Minato began to crawl.
Not aimlessly. There was joy in the way he moved, a warmth in his limbs, an innocence that filled the room when he laughed. The caretakers adored it. Nao would kneel and coax him forward with open arms, her voice soft, pretending at affection. The man—Daisuke—would clap when Minato stood on wobbly legs for half a second longer than expected. They called him bright. Talented. A prodigy. Other orphans stared from their cribs, giggling when he toddled past them, his golden hair gleaming like the sun in a place that had no sky.
Aizen remained still.
He watched from his crib with eyes now opened, silent and unblinking. His gaze tracked every motion with surgical clarity—head tilted just enough to avoid detection, limbs slack to maintain the illusion of stillness. The muscles in his fingers had begun to strengthen. He flexed them in sequence beneath the covers, no pattern too subtle for him to master. From thumb to pinky, left to right. Then reverse. He was training. Slowly. Invisibly.
He did not crawl.
Not because he couldn't.
But because there was nothing worth crawling toward.
He had tested his strength. Alone at night, when the others slept and the room fell into silence so total it hummed in his skull, he would curl his legs, press his toes into the mattress, and push.
He could move.
He simply chose not to.
He was, after all, still observing.
The orphanage was a rot-veiled garden. Painted in softness, in lullabies and warm bottles and blankets, but underneath it was something far more insidious. The caretakers were not truly kind. They were efficient. Their affection was measured. Conditional. Children who cried too much were ignored. Children who smiled were held longer. Those who failed to speak after a year were left behind. The system was not cruelty—it was calculation.
Aizen understood.
It was familiar.
Systems like this always existed. Whether in Soul Society or Konoha, under gods or kings, in war or peace. They all sorted people into tools.
And he had once been the hand that moved such tools.
Now, he was one of them.
But only in appearance.
Behind the silence of his small frame, something vast stirred—consciousness layered in decades of memory and centuries of planning, reduced now to internal whispers and incremental movement. He trained when no one watched. He clenched his muscles in low pulses to build endurance. His eyes would remain fixed on the ceiling while his lungs learned to regulate breath deeper, smoother. His fingers curled around the bars of his crib each night, and by the third month he had learned to support his own weight in hanging silence, the tension burning through his biceps like fire.
He said no words.
But his silence became louder than speech.
And people noticed.
"He doesn't cry," Nao said, folding her arms one evening.
"Some babies just don't cry," replied Daisuke, too tired to care.
"It's unnatural," she insisted. "No fussing. No tantrums. Not even when he's hungry."
"Maybe he's just... content?"
"Or maybe," she said, voice dropping, "he's waiting for something."
Daisuke laughed, but it didn't reach his eyes.
Minato had begun walking short distances now. Laughing. He would often crawl toward Aizen, press his small hand against his brother's cheek, and grin. Aizen never smiled back. But neither did he recoil. Sometimes, after Minato returned to his playthings, Aizen would stare at the faint warmth left on his skin. Not in sentiment. Not in affection.
In analysis.
The bond was deepening. He did not understand it yet. But Minato's presence soothed the edges of his mind like a salve. As if the boy's very proximity slowed the hemorrhaging thoughts in Aizen's overcrowded consciousness.
He did not need his brother.
But he found him... useful.
By the eighth month, Aizen began to speak.
One word at a time. Perfect diction. Measured tone. The caretakers assumed it was instinct—random babbling, no intent. They were wrong. He spoke only when necessary, repeating certain words to test cadence, to sharpen muscle memory.
He did not mimic the others.
He dissected them.
By one year, he could stand.
And so he did—alone, in the corner of the room, under the window no light reached. His feet trembled. His legs shook. But he did not fall. He remained upright for forty-two seconds before the pain in his hips forced him back to the mattress.
He marked the time with a scratch behind the crib's frame—hidden where no one looked.
Training log: Day 1. Stand duration: 00:42
By day 14, the number had grown to over five minutes.
He never walked in public.
Why give them what they wanted?
Let Minato be the star. The genius child. The bright flame.
Aizen would remain unseen.
The orphanage assigned groups by behavior. Minato was placed with the active children—those destined for shinobi preparation. Aizen, despite showing equal if not greater aptitude, was grouped among the quiet ones.
The overlooked.
Perfect.
In silence, he trained.
He memorized the entire layout of the orphanage before he could run. Every creaking floorboard. Every angle of door swing. Every schedule of the caretakers—when they checked beds, when they took breaks, when they whispered in the dark. He memorized Nao's patterns. She favored her left knee. She smoked when the other caretakers weren't watching. She had a weakness for shinobi from the Hyuuga clan. Useless information—for now. But he kept it.
Information was never truly useless.
Daisuke, on the other hand, had once been a medic-nin. Retired. The way he held his tools, the faint calluses on his thumbs. Aizen watched the man's every movement when he changed bandages or washed the infants. Daisuke's techniques were precise, old-fashioned. But effective. Aizen learned them. Every motion. Every breath. Every gesture.
By the time he was walking fluidly, Aizen already knew how to sterilize wounds and set bones.
He practiced on himself.
He fell. Purposefully. Cut his hands climbing the stone wall in the outer yard. When the blood welled, he stared at it without reaction. He measured the pain. The pulse. The sensation. Then he found a rusted edge of metal beneath the shed and practiced sealing the wound himself with stolen bandages.
Pain was an ally.
Pain taught.
The caretakers grew wary.
"He doesn't flinch," Nao said. "Not when he's burned. Not when he bleeds. Not when he falls. The other children cry."
"Maybe he doesn't feel pain the same way."
"No," she whispered. "He just doesn't respond to it."
Aizen listened to this from the hallway, unseen, hidden behind the open panel of the supply cabinet. He tucked the information away. They were beginning to notice too much. He would have to dial it back.
Subtlety. Always subtlety.
He began stuttering in speech again. Faked it. Deliberately let his words slur around the edges. Made himself appear hesitant. Insecure.
They believed it.
And so they watched him less.
Minato, meanwhile, was already forming basic chakra threads. The boy glowed with talent. Joyful. Kind. A natural. He had the instinct for it. The chakra came easily to him.
Aizen did not envy him.
He studied him.
Every time Minato practiced under Daisuke's loose guidance, Aizen would watch from behind the fence, eyes glinting beneath dark lashes. He traced the shape of Minato's hands. The flow of chakra. The moment it swirled. The failures. The corrections.
And when the others weren't watching, Aizen would mimic the motion—ten thousand times.
His hands bled.
He kept going.
His muscles tore.
He kept going.
By the time Minato was praised for forming a small glowing thread between his palms, Aizen had already mastered three variations.
He simply hadn't shown anyone.
Why would he?
This world had no gods.
Only systems.
And he would manipulate every one of them.
Even the ones called family.
Even the ones called fate.
Especially those called god.