(AN: I wanted to say thank you to those who have taken the time to read my story. Its almost Christmas time has flown this year)
Raizo Uzumaki's first year of life began not with noise, but with silence.
It was the kind of silence that unsettled people who had raised children before. Newborns cried. They screamed, wailed, flailed, demanded the world acknowledge their arrival. Raizo had cried once—sharp, clear, powerful enough to make everyone in the room pause—and then he had stopped.
Not because he was weak.
Because he was watching.
Akane noticed it first, though she didn't say anything at the beginning. She told herself she was imagining things, that exhaustion after childbirth could make any mother overly alert. Still, the feeling lingered.
When she held Raizo against her chest, humming softly, he didn't squirm or fuss the way other infants did. His tiny body relaxed easily, but his eyes remained open, dark and focused. They followed her fingers as she absentmindedly traced simple sealing motions in the air—nothing active, nothing intentional. Just habit.
He didn't react to her voice.
He reacted to movement.
To flow.
Akane tested it without meaning to. She stopped moving her hands but kept humming. Raizo's eyes drifted, unfocused. Then she resumed the motion, slow and gentle, and his gaze snapped back immediately.
Her breath caught.
"He's… attentive," she murmured to herself, brushing the thought aside before it could take root.
Riku noticed different things.
At night, when the wind carried distant thunder across the ocean walls, Raizo stirred in his sleep. Not crying. Not waking. Just turning his head toward the sound, eyelids fluttering as though listening. When voices outside the house rose in anger or tension, Raizo's tiny hands twitched, fingers curling reflexively.
Too sharp.
Too aware.
Most days, it meant Raizo was an unusually calm baby. He rarely cried. Rarely demanded. Rarely startled. He simply observed, absorbing light, sound, and sensation as if the world itself were something to be studied.
To neighbors and passing villagers, he was a blessing—a quiet child, easy to care for, content in his mother's arms.
To Akane and Riku, he felt like something else entirely.
A storm waiting inside the body of an infant.
The first weeks settled into a gentle rhythm.
Akane carried Raizo through Uzushio's winding stone paths, wrapped securely against her chest in cloth embroidered with crimson spirals. The village greeted her warmly—familiar faces, quiet smiles, whispered congratulations. Uzumaki were communal by nature. Children belonged to the clan as much as to their parents.
But eyes followed Riku when he walked beside her.
Not hostile. Not openly suspicious.
Just… aware.
The Chinoike name still carried weight, even here. Even now.
Riku bore it without complaint. He had learned long ago that reacting only fed fear. Uzushio had accepted him once. That was enough.
Sometimes, Akane caught him watching Raizo while the child slept. Not smiling. Not frowning.
Thinking.
A complicated expression that balanced awe, fear, and hope in equal measure.
Hope always won.
When Raizo was two months old, Akane brought him to the central marketplace.
The air was alive with smells—grilled fish, ink, salt, fresh bread. Stalls lined the street in bright, uneven rows. Merchants shouted friendly greetings. Sealing artisans displayed brushes crafted from rare seabird feathers, their bristles shimmering faintly with chakra residue.
Raizo's eyes moved constantly.
Left. Right. Up. Down.
He tracked everything.
A fisherman tying an intricate knot caught his attention. The rope looped and twisted into a tight spiral, patterned and deliberate. Raizo reached for it, fingers curling reflexively toward the shape.
Akane stopped walking.
"He reacts to patterns," she murmured.
Riku glanced down. "Uzumaki trait?"
"Not like this," she replied softly.
They moved closer to the sea wall. Below, waves churned in slow spirals, crashing and retreating in endless rhythm. Raizo leaned toward the sound, small hands twitching as if trying to grasp the motion itself.
When Akane paused beside a carved stone spiral embedded in the wall, Raizo pressed his palm flat against it.
For a heartbeat, a faint glow shimmered beneath his skin.
Akane gasped. "Riku—"
He leaned in, but the glow vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
"She's tired," Riku said gently. "Maybe your chakra flared."
Akane nodded.
But she knew the truth.
That hadn't been her chakra.
Time passed.
Raizo grew faster than he should have.
By six months, he crawled with startling coordination, movements deliberate rather than clumsy. He pulled himself upright far earlier than expected, legs trembling but stubborn. Akane and Riku exchanged looks but said nothing.
At nine months, he stood gripping the edge of a chair, one hand braced, the other reaching for a dangling red talisman.
"He likes red," Akane said with a soft laugh.
Riku smiled faintly. "Half Uzumaki."
But Akane knew better. It wasn't color alone. It was reflection. Pattern. Emotion. Chakra.
If tension filled a room, Raizo grew restless. If laughter rang out, he calmed almost instantly.
He felt too much.
One evening, as the sun sank low over the ocean and painted the horizon in deep crimson, Akane prepared dinner while Raizo tottered across the floor. Riku chopped vegetables nearby, the rhythmic sound grounding.
Raizo stopped near the low shelf where scrolls were stored.
"Careful," Akane said gently.
He reached out.
Not grabbing.
Tracing.
His fingers followed the inked lines of a sealing scroll with slow, deliberate precision. Spirals. Anchors. Flow points.
Akane froze.
"Riku," she whispered. "Come here."
He crouched beside them. Raizo looked up, eyes bright, then tapped a specific symbol again.
"That's a stabilizing seal," Akane breathed. "He shouldn't even recognize shapes like that yet."
Riku watched silently. "But he does."
Raizo babbled, then traced the same symbol once more.
This child was not simply early.
He was different.
Raizo's first birthday was small but warm.
Family filled the house—siblings, cousins, familiar laughter. Uzumaki celebrations were modest but heartfelt. Food was shared. Stories exchanged. Life affirmed.
Raizo wore a tiny white robe trimmed in red. He toddled across the room, tripped over a cushion, fell, blinked once—and stood right back up.
His stamina was frightening.
Later, as the evening wound down, Riku sliced dried fruit for tea. The knife slipped.
A shallow cut.
Blood welled.
The world slowed.
Raizo froze.
His pupils contracted sharply. A faint crimson halo shimmered across his irises.
For a split second, something ancient stirred.
Riku's breath hitched.
Akane reacted instantly, lifting Raizo into her arms and turning him away. The red vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
"The Uzumaki blood strengthened his chakra," Akane whispered. "The Chinoike blood reacted too soon."
Riku wrapped his finger in cloth, eyes never leaving his son. "I'll protect him."
They said nothing more.
They didn't need to.
The summons came two weeks later.
A messenger arrived at dawn, bowing deeply. "The Council requests your presence. Bring the child."
Akane and Riku exchanged a heavy glance.
The Council Hall loomed at Uzushio's heart, seals spiraling endlessly across its walls. Seven elders waited within.
"Bring the child forward," the head elder said.
A talisman touched Raizo's forehead.
It glowed instantly.
Red spirals surged outward.
Beneath them—dark, jagged pulses.
"Two signatures," one elder whispered.
"Two cores," another said.
Raizo reached out—and mimicked the elder's hand seal.
Silence fell.
"He will be evaluated," the head elder said slowly. "Not as a threat. But as a child who may one day become a pillar."
That night, as Raizo slept beneath the moonlight, a faint red flicker passed beneath his closed eyelids.
Riku whispered, "Easy, little storm."
The red faded.
But destiny had already noticed him.
Thanks for reading, feel free to write a comment, leave a review, and Power Stones are always appreciated.
I have two other stories I am currently working on
The first story is called Reborn as Stephen Cooper it currently has 20 chapters go and check it out tell me your thoughts
The second story has a work in progress name but it is a story a soul reincarnated as Cain (Bible) in the world of TVD/Originals.