Welcome back to the Smoke and Mirrors AU.

----------------------------------------

Sukuna Yanmaru was a five year old, who for all intents and purposes, was born about… two weeks ago. Maybe. He wasn’t too sure and he didn’t really care. His eyes gleamed as he hid from his spot in a bush, watching his Clan members from a distance.

Big Bro Asahiro was someone he had only met a few times. He was scary. Always training and he had those cool eyes activated whenever he saw him. But he was really cool. Asahiro was always blowing out gigantic balls of fire. Like right now, he was about to do it again.

Sukuna recognized the handseals he was making. He couldn’t see them all that well. He was too far away, and they were really fast, but he recognized them. At least, he thought he did. He felt a smile creep onto his face.

“Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!” With that utterance, a massive ball of flame escaped the mouth of Asahiro. There were astonished gasps and cheers from Team Mei and the rest of the Clan. Except him and Miwa. He rolled his eyes.

They said he was too young to learn Ninjutsu. The boy scowled, very clearly displeased. What the hell did they know! He was Sukuna Yanmaru, damnit! With a huff, he turned away from the group and ran back to the big house he shared with Miwa and the others. He knew Asahiro knew that he was peeping on them.

Big Bro was like that – he knew everything. It was pretty awesome. He had to be like, the strongest. He reached the house quickly, only taking a minute. Maybe a few… he was really bad at keeping time. With a shrug, he entered it. Miwa was there, reading a scroll in the dark.

The cabin was only lit by the moonlight. It was at times like these Sukuna really wished he knew cool fire Ninjutsu. With a grunt, he sat down in front of Miwa. “Hey, Miwa. What scroll is that?”

“Handseals for Dummies.”

“Uhhuh. I’ve read that like a million times. Haven’t you memorized it already too? I can do all the handseals already. Watch.” He let a million watt grin out as he ran through the handseals. It only took him around thirty seconds to do all twelve.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

“Yeah, Sukuna. I know.” He watched her eyes roll. “I can too. But that’s not why. I’m bored.”

“Wanna go run one of the obstacles?” He watched Miwa perk up.

“Which one?” Sukuna knew he had her attention now.

“Uhhm.. How about the Tree-hopping Obstacle course?” That was Sukuna’s favourite. Hattori had nailed some wooden poles into a few dozen trees, going up and down, simulating branches and tree-top movement. It was all about balance and speed.

“No, I suck at that one.” Miwa pouted.

“Okay okay. How about the Shinobi Gates course? You like that one right?” Sukuna, on the other hand, really didn’t like that one. It was a bunch of spinning doors, and you had to move through it without getting hit.

It was all about grace, less so about speed and power. He always got kicked out of it and landed on his butt when he tried to go through it. The rotating doors were quite painful. He hadn’t beaten that one before.

“That one is too easy, Sukuna.” He scowled. Easy? I’ll show you easy…

“Uhh… Well, I guess there’s always the Forest Path course.” The forest path course was an extremely rough patch of terrain that, at full speed, took even Big Bro Asahiro around a minute to complete. For Sukuna, it took around half an hour. Miwa usually took around fourty minutes.

The goal was essentially to run, as fast as possible, over really rough terrain. It was supposed to help you travel smoother and easier, while avoiding making dumb mistakes like tripping. Sukuna had only done it once, as had Miwa, under the guidance of Mitaro and Sasori.

Sukuna scrunched his nose. He didn’t like Mitaro very much. The guy was a bit of a stoic, even for the Yanmaru. The Clan in general tried to be conservative in terms of showing emotion. After all, they were led by Hattori of all people. It didn’t help that Yuta, Mei, and Yuki were the three team leaders either…

“Uhmm… Okay. Let’s do the Forest Path. Are you sure it’ll be okay to do it without a Chunin watching?”

Sukuna sneered. “They suck. Come on Miwa, we’re awesome. We don’t need them.” Miwa frowned, but nodded.

Sukuna turned towards the door and rocketed out. “Can’t believe that worked. Didn’t think she’d want to play with me after last time!”

Miwa, oblivious to Sukuna’s clearly malevolent schemes, followed along innocently.

They took several minutes before arriving at the forest path course.

The start of the course was marked by two wooden poles. All along the course, marked every 3 meters, were two more wooden poles to make sure the person doing it wouldn’t veer off course.

“Hey, Miwa.” Sukuna smiled.

Miwa shivered. “Yes, Sukuna?”

“Wanna race?” Sukuna’s evil plan suddenly came to life. This was his goal! He wanted to beat Miwa in a race!

Miwa, the innocent child she was, didn’t understand this. She thought he simply wanted to play; she was unaware of his competitive spirit.

The last time the two had raced, Miwa had beaten him just barely. He had been working his butt off to become even faster and better and more awesome than her. Sukuna grinned. He was probably the coolest five-year old on the planet.