•Chapter 1•

A 7 month old Uchiha who sat at the grassy garden of his house looked up at the sunny blue sky. The infant held a feeling of nostalgia as his eyes continued to gaze at the sunny blue sky, an unwavering gaze.

Only when his mother came down and carried him back to his crib did the infant finally stop his gaze at the sky. He shifted his attention onto the humming woman who held him, an odd feeling of comfort and warmth bloomed.

One could see love for the woman, but beyond that a part of him knew that he could never accept her whole-heartedly.

He vividly remembers that he had lived in the absence of parents, abandoned at birth in the doorsteps of a rural church. He grew with other orphans before they had a test.

A mana test, the men who came had said.

And he had passed, with a very high score as well, earning him the rights to escape the orphanage.

He knew, deep down, that if he were to stay in that orphanage he would be sold off to nobility, maybe as a pet or as a stress reliever. It was better to escape into the unknown than to die in the hands of golden spoonfed nobles.

Despite calling themselves servants and messengers of God, they were despicable, using any means to gain wealth. They sold the orphans as though they were nothing but calfs for sale, even though they knew that the orphans would be sexually or verbally harrassed. They pretended to love the children before finally pushing the orphans to their doom.

He frowned at this thought.

'Who're they?' he pondered, 'What was that?'

He doesn't remember what it was, why he had that— the disgusting memory was embedded onto him, like a parasitic pest.

* * *

The closest thing the boy had to a parental figure were the nuns who raised him. Even then, they weren't a good parental figure.

The woman before him, he could feel she was different from the thing he saw, but being different wasn't always a good thing and he continued to assess his birthmother.

'This world, it's nice,' he thought, 'Beautiful. . .'

The thought of feeling a sense of happiness looking at this world did cause him to wonder why he felt at odds with it, like a foreign world.

The woman didn't stop humming until after the Uchiha infant felt a sense of drowsiness wash over him. His eyelids grew heavier by the second and he unconsciously reached out to his birthmother.

The woman, his mother, had long black hair that reached her waist with her bangs swept to the sides, her black eyes were gentle and caring (something the infant secretly liked), she was neither too short nor too tall, overall she looked like the definition of a beauty.

She gave the infant her signature smile and allowed the infant to hold onto her index with his chubby hand as she continued to rock the infant to sleep, singing a bewitching lullaby.

"Sleep now my love, this beautiful world can wait for you are my love and stop time shall I. Do you remember the field we ran across? The coquelicot flowers that bloomed when we came running down the hill." She sang, "Hush now little one, we'll always be together as we share the same bright blue sky. Dream of me, dream of the coquelicot flowers that bloomed when we ran together. . ."

And the bewitching lullaby came to an end.

* * *

"Ab Br Wa aA!" the infant spoke some gibberish as he stared at the growing lush greenery outside the sliding door of his porch.

The woman gave the jabbering infant her signature smile and slowly walk to the garden, carrying him with a makeshift baby carrier from a white blanket.

Her steps were delicate and she would sometimes stop to rock her infant.

There were still wet dews from the morning rain and it cause the plantations to reflect the sunlight, making it twinkle under the exposure. A small fading rainbow decorated the garden and for a while, everything felt peaceful.

'Why. . .do. . . I feel. . . sad?' the infant thought whilst mumbling out some gibberish.

A tear escaped his left eye.

Seeing this, the mother slightly widened her eyes before she sang the same bewitching lullaby to comfort the crying baby.

"Sshh, mama's here. . ." she whispered and gently pecked the infant.

'It's warm, comfortable. . .' the infant thought as he embraced the warmth of his birthmother, closing his eyes and succumbing to sleep.

* * *

"I'm home!" A masculine voice boomed, disrupting the previous tranquility.

"Welcome home, dear." the woman replied in a jovial tone and readied lunch for her husband.

"How's my little Riku doing?" he said and tickled the chin of the infant.

In response to his father's question, the infant let out a gurgle, flashing a closed-eye smile.

His father was a tall sun-kissed man of thin stature, with short ashy brown hair who often times only wore one single outfit consisting of a green vest, black shirt, gloves and pants.

Sometimes, Riku wondered how the male was able to marry his birth mother. 'Love's love' he would reason to himself.

"Lunch's ready!" his mother called out from the kitchen.

"Comin' !" his father replied and single-handedly carried the infant on his arm while he made his way to the dining table.

Looking at the solid food on the table, the infant couldn't help but drool. His saliva contaminated the baby tray underneath him and his eyes looked as though it could drill holes.

Chuckling at his action, his father took a small bite-size portion of Natto and put his index up, making a barely audible shushing noise.

Riku's eyes twinkled at the food and opened his mouth, wide enough for the spoon to enter.

Immediately, his expression turned sour. The once curious bright looks was replaced with a disgusted expression and the natto fell down the table the moment it made contact with his tongue.

Looking at the hilariously cute reaction, the father roared a laughter, earning a smack on the head from his wife.

"Seriously, stop tricking Riku dear!" she reprimanded despite the lingering smile on her face.

Betrayal and deceit, Riku learned of that again, before he slept the time away.

* * *

A small blue butterfly landed on the nose of the 8 month old Uchiha. In response, the infant shook his head vigorously and sneeze, causing the butterfly to fly away.

The mother who was carrying the infant quietly laughed at the interaction of her son and the butterfly. It was the first time she brought the infant out on a walk.

Ever since the rampage of the kyūbi, the villagers had been secretly throwing disdainful glares and harsh insult behind their backs. Though Uchiha children rarely pick up the unwelcoming vibe, the Uchiha adults were able to feel the underlying tension.

As the mother walked around the nearby street, which was still kilometres away since the Uchiha compound was now situated on the outskirts of the village, the infant began to look around. Several fan crests waere painted on the cement walls, red on the upper area and white on the lower area. The crest that was also present on his family's outfits.

Seeing that the infant was throwing curious glances at the Uchiha Clan symbols painted on the walls of the compound, the mother smiled and explained, "That's our clan symbol Riku. The Uchiha clan."

Another memory flashed before him.

This time, it was a flag.

A blue flag with a red dot and thin yellow crosses in the centre, raised in a field of fire. It stood and waved proudly despite the burning green-ish flames surrounding it. In the distant, he could hear echoes of cries as the flag continued to wave at its full glory. Despair reeked from the memory and he found himself frozen as the flames grew dangerously close to him.

"Ku? Riku?" a soft voice called out, snapping the infant away from his resurfacing memories.

The infant turn his head to face the source of the voice, his pale expression returned into the previous sleepy-like face. The memories seeped back into the back of his mind as it erased the trails of ever resurfacing.

The mother patted his back reassuringly and hummed another melody. 

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