The Red Shark - Chapter 3

I’m two now.

Japanese comes without effort these days. Half the time I think in it without noticing, and that unsettles me when I catch myself. My body has kept up, more or less. I crawled, then walked, and now I run through the compound’s damp corridors at a speed that worries the mothers. Every so often I trip on purpose. A two-year-old who never falls would get people talking.

I’m growing faster than a normal child should, and the mothers have noticed. I’ve seen their faces when I climb onto a bench by myself or drag a full bucket of water across the kitchen, and I’ve heard them say “Hoshigaki blood” to one another, sounding proud and a little careful about it. I play along. I fall down, I whine that I’m tired, I say small words like “mama” and “nii-san” and “training.” In my head I could hold a full conversation about supply lines. Nobody needs to know that yet. In a village full of shinobi, a strange child gets watched, and I’d rather not be watched.

Where I came from, my family kept affection in short supply. This one runs on something rougher, and I’m still working out what to call it.

The siblings are the loudest part. Twenty-two of them, all older, their ages lined up like the steps of a staircase.

Daigo is the oldest, ten now, and the one the others look up to. He graduated from the Academy this year. Most kids need until twelve, some longer, and he went through the curriculum like he’d read it before. On the rare days the sun gets through the mist, he trains in the central courtyard and I watch him. His taijutsu is clean, and he’s learned enough basic genjutsu to play small tricks on the younger kids. He doesn’t talk much. He thinks before he moves, and the others listen to him because he’s earned it. “Daigo-nii is the best,” the little ones say, and they mean it.

Rokuta, who’s eight, is his opposite. He starts fights over the last piece of dried fish and laughs through all of them. During one sparring match Shun caught him square in the face. Blood ran out of his nose, and Rokuta grinned with red teeth. “Good one, idiot! My turn!” He went back in twice as hard.

Nao is six and quieter. He watches, figures out what went wrong and fixes it on the next try. He started at the Academy this year along with a whole group of the others: Tetsuya, who’s quick with hand seals; Shun, who’s quick at everything; Goro, built like a young bull; and Kenta, the youngest of the batch, whose chakra control already impresses people. Akashio children enter at five or six. Nobody in this family waits.

When my father is home, the compound changes. “Line up, brats!” bounces off the stone walls, and every child over five drops what they’re doing. He drills them on katas for hours and corrects their stances with his hands, hard enough to leave a mark. “Are you Akashio,” he asks them, “or garbage the mist is going to swallow?” When he’s away on missions, his subordinate Kazuo takes the courtyard. Kazuo is a thin chūnin with scars all over his face, and he yells less than my father, which somehow makes it worse.

The kids sweat, gasp, fall into the mud and stand back up. Rokuta swears under his breath when he fumbles a seal and does it again angrier. Even the quiet ones like Isao don’t cry. They beat on each other in sparring, and sometimes there’s blood on the ground, and at the end they’re laughing about it. “Next time I’ll get you for real!” I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s crazy, and I can also see exactly why the clan is starting to stand out.

I’ve started finding my place in all this. At two, everything I do has to look like play, so I pick my games carefully.

With Daigo, I stretch my arms up and say “Nii-san, up!” He laughs and lifts me onto his shoulders like I weigh nothing. “Little shark’s flying today!” From up there I can see the whole courtyard: which corridor leads where, where the guards stand, which walls are lowest. I memorize it while he walks me around.

Rokuta lets me fight him. “Harder, Arashi! Show me those teeth!” I swing my soft little fists, holding back most of what I’ve got, and he falls over dramatically every time.

Nao brings me things. A stone, a wet leaf. “This one’s round like a ball. This one’s sharp, see? Like a kunai.” I babble back at him like I’m thrilled, and I am, a little. He pays attention to small things, and without knowing it, he’s teaching me to do the same.

They respect Daigo and follow him, but I haven’t seen any real jealousy among them. They’re a pack. They’ll bite each other in training and close ranks the second anyone from outside comes near.

The mothers keep the whole thing running. Hanae, the first wife, hands out the day’s work like a quartermaster: “Miyu, market. Kaho, you’ve got the little ones.” Miyu is calm and can talk Rokuta down when nobody else can. Kaho tells stories at night about ninja from the old wars. Rina used to be a geisha and still moves like one; she’s the one who corrects our manners. Sae can mend a torn training shirt faster than I can follow her needle. Yori grew up on a farm and keeps the small garden inside the walls. Akemi organizes games and runs around with us. Fumika barely talks and misses nothing. Nagi comes from the sea and tells stories about it. Then there’s my mother, the redhead, the outsider, the one who laughs the loudest.

When my mother takes me out to the courtyard for some air, which in Kirigakure means wet air, the others drift over. The babies and toddlers end up in the middle: me and Haruto, Fumika’s youngest, who tries to copy everything the big boys do. We roll around in the thin grass while the women talk over our heads. “Isamu got back late last night. Tired, but happy, I think.” “I had Hanae’s boys today so she could sleep.” They pass each other’s children around as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

The biggest day of the year was Daigo’s graduation.

The mothers spent all day in the kitchen for it. Hanae ran everything. Rina put flowers along the tables, ones someone had brought back from a mission. My mother made a cake with dried fruit she’d been saving for weeks. I helped by spilling flour all over the kitchen floor, and they wiped me down with wet rags while I giggled. By evening the main hall was full of paper lanterns, grilled fish, rice and sweets made from sugared seaweed, which only show up on special days.

The kids were wild. “Daigo-nii’s a genin! A real one!” Kenta and Hajime kept staring at him as if he’d grown a head taller overnight.

My father came in late. He had to duck under the doorframe, and the hall went silent. Nobody looked scared, though. They looked proud.

“You’ve made me proud, son,” he said to Daigo, loud enough for everyone. “You’re better than the rest. A true Akashio.”

Then he gave him a sword. It had been made for him, with the village symbol on the hilt and a small mark for the clan beside it. Daigo took it with both hands. His eyes were wet, but he kept his back straight. “Thank you, Father. I won’t let you down.”

My father looked over the rest of us. “I expect the same from all of you. Get strong or die trying.”

In most families that would be a terrible thing to say at a party. Here, every kid in the room grinned. Rokuta smacked Shun on the shoulder and shouted, “We’ll pass you in no time, Daigo!” and the whole hall broke up laughing. Even Kaito and Toma clapped, without any idea why.

Later, after the children had been put to bed and the mothers thought I was asleep too, I heard them talking. “He’s hard as stone, but he’s a good father.” “He takes care of all of us.” “Where would we be without him?”

I don’t know yet what I think of that. I know what they think.

Lately I do more than watch. At night I crawl into Hanae’s lap and say “Tell!” until she gives in and tells me about old samurai. Miyu plays hide-and-seek with me, and I’m learning to get around corners without a sound, which she finds adorable. And sometimes, late, it’s only me and my mother. She sings in a language nobody else in the compound speaks. When she does, I feel something warm move under my skin, and I don’t think it’s only because she’s my mother.

This family is strange. A father who talks about dying at a party, children who laugh with blood on their faces, ten wives who would raise each other’s sons. I’ve decided I’m keeping them.

———

Author’s Note

Thank you for reading! Advanced chapters of The Red Shark are on my Patreon, and you’ll find my other stories right here on Parallel World.

⭐ Patreon (support me + early access): patreon.com/cw/pararaio

🌐 Official website: parallelworldverse.com