Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto.

Hyuga

Fey White Eyes

The young daimyo places his fat-fingered hands upon his hips and stares down his greasy, bulbous nose, peering at the sleeping creature before him. He has to look hard− he has always been slightly nearsighted, and this cavernous chamber, located at the top of the castle donjon, is dim with the faded light of the setting sun. The family's maids have not dared to enter and light the lanterns that hang from the ceiling's thick oaken beams, too frightened to be present when their lord is presented with his newly-born child. Their discretion is perhaps warranted; the longer the man stares, the more ruddy his bloated face becomes, and this is a sure sign of his impending anger. Denial thickens the usual whiny tone of his voice, "It's not mine, it can't be."

The child in question has been wiped clean and now lies prone upon an aubergine cushion, ceremonially lain out for its father's inspection. Despite the chill in the autumnal air− the metal braziers around the room have also been neglected− the babe is quite naked, and its swollen organs proclaim it to be undoubtedly male. The severed umbilical cord, tied off with the customary narrow strip of yellow silk, still dangles from his navel. The stringy, twisted tube has yet to dry out, proof of the recent birth. The production of a son and heir, especially so soon after his arranged marriage, should leave the daimyo feeling blessed and ecstatic; staring down at the fleshy stump sticking from the child's rounded belly, the nobleman feels nothing but disgust.

He can count, but barely. Someone should have made that fact known to his bride.

Sitting upon the tatami next to the resting babe is a woman, beautiful despite the tired circles beneath her ice-blue eyes. She is even younger than her husband− fourteen years in the coming winter− but due to the circumstances of her life and the past year in particular, she is infinitely more mature than he is. Even in the face of her new spouse and master's anger, her manners are impeccable; manicured hands− one small, pinkish nail has been torn off during the difficult birth and this finger is tucked beneath another lest it somehow appear offensive− perch delicately on the green matting in front of her, and she bows her head to the floor, her many silken kimono rustling around her weary body. "My Lord, I am your wife by law, and this is my child. It is yours also."

The man's face grows ever more crimson at her calm, logical words− how dare she sit so brazenly before him and adamantly feed him falsehoods! As if to exacerbate the situation, the baby hears his unfamiliar voice and blinks for the first time, turning its unseeing eyes up toward the daimyo. Rather than the milky blue or darkest black common in newborns, this child's orbs are entirely without color, as though the gods of creation have set the season's harvest moon into its little face. Taken aback, the lord retreats a step before turning his own narrowed brown gaze back to the woman kneeling before him. "In that sense, perhaps, but this thing− This is not of my seed! No one in my esteemed family ever had such fey white eyes! It is a demon's spawn!"

The so-called creature of evil yawns widely, parting narrow lips to reveal red toothless gums. A mewling sound escapes and a the baby falls back asleep a moment later, completely oblivious to the furor that his untimely birth has caused. Next to him, his mother snorts at the ridiculousness of her husband's statement. As if this small, innocent child could be a demon! Impossible. Not when his father was the most spiritually gifted− The noble lady turns her thoughts away from such distressing memories, returns them to her angry mate and the unsavory situation at hand. Passing off a bastard is a difficult thing to do, and will require all of her considerable skills. "Are you saying then, that these eyes of his come from my own bloodline?"

The man gulps then, and looks anxiously away from the pair. By nature he is a coward, the second son of an upstart general who was granted a fiefdom after establishing a peasant army. The force− angry over high taxes which had not been slashed during famine years− had nearly overthrown the monarchy ten years ago. The rebellion had only ended after the emperor had given appeasing gifts and done a few favors to the group's leaders. The hand of the ruler's niece, when she came of age, was one of those boons. The daimyo's wife is of aristocratic birth, descended from the gods themselves, and it is treason to insult the royal family, even if when a person has had the amazing fortune to wed one of them. "No," he grumbles. "I am not saying that."

The wife inclines her platinum blonde head, feigning subservience while hiding the victorious smile that steals across her pale face. Her ill-tempered husband is amazingly easy to manage, perhaps even simpler in his needs than the infant next to her; unlike the new mother, he has not been breed for positions of power or the mind games that come with them. Such is the peril of being the ignored second child, the one who goes largely untutored because he never expects to inherit. Reaching out a long-fingered hand, the woman brushes gently at the wispy dark hair of her baby, and vows that he will at least be ready to lead when the time comes. "Then we are agreed in this matter. He is our child, and his eyes are nothing to be concerned about."

It takes the daimyo a full three minutes to realize that his gorgeous wife has brushed his concerns aside− just as she had on the morning after their wedding, when she had told him that the lack of blood upon the sheet meant nothing− that she expects him to act the cuckold and pretend before the whole realm that this strange male child is his own. If she gets her way, everyone will believe that the baby's freakish eyes are a trait inherited from his blood. The thought causes the young lord's anger to build, and his murderous glare quickly returns. He begins to pace the large room, working himself into a frenzy. A vein throbs in the top of his head, easily visible against his shaved pate. "No, this taint came from somewhere... You! You have been unfaithful to me!"

His wife closes her azure eyes and sighs exaggeratedly, weary of the conversation. Ever since she married the dim-witted man still stalking about the darkening room, there have been rumors of infidelity, and they are sure to be worse now− has she not just birthed a full-term babe after only six months of marriage? Much of the gossip being bantered about is true, though her husband has been irritatingly slow to notice; it is a well-known fact that she and her retinue had set out from her uncle's northern stronghold in the autumn of last year, on their way to this castle for her wedding. An early snowstorm had trapped them in the mountains, and they had been forced to shelter at a monastery until the spring thaw. What had happened there−

"I will not accept this! I won't! This unnatural brat− he isn't mine, and he cannot stay! I won't abide by this! Do you hear me?"

The young woman ignores him, her mind still on the events of that long winter, the painful pleasure of remembering a first love. It is not until the baby− awakened either by the unceaseless ranting of the petulant daimyo or the lowering temperature in the chamber− begins to wail that she opens her bright eyes. She covers the child with a small woolen blanket that had been folded next to the cushion for just that purpose, then turns and smiles coldly at the man. Her beautiful face is as glacial as the weather which is developing outside, and the tone of her voice is every bit as harsh. "You won't accept this? You forget who you're dealing with, Husband. One word from me, and my uncle will have your head−"

"Stop!" The daimyo roars, striding forward and looming over his small wife. For a moment it appears he will strike her− I should kill the bitch, it is my right to do so!− but the smug look on her face unmans him. His arm drops to the side, shaking with his rage. He knows that her threat is not an idle one; his late father had foolishly disbanded most of the unruly peasant army after being granted his parcel of land, and what remains will not be enough to fend off an invasion from the emperor. This woman, with her better connections and greater resources, has outwitted him again. Unless... "You think I don't know who it was you screwed around with? It was that monk, wasn't it? That supposed saint? I'll kill him, I swear it!"

The shouts echo throughout the room and into the night beyond, mingling with the nerve-wracking cries of the baby. The lord glares once more at his wife and kicks a hole in the fragile shoji door before stomping out, calling loudly for a lantern, his guards, and a groom to saddle his fastest horse. The lady remains sitting in the same position, exhausted from the both the birth and the difficult encounter. The mocking smile slowly falls from her face, to be replaced by something more soft. She reaches out a finger to skim at the little boy's soft cheek. Fathered at the monastery by a bodhisattva, who knows what her son may become? Or, for that matter, what strange and wondrous powers he may have inherited?

Tears prickle in those blue eyes, but the lady keeps her head up and refuses to let them fall. What she and the monk had shared− besides an avid interest in the spiritual− had undoubtedly been love, and she cannot regret her actions. She knows that had he felt the same, the awareness deep in her heart. Word had come about the time she began to show, roughly two months after her marriage to the daimyo, that the man had hanged himself in his spartan cell, unwilling to bear life without her. Now, in a tragic turn, she must learn to do without the only part of the him that she has left. Raising her voice in order to be heard over the sound of the infant, she calls, "Tsubame? Please come here. I have a favor to ask of you."

A plain-looking woman melts silently out of the shadows− there is no telling how long she had been there, or how much she had overheard− and comes to kneel before the daimyo's wife. "Madam?"

The lady nods toward the squalling newborn, and her tears do spill over then. If her adored child is to survive this world of death and duplicitousness, then he must be taken south by her longtime maid; the middle-aged woman is one of those frightening, secret people, a shinobi, and she should be able to guard the boy and teach him to use any of the abnormal skills that he might have running through his veins. "My husband has gone to the mountains with his guards. He will be back by tomorrow night, and you know very well that he will not have accomplished his goal− you can't kill a man already dead. When he returns, my child's life is forfeit. I cannot accept such a thing. Please, you must get him out of here."

Her pleading speech at an end, the daimyo's young wife bows her head, her pale silken hair sliding forward to hide her anguished face from view. Diamond droplets splatter unceremoniously upon the tatami between the two women, soaking quickly into the newly replaced matting. Ignoring the noble lady's moment of weakness, Tsubame picks up the child and swaddles him tightly in the blanket. Comforted by this wrapping that mimics the womb from whence he had recently come, the infant's wailing ceases, but the event goes unnoticed for the plans that are already circulating in the ninja's quick-thinking head; what to take with them, the route that should be traveled, how to shake the pursuit which is sure to come...

"It shall be done as you suggest, milady. But... what shall I call him?"

The young woman reaches into the long sleeve of her fine kimono, fingering the cool steel of the small blade hidden there. The weapon has been carried from childhood, and it serves to remind her that she is samurai, that her life is one of duty. She will bear this parting because she must, because it is what is best. For the sake of her uncle's alliance, she will compose herself and await her husband's return, and then she will continue to act the role of the pretty and subservient wife. It will be as though she never committed the damning sin of adultery, never gave birth to another man's child. "Call him what you like, but his family name must be that of my husband. It is the cruelest jest that I can think of."

"As you wish, Madam Hyuga."