Kurenai

The village sprawled beneath a sky heavy with dusk, its narrow streets winding like veins through a body already beginning to rot. Kurenai Yuhi stepped lightly into its pulse, her sandals clapping softly against the packed earth, her infant daughter Mirai cradled against her chest in a sling of crimson cloth. She’d come on a routine diplomatic errand—a check-in on one of Konoha’s smaller settlements—but from the moment they arrived, something felt… off. The air carried a faint bite—woodsmoke mingled with something sour, like meat left too long in the heat—and the villagers moved with eerie, sluggish grace, their eyes catching hers for too long before darting away. A farmer paused mid-stride, his hoe dangling from calloused hands, staring with glassy intensity; a woman at a well lingered over her bucket, her head cocked as if listening to a whisper Kurenai couldn’t hear. The weight of their gazes pressed against her skin, cold and invasive, and her crimson eyes narrowed, scanning the quiet streets with a wary, Shinobi-honed gaze. She tightened her grip on the kunai tucked beneath her sleeve, drawing Mirai closer, the infant’s soft breaths a fragile tether to calm amidst the unease coiling in her stomach.

The tavern loomed at the street’s end, a modest wooden structure with a sagging roof and a chipped sign swaying in the breeze, the Kanji for “rest” barely legible. Kurenai pushed through the door, the hinges groaning like a warning, and stepped into a haze of lantern light thick with the scent of stale sake and simmering stew. The room was sparsely filled—a handful of patrons hunched over scattered tables, their conversations hushed, their movements precise, dying out as she entered. Every pair of eyes subtly flickered toward her and Mirai, glowing red for a heartbeat before settling into carefully composed masks of normalcy. She pretended not to notice, though her muscles tensed instinctively, her hand resting lightly on Mirai’s shoulder to keep her close. The innkeeper—an older woman with deep smile lines and a wiry man’s scar bisecting her brow—turned from behind the counter with practiced warmth, her voice soothingly even, almost too rehearsed. “Welcome, travelers,” she said, her vacant, almost knowing stare lingering as she slid a key across the wood, fingers **** to let go. “A room for the night?”

Kurenai hesitated, every instinct screaming that something was terribly wrong here. The villagers were too still, too quiet, their smiles too measured, their posture too perfect. Yet, she nodded, her voice steady, cutting through the quiet like a blade. “Yes. Just for the night.” The innkeeper’s smile widened, and for the briefest moment, Kurenai thought she saw something writhing beneath her skin, something foreign shifting just beneath the surface of her warm expression. She climbed the creaking stairs to her room, the walls paper-thin and stained with age, the air thick with mildew and a faint metallic tang. Settling onto a frayed mat, she hushed Mirai’s faint whimper, nursing her daughter in the flickering glow of a single candle. The village’s stare seemed to seep through the walls—every creak of the floorboards, every muffled cough from below an extension of those watchful eyes. Her hand rested on the kunai once more, its cold steel a promise against the shadows, as the night deepened outside, the village holding its breath. Somewhere in its heart, Baby watched, his crimson gaze threading through his thralls, tasting the arrival of a new pawn in his silent, creeping game.