Kousuke learned quickly that time moved differently now.
Days passed in fragments. Waking. Crying. Being fed. Being held. Sleeping again. His body dictated everything, dragging his thoughts along with it whether he liked it or not. Hunger was loud and impossible to ignore. Exhaustion arrived suddenly and took control without asking.
Through it all, his memories stayed.
They did not fade. They did not blur. They sat behind his infant awareness like a second pair of eyes, watching everything with quiet dread. He could not act on them. Could not speak. Could not even turn his head properly. He was trapped inside a body that barely worked.
The man who held him most often was his father.
Kousuke learned his presence before he learned his face. The way his footsteps sounded different from others. The way he carried him without rushing. The way his hands never shook, even when Kousuke cried for reasons neither of them could fix.
The man did not speak much.
When he did, it was brief. Instructions. Answers. Nothing unnecessary. Grief did not make him loud. It made him contained.
They left the medical building after a few days. Kousuke felt the change immediately. The air outside was cooler. The light softer. He was carried through streets he could not yet see clearly, but he sensed space opening around them.
Voices greeted his father. Some were respectful. Some were cautious. The word Uchiha came up often.
They entered a compound surrounded by walls.
Even without understanding what it meant, Kousuke felt the separation. Inside was quiet in a way that felt deliberate. Too orderly. Too controlled. Houses stood close together, uniform in style. People moved with purpose, their gazes sharp even when relaxed.
This was the Uchiha compound.
His father's home was modest compared to some of the others. Clean. Sparse. Lived in, but not decorated. There were no unnecessary objects. Everything had a place.
Kousuke was set down in a small room that smelled faintly of wood and smoke. A crib waited there, already prepared. Someone had planned for him. That realization stirred something uncomfortable in his chest.
His father stood beside the crib for a long moment after placing him down. He did not touch him again right away. He just stood there, looking down, as if committing the sight to memory.
"Kousuke," he said quietly.
Kris heard the name clearly now, separate from the haze of birth. It still did not feel like his, but it was beginning to attach itself whether he wanted it to or not.
His father continued, voice low. "You will live."
There was no promise beyond that.
Other people came and went over the following days. Clan members. Medical staff. Women who knew how to handle infants better than his father did. They spoke softly, glanced at him with curiosity, sympathy, and something else he recognized too easily.
Expectation.
He was an Uchiha child. Even without a mother. Even with a quiet, seemingly unremarkable father. The name carried weight that none of them questioned.
Kousuke hated that.
Not with anger. With something colder. A sense of being claimed before he could even understand what was being claimed of him.
At night, when the compound settled into silence, his father sat beside the crib. Sometimes he cleaned his weapons methodically. Sometimes he reviewed paperwork. Sometimes he simply sat there, unmoving.
Kousuke watched him through unfocused eyes.
This man had lost his wife and gained a son in the same moment. He had not been given time to process either. There was no ceremony for that kind of loss. No space to fall apart.
Kris understood that too well.
In those quiet hours, memories slipped through the cracks more easily. His old room. The hum of his laptop. Naruto playing softly while the rest of the house slept. His brother's voice, distant but familiar, asking him if he wanted to hang out, just once.
The regret came slowly.
The regret was heavy.
Kousuke's body stirred, a small noise escaping him. His father looked up immediately, attention snapping into place.
"It's alright," the man said, stepping closer. He rested a hand against the crib, solid and warm. "I'm here."
The words were simple, but they landed.
Kousuke did not believe in promises anymore. But presence mattered. He knew that now, too late in one life and far too early in another.
As sleep claimed him again, one thought lingered, quiet and unresolved.
He had been born into a clan defined by loss.
And he would grow up watching how people chose to carry loss.