Night had fallen over the Village Hidden in the Sands; darkness had descended over every part of the village, and watching over it like a sentinel that never sleeps was the moon, full and bright. A warm breeze blew through the streets of Sunagakure no Sato, blowing sand around as it always did. Walking down one of these streets on his way home from yet another mission was Kuno Uchiha. The warm night wind blew through his hair as he removed shinobi forehead protector. It was soaked through with sweat from a long day in the sun, and he was happy to have it off finally. He stuffed it in his pocket, and took a quick glance around the street that he was walking down. It was completely vacated. All of the village shops had been closed for the day and people had made their way home a few hours ago. Kuno was truly alone as he let out a tired sigh and continued his journey home.

He had spent the entirety of the day trying to complete a mission that had become a fairly high priority for the Genin of the village. Two children had been kidnapped without any ransom, and the shinobi of the village had been hired to find them. It had been a grueling experience all around, with stress levels running high and the constant fear of what failure would have meant. Thankfully, Kuno and Lynn, his friend and fellow Uchiha, had arrived in time to deal with the kidnapper and rescue the children, escorting them safely home and receiving payment for a job well done. As happy has he was though, he could not stop the exhaustion from coming on. At this point, as he was walking home from the administration building where he had just received the payment, he was essentially a dead man walking. His normally perfect posture was tainted ever so slightly by a slouch that was nearly imperceivable, and he had already undone his jacket in the anticipation of walking though the door, climbing up to his room, and collapsing into his bed. Pushing on though the pain and fatigue, the young Uchiha eventually found himself wandering onto his street.

The encounter with the kidnapper had been an eye opening one, no pun intended. It had been the first combat that Kuno had been a part of where his opponent was able to use shinobi techniques as powerful as the byakugan. It had also been puzzling for Kuno. Why was there even a ninja of the Hyuga clan this far away from Konoha? Despite the curiosity that the kidnapper had created, the situation that Kuno had been put in did not allow him much time to ask questions of the criminal. Kuno had killed him with some difficulty and assistance from Lynn, but it had been a necessary action in order to keep the two kidnapped children safe. After this conflict, Kuno found himself thinking almost obsessively about dojutsu and the power that his own clan’s ability might allow him to call on. The Sharingan had always been such an interesting prospect to the young Uchiha, but he had never been one to try to force its awakening, believing that he would unlock the ability when his mind and body were ready. However, after seeing the byakugan in action, he found himself wondering if there was any other way to get on that level, or even surpass it with the power of the Uchiha clan’s Sharingan. On top of that, the motivation for the kidnapping had been astounding for Kuno. When Kuno had subdued the kidnapper, he took the time to ask him why he had done it, just to see if it was worth it in the mind of the criminal. He had snarled at Kuno and told him that as long as the father of the two children that he had taken suffered because of the ordeal, then it was worth it. It was such an unmitigated rage that Kuno had not seen since his father had forced himself, his sister, and his mother out of the home due to the Uchiha blood in their veins. To Kuno, revenge was something to be dolled out directly, and not visited upon someone through the suffering of others. But as he saw the rage that boiled in the criminal’s eyes, he knew that a hatred that the young Uchiha had never before experienced existed. He hoped he would never have to feel what had caused such a searing wound on that man’s soul.

With all of these thoughts rolling through his head like a storm, Kuno finally arrived at the outside of his home. Immediately, he recognised that something was wrong. The door hung slightly ajar, moving slowly back and fourth with each passing moment as the warm evening breeze blew past the threshold of the Uchiha residence. Immediately, Kuno’s mind switched from casual thoughts to tactical infiltration as he slowly drew his miao dao so as to not make any noise as it was pulled from its bamboo sheathe. He then reached up and placed an open palm on the door, waiting and listening for a moment. There was only silence. After what seemed like an eternity but was in reality only thirty seconds or so, the young Uchiha slowly pushed his door open, exposing the interior of the building. The door opened into a front hallway area with stairs leading upward, a living room area on the left, and a hallway leading to the kitchen on the right. Crouched low and with his hood pulled up over his head, Kuno stepped into his home, listening carefully and stifling his breathing so that it would not interfere. There was no sound, and for a moment, Kuno almost lost his tactical mindset, the only thing stopping himself from charging through the house in a panic being sheer willpower that he had been taught at the academy.

But then, there was a sound. It was not much of a sound; in fact, in any other situation it would have probably gone unnoticed by most. But in the silence of the building, it might as well have been a wrecking ball slamming though the side of his house. It was a cough. Just a simple, quiet, weak cough from an unknown source, but it came from the kitchen. Pulling his blade into a defensive position, Kuno Uchiha turned to his right and began to walk through his house slowly and carefully to ensure as stealthy an approach as possible. The few feet felt like walking miles on end to Kuno, but still he maintained his composure and walked slowly up to the doorframe that surrounded the entrance leading into the kitchen. He stopped, and pressed himself up against the wall before leaning out slowly to survey the scene before him.

His home’s kitchen had been utterly ransacked. There were dishes shattered on the floor and the kitchen table was overturned. Some of the tables had been thrown across the room and one of them was shattered. On top of that, there were scorch marks on the walls and every utensil from kitchen knives to pots and pans had been tossed about as if someone had been intentionally destroying the place. But the most noticeable feature in the room was the reflection of the full moon that was shining through the window onto an ever spreading pool of crimson; in the center of this crimson pool was Eishi Uchiha, Kuno’s mother.  

Music:

There was a series of sharp clanging sounds as Kuno’s miao dao clattered to the floor, slipping form his grasp as he lost all feeling in his body. His strength seemed so be sapped from his body as his mouth fell agape. He could see what was in front of him, and yet he could not comprehend it. He tried to step forward, but only succeeded in stumbling and falling onto his hands and knees before scrambling frantically into the pool of blood that was gushing from his mother. “Mom? Mom what….what happened?” He struggled to speak, though he was not crying, his throat was constricting due to the horrific scene before him. His mother only groaned in what Kuno assumed could only be shock and agony for the wounds that he was now able to see. Her hands were clutching her stomach and some sort of cloak, and as he gently moved them out of the way, he gasped in horror at what he saw. The weapon was still inside of her, a large kitchen knife that Kuno himself had used many times to help cook dinner. Now it was buried into the abdomen of his mother. That was not the only wound through. Her entire chest and the rest of her abdomen had been slashed and stabbed repeatedly to the point where it was a miracle that she was still even alive. As Kuno looked on, he began to realize that it was far too late for her, and with that realization came the tears.

As he knelt there, covered in his mother’s blood, he heard her finally stir. “Ku…Kuno? Is that you?” In shock, Kuno’s eyes flew open. He crawled closer to her, moving the pool of blood around in the process. “Mom? Ya I’m here, it’s me! What happened mom? Where…where’s Kumi?” His questions were met only with shushing, as his mother struggled to speak in even the quietest of tones. “Kuno…they took her. They took her away and I don’t know where!” She strained, trying to remain conscious as she did so. Blood poured from her mouth as she slid the cloak in her hands through the crimson on the floor toward Kuno. He was speechless. Words would not come to him as he tired and tried again to formulate some sort of response. Instead, he only reached out and lifted the cloak, seeing now that it bore the kanji he had seen once before on a cloak like this one: Autumn. He gritted his teeth, grinding them through the anger that was now welling within him. “Mom, I swear I’ll find her, and I’ll kill them all. They’ll pay for this! I swear it! I swear-“ But his tirade was cut short but a blood stained hand touching his cheek. He blinked, looking over at his mother who had managed to raise her hand to touch his face. Her words were but a whisper. “Kuno…my little boy. You’ve grown up so fast.” Her lips curled into a weak smile. “Please Kuno, find your sister, and bring her back home so that you can keep this family together. Please…you can’t stop smiling…” her voice trailed off as Kuno reached his hand up to hold hers on his cheek. She coughed, clearly in extreme pain from the very action. “Oh Kuno…I love you…so….much….”

And with those last words, Eishi Uchiha’s hand fell limp in her son’s as she died on the floor of her kitchen, in a pool of her own blood. Kuno dropped her hand, covering his face as he began to cry and cry and cry for what seemed like hours. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, draining himself of tears. But finally, after what was an eternity in his mind, he looked up and out of the kitchen window to the full mood in the sky. And he screamed. It was an unintelligible scream; there were no words, only raw emotion. But as he screamed up at the sky in agony, rage, and sorrow, the black irises of his eyes began to shift, until they flickered and twisted into two pools of crimson, marked with a single black tomoe each, not unlike the blood that he knelt in now. His wish had come true in the worst possible way. His Sharingan had awakened.  

[Exit Thread]

WC:2010

Single Tomoe Sharingan Awakened (1500/1500)
Unused WC: 510