Into the Inferno

The Mother's Regret
Life in Takigakure was always busy nowadays. Experiencing a baby boom after the Fourth Shinobi War, even the once tiny village of Takigakure had at least tripled its' population count. A growing young population would always find the need to bustle around the cramped village in the glorious sunlight, but none on the surface would probably know about the vast underground network of tunnels built under the Village Hidden in the Waterfall. The damp smell of the network was however a small price to pay for the immense security it granted, or so Minatsuki Kanata noted. She stood in a rather well lit room with five of her top dogs. 'Generals' in a tiny army of less than 50, maybe 70 if they involved mercenaries; but a force nevertheless. Minatsuki's slender fingers swiped a few strands of hair away from her face as she awaited the arrival of two peripheral figures in her rebellion. The ancient Hougou and her own flesh and blood. Her eldest son, Kenta Kanata.

Minatsuki sighed to herself. She hated herself for bringing her son into this, a battle that had been hers from the beginning. She hated the fact that she had left him nothing but a rotten reputation. She hated a great many things, and more often than not she wished that she had never participated in that enhanced human programme. Life would have been so different if this had been someone else's problem. She could have been a decent wife and mother, doting over a teenager and a newly crowned man of twenty and a husband in his mid forties. Maybe in another life, or another universe, she thought to herself, her sense of longing only deepening. Another one of her comrades in arms saw the sadness reflected off her eyes, moving in closer to place a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"You okay, Mina?" He asked, a brow raised in concern.

She exhaled strongly and nodded, replying him with only a smile in confirmation. She'd see this through, she had to. World peace wasn't a trivial thing, and when you could do something to preserve it, you did. But Minatsuki's intentions were not that altruistic, they were devoted more towards self-redemption. All those experiments on all those orphans; just because she refused to test the serum on its most important candidate. A specimen originally conceived for the pure purpose that it would share her genetic structure when coming into being; her all too important genetic makeup which was so compatible with the tailed beast Taki had owned before the war. But maternal feelings had interrupted that sacred mission she had undertaken. A mother's love had saved one child but the need to compensate saw her sacrifice dozens more. She needed to somehow find a breakthrough or, as the open threat had sounded, she would be forcibly 'revoked' of her child.

And so a mother's love became her ultimate weakness as a human being.

Horrible experiments on babies floating in giant tubes in one of Taki's research facilities. Many had died, but enough had remained. Minatsuki had found the coveted formula to success, which however came at the cost of 'extended immersion' in those sickening tanks. Thus all the children had floated for more than fifteen years. All but one, of course. A beautiful girl, as Minatsuki remembered, whose genetic code contained a rare anomaly that allowed her to directly assimilate the Tailed Beast's dangerous, corrosive chakra. She had come out in a year, but Minatsuki hadn't heard of Taki using her. In all possibility, the chakra of the beast had poisoned her for adapting so early, killing the child painfully. There simply was no way she knew for sure, as she had escaped from the village before knowing the child's fate.

This was all because of her own dedication to the science of bodily modification and eugenics, and Minatsuki knew it. She would stop this programme and she would stop Taki from building their world conquering army. One perfect pseudo Jinchūriki was a challenge, five were capable of razing a village single handedly. Several dozen could take over a vast majority of the Five Nations in a few days. She shuddered at the thought of this. But Kenta had seen the importance of this fight. While she had just wanted his help for sabotage and infiltration, but he had born the weight of this revolution with the might of Hougou behind him. Hougou and Kenta had done their parts wonderfully, but now they had taken over the whole mission—Viper's Nest were now playing support. But Minatsuki was determined. She would not let her precious child, the one she sacrificed so many others and her own self for, bear the brunt of her fight. Kenta could pull his weight however he pleased, but Minatsuki had already prepared herself secretly to take the fall for him.

There was no possible way Kenta could know just how much she loved him, and she was fine with that. A child separated from its mother would understandably not cherish her as much as it would if never apart. But things were different for a mother. Minatsuki still saw him as he had been when she left, and she loved him even fiercer. But she would not risk him discovering her true motives to sacrifice herself in the aftermath. He deserved to live his own life, and she deserved to end her own battles. The sound of footsteps echoed through one of the narrower tunnels overhead, as shadows loomed.