"Ah." I sighed. The exhaustions of war were really beginning to take a toll on me. "Jeez. I really look like that?" I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, undoing my pony tail and running a hand through my hair. I slumped my back onto the wall in my bedroom. It was night now, and all I could hear were the sounds of crickets and tree branches wrestling.

Something did not feel right though, and I couldn't shake that feeling of enigma away. I took a sniffle, and a putrid smell made its way through my bedroom window. I couldn't ignore it now, it was only getting stronger. What the hell?

"Problem after problem." I muttered, annoyed, stepping on my two feet outside to the porch.

I looked around, left and right, and did not notice anything that warranted suspicion. I decided to travel deeper into the compound, following the direction of the smell. I was close to gagging.

And there it was, I saw from a distance.

My heart raced. Thumping loudly, it was filling my ears now.

I took a gulp, dropping to my knees.

"N-nani..." My hand rose to my chest. "N-no... not here..." My breathing began to heave, my hands were growing cold and surely my face was pale.

It was a child's corpse that was laying flat on the floor, with a kunai pierced right into her heart. Their eyes were open, white as the heavens.

"No! No! No no no no!" I was punching the floor. "No!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, sobbing, my breathing was hitching. "Uehara!" I mourned on her chest.

-

EARLIER THAT DAY - UEHARA'S POV

Ayumi onee-sama was out to battle. I was ordered to stay home that day. I was so bored so I had decided to train with shuriken jutsu and throwing kunai.

"Yosha!" I leaped, flinging a couple kunai and shuriken towards Koniko, who had promptly dodged them and returned them to me.

"Good, good! Your aim is excellent." She encouraged me. It was always nice training with her.

"Byakugan!" I flung all of them back, finding her blindspot such that one of the kunai would graze her shoulder. It slightly cut her shirt.

"Almost got me there." Koniko patted down her shoulder. "I'm going to go get fixed up and make sure preparations for the war are ready this week."

"Ah. Ja ne." I waved a hand to her in the air. She left and I was alone, looking up to the sky now.

"Wow. It's so quiet. You would have never guessed battles were going on right now."

I heard shuffling within the branches and looked to see two daunting... Senju? I guessed by their dark hair and broad builds. They didn't have any clan emblems on them to tell.

"Why are you here? What do you want-?" I quickly dodged one of their attacks with an air palm.

"Those eyes. We demand you give them to us." One of them said.

"You really think I would just give you my eyes! Just like that!"

"You're a child." The other spoke. "We do not want to kill you. Just give it to us."

"N-no! No!" She was cornered, and was knocked down by a poisonous pollen. The other had pinned down her hands with shuriken.

"N-no... I can't die here... not this early... I still have so much to... Onee-sama..."

Once her heart had stopped beating, the shinobi tried to gauge her eyes out, but their hands had grown black. An infection spread to their bones.

"Impossible!" One of them yelled, "It's the Hyuga clan's last resort to protect the Byakugan. How foolish of you! Did you not know something so obvious?!"

"No!" He groaned in pain, "We need to leave!"

-

I didn't know what to do. I was panicking. Her frail little body grew cold now. War was war, and people died all the time. I watched bodies decay in front of me. But my younger sister's death was hitting me differently. I closed her eyes, hoping it would grant her spirit some peace.

"Oh, Uehara." I sighed in exasperation. "My poor little girl." My sister was only ten, not that her age mattered - no one should be dying at all. But still, she had so much to offer to the world, so young but so strong and determined. I tried getting up, but my legs were shaking. I was in shock. Come on! Ayumi!

I got up for her sake. I carried her in my arms, it was raining down on us both now.

"Uehara!" I screamed into the sky.

-

Uehara's body was wrapped in a large white sheet, kanji spelling her name. Her Byakugan was meticulously placed in mason jars, sealed by a Hyuga 8 trigrams jutsu for life. It was Hyuga tradition to preserve the ocular powers of the main family members - a practice designed to protect the secrets of the Byakugan from being hijacked by anybody else. The same would be done to me if the day came I died. I gulped. I felt guilty for even breathing the air around me - it should be me in that cloth, not my younger sister. If I had more power, I would have been able to protect her.

Her funeral procession was being arranged by Koniko, whom felt a heavy responsibility over her death.

"If I had stayed and not left her side, maybe she would still be alive..." The guilt had taken a toll on her appearance, her eye bags were dark and pronounced, most likely from the sleepless nights.

I closed my eyes, a tear escaping. "Don't burden yourself with such guilt, Koniko." I placed my hand on her shoulder, "This was fate. This was her destiny."

"An unfortunate destiny, to have died so young." My grandfather Hisaki had spoken through a hoarse crackled voice. He too had been crying, as he doted her the most out of our family.

"If I had just-"

"Eeya, there is no point in contemplating what could have been done." My father spoke. He was the most quiet out of all of us - a sign that he had been in deep thought and sorrow.

"Tou-sama! What do you mea-!" I couldn't help but burst into tears now, I could only imagine how scared she must have been to be killed so mercilessly. Why were shinobi killing children so innocent?

"Everybody in this room is blaming ourselves for her death. But..." Hayate looked back at his daughter's corpse, visibly clenching his teeth, and his eyes were beginning to water. I could only imagine the pain that a father felt losing their child. It pained me and I was her sister. "This indeed is an unfortunate destiny for her. Destiny is to blame."

The person who did this was also to blame! I yelled inside of my head.

"But by whose hands?" I gripped my katana so tightly it withdrew blood from my palm, almost breaking it into two. "I swear I'll find out. Be it on my own life even. I will find out who did this to her." My words were fueled with anger. I was to begin an investigation once the funeral had been wrapped up.

-

It was raining the day of her funeral, a testament of the heavens that even they were upset. Such a senseless death. For what? Why kill a child?

The agony, it was just too much. I looked down at my hands and thought of all the people I had killed. This pain that I was feeling, I almost felt disgusted by the fact that I had caused it to other families from other clans. It deeply disturbed me, making me slightly cringe out of my skin.

This cycle needs to stop. I was set on it.

But I had to figure out who did this first.

"... A young girl, with her whole life set ahead of her, she headed for a bright future. Hyuga Uehara. You will not be forgotten. Your death was not in vein. Each of us are handed our own portion of fate. Of destiny. Though with heavy condolences, this was Hyuga Uehara's destiny."

I looked down, the ground beneath me by my feet had been soaked with tears. We were all dressed in black, our eyes were cast to the ground in shock. Even Uehara's friends were shaking in tears, their parents trying to console them.

"An innocent life was taken. But let this not waver our convictions. Let this empower the Hyuga and let it serve as a reminder: that time is not guaranteed, we must strive to be strong and unafraid, much like how Hyuga Uehara was."

I wiped more tears. The more my grandfather spoke, the more I wanted to cry. I was going to be wailing at this point, something I felt uncomfortable doing in front of the people I was supposed to be protecting.

I need... I need to leave...

I shuffled away on my two feet, profusely wiping my tears away.

However, a man had caught my eye right as I left the procession.

"Uchiha Madara...!?"