Chapter Text
Jiro Sato was 12 years old when he first activated the Byakugan, to his exhilaration and sheer terror. While he reeled from the shock of seeing the world anew, the bullies who’d taunted and beaten him in the academy schoolyard backed away immediately, then ran to alert the recess chaperone. Shock paralyzed Jiro, as did the searing pain in his knees and shins where angry scrapes ran across his skin. The bullies’ ringleader, Kenji, had pushed him to the pavement and reared his leg back to lodge a kick in Jiro’s face when his Byakugan emerged. Jiro’s golden brown eyes were now back to normal, and he curled on the unyielding concrete and blotted his eyes with the frayed hem of his sleeve. A few endless minutes passed before Shino Aburame ran to Jiro, only to find no activated Byakugan, and a boy close to tears.
“Is this some kind of cruel prank?” Shino snapped at Kenji and his friends, who stood in a loose arc behind him. “You’ve done enough to poor Jiro already. Please remain behind after classes for detention.”
None of them answered. Even if they held no regard for Jiro, they bowed to authority when the man addressing them had the discretion to expel them from the academy. It wasn’t until the bullies filed back into the academy building that Jiro dared tell Shino the truth. His teacher knelt next to Jiro and one of his hands ran circles around his back. The other settled on Jiro’s leg just above the bleeding wound on his knee. Jiro watched his hands so he didn’t need to stare at Shino’s scrutinizing expression.
“Actually, they weren’t lying,” Jiro whispered. “I could see everything. Their chakra, the building behind me. I-I don’t know what happened.”
With help from Shino’s extended hand, Jiro stood again and began his walk back to the classroom with his head bowed.
“I’m not accusing you of dishonesty, Jiro. I-I just find that rather difficult to believe when neither your mother nor your father have any kekkai genkai in their family history. The Byakugan belongs to the Hyuga clan...and neither of your parents are Hyuga, needless to say.”
Jiro had no Hyuga among his immediate classmates, but he regularly saw white-eyed boys and girls among the academy’s students. Their milky eyes unnerved him, and he shivered when he pictured himself – or either of his parents – with those blank stares. Heat gathered behind Jiro’s eyes at the thought of his parents’ eyes – Mom's golden brown eyes that mirrored his, and his father’s round black eyes beneath bushy eyebrows. Despite civilian origins, both served with distinction in the great war and remained excellent chunin. If only Jiro could say the same about his prospects.
“Yeah,” Jiro stammered, his tongue sitting heavy at the base of his mouth. “They’re not.”
Jiro so desperately wanted to sink into his mother’s arms and hear his father reassure him that he had the makings of a great shinobi. I shouldn’t, he told himself. I don’t need to bother them now. I’m 12 already. Age promised distance and alienation from his parents, who now expected greater maturity from him.
Shino escorted Jiro to the academy’s infirmary so the nurse on duty could disinfect and bandage his wounds. Though the question of Jiro’s parentage and newfound powers remained unresolved, they could at least address his most immediate needs. The nurse sighed and shook her head upon seeing Jiro yet again in her office, even if his current injuries were minor. The unspoken pity grated on him, and tempted him to snap that he didn’t need it. Jiro was a frequent visitor, often injured during practice spars or assaulted by schoolyard bullies. Instead of leaving Jiro in her custody as he usually did, Shino stayed behind while the nurse swabbed his wounds with alcohol and bandaged them. The bandages were green with shuriken and kunai printed across them. Jiro’s mother would have approved.
“Jiro, I’ve been pondering your apparent activation of the Byakugan for several minutes now, and it still utterly boggles me,” Shino breathed out. “I can’t make sense of it...unless –”
Shino cut his speculations short when the nurse drew an extended finger across her throat. Jiro narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips at them, curiosity driving him to lean forward on the nurse’s counter.
“Yeah, I don’t know what’s happening to me either. I’m a freak. Kenji’s right.”
At least Kenji and his circle of friends feared the Byakugan’s power enough to grant Jiro a brief reprieve. However, Jiro knew their torments would return with renewed intensity in the days to come, now that their usual target presented them another reason to single him out. Freak, mutant, monster. The words burned into Jiro’s mind, spoken in Kenji’s low hiss. Tears dripped down Jiro’s cheeks like snot ran from his nose into the furrow of his lip. Shino handed Jiro a wad of tissues from his pocket. Warmth didn’t come easily to him, but his face spoke of genuine concern for his friends’ son.
“Jiro, would you like to return home early? I can write you a pass, no questions asked. But I suggest you confer with your parents to discuss your...recent discovery.”
“Do I need to tell my parents?” Jiro whispered, latching onto Shino’s sleeve. “I don’t want them to kick me out because I’m a freak.”
“The academy does not have instructors on hand to provide any special training...assuming that your activation of the Byakugan is not a one-time fluke. Once again, I’d like to offer you an early dismissal because you appear to need it.”
Both Shino and the nurse watched Jiro with tilted heads and wide eyes. His pulse fluttered beneath the weight of their concern, and he attempted to smile back as his father always did with no effort.
“Okay,” Jiro muttered. “Thank you, Shino-sensei. Thanks, Nurse Akira. I’m sure my mom’s still at the store and she’ll know something.”
The nurse commented on his incident for the first time since his arrival.
“Yeah, kid. I’m sure your mom will know something. Maybe your ‘dad’ needs to know, too.”
“Oh, I guess.”
Jiro scrambled to understand the hidden meaning behind the lilt of her voice, fire flaring in his chest when he realized her innuendo. His parents married just after the great war, and they’d been on the same genin team with Might Gai. When he thought of his parents side by side through the years, he could never picture his mother betraying his father like the nurse seemed to imply.
“Good luck, Jiro. You’ll need it," Shino said.
Jiro gave Shino and the nurse a parting wave before he cleared the nurse’s office with his shoulders bowed forward. Shino’s pass sat in his pocket, and Jiro ran his fingers along the paper’s crisp folded edges while he waited for his pounding heart to slow.
“If Rock Lee even is his real dad,” the nurse continued behind her office’s closed door.
Through the door’s clear glass window, Jiro saw Shino shoot her a withering glare, but he didn’t linger to know whether more bickering followed. He followed the cobbled streets of the hidden leaf village – little changed since his parents’ academy days – until he found his mother’s weapons store. Even before he opened the door, Jiro peered into the display window to find her half-asleep, a book slipping from her grip. Drawing a deep breath, he pushed the door open and watched his mother sit at attention, an open palm to her heart.
Her wide brown eyes betrayed embarrassment that her son had seen her so compromised. Mom compensated by stiffening her spine and throwing her shoulders back in a faltering attempt to assert her authority.
“Jiro! Are you...are you skipping classes at the academy? I’ll have you know –”
“No, Mom. Shino-sensei said I could leave. He told me I need to talk to you.”
He slapped his pass on the counter, complete with Shino Aburame’s signature and seal.
For the first time, Jiro thanked the gods that his mother’s weapons shop was always empty. Otherwise, there was no way he could disclose the day’s events without being overwhelmed by anxiety over who might overhear and deem him a freak.
“Well, if Shino-sensei gave you a pass…” Mom said, her brows scrunched. “I suppose you can be my shop assistant until I close and your father returns from his mission.”
She grinned and patted the stool next to her. The book sat forgotten on top of the cash register. Jiro stayed anchored before the counter, his knees unsteady. As much as he wanted to seek comfort from his mother, he worried about hurting her with the new powers he couldn’t control. Perhaps his Byakugan had abilities beyond those of a regular Byakugan, and Jiro would be even more poorly equipped to handle those. Jiro also fretted about facing her rejection when she heard about his “incident” at the academy. Conflicting impulses told him to run from his mother, and to run toward her.
“Jiro, dear – are you scared of your mom now?” she teased. “I don’t have horns and fangs, do I?”
“Mom. Do you promise you’re not going to kick me out for being a freak?”
His mother sighed and perched her chin on both hands.
“You are not a freak. Why would you ever believe that?”
He swallowed and shuffled to sit beside his mother, who ran her fingers through his downy brown hair. Like his eyes, his hair was so much like hers.
“Today...today, I think I activated the Byakugan when Kenji and his friends were pushing me around. I know I’m not supposed to because you and dad aren’t –”
He heard only a shaky laugh in response as the fingers combing through his hair stalled and tensed.
“Jiro. This...it was never supposed to happen. You simply shouldn’t be able to use the Byakugan when there’s only half of you that’s...um, that’s from him,” she breathed out. “But it’s not your fault, you’re not a freak.”
Him? Who’s he? Jiro wanted to ask, and would have asked, had Mom been in a better state to answer.
His mother’s breaths rattled as she drew Jiro into her shoulder. She pressed a line of kisses along his forehead and whispered how much she loved him, and how sorry she was. Jiro shivered, confronted with her urgent need to stammer out apology after apology. Mom shared Shino’s shock at his activation of the Byakugan, but her shock seemed balanced with recognition. Recognition of a clearly unwelcome conclusion.
“Wait – Mom, then do you know why I activated the Byakugan?”
“Yes, I do. I didn’t think it was very likely, so I never told you it could happen. And that was my mistake. Your dad...he...”
“My dad?”
Jiro recalled what the nurse said just before he went out of earshot, that horrible comment about how Rock Lee probably wasn’t his real father. But if Rock Lee wasn’t his father, then he could think of nobody else. Certainly nobody else he would want to call “dad.”
“It’s in your blood, even if it doesn’t turn up often in cases like yours.” His mother’s voice trailed off before she could complete her thought.
“So Metal can activate the Byakugan, too?”
Asking about his younger brother seemed to compound his mother’s discomfort. She released her first sobs and shook her head.
“No. Metal will never activate the Byakugan. I only ever thought it was possible with you.”
A tide of panic rose in Jiro’s chest. He gripped his mother’s arms and buried his face into her shoulder.
“So...I’m not like him?” Jiro whispered. “Mom, he’s my brother, right? Why’re we different?”
“Metal is your brother, but only by half. Your fathers are different. You might have figured that out already.”
So that horrible speculation had been correct. Jiro pictured himself torn away from his father and thrust into the arms of a dark, faceless man clouded in shadow. His new father’s white eyes burned through the darkness to pierce him as Jiro struggled to break away and run back to the man he’d always known as his father.
“No! I don’t want to say goodbye to Dad. I don’t want anybody else being my dad.”
Mom laughed, cupping both of Jiro’s cheeks in her hands that smelled of metal and old paper.
“You’re not going anywhere, Jiro. I promise, we’re going to figure this out and you’ll be okay.”
She squeezed him tighter, only looking up when the door swung open. A gray-haired man stood in the doorway with a boy next to him.
“Hey...uh, Ten-ten, my son really needs to go. Do you have a bathroom –”
“If you’re not buying, get out. The bathroom’s for customers only, sorry,” she spat, slapping a hand to the counter.
Jiro blushed and mouthed “sorry” at the man and his son. The occasional outbursts of his mother’s temper unsettled him, especially when directed at people who bore no responsibility for her failing business. By contrast, Mom seemed to relish the opportunity to unleash the distress coiling in her chest.
“Ugh, the nerve of some people,” she groaned at Jiro. “Anyways, we’re not kicking you out, and your father and I love you.”
He looked up at Mom’s glistening eyes paired with her tight smile, biting his bottom lip.
“Does my other father love me, too? Does he know about me and think about me?”
His mother pressed her lips into a line and nodded once.
“Jiro. I can’t say for sure. I don’t know whether...I’ll explain later, dear. Just, please understand that it’s not easy for me to tell you everything.”
Jiro wished he could sink into the ground. He was sure the full truth wouldn’t be easy for him to hear either. Though the Byakugan promised great power if he managed to master it, his life would have been so much easier had he never awakened the latent power in his eyes. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell his mother that he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to know of his “real” father so soon – or ever.