Reiji stepped into the hideout with that same reserved air he always carried, chin slightly raised as if to remind everyone of his pedigree.
"Kiyomi," he greeted, voice carefully balanced between polite and familiar.
"Still buried in reports? You should let someone else handle those. It's not fitting for someone of your level."
Her gaze didn't lift from the parchment.
"I'll decide what's fitting."
He smiled faintly, ignoring the cut.
"You've done well these past months. Even the veterans say your Sharingan is sharper than theirs. Still… you shouldn't have to strain yourself so much. If there's anything you need, I can take it on. That's what I'm here for."
Finally, she looked up at him. Her eyes, cold, cut him like blades.
"What you're here for isn't up to you. And what I need isn't something you can give."
The words landed sharper than steel. He flinched only slightly, then masked it with another careful smile.
"You're always like this… distant. I understand. But one day you'll see that I'm the one who—"
"Enough." Her voice was flat, commanding. "You think too much of yourself."
For a moment, silence stretched between them.
The only sound was the faint scratching of her brush against parchment as she deliberately turned back to the report in her hands.
Reiji stood there longer than he should have, his jaw tight, before finally bowing his head slightly and leaving the chamber.
Kiyomi's shoulders eased only once his footsteps faded.
Her hands, however, clenched the scroll tighter than before.
Her chest stirred. Ryusei had carved his own path, step by step, through blood and danger.
He never hovered like a parasite, never begged for her attention.
If anything, he pushed her off balance, teased her without fear, stood as if the world itself couldn't bind him.
That was what drew her. That was what her clan could never understand.
Frustration welled inside her. He was close now, yet every time, it was the same: walls between them, eyes watching, footsteps that didn't belong.
"Ryusei…" she whispered, voice softer than even she expected.
For a fleeting moment, her cheeks warmed, a memory of his teasing grin flashing across her mind.
She hated how easily it slipped past her guard.
She hated how much she wanted to see him again.
Her face hardened quickly after. She forced her pulse down. But inside, she knew.
Compared to him, every other name the clan shoved before her was worthless.
She set the reports aside once finished and rose to her feet. It was time to move again.
In this sector, no one had the luxury of sitting idle.
Kirigakure's incursions could strike at any moment.
Her semi-division was constantly on the move, shifting between multiple hideouts scattered across the area.
She often stayed only with her central squad of twenty, Reiji among them, while rotating between companies and smaller units to evaluate suspicious zones.
But just as she prepared to leave, something made her pause.
Her brows drew together.
A strange sensation pressed against her awareness, like something pinning her, though she couldn't say why.
It felt oddly familiar. Intuitively so.
Kiyomi lacked a formal Sensory Mode, but every shinobi of her current caliber carried their own natural sensory intuition to some extent.
And this signal wasn't faint; it was getting stronger.
The strangest part was the impression she received from it, like faint teasing threaded into the pulse itself.
"No way…"
The thought hit her like lightning.
She remembered rumors from the Kumo raid months ago, how Ryusei had displayed unusual sensory feats there.
He had also just been stationed closer to this position, not even a full day ago.
Could it really be him?
Her cheeks warmed.
Was she missing him so much that she was hallucinating?
She tried to brush it off, but the more she focused, the clearer it became.
It wasn't her imagination.
Someone was deliberately sending pulses toward her, pulses that carried something intimate, almost mocking in their boldness.
Her blush deepened.
At this point, she was nearly certain it was Ryusei.
Eighty percent. Ninety.
She stomped a foot against the floor, flustered, yet failed to notice the wide smile that had spread across her face for the first time in months.
Her first instinct was to leap straight toward that direction, but the logistics were impossible.
Too many eyes. Too many ears. She bit her lip, her mind racing for solutions.
This was a chance she couldn't afford to miss.
Then it came to her.
She formed a shadow clone and opened her three-tomoe Sharingan. In the next instant, she struck several of its tenketsu she could vaguely identify, and then layered over police-style suppression seals and advanced aura-hiding talismans she had also received from the clan for protection. Bit by bit, the clone's chakra pathway system was pinned down until its presence vanished completely.
She couldn't suppress chakra naturally like trained sensors could, but she could mask it this way. Her dojutsu allowed her to check every layer, confirming the aura was buried deep enough to fool even the sensors within her own squad.
The plan was simple. She would leave this clone behind. Ryusei, with his unrivaled sensing and smarts, would find it.
Then they could converse in secret.
When the clone dispersed, the knowledge would flow back to her.
"Hmph. Look at the lengths I go for him. This incapable, troublesome boy… seducing me with his tricks, then disappearing for half a year and leaving me to suffer alone, thinking up solutions myself. I'll never forgive him."
Her mouth said one thing, but her expression betrayed another, lighter, brighter than it had been in half a year.
She gathered her squad and led them out of the hideout.
Not far behind her, Reiji trailed as usual.
He noticed her change immediately.
The icy, ruthless queen he had followed for months now wore a softened expression.
His heart leapt.
"Did my persistence finally pay off?"
A foolish grin tugged at his lips.
Despite being Uchiha, he couldn't deny it.
At thirteen, Kiyomi was already the most alluring female in the entire clan, in his eyes.
He had watched her closely in the compound for the past year, watching her blossom, and had even urged his grandfather to push for their union.
His talent was decent enough, and the elders approved.
Perhaps the girl's grandfather, the great elder and leader of their faction, didn't want to hand her off to someone much older, out of doting or image, or other reasons of his own.
Reiji was closest enough in age, with the right potential, and that was all it took.
For him, though, the reward or positive benefits of that union were never about bringing prestige or incorporating such powerful genetics into his own lineage's family tree for the future. It was mostly about the "incorporating" part itself.
Her constant cold rejection had dampened him before, but he could be patient.
Let the war pass, let the marriage be finalized, then she would have no choice.
Either yield, or face the law of the clan. When that day came, he thought smugly, he would finally also "enjoy" the payback for all her scorn, he had dreamed about for a long time.