The sun rose hard and fast over the desert—no warning, no softness, just heat dropping onto the dunes like a thrown weight.
Uzuhana walked.
Every step hurt. Her body felt raw and rearranged, her breath a thin rasp in her chest. The cloak stuck to her back with sweat. Her legs trembled every few steps, but she kept the baby tucked close, shielding him from the glare.
She didn't dare stop.
Stopping meant dying out here—if not from heat, then from the men who would be following.
The storm from the night before had carved straight lines through the dunes, wiping away every landmark she knew. Even the wind felt thinner, the air stripped clean. It left her with nothing but sand and the steady throb of her heartbeat in her ears.
Arashiya slept against her, quiet as a held breath. Too quiet.
Uzuhana slowed, fear creeping up her spine—but then she felt it: a soft flicker of chakra against her ribs. Like a spark tapping glass.
Alive.
Strange, but alive.
She pushed forward.
Hours bled together. The dunes sharpened into ridges, the light grew merciless, and Uzuhana's vision started to blur at the edges. Her lips were cracked. Her water was long gone. Her chakra reserves were scraping bottom.
But she kept walking.
She didn't even hear the shinobi at first—just the air shifting wrong, like a blade passing through silk.
She froze.
A silhouette stood on the crest of the next dune. Cloaked. Masked. One hand hovering near a scroll at his hip. His stance was too balanced to be a traveler.
A Suna shinobi.
Uzuhana's knees nearly buckled in relief.
"…Identify yourself," he called down, voice even. "This area is restricted."
She swallowed around a throat that felt scraped raw. "Uzuhana… Shiranai," she forced out. "Kiri-born. I defected. I'm seeking asylum."
For a moment, nothing moved.
Lightning cracked faintly across the newborn's skin, instinctive, frightened.
The shinobi tensed, chakra spiking. Uzuhana flinched.
"No," she rasped quickly. "He can't control it yet. Please. He's just a baby."
The man didn't relax, but he didn't attack either.
A soft flick of sand beside him signaled two more shinobi breaking camouflage. They exchanged low words she couldn't make out.
One approached her and knelt.
"We will confirm your defection," he said. "The Kazekage will decide the rest."
Uzuhana nodded, her vision swimming.
"Understood."
His hands reached toward the child.
Arashiya's eyes snapped open—icy pale, unsettling for a newborn.
A ripple of chakra pulsed outward. Sand shifted.
The shinobi jerked back. "What—"
"He's afraid," Uzuhana whispered, trying to steady her voice. "He doesn't understand."
Her strength finally failed. The world lurched sideways, and darkness surged up around her before she could say another word.
⸻
She woke to voices—low, clipped, serious.
Her eyes opened to a dimly lit room, clean sheets beneath her, herbs thick in the air. Someone had healed her—badly, but enough.
Uzuhana pushed herself upright.
Arashiya was beside her, bundled in fresh cloth. Sleeping again. His skin almost glowed under lamplight. Someone had cleaned him, too.
The curtain brushed aside.
A man stepped in.
Red hair. Black eyes. Expression unreadable.
Rasa, the Fourth Kazekage.
Uzuhana's breath stuttered. She bowed her head. "Lord Kazekage."
He didn't answer immediately. His gaze slid to the baby.
"…That child," he said at last, "is not ordinary."
Uzuhana's hands tightened in the sheets.
His tone didn't change. "During your approach, his chakra spiked. Uncontrolled. Elementally contradictory."
Lightning.
Water.
Earth.
Something deeper.
"And when he opened his eyes," Rasa added, "the sand rose without contact. Instinctive manipulation on that scale is… rare."
He didn't need to finish the sentence, or explain that by 'rare', he meant impossible—with one exception.
Uzuhana knew what he was implying.
"Explain him," Rasa said simply.
Uzuhana swallowed. The truth sat like lead in her stomach.
"…His father was Kaguya clan," she whispered.
Rasa's eyes narrowed—fractionally, but enough to chill her.
"The purges began," she continued. "My clan hid me. I was—" She paused, voice faltering. "The child carries Shikotsumyaku."
Rasa studied her for a long, silent moment.
"And?" he asked.
Uzuhana hesitated.
"His chakra… isn't only Kaguya," she admitted. "It feels wrong. Ancient. Cold. Like something I shouldn't be holding."
Rasa's expression didn't change, but something in the room tightened.
"Storm release?" he asked.
Uzuhana nodded.
"Strong."
He exhaled slowly, like someone choosing between paths he didn't like.
"You will remain here under watch," he said. "If you flee, you will be stopped. If the child loses control, he will be contained. If Kirigakure comes for him, Sunagakure will respond."
Uzuhana bowed her head. "Thank you, Lord Kazekage."
He turned toward the curtain, but paused.
"What is his name?" he asked.
Uzuhana looked down at her son—small, pale, strange, impossibly alive.
"Arashiya," she whispered.
Rasa nodded once.
"Then we will see," he said quietly, "what kind of storm he becomes."
He left.
Uzuhana gathered her son into her arms, tears slipping free.
"You will live," she whispered into his soft hair.
"I swear it."
Arashiya's fingers twitched.
A faint spark of lightning hummed.
Outside, the desert wind shifted just slightly, as if listening.