When he changed his question, Chino’s eyes narrowed as if she were glaring at him. “First, Nowaki, now me. Where’re you getting your info, anyway?” Chino looked at Sasuke with annoyance. “That’s right. Our clan was falsely accused and locked away in this land by the Uchiha clan. Right from the start, the ketsuryugan of our clan was looked down on, compared with the so-called three great ocular jutsu of the byakugan, the sharingan, and the rinnegan.”
“But, like,” Chino said. “We drank this boiling water, we shot birds out of the sky, we ate the few grasses that grew; we survived. Tired of fighting, our clan lived a careful life here, rather than going out into the world outside. And then, the world forgot about the Chinoikes … or they should have.”
“Should have?”
Chino turned sad eyes away. “Oyashiro learned about the existence of the Chinoike from past documents, and kidnapped me when I was still little. Then he slaughtered my entire clan.”
To increase the level of rarity, I’ve even had all but one person in a clan killed. The words Oyashiro had said to him in the Coliseum. So that had been Chino, then.
“This history of my clan I just told you, I actually learned about it from the old historical documents Oyashiro had. After I was kidnapped, ever since I can remember, I was put through ninja training in Oyashiro’s mansion. I was made into a tool to carry weapons on a fierce battlefield; I killed without wanting to. That’s why I ran away.”
In which case, had she also been part of Bright Lightning? That was Sasuke’s thought, but apparently, he was wrong.
“The majority of the bodyguard group I escaped with formed Bright Lightning with Nowaki and moved together, but I came back to Hell Valley by myself. I felt like I would understand who I was once I got here. But it was no good …” A pained look came across Chino’s face. “My own father and mother, the faces of the people of the clan, I couldn’t remember anything. I didn’t know why I had been born, why I was alive. It was empty … It was just empty.”
Chino’s face grew grim. Her eyes were gradually colored red. “Still, I had planned to live here quietly by myself. I wanted to get away from fighting. But after he was deceived by Kirigakure and disbanded Bright Lightning, Nowaki fled and showed up here. It took over a year for his wounds to heal, you know. He got no asylum in the villages. He had no family to protect him. He had no one to love him. He was used and tossed aside; that was his entire existence.”
Sasuke waited for her to continue.
“People like us, born with kekkei genkai, are always made to suffer. Our persecutors call themselves ‘normal’ and make false accusations about us just because we happen to be alive. They’re all ‘peace, peace,’ but once war is gone, people with kekkei genkai are still persecuted! So I decided to smash it all for them! There’s no hope for the future of a world like this!”
Sasuke couldn’t deny what Chino was saying. The Uchiha clan too had been exposed to cold stares in Konoha. That was why Sasuke had hated the village.
But there was a definitive difference between the two of them. Sasuke had been born in the middle of connections, and he had keenly felt those connections as he grew up. Chino had never had anything. She didn’t know her parents’ faces, she didn’t know warmth, she didn’t know bonds. That had to be close to how Naruto felt.
You were alone to begin with!! What can you know about me?! Hunh?!
This pain is born from my family bonds!!
How could you ever know what it means to lose anything?!
In my pain at losing those bonds, I yelled at Naruto, who had no bonds, about how he couldn’t understand me.
But still, Naruto had desperately tried to understand him, to get closer to Sasuke’s heart. He thought about it now. About how painful it must have been for Naruto to have no connections. About the terror of not having a single being to affirm you, of there being no one to love you. And then how tremendous was the loneliness when you found important people from that state of nothing, built connections, and then lost those connections? Sasuke’s heart hurt.
Even so, Naruto had never abandoned him, right up to the very end.
“I was jealous of you, Sasuke.” Chino stared at him. “Being born in Konoha, bearing the Uchiha name, and having a family that loved you. You became infamous after you left your village, but now you’re traveling freely like this. That’s because you have people who love and protect you.”
He gasped. The red ketsuryugan.
A tear spilled out of one of them. “I get it. That you lived always, always, always loved by someone. You just didn’t realize it, you just didn’t bother to look at it; there were always people like that around you. Unlike … me.” Chino punctuated this with, “That’s too much talk. If you want to stop me, go ahead and kill me. But this time, don’t forget the ketsuryugan of the Chinoike clan!”
Chino pulled out a kunai and quickly cut both of her wrists. Hot blood spilled out, pouring into the simmering red pool.
“Using blood, the Chinoike clan can make use of all kinds of techniques. In particular, we can use the iron in blood. And in this place.”
Chino’s chakra wriggled around in the red pool.
“These red pools contain a lot of iron, which further enhances the Chinoike powers.”