tree, her breath shallow and controlled. The scent of damp earth and sakura blossoms filled her lungs, grounding her to the moment. Her fingers trembled around the kunai's hilt, still unused, still stainless. It was sharp enough to slice through skin, and the thought made her stomach twist.
Sasuke's voice echoed in her mind.
"You don't strike to scare. You strike to end it."
That had been his only lesson that morning stern, cold, and final. There was no mercy in his eyes. No hesitation. Only the quiet expectation that she would obey.
But now, she was alone.
No guiding hand. No voice in the shadows.
Just her and the targetn a rogue ninja with a bounty high enough to attract attention even from the Leaf. Aiko wasn't meant to take the mission alone. But fate cruel and precise had cornered her when the backup team was delayed, and the target had already found her.
She swallowed hard, her eyes narrowing as the rogue shinobi stepped into the clearing. Tall, broad-shouldered, his face hidden behind a cracked porcelain mask with jagged red markings. Aiko could feel the bloodlust radiating from him like a physical presence.
She had no choice now.
He had seen her.
"You look like a lost lamb," he growled, voice deep and cruel. "Did Konoha really send a child to deal with me?"
Aiko stepped out slowly, her grip tight on the kunai. "I'm not a child," she replied, surprising herself with how steady she sounded. "And I'm not lost."
He laughed. "But you're afraid."
She didn't deny it. "Yes. I am."
His head tilted slightly.
"But I'll kill you anyway," she whispered.
Then she moved.
Fast. Faster than she'd ever trained before. Her body knew what to donSasuke had drilled it into her bones. Feints, misdirection, the low strike, the twist of her hipsnher blade sang through the air, aimed at the exposed gap between mask and collar.
He blocked it easily.
Pain bloomed across her ribs as he struck back, a brutal punch that sent her skidding across the grass. Her breath whooshed out, but she forced herself up. There was no time to think. No time to cry.
She lunged again.
This time he countered with a kunai of his own. Steel clashed against steel. Sparks flew. He grinned behind the mask.
"You've got some fire," he hissed. "Who trained you?"
She didn't answer.
Sasuke's name didn't belong on her lips. Not here.
He caught her wrist mid-strike and slammed her to the ground. The world spun. Her vision blurred. His weight pinned her down, his blade poised at her neck.
"Too bad," he said. "You could've been useful."
Aiko's free hand reached under her cloak. She grabbed the second kunai hidden in her sash and drove it upward.
Into his gut.
A gasp tore from his throat. His eyes widened behind the mask.
Her blade twisted.
He collapsed.
She didn't move for a second. Just stared as he fell beside her, twitching once… then going still.
Blood soaked into the grass.
Her kunai dripped crimson.
And then, the silence.
Aiko sat against a tree, arms limp, staring at her blood-stained hands. They wouldn't stop shaking. The adrenaline had long left her body, and what remained was cold, raw guilt clinging to her like a second skin.
She didn't cry.
She didn't scream.
She just sat there… hollow.
She didn't hear Sasuke approach until his cloak brushed the leaves beside her.
He didn't speak.
She didn't look up.
But she felt his presence like a winter storm at her back.
Finally, his voice came, low and unreadable. "You survived."
"Yes," she whispered.
He crouched beside her and took her wrist, inspecting the bruises. His touch was clinical. Detached. But she could feel something simmering beneath the surface anger… and something else.
"You killed him."
"Yes."
There was a long pause.
"Do you regret it?" he asked.
Aiko looked up at him, her eyes tired. "Yes."
Another pause. Longer this time.
"Good," he finally said. "Never stop regretting it."
She blinked.
His hand moved to her face, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. It was the gentlest touch he had ever offered.
"Because the day you stop feeling is the day you become like me."
Aiko didn't reply.
She didn't need to.
Because deep down, she knew she had taken her first step into his world.
And there was no going back.
Sasuke stood under the Moonlight, his Sharingan glowing faintly as he watched Aiko sleep near the fire, wrapped in his cloak.
He had watched many die.
He had taken many lives.
But today watching her return from that battlefield, blood on her hands, pain in her eyes something inside him cracked.
He had wanted to protect her from this.
From that.
But he knew this world didn't allow mercy.
He turned away from the fire and looked toward the horizon.
War was coming.
And Aiko his wife, his secret would soon be in the center of it.