A pale grey dawn broke over Konohagakure, and the sky seemed to agree with its sombre mood, no warm sun, no bright clouds, only a heavy upper atmosphere suffused in dull, cold light.
The village lay quiet, subdued as though the very air remembered too well the price paid in the last war.
Drizzle began to fall even before Satoru stepped outside, each fine droplet kissing his skin, bounding along his shirt's collar, and pooling in rivulets along the ground.
He closed his eyes and tilted his head upward as if letting Earth's grief descend upon him. He swallowed the cold moisture and shivered before stepping back under the feeble shelter of a wooden porch.
It was time for the Memorial Ceremony.
Almost every villager, from elders to toddlers, had gathered in dark robes or pressed funeral wear.
Civilians, shinobi, academy kids, and young villagers, nearly half the entire population, attended; after the siege and collapse of supply lines during the war, no family had been untouched. Some lost parents, some siblings, and others mere neighbours who went hungry. The grief had come from battlefield and blockade alike.
Satoru, clad head to toe in black, felt it all pressing down like the rain, fitting, somehow. He thought of his father, Takeshi Yamanaka, and his mother, Hana Uchiha, buried together, behind silver markers etched with quiet finality. He felt as if he carried their memories in a chest of cold stone.
By the large wooden platform set against the mountain engraved with Hashirama, Tobirama, and Hiruzen, villagers huddled. Rain fell quietly, rhythmic pit‑pat on umbrella canopies and armour plates. The cemetery lilies glowed that unfazed white only rain can bring, and tall cypress and pine whispered overhead.
Minato Namikaze stepped forward. As Hokage, his presence carried promise. He carried a single white lily—supposedly to be placed in the village's communal memorial pool. A soft slosh came as he dipped it in, then gently let it go. It drifted, floating in mourning.
"Today, we mourn the brave men and women who gave their lives in the Third Great War," his voice rang out. "They fought for this village, for peace, and for children, your children…my children."
The lily floated onward.
Tears brimmed in the eyes of every onlooker, and Minato's vow, short as it was, filtered through the rain.
Satoru closed his eyes, taking in the delicate act of reconciliation between memory and reality: grief and what remained. He realized emotional tears came as unexpectedly as rain.
How fitting, this village, shaded by sudden death and yet watching brightness ahead, draped in mourning cloaked with stoic acceptance.
Yet for someone who had been dead once, whose own birth had been rewired, sorrow tasted raw.
Minato offered quiet words of peace, comfort, and gratitude, his usual blend of calm charisma and half-hidden heartache. Satoru was surprised anyone could speak through this mist and make it work.
He almost…felt sorry for the original Satoru for living through this at such a young age.
At that moment, the procession began in solemn stillness.
The march to the burial grounds was slow, like dropping petals into mud. Umbrellas bobbed in steady rhythm. Each footstep forced stools of grief into the air. Satoru looked over to see whole families gathered near vaults. Rain tapped overhead like a sympathizer. No one flinched or flustered, their silence was shared.
Around him, other orphans walked, their cheeks streaked with grief, faces wet with tears. It was their first time losing blood relatives. One young girl sobbed so quietly it sounded like trapped rain on leaves. Others hugged each other like drifting boats searching for stability.
Satoru was the only one of them who remained dry.
He kept his composure partly out of practice, partly out of detachment. At the back, he watched them break. He didn't mind; in fact, he respected it. Let those whose hearts snapped open weep. He half-wished he had the same capacity for outpouring.
'My parents, one Yamanaka, one Uchiha…gone,' he thought.
'Now I, this body, walk through sorrow carved into tombstones.'
He followed Akari through the rows of graves. The burial grounds were a sprawling patchwork of stones, some blank, others etched with names in crisp kanji. A cold wind tugged at the markers, and mist softened the inscriptions.
Akari guided him gently, stopping at the graves of Hana Uchiha and Takeshi Yamanaka. Their names ornate beneath cherry blossom carvings, symbols of fleeting beauty and halting life.
Satoru's legs gave a slight tremble. He kneeled before them; rain ran down the polished black surfaces.
Then it happened.
"Why… why am I crying?" Satoru muttered, voice fracturing like a cracked mask. His breath hitched, and the words tumbled out more as a gasp than a question.
"You were dead years ago. I… shouldn't feel this."
The rain ran down his face without mercy, joining the tears that refused to stop. He sank to his knees in the mud, the soft squelch of soaked earth beneath him barely registering.
His small hands balled into fists, digging into the dirt beside the gravestones. He bowed low, forehead nearly touching the stone, and the tears began to pour freely, sharp, hot, and senseless.
The silence around him seemed to stretch, thick and suffocating. Every drop of rain that hit his back or hair or shoulders sounded like a drumbeat against mourning.
His body trembled, shoulders rising and falling, as if something deep inside him was trying to claw its way out. A wounded howl of the soul, trapped behind clenched teeth.
He had felt sadness before, frustration, fear, even anger at the world into which he had been thrown. But this? This was a kind of grief that didn't belong to him.
Or so he thought.
He didn't know.
'For once,' Satoru realized through the swirl of feeling, 'I can't block this.'
He had mastered detachment, coping by intellectualizing everything: his new world, his strange gifts. But now, his soul stood bare beneath the deluge.
"The grief isn't mine… not really." His mind echoed with trembling logic. "But maybe… maybe it belongs to this world. Maybe to the soul who came before me. Maybe to both of us."
And he didn't care anymore.
He reached forward slowly, reverently. His fingers traced the kanji of their names etched into the gravestones: Yamanaka Takeshi. Uchiha Hana.
They were beautiful names. Solid names. The kind of names you'd put into lullabies and legends.
The stone was cold, smooth, and unyielding. He brushed his fingertips along the grooves again and again, as if the act itself might let him feel them, sense their chakra, hear their voices in the wind.
"I... I'm sorry," he whispered, lips trembling.
"I don't know if you can hear me, I am sorry for your loss. You were too young for this. I am not even sure how I took over your body, but I promise to make it strong enough so that nothing takes away anything you love again. Even Death."
His voice cracked. He hoped the original Satoru, the behind all these emotions was at least listening.
"I'll make you proud."
His chest ached, not just emotionally—physically, like someone had planted a paper talisman over his heart and torn it off. Raw. Bloody.
He folded over himself again, sobbing in earnest this time.
A sudden presence broke through the veil of solitude.
A shadow beside him. Tall. Familiar.
"I'm sorry, Satoru."
The words came softly.
Satoru flinched. It wasn't fear. It was anger. Embarrassment. Fury that someone had dared to witness this moment. He didn't need pity, especially not now.
He knew that voice. Too well.
Yamanaka Jun.
'Not now… Not the time and place, bro. Seriously?' Satoru thought bitterly, still hunched over. His tears had not stopped, and his body refused to obey him, to get up, to lash out, to speak.
He didn't turn. Didn't look.
He could hear the footsteps squelch closer in the mud.
Jun stood beside him without saying anything for a moment, offering his presence like a blanket.
"You need to be strong," Jun finally said, voice low. "For your parents. That's what they would have wanted."
A muscle in Satoru's jaw ticked. That old line. Strong for the dead. Carry the legacy. Was that really all there was to it?
Instead, he said nothing. Just let his fingers curl tighter into fists.
'This is getting annoying,' he thought.
But then something shifted inside him, a flicker of insight, sharp and cold as a blade.
An idea.
If Jun wanted strength... then strength he would see.
He let the pain focus him, funnelling into a single point. His chakra swirled low in his gut, coalescing like storm clouds over a battlefield. Something clicked deep inside.
Satoru lifted his head, eyes closed tight, tears mixing with rain. The storm above was nothing compared to the torrent behind his eyelids.
"I miss them," he whispered again, almost inaudible.
Then he opened his eyes.
Blood-red.
One tomoe, spinning slowly.
Satoru turned toward Jun, at last, face streaked with rain and tears.
"I miss my parents," he said, voice low but clear.
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