Rising Blade, Falling Leaves (Fate x Naruto, EMIYA Centric)

[DeclanDSI]

While poetic and nicely emotional. How could a man with a Mangekyou like that not change the clans minds, or prevent many of the problems that led to the coup? Is the story of Keubiko not being able to move literal here for noty being able to change anythign he sees?

Click to shrink...

I guess Fugaku only sees the future as it was already recorded, not the future that could be made.

 

[Godfire]

While poetic and nicely emotional. How could a man with a Mangekyou like that not change the clans minds, or prevent many of the problems that led to the coup? Is the story of Keubiko not being able to move literal here for noty being able to change anythign he sees?

Click to shrink...

I guess this falls into the old curse of prophetic powers. In that, the holders of them are passive, don't want to change the future for reasons unknown but can be imagined or they believe the future is set into stone. Not unlike Artoria's future, if you can trust Merlin.

 

[SpaceWhalesForLife]

I guess this falls into the old curse of prophetic powers. In that, the holders of them are passive, don't want to change the future for reasons unknown but can be imagined or they believe the future is set into stone. Not unlike Artoria's future, if you can trust Merlin

Click to shrink...

Fate's fall of Camelot is an unalterable time locked event even if a Utopia would be created it would be destroyed anyway. Pretty sure Merlin even directly prophesied and told Artoria.

I can see how Fugaku could weigh the clan against his sons and decide his sons were worth more and not alter too much, it just seems strange to not even seemingly try to alter canonical events where he didn't have this power, like is there a reason he had no knowledge of Tobi with this mangekyou ability? Was it never used on Danzo? What would he learn from Shisui etc etc

 

[Yzakschwarz]

I guess this falls into the old curse of prophetic powers. In that, the holders of them are passive, don't want to change the future for reasons unknown but can be imagined or they believe the future is set into stone. Not unlike Artoria's future, if you can trust Merlin.

Click to shrink...

Just because Camelot had to fall didn't mean it bag to happen that way.

 

[VincentBr0]

...I'm honestly speechless.

Not in a bad way, mind you. I just didn't expect Fugaku to know for certain.

Still, I'm glad he didn't find it distasteful. Kami knows I'd have mixed feelings about that.

I wonder if Mikoto will ever learn the full truth.

Thank you for the chapter, can't wait for the next one.

 

[The Tangerine Cat]

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Chapter 15—End of Summer


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​

The classroom was half-full when the bell was still ten minutes away, which was ten minutes earlier than it had ever been half-full before.

The children had arrived quiet. More than a few were looking at the back of the room, where the Uchiha had been leaning in his chair since before most of them had come in.

At the front row, Ino had slid into Sakura's seat with one hand on her desk and head tilted close. "My dad said a lot of them."

"How many?"

"He wouldn't say. He said a lot."

Sakura's pencil had stopped moving. "A lot like how many of us in class?"

"More than that."

"More than the whole class."

"I don't know. My dad said a lot and then he said stop asking."

Sakura looked down at her desk. Her eyes flicked, for a second, toward the back of the room and came back fast. She pursed her lips.

"Do we say something?" Ino whispered.

"To him?"

"Yeah."

"What would you say."

Ino opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Two rows behind them, Shikamaru was asleep, or pretending to be. Chōji, beside him, was holding a rice cracker he had not bitten.

On the other side of the room, Kiba was drawing something on the side of his desk with his finger because he had forgotten his pencil, and he was not being loud about it, which was not like Kiba at all.

The door slid open.

Naruko bounded in and stopped.

She had a piece of toast dangling from her mouth because both her hands were busy with the bag. One strap had been broken since last week, and the other strap was the one she was holding. It was basically dragging on the floor.

She stood in the doorway and looked at the room.

It was quiet… in the wrong way.

Naruko had been in this classroom every day for sixteen months—except for the ones she hadn't been, and was off wandering the alleys and forests—and she knew what it sounded like in the morning. It sounded like Kiba yelling at somebody and Ino arguing with somebody else and at least three people laughing at something that wasn't funny and the round boy—Chōji—unwrapping something. That was what the morning sounded like.

This morning sounded like the library from that one time during the field trip, and she hated that trip.

Naruko frowned around the toast.

Her eyes went around the desks, looking for the thing that was making it quiet. Nobody was bleeding. The windows weren't broken. Nobody was eating anything interesting. The chalkboard was the same chalkboard as last week. Iruka-sensei wasn't in the room yet, but that didn't explain it, because Iruka-sensei being not-there usually made the room louder, not quieter.

Maybe everyone had gotten tired at the same time. That happened sometimes. Or maybe there was a bug going around and she just hadn't caught it yet. Or maybe the grown-ups had put something in the water that made kids quiet, and her apartment had different water, because her apartment always had different everything.

Her eyes landed on Ino and Sakura in the front row, heads together, whispering.

Naruko scowled. Whispering was the worst. Whispering meant somebody knew something somebody else didn't know, and she was always the somebody else.

She marched towards her seat, the toast wobbling but holding.

The spot beside hers was already occupied.

And of course, Uchiha Sasuke was in it.

He was leaning back in his chair with arms folded across his chest, eyes closed as always. When the late summer wind came through the open windows, it swayed his raven bangs and moved through the ends of his stupid duck-butt hair.

It was like everything in the room was boring him, and also like the room was slightly beneath him, and also like he was doing everybody a favor by being in it. He wasn't even doing anything and he was already making her mad.

Same as every other morning, then, ttebayo.

Stupid Teme.

Naruko sat down beside him. She took the toast out of her mouth—most of it was still there, because she had forgotten to keep chewing once the room had gotten weird—and set it on the desk.

He didn't open his eyes, so she kicked the leg of his chair.

When he still didn't open his eyes, she kicked it harder.

"If you keep doing that, you're going to break your foot, Naruko."

"It's not gonna break my foot."

"It's metal. Your foot is foot."

"That doesn't even make sense, teme."

"It made exactly as much sense as it needed to."

In the front row, Sakura's pencil stopped moving again, and this time it stayed stopped. Ino had turned halfway around in her chair and was staring openly in their direction.

At the edge of Naruko's peripherals, Kiba had tilted his head sideways, which was what Kiba did when his dog was confused about something. Shikamaru, who was usually asleep, had his eyes half-open and was watching their direction.

Naruko scrunched her brows."Oi. Teme."

"Hm."

She leaned in a little. "Why's everyone being weird."

Teme cracked one eye open at her. It was the look he did when he thought she was being dumb.

And now she wanted to punch his stupid face even more.

"Are they."

"Yes, they are."

"You might be confusing quiet for weird. They can look similar."

"They're not quiet. They're whispering. That's worse than yelling."

"On what grounds."

"Because they're whispering about something, and I don't know what it is, and I hate it."

"A common condition, I'm told."

She huffed, sat back, and crossed her arms just like him. Teme was the worst kind of teme, like being a teme was his whole personality, and he had decided a long time ago that he wasn't going to get any new personalities.

She decided his chair needed a harder kick.

—Scrk.

His seat barely shifted.

"You're the worst," she grumbled.

"So I've been told."

At the front of the room, Ino slowly turned back around in her chair, wide-eyed, and looked at Sakura. Sakura was already looking at her. They stared at each other for a second before mouthing something back and forth. Then they turned their eyes forward at the same time and did not look at the back of the room again.

The door opened, and Iruka-sensei came in. His gaze lingered on Sasuke for a single beat before moving to the rest of the desks. "…Good morning, class."

"Good morning, Iruka-sensei..." The answer from the class was more broken up than she'd ever heard.

Naruko dropped her chin onto her arm and stopped thinking about it. Instead, she let her thoughts drift towards the mysterious bento box. It had appeared on her windowsill even after the weird glowing mushroom a couple of nights ago. And she thought about how it would appear again tonight, and what kind of food would be in it.

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​

The funeral had been held in the afternoon.

The marker was a single upright stone, taller than Emiya, taller than Mikoto, with the names in dense columns on its face.

A few dozen of them stood before it in a loose crescent, dressed in pitch-black mofuku.

Izumi was at the front, and her mother's hand was on her shoulder. She had not looked up from the stone. The three younger clansmen who had been ordered on perimeter watch with Izumi stood a little apart from each other. Behind them were their families and a scattering of several more families.

Thirty-odd Uchiha—Emiya counted without turning his head.

Mikoto took her place at the head of the crescent.

Behind the mourners, the visitors stood in an even line, their shadows falling long across the swept stones. Hiruzen was at the center, Homura on his left, Koharu on his right. Two paces behind them were the three heads of the remaining four royal clans. Further back, Nara Shikaku stood with Yamanaka Inoichi, their hands resting at their sides as they watched the crescent rather than the stone.

Mikoto spoke briefly in the traditional form and added nothing.

When she finished, she inclined her head to the stone. The mourners inclined theirs. After a beat, the visitors inclined theirs.

The ceremony was over.

The crescent began to move. One at a time, the crowd approached the stone to place what they had brought: incense, a folded strip of cloth, a small bowl of rice. Izumi and her mother were first after Mikoto. Her mother laid the offering with her and steered her back.

Emiya made his when the crescent had thinned—a single stem of white chrysanthemum that was cut from the garden at the side of the house in the morning. He laid it among the others and stepped back. He did not read the names on the face of the stone because he had counted them already from the edge of the yard, and he had counted a good third of them when he put them here.

But there was a good quarter that wasn't supposed to be on there, those that neither made up the police force nor leaned towards a coup.

The other parties had moved fast—especially the one that had moved through the civilian quarters.

When Emiya returned to his place, Mikoto was already speaking quietly with Izumi's mother with a hand on her forearm.

Hiruzen came over as the crowd broke into smaller conversations. "Sasuke-kun."

Emiya lifted his brows. "If it isn't the Hokage himself. I see you're still performing these house calls diligently."

Hiruzen stopped a pace and a half off, and for once, the old pipe wasn't in his hand. He looked at the stone, then at Mikoto, then at Emiya. "You are calmer than I expected."

"Is that so? Then I'll see what I can manage at home."

"A child has been permitted many postures at his father's funeral, in my experience. May I ask how you are holding up, Sasuke-kun?"

Emiya hummed. "The village is stable. Mikoto is alive. Itachi is alive, as far as anyone knows. The thirty or so people standing between us and the stone are alive, and they'll be alive tomorrow, and most of them next year. More could have remained, but I'd say we stand at an acceptable spot."

"…That is a very particular way of putting it."

"The calculus made sense."

"The calculus."

"Given the circumstances."

"...What about your father's death?"

"The circumstances," Emiya shrugged.

Hiruzen looked at him for a long moment. "But the rest of the clan is gone. Three hundred and eighty-seven of them."

"Three hundred and eighty-seven who were going to move, Hiruzen, against several thousands of active chūnin and jōnin, not including Anbu and the rest that are away on duty. Tell me, again, excluding genin, what are the total active forces of Konoha?"

"Just above nine thousand. Half of them are on missions beyond the walls." Hiruzen studied him briefly. "We would have had more if not for the Nine-Tails' incident."

Emiya hummed, his eyes tracking the mourners scattered around the stone. "The Uchiha was arguably the most powerful clan, but it was followed closely by the Hyūga. It was also only one of the four royal clans among numerous smaller ones. Do you believe any of them would have permitted their peer to flip the board?"

"…I suppose not. But…" Hiruzen's words lulled. "…if they were to launch a coordinated attack on leadership, bypassing the disadvantages in numbers… Wouldn't you agree that would have provided them a greater chance of success?"

"To come for your head, Hiruzen?" Emiya eyed him. "Assuming the village somehow had no intelligence on the operation, and your frail bones really can't take a beating, then I suppose, yes…" A breath short of amusement escaped his nose. "…Until that student of yours, Jiraiya, returned, or the other clans and jōnins eventually noticed and mobilized, or better yet, both. What should a clan of three hundred do against several thousand?"

"…They could've cast genjutsu on Konoha's leadership." Hiruzen eyes swept across those gathered in the field. "…That would be a bloodless and effective resolution."

"You should be glad Hiashi is standing beyond earshot. That was quite the insult to the Hyūgas."

Hiruzen sighed. "I meant no such things, Sasuke-kun."

"Either the Hyūgas are frauds, or the Academy curriculum is. The byakugan claims to see any unnatural flow in someone's chakra, and genjutsu, no matter how subtle, always leaves a trace. Unlike the Uchiha, the Hyūga are present in every rank and division of this village. How long would it take before the front crumbled?"

"A couple of weeks, perhaps. Maybe months…"

Emiya clicked his tongue. "If you were generous in your estimate and naively optimistic."

"And if they were to try for the Kyūbi?"

"You can handle that with your Anbu."

"And your father? "

"The village has more than enough to keep him busy. "

"Fugaku was once a contender for the hat, just behind Minato."

"And the story goes that the Third Raikage fell against ten thousand Iwa-nin. He lasted three days. He also had chakra comparable to a bijū. I doubt Fugaku could rival that. The Uchiha were not renowned for their stamina, after all. It'd be impressive enough if he held his sharingan at full throttle for even a day."

Hiruzen gazed at him for several seconds before looking away. "…I see that you have considered the outcomes and thought this through."

Emiya tilted his head. "It is the basics of the basics."

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that, Sasuke-kun. I doubt any of your peers share the same insight. I doubt many of the adults in this village share the same insight."

"Well, the populace of this village does leave much to be desired. It often has one pondering the quality of leadership to have nurtured such disappointing results. Regardless—"

Hiruzen's eyebrow ticked.

"—A coup from the Uchiha cannot be permitted. A civil war, even if extinguished, is enough to move the needle. Iwa keeps count of these things. So does Kumo, and they've already been prodding since the Hyūga's incident." Emiya folded his arms across his chest. "And Konoha's response had not inspired confidence."

"There was the threat of war, Sasuke-kun. We couldn't afford another large-scale conflict only years after the passing of Minato."

Emiya scoffed.

Hiruzen blinked, eyes cutting back to him. "Is that not the same reason why you are against the coup?"

"The stakes are hardly the same, Hiruzen. Striking down the envoy sends a signal of strength, even if it is false. Wars have been started in the name of fodder, but never because of fodder. The stakes that underpin each village do. And they don't change for either side with the death of nameless messengers."

"Those nameless messengers were jōnin, Sasuke-kun."

"Fodder jōnin then."

Hiruzen's mouth pulled into something flat. "…You are very attuned to the workings of this world."

"This is hardly anything deep." Emiya eyed him from the side. "Wars don't begin when a side runs out of power. They begin when the people reading the board decide the numbers have shifted enough to make the gamble worth it."

"…But the other villages wouldn't mount an offensive now."

"No, not immediately, but in five or ten years? Your weakness entices others and feeds their ambitions. You know how this plays out. Anyone who's half-versed in the history of humans knows."

A breeze moved through the cedars and stirred the edge of Hiruzen's robe.

"Perhaps the Uchiha might have been an actual threat," Emiya continued after a moment. "Perhaps they never had been. But in the end, they'd simply be another problem that would be put down. The only difference is in how many others they will drag along to their demise." He looked ahead and shrugged. "Heard enough to satisfy your little test?"

"That's not what this was, Sasuke-kun…"

"Sure."

Hiruzen exhaled through his nose.

"Better to move than stand still, Hiruzen. Standing still is what brought us here today."

"...They had not committed the crime, Sasuke-kun." Hiruzen's voice was low and tired. "The proof had not come. To strike them down before it did—that is not the kind of village I can be the one to leave behind."

"And here we are, three hundred and eighty-seven dead." Emiya nodded once at the stones. "And much more, if they had been allowed the opportunity to follow through."

The crowds were shifting again as condolences were shared between new individuals. Up ahead, Mikoto was approached by Hyūga Hiashi, the man bowed first, and she returned the gesture.

Izumi and her mother had moved aside with another Uchiha family that survived. Izumi glanced up and found Emiya's gaze. She blinked, her eyes still tenderly pink as she sniffled and gave him a small nod.

Emiya nodded back. "Virtue is a tool, Hiruzen. Principles exist so fewer people end up in the ground. When keeping them puts more people there, virtues are no longer virtuous, not when they aren't held accountable by the outcomes. They become, simply, selfish indulgences."

Hiruzen was silent.

Emiya glanced up at him after a while. "I know time is catching up to you, but try not to dither too much. Steel your heart. You are the Hokage after all. A little blood on your hands a few years early is preferable to this—as is this preferable to a coup, and the consequences that follow when others pounce on an opportunity they believe they've glimpsed."

Hiruzen turned and looked at him for a long moment. "Your brother said something similar, Sasuke-kun."

"Did he."

"He told me he was making the call for similar reasons... of why he chose to... remove the clan."

"...Is that what he said. That he was the one who killed everyone?"

"It is."

"…I see… Then we are in agreement."

"We are in something." Hiruzen looked at the stone again. His hands settled behind his back. "Give my regards to your mother."

Emiya eyed him again. "She's twenty paces from you."

Hiruzen sighed. "Then I will give them to her myself." He bowed once to Emiya and walked past the stone to Mikoto. A few words that Emiya did not listen to were exchanged. He bowed to Izumi's mother, to Izumi—who nodded without looking up—and went back to the cedar stand where Homura and Koharu waited.

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

Emiya and Mikoto ate dinner at the low table in the dimming kitchen. She finished her rice slowly while Emiya finished first and waited. When her bowl was empty, he rose to clear.

She pulled her bowl in slightly. "I'll do it."

"Mikoto."

"I'll do it, Sasuke. It's fine." Mikoto hugged the porcelain a little bit tighter. She took a breath and lifted her gaze. The smile was delicate. "It's running late. You have a delivery to make, don't you?"

Emiya studied her for a moment before he sighed.

Her shoulders eased by a fraction.

He took the bento down from the shelf in the kitchen, wrapped the container, tied the knot, and went to the door.

The faucet turned on from somewhere in the back.

"I won't be long."

The tap continued to run loud behind him.

Emiya stepped into his sandals and went out.

The lane was dark. He walked past the end of the garden wall and settled against the wood there. It was late August, and the cicadas had thinned for the year. A few carried on in the trees behind the property, stopping and starting in a gentle cadence.

Inside the house, the water went off.

For a long moment, there was nothing.

Then the sound came, low at first, one long note that did not rise and did not fall from the woman's chest. When it ended, she pulled air in again, and the next one came shorter and rougher than the first, and the one after that ruptured somewhere in the middle of itself.

Emiya stopped counting after the fourth.

Some of them had the shape of her husband's name in them. Some of them were her eldest's. Most of them did not have the shape of anything.

Emiya stayed where he was, settled against the wooden walls.

After a long while, the wails thinned into sobs, and the sobs into wheezes littered by hiccups.

The cicadas went on. The wind moved through the street, and the lanterns along the rows of vacant houses swung and held.

Somewhere, atop that barren hill, the man plunged another blade into the ground. He looked up, tanned skin and white hair, as the rows of swords lined the earth in the same measured intervals, stretching into the horizon with no end.

Emiya stared at the darkened windows across the street.

When everything had settled, when the sniffling had ceased, and when the heat of the bento could no longer be felt through the cloth, he pushed off the wall and disappeared down the empty lane.

It wasn't as if the man dreamed of a world free of conflict.


He just didn't want anyone to cry in the world he knew.

​

The breeze was warm against his skin. The lanterns glowed, and the whispers of summer continued.

So much for that.

A world that did not cry.

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

Next Chapter Preview

Over a month had passed since the funeral, and late summer days had bled into early October.

Mikoto was humming when Emiya came into the kitchen.

Naruko's apartment was on the fourth floor and the third floor was empty and the second floor was empty and she was pretty sure the first floor was empty too.

The dango shop was two days' walk past the Fire Country border.

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​

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Thanks for reading.

 

[Laxard]

Really should been migrating to Kumo, while fighting off Konoha's pursuit instead.

 

[The Tangerine Cat]

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Chapter 16—The Path Continues

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Over a month had passed since the funeral, and late summer days had bled into early October.

The mornings had gone cool enough that Mikoto had started closing the north windows before bed. The compound had settled. The Uchiha who were going to leave had left. The Uchiha who were staying had started mending what was left.

Mikoto was humming when Emiya came into the kitchen.

She had opened the screen that faced the garden, and the light came in at the angle of the season, pale and long, striping the low table. She moved between the counter and the burner without having to look at either. The humming was a piece of something she had sung to Emiya when he was two.

Emiya set his bag by the step.

"Rice in a minute." She did not turn from the stove.

"You should have let me help. It would have been faster that way."

"Don't leave your poor mother with nothing to do, Sasuke."

"Uh-huh."

"Honestly. There's only two of us in this house. If I let you do half of everything, I'd spend the day watching the garden."

"Hm. How tragic. Thirty years young and already living the life of retired aunties."

The humming stopped.

Slippers shuffled across the kitchen. Mikoto crossed the distance between the counter and the table, and two fingers tapped the side of his head, warm and precise.

Then she shuffled back to the counter.

Emiya's left eyebrow twitched.

The humming resumed.

A moment later, she brought the breakfast to the table and sat across from him. "The miso wasn't right yesterday. Don't tell me it was."

"It was fine."

"It wasn't."

"Mikoto."

"It was thin, Sasuke."

"It was miso."

She made a small sound that might have been a laugh. She had not made that sound in many weeks. "Maybe I should let you back to the cooking after all. You wouldn't make this kind of mistake."

He shrugged. "Told you so."

Mikoto's mouth pulled down at the corners.

"—Though I'm getting used to not doing anything. Don't ruin it for me now."

Mikoto huffed.

When they were finished with the meal, she cleared the table and ran the water at the sink. By the time she came down the hall, Emiya was already in the genkan, putting on his sandals.

Mikoto stopped behind him at the entrance of the hallway. "Sasuke."

"Yes." He shouldered his bag on one side.

"What do you think Naruko is like at home?" Mikoto's gaze had wandered to the cupboard that held the slippers.

Emiya had passed by that cupboard thousands of times. There was nothing particular about it. "That idiot? Probably tracking dirt and sand through the house, and leaving milk cartons out of the refrigerator."

"I'm sure you can handle those things."

Emiya stared at her flatly. "...She'll be trouble."

Mikoto blinked, her expression unchanged as she looked at him.

Emiya sighed.

"I want to adopt Naruko."

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

Mikoto nodded to herself. "I'll speak to the Hokage."

"...Fine. Do whatever you want, woman."

Mikoto smiled.

The door rolled open on its tracks. Cool morning air came in off the stones.

"Itterasshai," Mikoto called after him gently.

He threw a wave over his shoulder and stepped through, and the door slid shut behind him.

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​

The Hokage's office was bright on its north side and cool on its south, the way early autumn afternoons always were.

Hiruzen was working through a stack of border-patrol rotations when the door to the office slammed open hard enough to rattle the lacquer in the frame.

"Hiruzen!" Danzō stormed into the room, cane striking against the floor in his left hand.

Hiruzen set down his brush.

"How could you let the head of the Uchiha clan approach the jinchūriki!"

"The girl has a name, Danzō."

"How could you let it happen!"

Hiruzen folded his hands on the desk. "You seem to have forgotten your position."

"My position is beside the Hokage. It has been for forty years!"

"Your position was formalized by a council seat and the operational authority of Root. The seat was vacated in August. The authority was rescinded the same week. You no longer have either."

"That was a temporary measure pending inquiry!"

"It was not, Danzō."

Danzō's visible eye narrowed.

Hiruzen drew a folder from the top-left drawer of the desk and laid it on the surface between them. He did not open it. "Itachi-kun's report has been on this desk for seven weeks. It has not moved. You know what is in it. I know what is in it. Your name, the order you gave, and the particulars of Root's involvement. We have both known since the morning I stripped your seat."

Danzō's knuckles whitened on the cane.

"You walked into this office today certain that I had let the matter cool. I have not. I have kept the report here, precisely here, while I decided what the next act looked like. That decision is a separate matter from the one you have come to raise today, and it is not on this desk for you to see."

"Hiruzen—"

Hiruzen waited.

"You will regret this."

"I am the Hokage, Danzō. Root is dissolved. You are on thin ice. And Uchiha Mikoto does not get to adopt Uzumaki Naruko. I have already drawn that line."

Danzō held his gaze. Then he turned and walked out of the office without a word, and the door slammed shut behind him hard enough to rattle the lacquer a second time.

Hiruzen sat without moving for a time, the folder still on the desk. He put his hand on it, and then he did not open it, and he drew it back across the surface and returned it to the top-left drawer and slid the drawer closed.

"Neko."

The air by the ceiling shifted and an ANBU dropped to one knee at the left of the desk, porcelain mask catching the afternoon light.

"Have the frame looked at. And put the repair on Danzō's tab."

"Hai, Hokage-sama." The ANBU was gone before the word finished.

Hiruzen picked up the brush. The border-patrol rotations were waiting.

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

Naruko's apartment was on the fourth floor and the third floor was empty and the second floor was empty and she was pretty sure the first floor was empty too.

So when the sounds started, Naruko knew about them right away.

On the first day, it was feet in the hallway that weren't hers, a box being dragged across a floor, and something heavy set down that went thump through the wall and shook the picture above her kitchen table. She sat on the floor and looked at the wall for a long time, because the wall had never done anything before.

That night she stayed up past the hour she usually slept, listening. She stayed up because somebody was in her building and she didn't know who they were and people she didn't know were almost never good.

On the second day there were voices. Two of them. She couldn't hear the words but one was a woman and the other was quieter and she couldn't tell what it was. She walked up and down the hallway twice to figure out where these people were.

Nobody opened a door.

But she figured out where the voices were coming from.

They were coming from the apartment next to hers.

Naruko stood in the hallway and stared at the maybe-neighbor's door for a long time.

This was the one right next to her door. This was the one she walked past every morning and every evening. It shared a wall with her kitchen. Somebody was living on the other side of the wall she looked at while she ate.

On the third day there were more boxes and more feet and the sound of something like furniture being pushed across a floor. She stood outside her door for a long time with her ear pressed against the wall, and she heard the woman's voice saying something short and kind, and another voice saying something short back, and then the sound of somebody setting a cup down.

People who said short, kind things, she thought, probably weren't the yelling kind.

Probably.

Today was the fourth day.

It was Sunday, which was the good and the bad day of the week. There was no Academy and no Iruka-sensei and nowhere in particular to be. But on Sunday mornings the village was full of families doing family things, which Naruko was not invited to. So Naruko had a schedule. On Sundays she went out to the small stall three blocks north that sold the cheapest onigiri in the district, and she bought two of them while the lady in the apron gave her the stink-eye, and then Naruko would take them to her favorite log by the river and eat them slowly, because if she ate them slowly they lasted longer, and if they lasted longer then it was dinnertime before she knew it.

And dinnertime meant the mysterious bento box would appear. And the mysterious bento box was super delicious.

This morning, for the first time ever, something else was happening in the building—aside from the quiet voices and sounds of boxes scuffling about over the past days, of course.

Naruko had Gama-chan in her hand and her sandals on. Gama-chan was green and frog-shaped and had a clasp that was the frog's mouth. She had been given Gama-chan almost a year ago on her sixth birthday by whoever it was that left her gifts and things and a cake with candles on her windowsill.

The smell hit her when she was bouncing Gama-chan in her palm as she exited into the corridor.

Somebody next door was cooking.

It had never happened before because nobody cooked in the hallway, because nobody lived in the hallway, because the only person in the whole building was her.

Naruko wanted to knock on the door.

She wanted to knock on the door very badly.

She did not knock on the door because the last time she had knocked on a stranger's door, it had been the curry stand two summers ago, and the woman had yelled at her until Naruko had run three blocks.

That was when the door opened.

She went still.

The woman who stepped out was beautiful. She had long black hair. She was wearing a dark purple shirt and a red-plum skirt, like she had just been doing something normal inside. She had a small basket over her arm. She turned to lock her door, and then she turned back, and she spotted Naruko standing in the hallway with Gama-chan in one hand and her mouth open.

The woman smiled. "Good morning."

Naruko knew that smile.

Naruko knew that smile a lot.

This was the lady. The lady from the Academy gate. The lady who had said good afternoon, Naruko-chan to her once, almost two years ago, on the first day of the Academy, and who had said it every single time she had seen her at the gate after that. Thirty-eight times. Naruko had counted every one. The lady did not come to the gate often, and she never came in the mornings, only the afternoons, and only to pick up Sasuke-teme sometimes, not every day, and she had never once walked past Naruko without saying something kind to her. The lady with the kind eyes. The lady whose voice was soft and warm and never scary. The lady who was beautiful like the ladies on the scrolls in the shops Naruko wasn't allowed into.

The lady was living next door.

The kind lady was living next door to Naruko.

"...Good morning." It came out sort of strangled. Naruko's hand tightened around Gama-chan.

The kind lady's smile got a little wider. "I hope the moving-in wasn't too loud. I tried to be quiet."

"...It was fine."

"That's a relief. I'm—"

The door opened again behind the lady.

Sasuke-teme stepped out into the hallway.

His hair was doing its stupid duck-butt thing. He saw Naruko. He saw Naruko standing in the hallway. He saw Naruko standing in the hallway next to the kind lady, with her mouth open, and Gama-chan in her hand, and her brain—

—finally caught up.

The kind lady had black hair.

The kind lady had fine features in her face.

The kind lady was standing in front of the same door Teme came out of.

Naruko's brain slammed into cold water.

Teme raised an eyebrow. "Good morning, Naruko."

"You—You live here."

"Evidently."

"You live next door to me. And this is—she is—"

Teme did not answer. He adjusted the edge of one sleeve and watched her work through it, because she was going to work through it either way.

"...Dattebayo."

"Sasuke." The kind lady—Teme's mother—had turned to look at him. Her voice was warm. "Please be nice to Naruko-chan."

Teme sighed. "I have not said anything yet, Mikoto."

"You were about to."

Naruko nodded quickly. "He was about to—"

"Naruko-chan." Teme's mother had turned back toward her, and her smile was the warm kind, the kind that had made Naruko count each of the thirty-eight afternoons at the gate. "I'm sorry about him. He's like that with everyone. It has nothing to do with you."

Something happened inside Naruko's chest that she did not have a word for.

Somebody was on her side.

Somebody who was a grown-up was on her side.

Somebody who was a grown-up and who was beautiful and who was Teme's own mother was on her side.

And she had just told Teme to be nice.

"He won't even open his eyes when I talk to him in class." Naruko's voice was coming back up.

"Is that so."

"Every day. I say something, and he just keeps his stupid eyes closed, and then he says something mean with his eyes still closed, and then he goes back to pretending I don't exist, dattebayo."

"That does sound terrible, Naruko-chan."

"And he acts like everything is beneath him, dattebayo."

"That is not acceptable."

"I know, ttebayo!" Naruko agreed, delighted.

Teme had not moved. His expression had not changed. But his eyes were on his mother, and there was the faintest twitch at the corner of his lips that had not been there a minute ago.

Teme's mother's own eyes stayed warm on Naruko. She had not looked at her son once since she had started.

And then Teme's mother laughed. It was a small laugh, and quick, and then she covered her mouth with one hand and the laugh kept going behind it anyway, and her shoulders moved with it.

Naruko had never seen a grown-up laugh like that before. Not at her. Not because of her. It was not the mean kind of laughing the villagers did when she tripped. It was the other kind—the kind the mothers in the parks did when their own kids said something.

Teme's mother got the laugh under control. She lowered her hand. Her eyes were bright. "I am sorry. I am sorry, both of you."

"You seem to be enjoying this a great deal, Mikoto."

"I am a woman of simple pleasures, Sasuke."

"Uh-huh. Of course you are."

Naruko stared at both of them.

The kind lady turned to her. Her face was gentle. Her eyes went to Gama-chan in Naruko's hand, and then to Naruko's face, and they stayed there. "Naruko-chan. Were you on your way somewhere?"

"...Just to get food."

"What were you planning to eat?"

"Um. Onigiri."

"From where?"

"...The stall by the river."

"I see." The kind lady set the basket down against the wall by her door. "Then would you be willing to do me a favor. I was going to the market for Sunday groceries, but if I am going to cook lunch for three today I will need a little more than I had planned for. Would you help me carry things back?"

Naruko's mouth opened. It stayed open because she hadn't counted a third person coming out of that door behind them. "...Lunch for three?"

"Yes. It will be Naruko-chan, me, and Sasuke."

"But—"

"You do not have to if you have other plans."

"I don't have plans."

"Then will you come?"

"...Yes!"

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

The dango shop was two days' walk past the Fire Country border, a small roadside stand that served three villages and did not ask questions.

Itachi sat in the corner with his back to the wall.

A plate of dango had been placed in front of him an hour ago. The first two skewers were gone. The third was untouched.

He was turning the scroll over in his palm.

Sasuke had been waiting at the tree line.

Itachi stopped.

"You weren't going to say goodbye to Mikoto."

"It's easier this way."

"For who."

"For her. She only has to mourn me once this way."

The boy did not answer for a moment. "The official explanation is you killed the whole clan to test your strength."

"I know."

"I didn't know you blew up the elders, Itachi."

Itachi breathed, and he met the boy's gaze for the first time. "…So that truly was the case." He closed his eyes. "I leave mother to your care then, Sasuke."

The boy clicked his tongue. "What is it with you and Fugaku saying the same thing. Do I come off as some kind of caretaker? When have I ever presented myself as charitable."

Itachi turned around and stared at him flatly, at the same odd boy who had been delivering food to an ostracized girl every night for almost two years in secret.

The boy scoffed at the stare. "Here." He reached inside his pocket and produced a small scroll, wrapped and sealed. "Fugaku wanted me to give you these."

"What are they?"

"His eyes."

For a moment, he didn't move, and then he stepped forward and took it. The paper was still warm from Sasuke's hold.

"Don't be too stupid out there." Sasuke had put his hands back in his pockets. "Come back once in a while. Mikoto is going to miss her son."

"Doesn't she still have you?"

This time, it was Sasuke's turn to look at him flatly. "Let's stop playing dumb, Itachi. We both know I was never that."

Itachi lowered the scroll back to the table.

The sauce had already gone tacky at the edges when he finished the last of the skewers. He set a handful of ryō beside the plate. Then he raised one arm to the level of his shoulder.

A crow fluttered down and landed on his wrist. He held the scroll to its beak and the bird swallowed it whole, shook its feathers once, and lifted away through the open door.

A minute later, Madara sat sat down across from him in his orange mask. "The dango here is supposed to be good."

"You're late."

"I took the long road. I am cautious, even now." The mask tilted slightly. "The organization I spoke of has positions available to men of your talent. Distance from Konoha. Resources. Objectives that will align with your interests, for a time."

"For a time."

"For as long as they do."

Itachi did not answer.

"A curious piece of work at the compound." The mask tilted the other way. "The execution of the inner council. Very flashy and loud. Almost too loud for your style, Itachi. It was a shame that Konoha was on us before I could finish the rest of my work. Was that what you wanted? To spare the innocents?"

"Most of them aren't valuable to you anyway. Their sharingans were largely dormant save for a few."

"I suppose... Let's drop this discussion for later then. So, Itachi? Will you accept."

"I suppose, why not."

"Good."

The man rose and Itachi followed. He drew his forehead protector from his pack and tied it on. The kunai-scar across the leaf caught the light in a thin bright line.

They stepped out into the road. The sun was low enough to throw the shop's shadow halfway up the opposite wall. Itachi looked back once, past the shop, past the trees, toward the country he had come from.

"Thinking about family?" The mask had not turned toward him. "I saw that baby brother of yours once. Peculiar boy. I can tell he's got attitude even from afar."

Itachi turned away from the horizon and fell in beside him. "He's not my brother."

The spots of sunlight dancing across the boy's features through the shimmering leaves.

"Still..." Itachi studied him for a long moment. "Maybe it's better that you weren't."

The boy lifted an eyebrow, his stare flat.

"Thank you." Itachi looked down at the scroll. "For the ones you kept safe. For sparing me Father. There… would have been no one left had you not intervened."

"I have no idea what nonsense you're speaking. Quit imagining things, Itachi. Don't tell me you've become delirious in a single night, or is that just a side effect of overusing your Sharingan?"

Itachi smiled. He turned and stepped between the great trees planted by Senju Hashirama all those years ago. The wind was cool and rippled the canopy above them. "We'll meet again someday, Sasuke."

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

Arc 1—Prelude​

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Concluded​

​

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

Next Chapter Preview

"Your ribbon is crooked."

"Tomorrow at nine."

"OI, SASUKE-TEME!"

"Yeah yeah, ya old man."

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

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