Ryo.
He was born in Konohagakure, the eldest of the twins, his younger sister born only a few minutes after him. Konoha, a village built through blood and murder, betrayal and deceit, and thrives on the will of fire that burns.
It is during the Second Great Shinobi War that he is born.
In the maternity ward in the largest hospital in Konoha, he was born. When a child is born it is a joyful occasion but his birth is treated with nothing but cold indifference on the borderline of hate.
Usually a nurse would hold the child – or in this case children – and give them to their parents, but there are no parents to hold these children. The father died a month before they were born, and the mother dies a few minutes after her daughter's birth, the daughter had to be forcefully brought out from her mother's cut open stomach.
The girl is taken by a couple who coolly accepts the child and names her Nanashi and leaves.
It is the only time she will ever be so close to her brother.
The nurse leaves him in a cradle and leaves.
he has no name, the unnamed
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he is left at an orphanage built recently, at the very edge. Ryo was the name they gave him, he is one of many, an insignificant creature who is not worth anything till he is older. The orphanage is crowded, filled to the brim with children who have lost parents in the war, abandoned by their remaining family or simply unwanted. They were children who were used, toyed with, and forced to submit to the wishes of their more fortunate clan members. Most of them are civilian born, who are worth nothing in the eyes of the clans.
he remembers seeking a caretaker's hug once before only to be slapped and sent back to his cot.
Since then Ryo vows to be strong.
he is not the youngest or the oldest. he was like all of them, abandoned, and unwanted, with no parents. But she is the only one who tries to survive.
he has watched as some of the children were lured away by shinobis, returning broken and haunted and young children being bought with money by masked ANBU members. Once in a while an elder – sometimes accompanied by a chuunin or jounin – comes for a visit, looking intently for children who hold promise to become ninja… to become the tools to gain greater power. They would take them away and make them into shinobi for the clan.
Sometimes many children are taken all at once by an elder. They are the ones he never sees again.
Ryo avoids them as much as he can.
he will become stronger on his own.
Most of all, he refuses to become anyone's tool.
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Ryo dreams, he dreams a lot
Sometimes he falls asleep without meaning to.
Other children and drunken caretakers comment on it.
he never cared.
The dream world of his, it never had a war, people live peacefully, children play, adults work, they fall in love, gets old and die smiling just like that
he would open up one of his books and read and dreams and imagines a life beyond his own.
His eyes open.
he stops dreaming.
he does not want a life beyond his own. Not anymore
No one notices until months after.
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They come back more often.
The war has claimed many lives.
This time they take any children available – those whose absence would not be missed greatly.
Ryo is drafted into the group. There are children crying in fear. Some older ones are joyful to be able to become a ninja. Some boast of their relations to some Uchiha ninja. Fools, he thinks, what is the point of fame if you will die before achieving it.
The group is led into a cave and then underground.
The group of children is forced into killing their fellow orphans brother and sisters, till only one is left standing. At that time the oldest of the children was mere 4 years old (What a bloody sick village)
Ryo is three and a half when he experiences death head-on once and again, but this would not be the last time.
He has claimed many lives, the lives of his friends the kids he grew up with, the fellow orphans, just to be able to live and survive he becomes a monster just like that
He was covered in entirely in blood from head to toe
he was in pain.
His arms, legs, face… every part of his was in pain.
They cut him open and stitch him back up. And then after some basic training, he did it again with fellow trainees just like him
A never-ending process.
He started dreaming again
In the dream world of his, there was war, people kill in order to survive, children covered in blood, adults die or get tortured, they manipulate people and die like a dog without a grave or sight. It was a hell, a pure bloody hell that he sees every night
In the dark, he laughs, wondering if he resembles the rag doll from one of his Nightmare
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he is one of few children who survive the procedure.
he pukes and coughs and vomits all of the meager content in his stomach. he glances around and sees nothing but dead or dying bodies of children.
And he might become one of them.
Slowly he reaches for the piece of discarded bread and eats ravenously. he places his hands over his mouth and forces himself to swallow. When pain and heat – burning – scorching through him, and bile threatens to come out through his mouth, he swallows.
They have poisoned the food.
The clothes.
The water.
Everything.
"… help…" One of the children, a boy, begs, whispering.
The bread is pressed against their lip and he can see a girl urging him to eat. But Ryo knows that he will die.
His hands tighten around the kunai pressed against his leg.
A weapon was given to end their life if it became too hard to survive.
"Move."
Pushing the other girl aside, he plunges the kunai into the boy's heart, his eyes emotionless as he watches the dying kid eyes dim.
The girl shrieks in horror and her cries echo throughout the cave. No one care.
Ryo stood up, blood splattered across his face and shirt.
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he chews and bites and swallows.
It is – according to the nurses in the hospital – six months since him, and the other children's disappearance.
A council elder had been conducting experiments with children to negate the Hidden Sand's wide arsenal of poison users. It became suspicious more children began disappearing from the orphanage.
Three groups of ANBU barge into the cave battling Uchiha ninja and hired assassins and searching for survivors after.
All are died, except for him.
Splattered in blood, eating molded bread and yet…
he still bloody hell survived.
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After the hospital deems him stable, he is immediately returned to the orphanage. The experiment was a failure the culprit was punished, Ryo laughed knowing the culprit would never be punished given that it was one of the Hokage council members (Here's the deal it was Danzo and that was root camp for recruiting ninja kids)
The other children fear him, the caretakers shun him and everyone avoids him, well all but for one kid an orphan just like him, a blonde named Minato Namikaze, Ryo afraid that the boy will be the target of everyone's hatred because of him, shooed the blonde boy away
Just like that, Months and years passed by, Ryo grew up to be lonely with no friends, with only the eyes of hatred, fear all around him, the killing intent he leaks becomes unstable as well, as he kept releasing it unconsciously
Food becomes scarce as the war continues and he is soon drafted into the academy. Konoha cannot allow his skills to be wasted no matter what he has been through. he goes without a fight because he wanted to live.
And because he wonders when life became so meaningless to him.
Sometimes he dreams of killing everyone in the orphanage.
Ryo does not want to lose himself anymore. he prays for a reason to continue living, to keep himself sane.
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The academy was perfect no one knew him, he could make friends, he could start living like a normal kid
'A lie', thought Ryo as he stared at outside the window he was alone in the back row with no friends, no matter how hard he tried, the killing intent he leaks is freaking for anyone here
He started losing it, he didn't find a reason to continue living no matter how hard he tried, the fairy tale he read was a lie, there was no happy ending...there was only him and the endless darkness it follows
Till he found it, a black hair hotty and an arrogant girl who took pity on him and share her lunch with him despite him leaking the overwhelming killing intent for any kid here
She becomes the reason for his living, the Uchiha princess Mikoto Uchiha
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This is the story of Ryo the hero of hidden leaf village, a kind-hearted broken guy, who changed everything