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

[The Tangerine Cat]

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Chapter 1—The Girl in the Village


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The early spring air still bit in the mornings, but by late afternoon the sun had burned through enough to make the market street almost pleasant. Almost. The smell of grilled squid clung to the awnings, vendor stalls threw long shadows across the packed earth, and the Hokage monument loomed over the cliffside as it always did—four stone faces staring down at a village they no longer had to deal with.

Emiya wondered, not for the first time, whether retirement improved one's outlook or simply removed the need to have one.

He shifted the paper-wrapped miso paste to his other arm and continued down the street. He was five years old. The crowd parted around him without thinking—a quick glance, whose kid, gone.

He stopped at the counter of a dry-goods stall. The shopkeeper was mid-argument with the customer ahead of him, her voice carrying over the foot traffic.

"Eighty ryō. Same as last week, same as next week."

"Last week it was sixty, and you know it was sixty because I—"

"Eighty ryō, or you're welcome to walk to the south district and see what they charge."

The customer clicked his tongue and fumbled for his coin pouch. He dropped two ryō onto the counter and a third bounced off the edge onto the ground. The man swore under his breath, crouching to retrieve it while the shopkeeper watched from behind her counter, already smiling. He slapped the full amount down, snatched his purchase, and shouldered past Emiya on the way out without a grunt.

Manners in this village were a renewable disappointment.

Emiya stepped forward and set his coins down in a neat stack. "Kombu. The thicker cut, if you have it."

The shopkeeper looked at him, then at the coins, then at the miso paste under his arm. "Aren't you precious."

He was not, in fact, precious.

She retrieved the kombu. "Thank you for your purchase, Uchiha-kun!"

He raised a hand without turning.

The commercial district gave way to wider lanes as he moved south. The breeze picked up between the buildings, cool enough to prickle the back of his neck. The stalls thinned out as a woman swept her steps and hummed something off-key, and on the corner two men argued about a fence post.

"It's leaning."

"It's been leaning for six years."

"And one day it'll fall and kill someone's dog."

"Hah! Then the dog shouldn't sit there!"

They'd clearly been at this a while. Emiya sidestepped a delivery boy jogging past with a crate of bottles taller than he was, the kid weaving through pedestrians with his jaw clamped. He'd already dropped one today.

A brown tabby sat on a low wall ahead, cleaning its paw in a patch of afternoon sun, a red ribbon tied around its right ear. The cat looked up as Emiya passed, regarded him flatly, and resumed grooming.

A shout went up from the street behind him—two young, breathless voices.

"There—on the wall! Go left, go left!"

The tabby's ear rotated once and its paw stopped mid-lick.

Two genin in leaf headbands came barreling around the corner. The first one lunged. The cat twisted sideways, raked its claws across his outstretched forearms in a single fluid swipe, planted both back legs on the second genin's face, and launched itself off her nose into the gap between two buildings. The girl staggered backward, clutching her face, and the boy was already bleeding from both arms.

"I hate this cat," he hissed, and they scrambled after it down the alley.

Somewhere in a mission office, someone had filed that retrieval as D-rank. It was a generous assessment, given the apparent casualty rate.

He rounded the bend where the lane opened up, and his peripheral caught it—above and to the left, a blur on the crossbar of a utility pole that resolved like a heat mirage condensing into a solid shape. A porcelain mask sealed his face, canine in design, short muzzle painted with dark slashes across the eye slits. A shock of white hair stuck up above it at an angle that defied both gravity and grooming. The figure crouched with one knee drawn up, perfectly still, in the fitted gray armor vest and arm guards of an ANBU operative, oriented northeast toward something several blocks ahead, never once sparing his attention for the street below.

Emiya didn't slow. His sandals kept the same rhythm on the packed earth, and he filed the direction without turning his head.

When he glanced that up again—a half-second later, peripheral only—the crossbar was already empty.

The lane bent toward a small square. A dango vendor occupied one side, his charcoal grill trailing sweet smoke into the still air. An old man on the bench was losing a slow war with the breeze for control of his newspaper. The foot traffic was thinner here, and slower with it.

Emiya's stride shortened by a half-step as he spotted the figure across the space.

A girl was approaching the dango stall.

She was small—smaller than him, which at five was already not much. Her thin arms poked out of a white t-shirt with a faded red spiral on the front, the collar stretched out wide enough to show a sharp little collarbone. Orange shorts a size too large hung past her knees, cinched at the waist with a bit of cord. Her sandals were scuffed down to almost nothing on the heels. She looked like someone had dressed a sparrow in hand-me-downs and sent it out to forage.

But the hair was hard to ignore. A wild, bright mop of blonde caught the afternoon light and held it, wrestled into uneven pigtails with mismatched ties—one red, one blue—by someone working without a mirror. Three thin marks ran across each cheek, like whiskers, and beneath the mess of hair and the oversized clothes, the face was all round cheeks and wide, startling blue eyes and a small stubborn mouth.

She walked with her chin up and her shoulders set, small sandals scuffing the packed earth.

The vendor saw her coming.

Emiya watched his hands. The man had been arranging skewers on the display tray—spacing them, adjusting, the automatic rhythm of ten thousand identical afternoons. When the girl crossed into his line of sight, his hands just relocated. They shifted from the display tray to the counter's edge, palms settling flat against the wood. The body closed the distance between itself and the front of the stall the way a shopfront shutter rolled down at closing.

She hadn't even spoken yet.

The girl reached the counter and looked up at the skewers, her blue eyes tracking across the display. She'd done this before.

She opened her mouth.

"Not today." The vendor was looking past her, at the striped canvas of the produce stall, like she'd interrupted a thought he was already done with. "Come back later."

The girl closed her mouth. She stood there for a beat, then scratched the back of her head with one hand—a quick, rough gesture, fingers raking through the base of her ponytail. She hiked up the orange shorts that had slid down her hips during the walk and turned away from the stall like she'd just remembered she had somewhere else to be.

She didn't.

Three children were playing near the bench, chasing each other in loose formless circles. The blonde girl's path brought her within a few meters. The circles shifted. The two boys drifted toward the far side of the bench, the third child trailing after them, and the orbit recentered on the space furthest from where the blonde girl walked. No one looked at her.

She passed the bench and the produce cart. A woman carrying groceries walked past her—eyes landing on the girl for a full second before sliding forward without friction.

The girl sat down on the curb at the far edge of the square and pulled her knees up. The orange shorts bunched around thin thighs, the t-shirt hanging loose off one shoulder. She rested her chin on her knees and looked across the square at the dango stall. The smoke from the charcoal grill drifted between them.

The problem had been visible from across the square. Nobody was looking.

The dango vendor went back to arranging his skewers. The old man turned another page of his newspaper, or tried to. The children kept running.

Emiya turned and walked east. The kombu needed cold storage before dinner.

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The compound gate guards dipped their heads as he approached—a shade more deference than a five-year-old typically warranted. Emiya passed through without breaking stride.

The main path cut between low-walled residences, their tiled roofs catching the last of the evening light. The smell of cooking hit him as he passed the first row of houses—soy and garlic and steamed rice drifting from open windows. A pair of crows on a rooftop to his right scattered as his sandals crunched the gravel below, their racket carrying across the quiet lane. Voices floated from somewhere behind him now, a conversation about patrol rotations or a leaking roof falling away as he walked. The Uchiha discussed both with the same gravity.

The front door of the main house was open, light spilling warm across the engawa.

"Sasuke."

Emiya turned.

A woman stood in the doorway with one hand on the frame, an apron cinched at her waist over a dark blue house dress. Long black hair swept behind her shoulders, catching the kitchen light at the edges. She had the fine-boned structure that ran through the Uchiha women—sharp and composed—but her dark eyes were warm, and her mouth sat naturally closer to a smile than a frown.

"Mikoto." His dark eyes glanced up at her from beneath a fall of darker hair, set in a pale face that still had many years of growing to do, and small hands held up the paper-wrapped package. "Miso paste. And the kombu."

Her mouth twitched. The woman had given up on that particular battle a while ago. "Come in. Your father will be late tonight."

Emiya shrugged. Truly, no one could have foreseen this.

He removed his sandals and carried the packages to the kitchen. The miso paste went into cold storage and the kombu onto the preparation counter. He washed his hands, rolled up his sleeves, and started on dinner.

The kitchen smelled right within twenty minutes—the miso and dashi had caught, and the steam off the rice was clean, which meant the rinse had been thorough enough. He plated three servings for Mikoto, Itachi, and himself. Fugaku's portion was set aside in covered dishes for reheating. The man could learn to come home on time, but that was a separate issue.

Mikoto came through to set the table. She paused behind him, watching the knife work on the last of the vegetables for a half-second. Then her hand came up and brushed the hair off the back of his neck—quick, absent, the way she might straighten a frame in passing. She set a folded dish towel by his elbow and continued to the dining room.

He served, and they ate. Itachi was quiet tonight—quieter than usual, his chopsticks moving in the mechanical way they moved when his thoughts were somewhere else entirely. He'd come home later than expected and hadn't offered why. Mikoto didn't ask, and neither did Emiya.

"The Nakano planted a persimmon tree last week." She tilted her head. "I give it until the next frost."

Emiya didn't look up from his bowl. "Depends on the rootstock."

"Ara?" Mikoto's chopsticks paused. "You know about persimmon trees, Sasuke?"

"It was in a book."

It was not, strictly speaking, in a book. But similar excuses had been thrown about too often, and those around him had stopped trying to dig for more.

Itachi's eyes flicked sideways for a half-second, then returned to his rice.

Mikoto took a sip of her soup and set the bowl down. "Your father left his reading glasses on the counter again, by the way." She reached for Itachi's empty rice bowl. "I'm considering hiding them."

That got a sound from Itachi. Not quite a laugh, but close enough.

Mikoto stacked the bowl on hers, smiling to herself.

The dishes were cleared, washed, and dried.

Then Emiya took out a fresh container.

He packed it the same way he did the household's portions—rice leveled, vegetables arranged, miso soup sealed separately so it wouldn't bleed through. He wrapped the whole thing in a clean cloth and tied it.

He set the box on the far end of the counter, away from the evening's dishes and away from where anyone would reach for it or move it or ask about it.

One extra box.

He wiped down the counter, folded the cloth, and turned off the kitchen light.

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Next Chapter Preview

A boy stood on the river—

"Whoever it's for is eating better than most adults in this compound."

Something was sitting on the windowsill.

Still faintly warm.

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Author's Note

Hey—if you're coming over from my previous fic, welcome back (though I've never posted on QQ before, mostly been active on ffn, ao3, and spacebattles).

Yeah, I know. New series.

Before anyone panics: the Fate × PJO crossover is not abandoned. That one's still something I care about a lot—it's just… kind of a monster.

From the start, that story was planned with multiple timelines, overlapping events across different eras, and a lot of moving parts that all have to line up properly. It's the kind of thing that works on paper, but in practice, it means every chapter takes a ridiculous amount of planning to not break something three arcs later.

And because I was updating it every few months… that didn't exactly help. If anything, it made both the planning and the writing worse over time.

So instead of forcing it and burning out, I'm stepping back from it for now and planning to reboot it properly in a few months once I've smoothed things out.

This fic is… the opposite of that.

It's a lot more straightforward to write. The structure is tighter, the scope is more controlled (in terms of worldbuilding, but it'll still be very lengthy in terms of total word-count), and I actually have a much better sense now of what I can realistically maintain long-term.

More importantly, it lets me stay consistent.

Writing regularly matters more than I thought it would. Not just for updates, but for keeping the flow, the character voice, the pacing—everything. This is where I get to really refine that.

So this project is going to be:

long-running

consistently updated

and a lot more stable in terms of output

Current plan is twice a week (Wednesday & Saturday, Pacific Time).

There's already a solid buffer written, and the story is planned through pre-timeskip, with a clear path going forward from there.

Also—this is still very much an Emiya story, just in a different setting.

If you liked the character work, the tone, or just Emiya being dropped somewhere he absolutely doesn't belong… you'll probably feel at home here.

Anyway.

Thanks for sticking around, or for giving this one a shot.

Let's see where this goes.

 

[The Tangerine Cat]

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Chapter 2—The Anomalies


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A small green frog leapt from a lily pad, sending rings of jewel-blue ripples across the shallow bed of pebbles. The current carried them outward until they thinned into nothing. Cicadas pulsed in the distance, their rhythm rising and falling with the breeze.

A boy stood on the river, the water lapping beneath his feet without ever disturbing his balance.

His eyes were closed.

The wind shifted, leaves trembling overhead, and a faint ripple crossed the surface as he exhaled.

"Sasuke."

His eyes opened, and he tilted his head back slightly. "Itachi." His gaze settled on him. "Back already?"

Itachi had come back early. The elders had needed a document delivered to the administrative office—nothing that required more than an hour, and it hadn't taken even that. He'd taken the tree line instead of the main gate, following the stream where the path was quieter.

He had not expected to find his brother standing on it.

Water-walking was not, by itself, remarkable. Itachi had learned the technique young. There were records of children mastering it younger—wartime prodigies, most of them, names preserved in scrolls alongside the ages at which they'd died. Children who never got to be children, because the village needed soldiers more than it needed sons.

But that had been during war. The village had been at peace for most of Sasuke's life. Children his age were learning to hold kunai the right way around. They were not standing on rivers with their eyes closed, holding the posture of someone who had been doing this long enough to find it unremarkable.

He hadn't seen Sasuke practice tree-walking either. There had been no progression—no failed attempts, no chakra burns on the soles of his sandals, no frustrated evenings. One day, Sasuke simply could. The skill had always been there. He had merely decided to stop concealing it.

They walked back toward the compound. The grass was still damp from the morning, and the late sun cut through the canopy in long shifting bands. A crow called from somewhere deep in the trees. Sasuke walked a pace ahead, his sandals barely making sound against the earth.

Itachi watched him walk. He moved the way he always did, his dark hair falling untouched, his small shoulders untightened, his stride neither hesitating nor hurrying.

He thought, briefly, of his father taking him to a battlefield at four years old, after it was over—of a sandal lying on its side in the mud, small enough to have belonged to someone his age. He had stared at it for a long time before his father's hand settled on his shoulder and guided him away.

There were moments his brother would be overcome by an odd stillness. He couldn't quite place it; it was similar to people Itachi had met who carried things they did not discuss. Yet, at the same time, Sasuke felt more at peace, like whatever burden had seemingly eased or simply dulled in the back of the boy's mind.

A leaf drifted from the canopy and landed on Sasuke's shoulder. His brother slowed half a step, and it slipped off his shirt. He never spared it a single glance. Itachi almost said something then. He wasn't sure what—a question, maybe, or something that might have passed for one.

In the end, he did not ask. The list of things he had not asked about was growing longer, and he was beginning to suspect that was deliberate—on both their parts.

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The kitchen was already warm when Emiya came through the door. Mikoto was at the stove, one hand stirring, the other adjusting the flame. A strand of dark hair had escaped from behind her ear and was hanging in front of her face. She blew it aside without breaking rhythm.

"Itachi. Sasuke. You're late."

"I was at the stream."

"Mm." She reached for a lid without turning. "Wash your hands."

He was already at the sink. The water ran cold over his fingers and he dried them on the cloth she'd hung from the oven handle—the same spot she always put it, within reach of whoever was shorter.

Fugaku was at the table with a book spread open beside his plate and a cup of tea he hadn't touched. He did not look up when Emiya entered. He did not look up when Itachi came in a minute later. He acknowledged both of them with a single low hum that apparently served as greeting, commentary, and dismissal all at once.

At least one member of this household had mastered the art of communicating the absolute minimum required by social convention. Emiya could respect that.

Mikoto handed him bowls and he set them on the tray. Itachi carried it to the table while Emiya brought the pickled sides. Mikoto lifted the pot with both hands, steam curling from under the lid, and set it on the wooden trivet between the place settings.

"Careful," she said, though it wasn't clear who she was addressing. Possibly everyone. Possibly the pot.

They ate, and Fugaku's eyes never left the page. His chopsticks found his bowl, his mouth, and the bowl again without once requiring his attention—a routine so practiced it had probably outlasted several books. Itachi chewed in silence, his gaze resting somewhere past his bowl. Mikoto watched both of them for a moment, then sighed through her nose and took a sip of soup.

"Mrs. Nakano stopped me on the path today," she offered. "Apparently their roof started leaking again. Third time since winter."

Fugaku did not respond.

"She also mentioned the cherry trees near the east wall are budding early."

"They do that," Fugaku said, not looking up.

"And that her husband has taken up painting."

Fugaku's chopsticks paused for the first time. He looked up from his book. "Painting."

"Landscapes, apparently."

The chopsticks resumed. "Hm."

"She seemed proud."

"Hm."

Mikoto caught Emiya's eye across the table, the corner of her mouth twitching, and he returned his attention to his rice.

Itachi excused himself after finishing, his footsteps receding down the hall. Fugaku closed his book and relocated to the living room with his cold tea, which he drank anyway. Uchiha stubbornness was apparently a trait that extended to beverage temperature.

Emiya washed, and Mikoto took each bowl from his hands and dried it, stacking them in the cabinet without a word. The kitchen settled into the rhythm of running water and clinking porcelain.

"Sasuke."

He glanced over his shoulder. Mikoto was leaning against the counter, the dish towel draped over one arm. She was looking at him the way she sometimes did—warm and unhurried and slightly too attentive, like she was waiting for a shape to resolve.

"The bento from yesterday," she said. "Still on the counter?"

He didn't answer immediately. The water ran over a bowl in his hands.

"I was going to take it out."

"Ara." She tilted her head. "You packed it well. Whoever it's for is eating better than most adults in this compound."

"That says more about the compound's standards than it does about my cooking."

She huffed a breath through her nose—not quite a laugh, but close. "Be back before the lanterns go out."

He dried his hands, took the wrapped container from the far end of the counter, and slipped on his sandals at the door. Mikoto was still standing at the counter when he glanced back. She had picked up the dish towel again, folding it slowly, her eyes on the spot where the bento had been.

The evening air was cool against his neck. Lanterns were already flickering to life along the main path, and the compound had gone quiet except for the distant sound of someone's radio drifting through an open window. A neighbor's cat watched him from a fence post, tracking his movement without enthusiasm.

He walked without hurrying.

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The bread lady's shutters were already down.

Naruko stood in front of them for a moment, her hand still raised like she'd been about to knock. She lowered it, wiped her nose with the back of her wrist, and turned around.

The other shop—the one with the canned goods—had let her in last week, but only once. The man behind the counter had looked at her for a long time before shaking his head and pointing at the door. She hadn't gone back since.

Her stomach had stopped growling a while ago. That was fine. It did that sometimes. It would start again later, usually around the time she was trying to fall asleep, and then she'd lie there and listen to it until it gave up again.

She took the back streets home. The main roads had too many people, and too many people meant more of the look—the one where someone's eyes landed on her and then slid sideways like she was a crack in the pavement.

A shutter banged somewhere above her. A woman leaned out a second-floor window and called a name—not hers—and a boy came running from around the corner, sandals slapping the stone, and disappeared inside. The door shut behind him. A pair of rats scurried along the gutter, the smaller one trailing close behind the larger, keeping pace. Even they had somewhere to go together.

Naruko kept walking.

Her apartment building stood at the end of the lane. It was tilting a little to one side, like always. She'd asked the old lady downstairs about it once, and the old lady had pretended not to hear her. Maybe the building was just tired. Buildings probably got tired too.

The stairs creaked under her sandals. She fished the key from the cord around her neck—it took her two tries because her fingers were cold—and let herself in.

The apartment was dim, and the wooden floor was cold under her bare feet. The kitchen counter still had an empty milk carton she'd forgotten to throw out sitting next to the sink. She kicked off her sandals—one landed by the door, the other skipped under the table—and padded toward the window to tug the curtain aside.

Something was sitting on the windowsill.

Naruko stopped.

A bundle had been left there, wrapped in cloth, tied neatly, and tucked against the glass on the outer ledge.

She leaned closer to the window and looked left down the alley, but it was empty. She looked right and saw only a stray cat picking through a toppled bin.

She slid the window open and reached for the bundle carefully, like it might disappear if she grabbed too fast. It was heavier than she expected. She brought it inside with both hands and set it on the table.

She didn't open it right away. She looked at it, leaned down and sniffed it, picked it up and turned it over, set it back down, and poked the cloth with one finger.

Nothing happened.

The knot came apart easily. Inside the cloth were two containers, one large and one small, both clean and plain.

She opened the large one first.

There was rice, packed neatly with not a grain out of place. Beside it lay slices of what looked like some kind of meat, thin and glazed and arranged in a neat fan. A rolled yellow thing she didn't have a name for had been cut into rounds, and vegetables in green and orange were tucked into the remaining space like someone had planned where each piece would go.

The smaller container had soup. She held it in both hands, and it was still faintly warm.

Naruko looked at the food, then at the door, which was locked, then at the window. The alley outside was empty.

Her stomach made its position known.

She set the soup on the stove and clicked the electric steamer on. The thing rattled on the burner—that same tinny vibration it always made, filling the kitchen with its low, persistent hum.

Naruko stood on her toes and peered down through the gap in the lid, and steam curled up. The smell hit her—miso and something deeper and richer underneath—and her nose scrunched, pulling the warm air in before she could think about it.

The soup was ready before her patience was.

She grabbed the container off the steamer with both hands.

"Ow—ow ow ow—"

It hit the table with a clatter. She shook her fingers out, hissing through her teeth, ran to the sink, shoved her hands under the cold tap, and let the water sting for a few seconds before wiping them dry on her shorts.

She marched back to the table.

The chair was too tall. She climbed up knees-first, swung herself around, and sat, her legs dangling off the edge. She pulled both containers close—the rice and the soup side by side.

She stared at the food and gulped.

She scooped up a heap of rice—too much for the spoon, a small mountain teetering on the edge—and opened her mouth as wide as it would go.

"Ahm."

Her lips closed around the spoon and her cheeks ballooned. For a second she sat very still, eyes squeezed shut, processing. Then the heat caught up.

Her mouth popped open into a tiny O, and she huffed short, frantic breaths as steam curled off her tongue. Her eyes watered as she fanned her mouth with one hand, chewing anyway, and swallowed hard.

She picked up one of the yellow rolled things with her fingers. It was warm and soft, and she wasn't sure if she was supposed to use the spoon for it. She bit into half, her cheeks puffing out. It tasted like eggs, but better than any egg she'd ever had, sweeter somehow.

She shoved the other half in before she'd finished chewing the first.

Her blue eyes caught the light from the window, wide and bright, almost sparkling.

The rice was good. The meat melted the second she bit down, and the soup tasted like what she imagined other people's kitchens smelled like.

She ate faster. The spoon scraped the container in quick little strokes, and she burned herself a second time on the soup—same huff, same fanning, same refusal to stop. She moved through it without order—rice, meat, the yellow rolled things, soup, rice again. Her spoon barely touched the table between bites.

Grains of rice stuck to the corners of her mouth, and her feet swung under the chair.

The warm yellow light of the apartment spilled softly through the window, out into the alley where no one was walking and no one was watching. Inside, the silhouette of a small blonde girl sat at a table too big for her, eating in quick, happy bites—never quite learning not to burn herself, but never once stopping either.

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The compound was dark when Emiya slipped through the front door, where he set his sandals by the step.

Fugaku was still in the living room, a lamp burning beside him, and a different book open on his lap. He looked up when Emiya entered. "You're back."

"I'm back."

His eyes held for a moment. "Good night, Sasuke."

"Good night, Fugaku."

Emiya walked down the hall. Behind him, the lamp clicked off, and the house went quiet.

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Next Chapter Preview

"Who is it for?"

Itachi had not intended to follow his brother.

The container was gone.

"You can't just say that."

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Advance chapters (up to 12 ahead) are available on P@ tre on:

/TheTangerineCat

Your support directly keeps the story going.

Thanks for reading.

 

[The Tangerine Cat]

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Chapter 3—Strays

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Naruko turned the tap on full. The water hit the bottom of the container and sprayed back up in a cold burst that caught her square in the face.

"Ack—!"

She slammed the tap back down and wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist, blinking at the ceiling. Her shirt was wet, her chin was wet, and the counter was wet.

She turned the tap on again, slower this time, and held the container under the stream. The water ran cold over her pink fingers as she scrubbed the corners with her thumbnail, working out the last stubborn grains of rice. She dried it with the hem of her shirt, checked it twice, and carried it to the window.

She set it on the outer ledge, right where she'd found it last time, with the lid facing up.

The alley was quiet. A bird landed on the railing across the way, pecked at something, decided against it, and left. She climbed onto her bed and waited, kneeling there, watching the container through the window. Nothing happened. She put her hands together in front of it, squeezed her eyes shut, and wished very hard for the food to appear. She peeked with one eye.

It was still empty.

She counted to twenty in her head, lost track somewhere around fourteen, started over, and got bored before she reached ten.

Nobody came.

She pulled on her sandals and headed for the door. The morning air prickled her arms, and she shoved her hands into the pockets of her orange shorts. The left sandal strap was getting loose again, and she had to curl her toes to keep it from slipping.

The door swung shut behind her, then creaked back open, just a sliver. A tuft of blonde hair and a pair of blue eyes hovered past the gap, staring across the apartment at the container on the windowsill.

She looked at it for a long moment.

Then the door clicked shut.

The road was already busy when she skittered down the stairs. A woman with a basket on her arm adjusted her path without looking down. Two men outside a tea shop stopped talking as she passed and started again once she was a few steps beyond them. A shopkeeper sweeping his front step moved his broom to the other side of the doorway as she approached, like he'd suddenly found a very interesting spot that needed attention.

Naruko turned off the road before the market and cut through the alley toward the tree line. She squeezed between two trunks where the path narrowed, hopped over a root that stuck out of the ground like a bent knee, and kept going. The forest was better. The trees didn't care who walked under them.

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The bento was on the counter when Mikoto came into the kitchen.

Emiya had prepared it while the household was occupied elsewhere. The wrapping was the same as before, the knot tied the same way. He'd varied the contents from last time, swapping the glazed meat for grilled fish and adding an extra portion of tamagoyaki.

Mikoto spotted it immediately. She always did.

"Sasuke."

"Mikoto."

She picked up the container and turned it over in her hands, examining the wrapping. "Another one."

"So it would seem."

"Who is it for?"

Emiya turned back to the sink and rinsed the cutting knife he'd left soaking. "No one in particular."

"Ara." She set the bento back down and folded her arms. "You're making bentos for no one in particular. That's a lot of effort for no one."

"It's not effort. It's maintenance." He tapped the knife dry against the rack and reached for the dish towel. "Unattended problems have a tendency to get worse, and dealing with them later costs more than dealing with them now. Consider it pest management."

Mikoto's expression flattened. "That's not a very nice way to talk about a person."

"Who said anything about a person?" He draped the towel over the edge of the sink without looking at her.

"Sasuke."

He shrugged once. "It's a practical matter, Mikoto. Nothing more."

She studied him for a moment, then unfolded her arms and planted both hands on her hips.

"My five-year-old son is packing extra meals for someone he refuses to name and calling it pest management." She tilted her head. "Should I be concerned, or impressed?"

He arched an eyebrow. "You know, they say excessive nosiness is a sign of aging. Something about aunties who've run out of their own business to mind."

Mikoto blinked, her mouth opening and then closing. She stood perfectly still for a full second, her expression shifting through something Emiya couldn't quite track before settling on a look he hadn't seen before.

She stepped forward, reached out, and tapped him on the forehead with two fingers—light and warm, the pad of her index and middle finger pressing gently against the skin above his brow and holding for a beat before withdrawing.

Emiya blinked.

His forehead was still warm where she'd touched it.

Mikoto stared back at him with a smile growing on her face, slow and pleased, like she'd found exactly the reaction she was looking for.

"...I'll be back before dinner." He picked up the bento.

"Don't stay out too late," Mikoto called after him without turning from the stove.

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

Itachi had not intended to follow his brother.

He'd been returning from the training grounds when he spotted Sasuke leaving through the compound's east gate with something tucked under his arm. It was late afternoon, the light already turning amber through the trees, and Sasuke was walking at the same unhurried pace he used for everything.

Itachi kept his distance and told himself he was simply headed in the same direction, which was technically true for the first stretch and became less defensible with each turning.

What drew his attention first was the route. Sasuke took a side street that ran parallel to a patrol path, turned before the intersection where a chūnin checkpoint was typically positioned, and cut through a narrow alley without once looking back. He moved casually, hands in his pockets, but every turn happened to take him out of a sightline just before someone in uniform would have rounded a corner. Nobody noticed him.

The residential blocks gave way to older buildings near the eastern quarter, where the streets narrowed and paint peeled from shuttered storefronts.

Sasuke turned down a lane that ended at a tall, leaning apartment building and ducked into the alley beside it.

Itachi watched from the corner of the adjacent street.

For a moment, there was nothing. The alley was dark and narrow, cutting between the apartment building and the one beside it. Then a figure stepped out the other end.

He wore white robes and a red and white hat, the kanji painted clean on the triangular brim.

Itachi's eyebrow twitched.

His brother, henged into the Third Hokage of Konohagakure, walked to the base of the building and looked up. The apartment was near the top, several stories up, with a narrow balcony and a window where the curtain was drawn. Nobody was home.

The figure crouched once and leapt, the single push off the ground carrying the Third Hokage to the balcony railing, where he landed without a sound. He picked up the empty container from the windowsill, replaced it with the wrapped bento, and adjusted the knot so it faced outward. Then the figure straightened and stood on the railing for a moment, silhouetted against the evening sky in full Hokage regalia.

Itachi watched the Third Hokage leap down from the balcony, land softly, and walk back into the alley. He waited.

Sasuke emerged from the other end a few seconds later, the empty container tucked under his arm, hands back in his pockets, walking at the same unhurried pace as before.

Itachi pressed himself flat against the wall as his brother passed the intersection without a sideways glance.

He remained where he was, looking up at the building, at its tilting frame, at the balcony where the bento now sat on the ledge.

He knew whose building this was. Everyone in the village knew, even if most chose to act otherwise.

His eyebrow was still twitching.

His body flickered once, and the street was empty.

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

The forest had been all right. Naruko had found some mushrooms near the big root that looked like an elbow, but she wasn't sure if they were the eating kind or the other kind, so she'd left them alone. She'd also found a good stick, long and mostly straight with a pointed end that looked a little like one of those tantō the older kids carried during practice. She'd swung it around for a while, slicing at invisible enemies, before propping it against a tree where she could find it again next time.

The walk back was longer than the walk out. It always felt that way. Her legs got heavier going home than they did going anywhere else.

She climbed the stairs and fished out the key from the cord around her neck. It took two tries because the lock was always stiff. The door swung open and she kicked off her sandals.

The window.

The container was gone. In its place was a new bundle, wrapped in the same cloth, tied with the same knot, set on the same spot on the outer ledge.

Naruko stood very still.

She reached out and picked it up with both hands. It was heavier than last time. She held it against her chest and looked down the alley, left and then right. The same stray cat from before was sitting on a crate, watching her with half-closed eyes, but nobody else was around.

Someone had come while she was out. They had taken the empty box, left a full one, tied it the same way, and put it in the same place. They kept doing it.

She brought the bundle inside, climbed knees-first into the chair, swung around, and sat with her legs dangling. She set the bundle in front of her and rested both hands on the cloth. The warmth bled through the fabric into her palms.

She sat like that for a while, just holding it.

The knot came apart easily, and she opened the lid. Inside was rice, grilled fish this time instead of meat, the yellow rolled things, and vegetables—different from before, but packed the same way, every piece in its place.

She picked up the spoon, then set it back down, then picked it up again.

She ate slower this time, not because she wasn't hungry—she was—but because the food was warm, and the apartment was quiet, and nobody was going to take it away.

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

The residential lanes were mostly dark by the time Emiya came back through the village. The empty containers clinked softly under his arm. Lamplight spilled from windows where families were finishing dinner or hadn't drawn their curtains yet. A dog barked somewhere behind a fence, got bored, and stopped.

He heard them before he saw them.

"Billboard Brow. I said it before and I'll say it again. Bill. Board. Brow."

Three girls stood at the edge of the lane. The one doing the talking had purple hair cut in an uneven bob, arms crossed, chin up. Her two friends flanked her like backup singers waiting for their cue to laugh.

A pink-haired girl stood between them and the nearest lamp, shoulders drawn inward, a red ribbon tied across her forehead. And in front of her, a blonde in purple with her ponytail pulled tight had planted herself with her arms straight at her sides, looking up at the ringleader like the height difference was the ringleader's problem.

"Say it one more time." The blonde stepped forward. "I dare you."

"Ooh." The purple-haired girl glanced at her flanks. They laughed on schedule. "What are you going to do, Ino? Throw another flower at me?"

"Worked last time, didn't it?"

"You got lucky."

"And you got a daisy down your throat. Want to try for a rose? I hear the thorns add flavor."

The pink-haired girl flinched, her fingers tightening on the strap of her bag.

Emiya kept walking.

"Hey." The purple-haired girl's head snapped toward him. "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing worth stopping for." He didn't slow down. "You're picking on someone for having a big forehead. She'll grow into it. You might not grow out of this."

He heard one of the flanking girls choke, and the ringleader tried to say something that didn't survive past the first syllable. Then sandals scuffed stone, retreating fast, as the three of them scattered down the lane.

The pink-haired girl's hand went to the ribbon on her forehead, her lower lip catching between her teeth. The blonde beside her had gone very still, watching him walk away.

He was a dozen paces past when he heard someone running after him, a single set of footsteps closing the gap fast. The blonde girl appeared in front of him, skidding to a stop and planting herself square in his path with her arms out.

"You can't just say that."

Emiya shifted the containers under his arm. "Say what."

"Big forehead. You said big forehead. Right in front of her."

"Nothing wrong with a big forehead."

Ino clenched her jaw. "You don't get to say something mean and act like nothing happened."

"Oh?" He stepped around her and kept walking. "Then tell her the forehead isn't the problem. The people who convinced her it was are."

Behind him, Ino stood in the lane, then turned, one hand raised, her mouth already working.

"You..."

It trailed off as she worked her jaw. She looked back over her shoulder at the pink-haired girl who was standing where they'd left her, head down, bangs fallen forward over her eyes.

Ino's hand dropped, and she turned and ran back.

The compound gate was visible at the end of the road, the lanterns on either side still lit. The empty containers clinked under his arm.

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

Next Chapter Preview

The written test was forty minutes. Emiya finished in eight.

"He's just—Akamaru, stop—he's holding it for me!"

"Hm... Not bad."

"Stop saying that!"

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

Want to keep reading?

Advance chapters (up to 12 ahead) are available here:

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Your support directly keeps the story going.

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[The Tangerine Cat]

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

Chapter 4—Academy Begins

​

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

The written test was forty minutes. Emiya finished in eight, set his pencil down, and leaned his cheek against his propped-up fist. The wood was cool and glossy under his elbow, polished smooth by years of fidgeting children.

A breeze rolled through the open windows, lifting the sheer curtains and curling the edges of his answer sheet. The April air carried the smell of cut grass and fresh paint from somewhere down the hall. The Academy had filled its tiered rows with thirty-odd five- and six-year-olds who had never been asked to sit still for this long, and it showed.

Emiya watched them struggle. He'd endured worse. Marginally.

The boy in the front row with the pineapple-shaped ponytail had put his head down after question six. Ino, beside him, was leaning sideways, squinting at his blank page, and finding nothing worth the effort. Two rows behind them, a boy with red triangles on his cheeks was wrestling something under his jacket while the something chewed audibly on paper.

"Inuzuka." Iruka didn't look up from his desk. "If that dog eats your test, you're getting a zero."

"He's not eating it! He's just—Akamaru, stop—he's holding it for me!"

"With his teeth."

"He's a very helpful dog!"

Iruka was the primary instructor, a chūnin with a scar across the bridge of his nose. He genuinely wanted to teach, and the village hadn't beaten that out of him yet.

At the window, the other instructor leaned against the sill with his arms folded and a smile that sat on his face like paint on a cracked wall. His name was Mizuki, and the name matched the smile. Neither inspired confidence.

"Sensei, can I go to the bathroom?"

"After the test, Inuzuka."

"But—"

"After."

The puppy whimpered.

Three rows to Emiya's left, Sakura was writing steadily, her pencil moving in careful, deliberate strokes. The red ribbon across her forehead was tied tighter than it had been the night he'd seen her on the lane. She hadn't looked up once. Whatever else that ribbon was hiding, it wasn't hurting her penmanship.

At the back of the room, Naruko was hunched over her paper with her pencil in a death grip. Every few seconds she erased something, blew the shavings off, and wrote the same thing in the same spot. She'd been at it since question twelve. The eraser was wearing thin.

He stood, walked his test to Iruka's desk, and headed back to his seat. Naruko's eyes followed him as he passed. She looked at his empty desk, then at his face, then back at her own paper. The pencil creaked in her fist.

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

The shuriken test was outside, and Naruko was ready. She was so ready.

The sunlight hit her face as the class filed through the back doors, warm and bright after the stuffy classroom. The yard was big and open, all packed dirt and wooden fences, with targets lined up at the far end. They looked like the stumps she threw rocks at in the forest, except flatter, and with circles painted on them.

This was going to be different. The written test had been bad. She knew it was bad. But throwing things—throwing things she could do. She'd spent half her afternoons in the forest chucking rocks at the pond near the elbow root, and she could skip one all the way to the far bank nine times out of ten. A shuriken was basically a rock. A pointy rock. How hard could it be?

The dark-haired boy went first, the Uchiha. He threw five and put all five in the center, one after another, like he was just placing them there. The class went quiet. The other teacher—the smiling one—pulled them out and announced full marks.

She watched the Uchiha walk back to the bench, hands in his pockets, face blank. He sat down like he'd just come back from getting a drink of water.

A girl with dark hair and strange pale eyes went next. She hit four. She was quiet about it, too—walked up, threw, walked back, like she'd done it before. On the way past, the girl slowed near Naruko and her hand twitched, like she wanted to wave or say something. She didn't. Weird.

The boy with the red triangles hit two and blamed his dog. The dog was asleep. A boy with a high collar hit three without blinking. A round boy hit one, shrugged, and pulled a bag of chips out of somewhere—Naruko had no idea where he'd been keeping it.

The only other blonde in the class hit three, flipped her ponytail, and turned to the pink-haired girl to say something about wrist flicks. The pink-haired girl hit two and walked back without talking to anyone.

"Uzumaki Naruko!"

Her heart thumped. She stepped up to the line.

Iruka-sensei handed her five shuriken from the rack. The metal was cold against her palm—colder than she'd expected, and heavier than a rock. She turned one over in her fingers. The edges were sharp enough that she could feel them even through the calluses on her thumb. The grip was all wrong—no flat side, no smooth surface, nothing like the stones she'd been throwing for months.

She'd never held one before. None of the weapon shops in the village had ever let her in.

She could do this. It was just a rock. A very pointy, very sharp, very metal rock.

She gripped the first one, pulled her arm back, and threw.

It went past the target and stuck in the fence.

Okay. Not a rock.

She threw the second. It clipped the edge and bounced into the grass. Better.

The third hit the target but way off to the side. The fourth went wide and she heard it ping off something metal behind the fence.

One left. Her hand was sweaty. She could feel the whole class behind her, all those eyes, and her ears were hot. She squeezed the last shuriken so hard the points dug into her fingers.

She threw it.

Thunk.

She'd hit center ring—not the middle of the middle, but close. It stuck there, the metal catching the sunlight, still humming from the impact. Her fingers were tingling. That thud of it going in was the best sound she'd heard all day.

She unclenched her jaw and walked back toward the line. Her fists were still tight, her sandals scuffing the dirt. She was looking down at her feet when she heard it—quiet, from somewhere to her left, so low she almost missed it.

"Hm... Not bad."

She glanced up. The Uchiha was walking past her, heading toward the supply rack. He wasn't looking at her. He might not have been talking to her. He might have been talking about the girl before her, or the boy with the chips, or nobody. She'd hit one out of five. Even she knew that wasn't good.

She kept walking. He probably wasn't talking to her.

The sun had climbed higher while they'd been throwing. The dirt was warm under her sandals now, and someone had set out a bucket of water near the fence.

Sparring came after. Iruka-sensei drew a circle in the dirt and called out pairs. The Uchiha went first, matched against a boy who looked like he was going to be sick. The boy swung at him. The Uchiha moved to the side—barely moved, really, just sort of shifted—and tapped him in the chest. The boy sat down. Iruka-sensei blew the whistle.

It had taken three seconds. Maybe less.

Naruko's match was a few rounds later, against the other blonde girl. It went longer. Naruko threw punches with everything she had, swinging wide, planting her feet so hard her sandals slid in the dirt. When the blonde clipped her shoulder, she came back harder. She won. Barely.

She was panting, her knees were grass-stained, and the heel of her palm was split where a punch had landed wrong.

She was catching her breath, bent over with her hands on her knees, when she heard it again.

"Hm... Not bad."

Her head snapped up. The Uchiha was walking past, hands in his pockets. He glanced at her. The corner of his mouth did something that wasn't quite a smile, something smaller and worse.

This time he was definitely talking to her.

Her ears burned.

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

She caught up to the dark-haired Uchiha teme on the path outside the yard, where the dirt turned to stone and pink flowers were opening on the trees along the fence.

She hadn't meant to follow him. She'd meant to go home, eat whatever was in the bento if there was one today, and forget about his stupid face and his stupid voice and the stupid way he said those stupid two words. He'd walked past her twice and said the same thing, like she was a bug he'd noticed and decided it wasn't worth stepping on. Not good. Not great. Just not bad.

"Hey! Uchiha!"

He didn't stop. She ran until she was in front of him and planted herself in his way, fists at her sides, breathing hard.

"Stop saying that!"

He tilted his head. "Saying what?"

"Not bad! You keep saying not bad!" She jabbed a finger at him. "After the shuriken, after the spar, you just walk past and go 'not bad' like you're some kind of teacher!"

"Well, you weren't bad. Would you prefer I lied?"

"I'd prefer you shut up, dattebayo!"

The pale-eyed girl had followed a few steps behind, flinching at the volume and pressing her fingertips together, her eyes going back and forth between them.

Naruko jabbed her finger closer. "I'm gonna beat you. At every single thing. Every test, every spar, every shuriken. Everything. And then we'll see who says 'not bad,' dattebayo!"

The Uchiha raised a single brow. "Oh?" The corner of his mouth twitched. "I look forward to it."

Something about the way he said it stopped her dead. It wasn't mocking, and it wasn't dismissive. It sounded like he meant it.

He stepped around her and kept walking. Halfway to the gate, without turning, he added, "Although, that's about a hundred years too early for you."

Naruko's mouth fell open. By the time she found her voice again, he was already at the gate, hands in his pockets, not looking back.

She stood on the path with her finger still out, pointing at nothing, her ears burning. Her chest felt tight and strange and she didn't know why, because she was angry—she was definitely, completely, absolutely angry—but her stomach also felt weird, like she'd swallowed something hot too fast.

Behind her, the pale-eyed girl took a small step forward, one hand half-raised.

"U-um... Naruko-san... are you...?"

But Naruko was already stomping toward the gate, fists clenched, muttering. The pale-eyed girl caught pieces of it—"stupid," "teme," and "dattebayo"—before the blonde disappeared around the corner.

She lowered her hand and watched her go, then quietly followed at a distance.

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

Mikoto arrived at the Academy gates as the last of the afternoon light caught the tops of the trees. A few parents had gathered by the low wall, chatting while their children ran circles in the yard near the old tree with the single swing.

Her mind was somewhere else. It had been since that morning, when Fugaku set his teacup down at breakfast and told her Itachi's paperwork had been finalized. ANBU, at eleven years old. His voice hadn't changed when he said it, and his posture hadn't shifted. He'd picked up his cup again and taken a sip. The only thing that gave him away was the way his eyes stayed on her face a beat too long.

He wanted her to be proud. She was. She was also aware that ANBU had the shortest life expectancy of any rank in the village.

She had smiled and said nothing.

The Academy doors opened and children poured out in a noisy stream. Mikoto straightened and scanned the crowd for Sasuke.

She found him near the back, walking at his usual pace. And behind him, closing the distance with every step, a girl was following.

She had blonde hair, wild and bright, wrestled into pigtails with mismatched ties. Her orange clothes were too big for her. She was talking at Sasuke's back with her entire body, arms waving, voice cutting across the yard.

"—and another thing! You didn't even try! You just stood there and poked him! That's not fighting, that's cheating!"

"It's called efficiency."

"It's called being a jerk!"

"Well, those aren't mutually exclusive."

The girl's face scrunched. Her ears went pink. "I don't even know what that means, but I know you're making fun of me, dattebayo!"

Mikoto stopped breathing.

Dattebayo.

A woman with long red hair and violet eyes was standing among the children, grinning at her, one hand on her hip, the other waving with the boundless energy of someone who had never once in her life considered being quiet.

"You worry too much, Mikoto! That's why you need me around. Someone's gotta drag you out of that stuffy compound once in a while, dattebane!"

"Mikoto?"

She blinked to find Sasuke watching her, his dark eyes steady and reading.

The two children were in front of her now. The blonde girl had gone quiet, her arms at her sides, her blue eyes fixed on Mikoto with an expression that was half-wary, half-confused.

The bright hair, the blue eyes catching the afternoon light—those were Minato's. But underneath, the shape of the eyes, the shape of the face, the set of the jaw were Kushina's. All of it was Kushina's.

The girl had been in the village for five and a half years, growing up alone. Mikoto was one of the few who knew who her mother had been, and she'd done nothing with that knowledge.

"You're staring." Sasuke's voice cut through whatever had taken hold of her.

She was. Her hands were white-knuckled around the strap of her bag. She forced them to relax. "I'm not staring."

"Well, you stopped moving and your eyes went somewhere else. That's staring."

The blonde girl took a small step back, her shoulders drawing inward. A few more seconds and she would bolt.

"Take care of yourself," Mikoto told her quietly. She hesitated, then added, "And if you ever need anything at the Academy, you can ask Sasuke."

The blonde girl blinked, then gave a small, uncertain nod, like she wasn't sure what to do with the words but didn't want to let them fall.

"Let's go, Sasuke," Mikoto managed.

They walked. The blonde girl stayed behind, watching them leave. Mikoto could feel those blue eyes on her back all the way to the end of the road. She did not turn around.

...but Kushina would have.

The residential lanes were quieter than the Academy grounds. A woman was hanging laundry on a line between two houses, the fabric snapping in the breeze. Somewhere behind a fence, a radio was playing.

"Mikoto, you should go talk to her if you wanted to so terribly," Sasuke offered, after a stretch of silence. "Keeping things pent up at your age isn't particularly healthy."

Mikoto's sandal caught on a stone. She steadied herself without breaking stride and exhaled through her nose. "It's not that simple."

"Well, it seemed simple enough to me. She was standing right there."

"You don't understand... An Uchiha shouldn't be seen with her. Especially not the matriarch."

"Is it because she's the jinchūriki?"

Mikoto's head snapped toward him. Her eyes were wide. "Who told you that?"

"No one told me."

"Sasuke. Did a teacher say something? Did the students—"

"Anyone with eyes and half a brain could tell, Mikoto." He gave her a look—flat, unimpressed—like she was the child in this conversation and not him. "It's probably the worst-kept secret in this village. Although, most of them seem to be confusing the bijū for the container. Civilians and shinobi alike."

They walked in silence. A crow called from the compound wall. Mikoto's jaw worked once before she found her voice.

"That information is an S-rank secret. You cannot speak of it to anyone."

"It may as well be the most openly disclosed S-rank secret in the history of this village." He shrugged. "I wasn't planning to announce it regardless."

The last of the evening light caught the tiled rooftops of the houses, turning them amber.

The compound gate rose ahead of them, warm stone against the fading sky. The guards inclined their heads as they approached.

"Sasuke."

He glanced up.

"If she ever needs help at the Academy," Mikoto's voice had gone quiet, "look out for her, will you? Please."

"She declared war on me within the first day, Mikoto. I don't think she's the type to accept a helping hand." He shrugged once. "But if you insist. Don't expect much to come of it."

Mikoto looked at him, then ahead at the empty road. And for a single beat, the girl was there, staring back at her, small and still in her too-big clothes.

She breathed, eyes cutting away. "You seemed to be getting along well enough already, from what I saw."

"You call that getting along?" Sasuke arched an eyebrow. "Your standards are remarkably low. Perhaps the clan is rubbing off on you."

"You're a part of it too, you know?" Mikoto tapped him lightly on the side of the head. His head tilted under the pressure. He straightened it and kept walking.

"Troublesome woman..." he muttered.

They passed through the gate, the lanterns already lit along the main path.

"Mikoto, Mikoto!" The young woman pulled her along, red mane flaring out wildly under the orange-clad skies. "Our kids are going to be the best of friends. I'll take them out for ramen. Teach them about the food of the gods!"

"Kushina—!" She stumbled after her. The smile that tugged on her lips was unmistakable. "We don't even know if they'll get along...!"

"Of course they will!"

The dipping sun set the river aflame.

"They're our kids, dattebane!"

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

Next Chapter Preview

27—Uzumaki Naruko

She was going to destroy herself over a lunch box.

She'd rigged a tripwire out of kitchen supplies.

"I didn't ask for this," she whispered.

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

Want to keep reading?

Advance chapters (up to 12 ahead) are available here:

pa tre on .com (slash) TheTangerineCat

Your support directly keeps the story going.

Thanks for reading.

 

[The Tangerine Cat]

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

Chapter 5—The Days Between

​

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

The monthly exam results were posted on the chalkboard by the time Emiya walked in.

The June heat had settled into the classroom overnight and hadn't left. The windows were open but the air barely moved, and the rhythmic pulse of cicadas outside filled the gaps between the chatter of kids who hadn't sat down yet.

A cluster of students had gathered in front of the board, jostling for position.

Kiba was on his toes with a piece of chalk in his hand, tongue poking out the side of his mouth, adding something next to his name on the ranking list. Akamaru was tucked inside his jacket, nose sticking out near the zipper.

"Kiba, you can't draw on the exam results." Shino stood behind him, hands in his pockets, collar up to his nose as always. "Why? Because Iruka-sensei will make you clean the entire board again."

"I'm not drawing on the results. I'm drawing next to the results. There's a difference."

"There is no difference. Why? Because it's the same board."

"Akamaru thinks there's a difference." The puppy yipped. "See?"

Choji wandered over with a bag of chips and peered at Kiba's handiwork. The chalk drawing beside Kiba's name was either a very small dog or a very large potato. "That doesn't look like Akamaru."

"It looks exactly like Akamaru!"

Choji tilted his head. "Akamaru has four legs."

Kiba squinted at his drawing. The tail had come out thick enough to look like a fifth leg. He added another one. "Better?"

"That's six."

Near the board, Ino was talking to Sakura, her voice low, her hand on Sakura's shoulder.

"Second place, Sakura. That's amazing."

Sakura's eyes were on the floor. The red ribbon sat flat across her forehead. "He got first again."

"So what?" Ino squeezed her shoulder once, then dropped her hand. She was quiet for a beat, her jaw working, then pumped her fist. "You'll get first place next time. I know it."

Sakura looked up at her, the tension in her shoulders loosening, just slightly. "...Thank you, Ino."

Emiya passed between them and the front row, the warmth from the open windows pressing against his back. Ino's eyes caught him, her tongue clicking against her teeth, a short sharp sound, and she shifted her body half a step to the side, putting herself between him and Sakura.

He glanced at the board on his way past.

Written Exam—June Monthly Assessment

1—Uchiha Sasuke 2—Haruno Sakura 3—Nara Shikamaru 4—Aburame Shino 5—Hyūga Hinata 6—Yamanaka Ino

The list continued. Kiba sat twenty-sixth, his name now accompanied by a six-legged chalk dog. At the very bottom:

27—Uzumaki Naruko

Emiya walked toward the seat he'd claimed over the past two months, the one by the window in the second-to-last row. He passed the pineapple-headed boy on the way. Shikamaru was face-down on his desk, one arm dangling off the side, dead to the world.

Third place for the boy who slept through every lecture was either impressive or an indictment of the curriculum. Possibly both.

The classroom door slid open and Iruka came in carrying a stack of papers and a cup of tea he was already regretting not finishing in the office. He set both on his desk, glanced at the board, noticed the chalk dog, and chose not to address it. He opened his attendance sheet.

The door slammed open hard enough to rattle in its track.

Naruko came through it sideways, her bag slung over one shoulder and dragging on the floor. Her hair was wilder than usual, one pigtail half-undone, the tie hanging near her ear. The orange shorts were wrinkled and the white shirt was untucked, the same red spiral in the same creases as the day before.

The dark circles under her eyes were new. They sat deep beneath her lower lashes, pulling the skin taut, and her blue eyes were glassy and slow as she shuffled toward the rows.

"Naruko." Iruka's pen paused over his attendance sheet. "You're late."

"'M not late. The bell hasn't—"

The bell rang.

Iruka looked at her, she looked at the ceiling, and he returned to his sheet.

The only empty seat in the classroom was beside Emiya. Naruko stared at it. She glanced around the room, then back at the seat. Her mouth pressed into a thin, unhappy line, and she dropped into it without a word.

Her head hit the desk within fifteen seconds. Her cheek pressed flat against the wood, one arm folded beneath her chin, and her breathing went slow and even.

Emiya watched her without turning his head. He took in the dark circles, the same unwashed shirt, and the heavy-footed walk of someone who hadn't slept in days.

She hadn't been sleeping. The bento containers came back clean every morning, same spot, same direction. And now the girl who couldn't stay awake through a lecture was fighting off sleep every night to stake out a windowsill.

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​

The last of the daylight had bled out of the rooftops by the time Emiya settled on the water tower three blocks east of Naruko's building. The wrapped bento sat beside him on the rusted metal. From here, the sliver of lamplight leaking through her curtain gap was sharp enough to read by.

Naruko was sitting in her chair at the kitchen table, her chin propped on both fists, her eyes fixed on the ledge where the empty container sat.

The chair was pulled close enough to the window that she could see the ledge without standing. A blanket was bunched around her shoulders, trailing off one side. She'd wedged a cushion from her bed between her back and the chair.

Her eyes were open. Barely. The lids drooped, pulled themselves back, drooped again. Her head nodded forward and she jerked it up. She rubbed her eyes with both fists, hard enough to wince, and reset herself.

In four minutes she fell asleep twice, once for six seconds, once for nearly twenty. Both times she snapped awake with a gasp, checked the window, found the ledge unchanged, and forced her eyes wide.

She was going to destroy herself over a lunch box.

She was five. Her body would surrender within the hour. He drew one knee up, rested his forearm over it, and waited. Below, the last of the street vendors packed up for the night, their voices faint across the rooftops.

Twenty minutes later her head dropped, her fists unclenched, and her breathing slowed, deep and even. Her forehead came to rest on the table, one arm folded beneath it, the other hanging off the side of the chair.

He waited two more minutes, then picked up the bento and crossed the rooftops.

He landed on the balcony railing without a sound. A length of wire was strung across it at ankle height, tied to an empty can on one end and a wooden spoon on the other. She'd rigged a tripwire out of kitchen supplies.

He stepped over it.

The delivery was the same as always—window eased open, empty container swapped for the full one, knot adjusted outward.

She was still asleep, and the blanket had slipped off. He pulled it back over her shoulders through the gap in the window, dropped from the railing, and landed in the alley below.

This was going to require a different approach.

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​

Naruko woke up with her face stuck to the table.

She peeled herself off. One cheek had a crease running down it from the wood grain, and her neck hurt from the angle. The blanket was on her shoulders, and she didn't remember pulling it up.

The window.

She lunged for it. Her knee caught the chair, the chair scraped across the floor, and she pressed her face against the glass.

The bento was there—same cloth, same knot, same spot.

"No!" She slammed both palms on the windowsill. "No, no, no! I was right here! I was watching, dattebayo!"

The alley was empty. A pigeon on the neighboring roof turned its head, looked at her, and went back to pecking at the gutter.

She'd fallen asleep. Again.

She grabbed the bento off the ledge and sat down at the table with it in front of her. She glared at the cloth wrapping like it owed her money, arms folded, jaw set.

"I'm not eating you," she told it.

Her stomach growled.

"I'm not."

The smell was already coming through the cloth, different from the usual stuff and stronger, and her nose twitched. She unfolded her arms, then folded them again. The knot came apart in her hands before she'd decided to touch it.

Inside was rice, and where the fish or meat usually sat were thick slices of something golden-brown and crispy, covered in crunchy stuff that came off when she poked it. It was like the deep-fried things from the stalls she wasn't allowed into, except better.

She didn't know the word for it. But the smell alone was enough.

She picked up a strip with her fingers and bit down. The crunch was so loud in the quiet apartment that she froze, cheeks full, and glanced at the door like someone might come knocking. Nobody did. The outside was crispy and the inside was hot and soft and better than anything she'd ever snagged off a festival cart. She shoved the rest of the strip in before she'd finished chewing the first half.

The yellow rolled things were fatter than usual. And in the corner, tucked into the last bit of space, were two triangular rice balls, each wrapped at the base with a strip of dried seaweed.

She picked one up, still warm. The rice was firm but not hard, and when she bit into it there was something in the center—a sour plum that made her whole face scrunch before the rice caught up, her cheeks puffing out.

She ate both rice balls before she touched anything else, then worked through the fried thing piece by piece, the yellow rolled things, and the rice. She ate quickly, the way she always did, but she wasn't hunching over the containers anymore. She didn't need to.

When she finished, she sat back and looked at the empty containers, her feet dangling, the crease on her cheek starting to fade.

Whoever they were, they'd changed the menu. Her chest felt tight, but not the bad kind. She didn't have a word for the other kind.

She washed the containers, dried them, and set them on the ledge. Her jaw was still set when she turned away from the window.

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"...Uzumaki Naruko."

She shifted her head on the desk. Something about the wood was warm on this side. She turned the other way.

"...Uzumaki Naruko!"

The voice was louder now, far away and annoying, like a mosquito that wouldn't land. She mumbled something into her arm and curled tighter.

Something hit her in the head.

Her eyes flew open. A piece of chalk bounced off the desk and clattered onto the floor. She sat bolt upright, blinking, her hair stuck to one side of her face, a crease running down her cheek.

"Uzumaki Naruko!" Iruka-sensei was standing at the front of the classroom with his arm still extended, a second piece of chalk in his other hand. The vein on his forehead was doing the thing. "Do not sleep in my class!"

"I wasn't sleeping!" She wiped the drool off her chin with the back of her wrist. "I was... resting my eyes."

"Your eyes were closed for twenty minutes."

"That's how long they needed to rest!"

The class laughed, and Iruka-sensei's eye twitched. He put the chalk down very slowly, like he was trying not to break it. "Page forty-seven. The founding of the Five Great Shinobi Villages. You have ten minutes to copy the timeline before we move on."

Naruko looked at the board. It was covered in dates and names and arrows connecting boxes that might as well have been in a different language. Her notebook was open to a blank page with a small stain in the corner from where she'd drooled on it.

She picked up her pencil and started copying what she thought was a timeline. It looked more like a map of the forest paths near the elbow root.

A paper slid onto her desk from the left.

She glanced sideways to find the Uchiha facing forward, his own notebook open, his pencil moving in short, precise strokes. He hadn't looked at her.

She unfolded the paper. It was a copy of the timeline, every date in place, every arrow pointing the right way. It looked like it had been traced out of a textbook. At the bottom, in the same neat handwriting:

Konoha was founded first. Not Suna.

She stared at the timeline, then at her own drawing, then at his paper again.

"I didn't ask for this," she whispered.

He turned a page in his notebook.

"Hey. I said I didn't ask."

"You also didn't ask for the dark circles." He still wasn't looking at her. "And yet here they are."

Her face burned. "I don't need your pity, dattebayo."

A short breath left his nose, not quite a scoff but something worse.

"Getting called out by Iruka is entertaining the first few times a day. Every other minute, it becomes a nuisance."

Her hands gripped the edge of the desk. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out that was worth getting chalk thrown at her over.

She shoved the paper into her notebook and started copying it. Her pencil pressed so hard the lines came out thick and angry.

She was never going to say thank you to that teme. Not ever.

The pale-eyed girl across the room was watching again. Naruko didn't notice.

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​

The compound kitchen was quiet. Mikoto and Fugaku had retired early, and the hallway light had been off for an hour.

Emiya stood at the counter and steeped a handful of dried chamomile into warm milk with a spoonful of honey. He added a few leaves from a sedative herb he'd found growing near the Naka river weeks ago and dried on the compound's back porch. It was nothing that would linger past morning.

He sealed it in a small container and added it to the bento.

He slipped out the east gate. The evening air had cooled, and the first stars were showing above the tree line.

The delivery he timed differently. He formed the seals and henged—not into the Third Hokage. He'd been easing off that one since Itachi had pulled him aside in the hallway one evening, cleared his throat twice, and mentioned that people who made a habit of appearing as prominent village figures in public spaces might find it worth reconsidering.

He'd delivered the entire thing a full two heads to the left of where Emiya was standing.

Emiya had almost been impressed.

Tonight he wore the face of the Inu-masked operative instead—the one with the gravity-defying silver hair who'd been trailing the girl across the village for months, Itachi's ANBU captain, from what he'd gathered.

He reached the apartment in the early evening while Naruko was still out. She'd taken to wandering after the Academy, circling through the stalls that would tolerate her and the forest paths she'd claimed as her own. The pattern gave him a comfortable window.

He placed the bento on the ledge, adjusted the knot, and left.

From the water tower three blocks east, still wearing the dog mask, he watched her come home. She climbed the stairs, opened the door, kicked off her sandals, and stopped at the window.

The bento was already there.

Her shoulders dropped. She held the bundle against her chest and looked down the alley both ways. She shifted her weight and checked again. No one was there. She brought it inside.

She opened it and found the second container. She held it up to her nose, frowned, tilted it, and sniffed. She took a careful sip, her nose scrunching at the taste.

She drank the rest anyway. Whoever had been feeding her for weeks hadn't poisoned her yet, and she wasn't about to waste it.

The main dish was different tonight, glazed chicken over rice. She went through it quickly, feet swinging under the chair. Her eyelids started drooping before she'd finished. She slapped both cheeks with her palms, hard, and her eyes went wide for about three seconds before they started sinking again.

The spoon slipped from her fingers and clattered against the container. Her head came down onto her folded arms.

The streetlamps below had come on one by one, casting orange pools onto the empty lane. Emiya dropped to the balcony and entered the apartment.

The girl was asleep at the table, her face pressed into her arms, one pigtail trailing across the wood. The containers were still in front of her. He moved them to the sink.

He picked her up. She smelled of cheap soap and something warm underneath, like small animal fur. The girl weighed almost nothing, and when he moved, her head lolled against his shoulder. She made a small, formless sound, her fingers curling into the fabric of his vest without waking.

He placed her in bed and pulled the blanket up to her chin. She turned onto her side and curled into it, drawing her knees up.

Emiya left through the window.

The henge dissolved halfway down the drop into the alley. He joined the flow of the main street in his own clothes, the silhouettes of evening pedestrians filtering past him under lampposts that flickered every few paces. Ahead, a woman was carrying a child on her back, the boy's arms loose around her neck, his face slack with sleep. She adjusted her grip without breaking stride and kept walking.

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Next Chapter Preview

The festival lanterns turned the main street the color of a wound.

"Hey, look who's here. The fox brat decided to show up."

Something was on the ledge.

"I wasn't aware the Hokage made house calls."

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​

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---———---<<O>>---———---

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Chapter 6—October Tenth

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The festival lanterns turned the main street the color of a wound.

Red paper, red banners, and red streamers were strung between the rooftops. The fox effigies hung from wire frames above the food stalls, their painted mouths open and snarling, their nine tails fanning out behind them in paper and cloth. The smell of grilled meat and sugar and the char of something left too long on a skewer drifted through the crowd, and the noise was everywhere—laughter, drums, the high sharp crack of firecrackers that made Naruko flinch every time.

She shouldn't have come. She knew that. She'd known it last year too, and the year before that, but the festival was the one night the whole village was outside at once, and from a distance the lights looked like something worth walking toward.

She kept to the edges, hands in the pockets of her orange shorts, head down, sandals scuffing the packed earth. She passed a stall selling candied apples and her stomach pulled, but the vendor was already watching her, and his hand had moved to the edge of the counter the way hands always moved when she got too close.

She kept walking.

A group of kids ran past her, sparklers trailing bright lines in the dark. One of them bumped her shoulder without looking and she stumbled sideways into a man carrying a drink, knocking the cup from his hand. It hit the ground in a splash that caught his sandals.

"Watch where you're—" He looked down, and whatever he was about to say died in his throat. "Oh. It's you."

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out fast enough.

"Hey." His voice went louder. "Hey, look who's here. The fox brat decided to show up."

Enough heads turned in their direction to make the silence start to spread.

"Sorry," Naruko managed. She stepped back. "I didn't mean to—"

"You never mean to, do you?" A woman had stopped beside the man, her arms folded. "Every year it's the same. You show up and something goes wrong."

"I just wanted to—"

"Nobody asked what you wanted." The man took a step forward, and she retreated until her heel caught the edge of a crate and she stumbled. Someone laughed, and the sound came out short and sharp, like a bark.

A hand grabbed the back of her shirt and yanked her upright. Not gently. The grip twisted the fabric against her neck and she choked, her feet scrambling for the ground.

"Let go of me—"

"You shouldn't be here." The voice was behind her, close to her ear, low and tight with something worse than anger. "Not tonight. Not ever."

Something hit the side of her head, not a fist but something thrown, a bottle or part of one. It struck above her ear hard enough that she saw white for a second, the festival lights blurring into a single smear of red. The hand released her and she hit the ground on her knees, her palms skidding across the packed earth.

"Oi! Break it up!" A sharp voice cut through the noise. "Break it up, I said!"

An officer pushed through the crowd, boots loud on the stone, the Uchiha military police insignia on his arm. He was young, with a tight jaw and one hand resting on the baton at his hip, and his gaze swept across the crowd without ever landing on Naruko.

"Disperse. Now."

"Oh, great," the man with the spilled drink muttered. "The Uchiha. Just what we needed."

"You want to repeat that?" The officer's voice dropped.

"I said what I said. Why don't you go back to your compound and leave the real village alone?"

The officer's hand tightened around his baton. An older Uchiha officer arrived beside him with one hand raised in a calming gesture nobody was looking at. From somewhere deeper in the crowd, a third voice rose, louder than the rest: "Who put the Uchiha in charge of anything? You're not even real police!"

An off-duty chūnin with a drink in his hand stepped forward. He was grinning, but the grin had no warmth in it. "Easy there, kid. Nobody likes a uniform that didn't earn its rank."

The young officer's eyes went wide and he lunged forward. The older officer caught his arm, but it was too late—someone in the crowd had already shoved someone else, and the sound that followed was the crack of knuckles meeting jaw.

Naruko ran.

She didn't look back as she ran down the side street, past the shuttered shops, past the alley where the stray cats gathered, her sandals slapping the stone in a rhythm that couldn't keep up with her heartbeat. One strap gave out halfway down the lane and she left it where it fell. The festival sounds collapsed behind her—drums, shouting, the crack of something that might have been a firecracker or might not have been.

Her head throbbed where the bottle had hit, and something warm was running down the side of her face. She wiped it with the back of her hand and didn't look at what came away.

She ran until the streets were dark and the lanterns were behind her and the only sound was her own breathing, ragged and wet and too loud in the empty lane.

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The apartment door banged shut behind her. She locked it, slid the chain across, and stood with her back against the wood, chest heaving, her fingers shaking too hard to let go of the lock.

The apartment was dark, and the floor felt cold against her bare foot. The other foot was still in its sandal. The curtain was half-drawn, and the moonlight cut a pale line across the kitchen table.

She didn't move for a long time.

When her breathing slowed enough to hear past it, she pushed off the door and walked to the window. The alley outside was empty, and she pressed her forehead against the glass and closed her eyes.

Something was on the ledge.

She opened her eyes to the bento on the ledge, same cloth, same knot, same spot.

Beside the bento were other things, more than usual, more than ever.

She found a small green wallet shaped like a frog, its mouth the clasp and its stitched eyes round and cheerful, and beside it a folded jacket—bright orange, new, still creased along the seams. There was a pair of what looked like fresh clothes bundled neatly in brown paper, and a thick stack of slips held together with a rubber band. She turned the slips over and her breath caught. They were Ichiraku ramen coupons. Thirty of them.

Last of all was a red scarf, thick and hand-knitted, the yarn slightly uneven in the way handmade things always were.

Gifts showed up every year around this time, and they always looked different. When she was three there had been a pair of green goggles she'd worn on her forehead for months, until the strap frayed. When she was four it had been frog-themed hair bands, stretchy and soft with little frogs stitched along the fabric—she'd caught them on a branch in the forest and they'd torn apart, but the remains were still in her drawer, folded carefully inside a sock.

It was the second red scarf she'd been given. The first had been smaller and thinner, and she'd outgrown it.

She didn't know who left any of it, or how many people had been here, or when, or why tonight of all nights.

She brought them inside one at a time. The bento came first, held carefully in both hands. The frog wallet she turned over in her fingers, pressing the frog's mouth open and shut. The jacket she held up against her chest, then folded it back over her arm. She carried the clothes in next, then the coupons, which she counted twice on the way to the table. The scarf she saved for last, pressing it against her face before she carried it inside.

It smelled like someone's house. Not hers.

She sat at the table with everything in front of her, lined up in a row on the wood.

Her hands were in her lap, and the side of her head was still bleeding, a thin line that had dried down her neck and into her collar.

She looked at the bento.

The knot came apart in her hands.

Inside, she found rice, the yellow rolled things, and vegetables in green and orange. Where the meat usually sat were three different things she'd never seen in the same box—fat golden shrimp curled and crispy with their tails poking out, a thick slab of fried meat that wasn't pork, breaded and cut into neat slices, and thin pieces of beef, glazed and glistening, with streaks of mayo on top. It was more food than she'd ever seen in one container.

And beside the main box was a smaller one she hadn't noticed.

She opened it.

Inside lay a round cake about the size of a plate, its white icing slightly smudged against the lid. Six candles had been pressed into the top in a neat circle, each one a different color.

Her eyes went wide.

She closed the lid and set it aside, carefully, like it might break.

She picked up one of the shrimp by the tail and brought it toward her mouth.

Her vision blurred.

It was halfway to her lips when her hand started shaking. She set it back down, then picked it up again, but her fingers wouldn't hold still. The rice was warm and the apartment was quiet and she was six years old today and someone had left her gifts on the windowsill and she didn't even know who they were.

The first sob came without warning. It folded her in half, her forehead hitting the table, her arms wrapping around the containers. She cried the way children cry when they have held it in for too long—loud, gasping, graceless, her whole body shaking with it, snot and tears running into the rice she was still holding against her chest.

She cried until her ribs hurt. She cried until the sobs turned into hiccups and the hiccups turned into silence and the silence turned into the sound of her own breathing, slow and shuddering, in the dark apartment where no one could hear her.

When she picked herself up again, the food was still warm, and she couldn't tell whether the salt on her tongue came from the meal or her tears.

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​

From the rooftop, the village below was a patchwork of shadow and light—the blocky silhouettes of buildings and apartment rows cut through by glowing seams where the festival streets ran, warm and amber, threading between the darkness like veins of fire. Drums and laughter and the occasional pop of firecrackers drifted up from the lit roads, faint and distant, blurring together into something almost gentle.

The boy had been there when Hiruzen arrived.

He'd come up the stairwell and found a small figure already seated on the railing—one knee drawn up, forearm resting over it, watching the eastern quarter with the patience of someone who had been doing this for a very long time. Hiruzen had settled into the shadow near the stairwell entrance, but the boy never so much as turned his head, his attention fixed on the apartment three blocks east where the faint glow of a curtain gap showed a small silhouette at a kitchen table.

Her head was bowed and her shoulders were shaking.

They both watched her cry.

After a while, Hiruzen stepped forward.

The boy continued to stare at the apartment in the distance. His voice was flat and unhurried when he spoke. "I wasn't aware the Hokage made house calls."

"Occasionally. It certainly doesn't happen every day. For a week, no less." Hiruzen stopped beside the railing. "So, imagine my surprise when I discovered the Hokage had been sneaking into a young girl's living quarters on random afternoons and evenings."

"What can I say, it seemed practical at the time."

Hiruzen struck a match against the railing and held it to the bowl of his pipe. The tobacco caught. He drew once, slow, and let the smoke curl into the October air. "Particularly bold, too, I might add."

"The Inu operative was an improvement. Certainly paints a better image than an old man sneaking into homes of unsuspecting children."

Hiruzen eyed the boy, a single brow lifted. "The actual operative was on a mission in Grass Country during two of those visits. It created some confusion in the duty logs."

Below, a child on someone's shoulders was waving a paper fox on a stick, and the sound of laughter carried up to them and dissolved.

The gifts on the girl's ledge had been placed over the course of the evening.

"The frog wallet is Jiraiya's. He sends her something toad-related every year—never comes himself. The jacket was Kakashi's. The clothes were mine. The ramen coupons were from Ichiraku's. And the red scarf would be Mikoto's. Itachi delivered it to me several days ago." Hiruzen drew on the pipe, the ember in the bowl pulsing faintly, a small orange point in the dark. "She used to deliver her gifts herself, the first two years. Before she stopped."

The boy shrugged. "She seemed pretty pent up about it to me."

Hiruzen released half a chuckle. "The village's position on Uchiha proximity to the girl isn't written in any document, but it hardly needs to be. And the more enthusiastic members of the Uchihas would have read her involvement as a signal she couldn't afford to send."

A firework burst, a bright orange streak climbing above the rooftops before splitting into petals of light, and the crowd's cheer washed over the rooftop and faded.

Below, the flow of people moved through the lit streets like a slow current. Children chased each other between the stalls, lanterns bobbing in their fists. A small procession was winding through the main road, drums pulsing, torches held high.

"Sasuke-kun." Hiruzen watched the procession for a while before he spoke again. "When does the welfare of the many justify what's done to the few?"

"Is this some tired philosophical exercise?" The boy glanced at him for the first time, a sidelong look laced with the faint edge of amusement. "Or are you asking for yourself?"

Hiruzen was quiet.

The question had been sitting inside him for longer than this boy had been alive. He'd carried it since the day Tobirama-sensei had turned to face the pursuing squad and told the rest of them to keep running, and in every decision after that, in every room where the calculus was the same: how many preserved against how many lost, and whether the numbers ever balanced.

The boy's eyes lingered on him for another beat, and the corner of his lips twitched once. "Greedy old man." He scoffed and turned his gaze back into the distance. "That's just how the world works. You've already taken up the hat. It's a bit too late for sentimentalities now, isn't it? Even if you hadn't been Hokage, these choices would have been in motion regardless. There's no version where you get both—the village intact and every person in it whole."

Hiruzen's pipe hand stilled. He chuckled, a real one this time, quiet and brief, and shook his head once.

Three blocks east, the apartment lights were still on.

"If the village changed," Hiruzen said. "If the shops let her in, the children played with her, the adults saw a girl instead of what she carries. Would you stop?"

"Naturally." The boy responded without a note of hesitation. "If she has what she needs, what's the point of my involvement? There wouldn't be anything left to solve. Nothing entertaining about the case anymore."

The wind carried the last of the woodsmoke across the rooftops. Neither of them spoke. Neither moved to leave. Three blocks east, the overhead light in the apartment had gone out. In its place, a faint warm glow pulsed from the table—six tiny points of candlelight, a few of them tilting where she'd nudged them while lighting the matches. The small silhouette sat in front of them, still eating, still sniffling.

Below, the festival continued—lanterns swaying, drums pulsing, the village celebrating the night it had survived while one of its own sat bleeding in the dark.

Hiruzen let the moment stretch.

He thought of Danzo. Shimura Danzo had spent a career constructing networks of dependency and obligation, ensuring that every act of generosity came attached to a debt and every favor to a ledger. He would have announced every sliver of his generosity, and he would have made certain the girl knew exactly who fed her, exactly where her gratitude should be directed, exactly how much she owed.

The boy had spent seven months making sure the girl never learned it was him.

Hiruzen smiled.

In half a century of service, he had sat across from prodigies, legends, and men and women who bent the course of nations. He was not certain he had met one quite like this.

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​

The door slammed open hard enough to rattle in its track.

Every head in the classroom turned. Iruka's pen stopped mid-stroke, and Mizuki, leaning against the window, raised both eyebrows.

Naruko stood in the doorway. Her hair was wild, her bag dragging on the floor behind her. The dark circles under her eyes were the worst they'd been. There was a bruise above her left ear, half-hidden by her hair, yellowing at the edges.

She was wearing the orange jacket, which was too big for her. The sleeves hung past her knuckles and the hem reached her thighs. The red scarf was wrapped twice around her neck, the ends trailing down her back.

She walked to the front of the classroom, not to her seat but to the very front. She planted her feet, balled her fists at her sides, and looked out at the rows of faces.

The whispering started immediately.

She breathed in.

"I'm going to be Hokage."

The whispers stopped.

"I'm going to be the greatest Hokage this village has ever seen, and every single one of you is going to have to look up at my face on that mountain, dattebayo!"

The silence held for three seconds. Then someone in the middle rows let out a short, disbelieving laugh that caught and pulled a few more along with it. Then came the murmuring, the shifting, the looks.

Naruko didn't flinch. Her fists stayed at her sides, her chin up.

Across the room, the Hyūga girl was watching her with both hands pressed together under the desk, her pale eyes wide with admiration.

Iruka's pen was still frozen over the attendance sheet, the vein on his forehead twitching.

"Uzumaki Naruko!" He took a deep breath. "Get back to your seat! Right now!"

She held her ground for one more second before she turned and walked back. The only empty seat was beside the raven-haired Uchiha boy, and she dropped into it the same way she had every morning for the past six months, with the same unhappy line pressed into her mouth and the same refusal to acknowledge his existence.

The bruise above her ear caught the morning light. The red scarf trailed off one shoulder.

"Hm." The sound was barely audible. "Not bad."

Naruko's fist connected with the boy's arm before the second syllable had left his mouth.

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Next Chapter Preview

The October air had turned overnight.

"He's six."

Itachi's chair was empty and no one mentioned it.

"Out late, Sasuke-kun."

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​

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Chapter 7—The First Crack

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The October air had turned overnight. The compound in the mornings was all damp stone and wet earth now, the persimmon tree outside the Nakano house dropping its fruit onto the path where nobody picked it up. The tiled roofs held dew until midmorning, and the crows had migrated to the south wall where the sun hit first.

Mikoto asked him to bring tea to the sitting room. The hallway was empty. The neighbors who usually stopped by the main house in the evenings had not come, and the two clan members he'd passed on the path outside had quickened their pace in the other direction.

He set two cups on the tray and carried it down the hall.

Yashiro Uchiha sat across from Fugaku at the low table. He was older than most of the officers Emiya had seen at the compound—ash-grey hair, squinted eyes that never quite opened all the way.

"—six months, Fugaku-sama. Six months in ANBU, and the clan has yet to see a single piece of actionable intelligence from the boy. The position was supposed to serve a purpose."

"The position serves the village. That was the arrangement."

"The arrangement." Yashiro regarded Fugaku for a beat. "With respect, arrangements that serve only the village have a tendency to forget who put the boy there in the first place."

"Itachi serves where he's placed. If you have concerns about his output, you're welcome to raise them at the next council session."

"Council sessions." Yashiro set his cup down. The porcelain touched the table without a sound. "We've had four this month, Fugaku-sama. The sessions are not the problem. The lack of movement afterward is."

Emiya set the tray between them. He poured Fugaku's cup first, then Yashiro's, and straightened.

Yashiro's squinted eyes tracked him. "Ah. The younger one. Sasuke-kun, is it?"

Fugaku's jaw tightened. "Sasuke."

"Top of his class at the Academy, I hear." Yashiro picked up his fresh cup. The steam curled past his chin. "Fine marks across the board. That chūnin instructor speaks well of him, apparently." He sipped. "Quite composed for his age. He has your bearing, Fugaku-sama. Though I suspect there's more of Mikoto-sama in there than either of you would admit."

The man had a particular talent for making compliments sound like inspections.

"He's six."

"Itachi was six once. Look how that turned out."

Comparing children to failed investments in front of Fugaku—the man's diplomatic skills were as impressive as his subtlety.

Neither of them spoke. Somewhere outside, a gate latch clicked shut. Fugaku's arms unfolded slowly, his hands settling flat on his knees.

"Will that be all, Sasuke?" His eyes hadn't left Yashiro.

"Unless your guest requires anything else." Emiya surveyed both men and left.

Behind him, as he walked back down the hallway, Yashiro's voice dropped half a register. "The clan cannot afford to wait for Itachi to decide where his loyalties are, Fugaku-sama. Others in the compound are beginning to ask questions that you and I will not be able to defer much longer."

The kitchen door was open, and Mikoto was at the counter, slicing daikon into rounds. A strand of hair had escaped behind her ear. She didn't blow it aside.

Emiya picked up the cutting board beside her and started on the carrots. They worked without speaking. The kitchen had its own rhythm—knife against wood, water running, the low hiss of the stove beneath its pot. Mikoto's knife landed a fraction harder than it needed to, and the pause between her cuts was a fraction longer. She hadn't asked what he'd heard in the sitting room, which meant she already knew enough to not want it confirmed.

"He visits every week now." Emiya didn't look up from the carrots.

"I know."

"It used to be every month. Talk about a first-hand demonstration of overstaying welcomes."

Mikoto's knife stopped. She set it down, pressed both palms flat against the counter, and stared at the daikon in front of her. "It's fine, Sasuke."

"Uh-huh." He peeled the next carrot. "I'm sure it is, Mikoto."

She sighed and picked up the knife again.

The pot hissed, and she turned to adjust the flame. Her hand lingered on the knob a beat too long before she let go.

Dinner was three place settings. Mikoto reached for a fourth bowl from the cabinet, held it for a beat, and put it back.

Itachi's chair was empty and no one mentioned it. Fugaku sat where he always sat, but the book was absent tonight and the tea beside his plate was hot. He intended to drink it. Fugaku paying attention to dinner was more peculiar than anything Yashiro had said in the sitting room.

Mikoto served the rice while Emiya brought the sides—pickled plum, grilled mackerel, miso soup.

"The Nakano boy made chūnin last week." Mikoto reached for the rice paddle. "His mother was at the market. She seemed proud."

Fugaku picked up his chopsticks. "Hm."

"She also mentioned they're expanding the east patrol rotation. Adding a third shift."

Fugaku's chopsticks paused over his bowl. A fraction of a second. He resumed eating.

"A third shift."

"Starting next week, apparently."

"The mackerel is good tonight."

"Thank you." Mikoto took a sip of soup.

Emiya ate. The mackerel was, in fact, good. Mikoto's knife work on the daikon had been sharper than usual—the rounds were thinner, the edges cleaner. In six years of sharing a table with Fugaku, the man had never once complimented a specific dish. He was either developing a palate or running out of things he was willing to talk about.

They finished in the time it took for the soup to cool. No one lingered.

Fugaku excused himself from the table and walked back toward the sitting room. The door slid shut behind him. Yashiro's voice, low and measured, resumed on the other side.

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The front door opened while they were still washing up.

Itachi's footsteps came down the hall—quiet, precise. He hadn't shaken off the silent walk from his shift. He appeared in the kitchen doorway still in his ANBU blacks, the chest armor unstrapped but not removed, his hair loose from its tie.

Mikoto turned from the cabinet. "Itachi. There's a plate for you."

"I ate at headquarters." He glanced at the counter, then at the covered plate sitting where it always sat when he came home late, and picked it up anyway. "Thank you."

The Uchiha talent for saying one thing and doing another was evidently hereditary.

He sat at the table, the three chairs across from him pushed back at the angles people left them in.

Emiya dried the last bowl and set it in the cabinet. Fugaku's tea was still on the table, half-finished and going cold. Mikoto took his place at the table across from Itachi, her hands folded in front of her. She didn't ask where he'd been. She didn't ask why he was late. She watched him eat the food he'd said he didn't need.

"Yashiro was here." Emiya settled onto the edge of the counter stool, arms folded across his chest.

Itachi's chopsticks didn't pause. "I know."

"He's getting louder. I could hear him through the sitting room wall, and I wasn't particularly trying to listen."

"He's always been loud. The volume just used to be more evenly distributed." Itachi's eyes stayed on his plate. "Now it's concentrated."

"Your name came up. He seems to think the clan overpaid."

"It usually does."

Mikoto's hands tightened in her lap as the kitchen clock ticked twice.

"His exact words were closer to 'poor investment.'" Emiya tilted his head. "Fugaku didn't appreciate it. I suspect Yashiro didn't particularly care."

"Father rarely appreciates being told what he already knows." Itachi set his chopsticks down. The plate was half-finished—he'd eaten the rice and the fish and left the pickled plum, which was the opposite of his usual preference.

He stood. "Good night, Mother."

"Good night, Itachi."

He turned to Emiya, the look holding for a beat—the same look Itachi had been giving him since the river, since the deliveries. But tonight the lines around his mouth had tightened, and he held it a half-second longer than usual before letting go.

"Good night, Sasuke."

"Good night, Itachi."

His footsteps receded down the hall, and his bedroom door closed. Mikoto exhaled through her nose and pressed her fingertips against her eyes.

Emiya washed Itachi's dishes while Mikoto dried.

The rhythm was the same as always—he passed bowls, she took them, the cabinet opened and closed. Water ran, and porcelain clicked on wood.

"Is your father all right?" Mikoto's eyes stayed on the bowl in her hands.

Emiya turned off the tap and dried his hands on the towel she'd hung from the oven handle—the same spot she always put it, within reach of whoever was shorter.

"Fugaku is doing what he always does. Managing things he can't discuss with the people he wants to protect." He folded the towel. "It's not a particularly efficient strategy, but it's consistent."

Mikoto's hands stilled on the cabinet door.

"He should talk to someone." Her voice had dropped.

"He should talk to you. But he won't, because telling you what's happening would mean admitting what's happening, and he hasn't decided what to do about it yet. When he does, you'll be the first to know. Or the last." He set the towel down. "With Fugaku, those tend to be the same thing."

She stared at him. "You know too much for a six-year-old."

"You say that every month, Mikoto. It hasn't gotten any more useful."

She reached out and tapped him on the head with two fingers. He let it happen. She closed the cabinet and untied her apron.

"Don't stay up too late."

Her footsteps receded down the hall.

The house went still. The murmur from the sitting room had gone quiet, and no sound came from Itachi's room.

Emiya stood at the counter in the dark kitchen and packed the bento—rice, grilled mackerel (he'd set aside a portion before dinner), pickled vegetables, the last of the tamagoyaki from the morning batch. Fugaku's reading glasses were still on the counter where he'd left them that morning, beside the spot where the book usually sat. He wrapped the bento in the same cloth, tied the same knot, and tucked it under his arm.

He slipped on his sandals at the door and stepped into the compound.

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The gate guards on the east side were new. Emiya recognized one of them from the festival—the young officer who had lunged at the crowd. Gate duty was a demotion. The man stared straight ahead as Emiya passed, jaw set, saying nothing.

The village was quiet, and he reached the eastern quarter without being seen.

The apartment light was on. Through the curtain gap, the girl was at the table with a pencil in her fist and what looked like homework spread in front of her, not looking at the window. He placed the bento on the ledge and left the way he'd come.

The compound gate was quiet when he returned. The guards had changed shifts—the pair on night duty inclined their heads as he passed, too accustomed to the clan head's youngest keeping odd hours to comment on it anymore.

He was three houses from the main residence when the front door opened.

Yashiro stepped out.

The man adjusted his collar against the October air and turned down the path. He spotted Emiya within a few strides and stopped.

"Out late, Sasuke-kun."

"I could say the same." Emiya didn't slow his pace. "Fugaku must value your company a great deal. Three hours is a long conversation."

Yashiro's chin lifted. A beat passed. "Your father and I have much to discuss."

"So it would seem. Although at this rate, you may as well save yourself the walk and move in."

The squinted eyes narrowed further. Emiya hadn't thought that was physically possible. Yashiro regarded him for a long moment, then clasped his hands behind his back.

"You speak very directly for a child your age."

Emiya shrugged. "I've been told."

"And that doesn't concern you?"

"Not particularly. Directness saves time, and nobody in this compound seems to have much of it to spare lately."

Yashiro was quiet for several seconds. Something akin to satisfaction filtered behind his posture. "How about the Academy? Does it keep you busy?"

"Busy enough for what the Academy offers. The curriculum isn't exactly designed for pace."

The man nodded once. "And your studies? The clan techniques—has your father begun instruction?"

"Fugaku has other priorities at the moment. I manage on my own."

"Itachi was a gifted child." Yashiro's voice had gone flat. "The most talented this clan had seen in a generation. But talent without loyalty is just a sharper blade in someone else's hand." He tilted his head. "I wonder what your generation will produce."

Emiya held his gaze. "Who knows? Something useful, I'd expect. The clan seems to be in need of it."

Yashiro didn't answer immediately. His chin dipped a fraction, and his squinted eyes creased at the corners.

"Hm." The sound was low, almost to himself. He inclined his head once, turned, and continued down the path. His footsteps faded between the houses.

Emiya watched him go, then walked the rest of the way to the main house, removed his sandals, and closed the door behind him.

The sitting room was empty now. Down the hall, the study door closed, and the lock turned once.

Outside, the persimmon tree tapped its lowest branch against the window, a faint rhythmic knock that nobody had trimmed it back far enough to stop.

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Next Chapter Preview

The study light was on when Itachi came through the front door.

Four in the morning.

"I landed more shuriken on the post today than you did!"

"She's got spirit."

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​

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[The Tangerine Cat]

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Chapter 8—Shisui

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The study light was on when Itachi came through the front door.

It was four in the morning. The compound was dark except for the main house, where a thin band of yellow leaked from beneath Fugaku's door and cut a stripe across the hallway floor. Itachi removed his sandals without sound and set his ANBU mask on the shelf by the entrance. The porcelain was still warm from his face.

The door to his study was open. The hallway smelled faintly of cold tea and ink.

Fugaku sat at his desk, surrounded by a stack of papers, a cup that had stopped steaming hours ago, and his reading glasses folded beside it. He had a ledger open in front of him—patrol schedules, from the look of it—but the pen in his hand hadn't touched the page.

Itachi stopped in the doorway. "You haven't slept."

"Neither have you."

"I was on assignment."

"So was I." Fugaku set the pen down. His thumb pressed into the space between his eyes and held there. "Yashiro brought three new signatures to the council tonight."

Itachi leaned his shoulder against the frame.

"They moved us to the edges of the village and stripped our authority back to traffic disputes and drunk genin." Fugaku lowered his hand and looked at his son. "I have spent six years asking for a seat at the table and getting handed the same set of excuses in different order. At what point does asking start looking like begging?"

"When you stop caring about the answer."

Fugaku's chair creaked as he leaned forward. "I care about the answer. That's the problem. I've cared about it longer than anyone in this clan, and every year the answer gets smaller."

The lamp on the desk flickered. A moth had been circling it; it tapped the glass once, twice, and veered away.

"There are other paths."

"Name one that doesn't require the village to act in good faith."

Itachi was quiet for a long time.

"Patience stops being a strategy," he said, "when it costs more lives than action would. Not before."

Fugaku settled back in his chair and closed the ledger.

"Go rest. You look terrible."

"So do you."

"I'm the clan head. It comes with the territory." The corner of Fugaku's mouth moved, and he reached for his glasses, remembered they were already folded, and withdrew his hand.

Itachi inclined his head and left.

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He did not go to his room.

The engawa faced the garden on the east side of the house. Itachi slid the paper door open and sat on the wooden edge, his legs hanging over the side, his back against the frame. The air had the sharp, clean bite of a season turning. The garden was all grey shapes—stones, low shrubs, the faint outline of the persimmon tree at the far wall. The only sound was the drip of condensation falling from the eaves onto the stepping stones below.

He closed his eyes.

"You look like you haven't slept in a week."

Itachi opened his eyes. Sasuke stood in the doorway behind him, barefoot, his dark hair pressed flat on one side from the pillow, his arms folded, a crease running down his left cheek.

"I just got back."

"I'm aware. The study door was open and neither of you bothered keeping your voices down." Sasuke rubbed one eye with the heel of his palm. "For a household of shinobi, the operational security leaves a lot to be desired."

Itachi looked at him—six years old, with a pillow crease on his face and a critique of operational security on his tongue.

"ANBU keeps demanding hours." Sasuke stepped onto the engawa and lowered himself against the opposite frame, his legs drawn up, his chin resting on one knee. "Real slave drivers."

"You don't know what ANBU demands."

"I know you come home at four in the morning looking like someone drained you and forgot to throw out the container." He ran his finger along a crack in the wooden edge of the engawa, a split in the grain that hadn't been there last week, and pressed it flat with his thumb. "That's enough."

The muscles around Itachi's mouth moved and stopped.

A bird called from somewhere deeper in the compound. Water still fell from the eaves, measured and unhurried. The sky above the roofline had begun to lighten.

"Sasuke."

"Hm."

"What do you think a shinobi is for?"

Sasuke's hand stilled on the wood. He was looking at the garden, but his eyes weren't focused on anything in it.

"A tool." The word came out flat. "That's the honest answer. A shinobi exists to serve a function determined by someone else. The village, the clan, the mission desk. The system doesn't require the tool to have an opinion about its purpose."

Itachi waited.

"But tools don't sit on porches before dawn wondering whether their father is right." Sasuke glanced at him. "The question has a contradiction built into it. You already know that, or you wouldn't have asked."

He stood, dusted his knees, and walked back inside. At the door he stopped without turning.

"Breakfast will be ready in a bit. I'll leave yours at the door if you'd rather not move."

The paper door slid shut.

Itachi sat on the engawa and watched the sky lighten. The answer had come too quickly. Not the words—the words were careful enough. But the pause before them had been measured, not uncertain. That was the difference between a child thinking and a child deciding how much to show.

The drip from the eaves had stopped, and the stepping stones were drying.

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The Academy bell rang at three. Emiya collected his things, passed Iruka's desk without stopping, and walked out into the yard.

The afternoon light had gone amber. Parents gathered near the low wall, their shadows long across the packed dirt. Somewhere near the old tree, Kiba's puppy was yapping at something it couldn't reach.

"Hey! Uchiha!"

He kept walking.

Naruko caught up near the gate, breathing hard, her bag bouncing against her hip. She planted herself in front of him the way she always did—feet wide, chin up, fists at her sides.

"I landed more shuriken on the post today than you did!"

He glanced at her. "You're counting cumulative throws across a month against a single session."

"What?"

"You threw thirty shuriken over three weeks. You landed six. I threw five today. You landed more total hits than I did today." He tilted his head. "That's not beating my score. That's beating my Tuesday."

Her face scrunched. Her ears went pink. "That still counts, dattebayo!"

"By that logic, a puddle is deeper than the ocean if you measure it every day."

Naruko opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. "I don't—that doesn't even—you're so—" She jabbed a finger at him. "Tomorrow! Tomorrow I'm actually beating you! For real!"

"I look forward to it. Although, given the current trajectory, I'd suggest packing a lunch for the attempt."

She made a strangled noise, pivoted on her heel, and stomped toward the main road. One of her sandal straps had come undone and was slapping the dirt with every step, and she didn't notice. The orange jacket Kakashi had sent was still too long in the sleeves. She'd grow into it by next winter.

"She's got spirit."

Emiya didn't turn—he'd felt the presence on the wall for the past minute. "She's got volume. Spirit is debatable."

Shisui dropped from the wall and landed beside him without a sound—dark curly hair, easy posture, the headband he never tightened sitting crooked across his forehead. He had almost two full heads on Emiya, all long arms and loose joints.

"Itachi's been buried in work lately." Shisui fell into step beside him. "Figured I'd swing by and make sure his baby brother isn't getting lonely."

"When have I ever given you the impression I need looking after?" Emiya raised an eyebrow. "You're the one who leaves crumbs on the hallway floor every time you raid Mikoto's rice cracker jar. If anyone here needs supervision, Shisui, it isn't me."

Shisui laughed. Not a polite laugh. It came out before he'd decided to let it. "She told you about that?"

"She didn't have to. The crumbs have a trail. It starts at the kitchen and ends at Itachi's door."

"I'm working on my stealth."

"Evidently."

The road from the Academy ran east toward the training grounds, the trees thickening on either side as the village thinned. Shisui's stride was loose and unhurried, but his eyes moved—quick arcs across the rooftops and tree line.

"You do the same thing, you know." Shisui glanced down at him. "The scanning. Every time we pass an intersection, your eyes go to the roofline before the road." He grinned. "My grandmother used to do that. She couldn't sit with her back to a door either."

One breath passed before Emiya answered. "Your grandmother sounds like a practical woman."

Shisui's mouth twitched, and he didn't push it.

The compound walls fell behind them, replaced by the outer village houses and then open ground.

"How's the house been?"

"Quiet."

"Quiet good or quiet bad?"

"Quiet the way houses get when everyone in them is managing a separate conversation they won't have out loud."

Shisui didn't answer immediately—his grin stayed, but his eyes didn't.

They reached the fork where the village road split toward training ground three. The trees were thicker here, the canopy filtering the light into broken patches on the dirt path. Shisui stopped walking.

"I've got about an hour before I need to be somewhere." He turned to face Emiya. "Want to spar?"

"You're asking a six-year-old to spar."

"I'm asking Itachi's brother to spar. There's a difference."

"The difference being that Itachi would break both your arms if he found out."

"Probably." Shisui's grin came back. "That's what makes it fun."

"Fine."

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Shisui came along the riverbank path and spotted them before they'd noticed him.

Itachi sat on the dock, legs hanging over the edge, Izumi beside him, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. She was talking with her hands, small gestures, and Itachi's head was tilted toward her just enough to show he was listening. The Naka River moved beneath them, copper-tinted and unhurried.

Shisui exhaled through his nose and slowed his pace.

He landed on the dock behind them, the old planks groaning under the impact. "Am I interrupting?"

Izumi flinched. Itachi didn't.

"You're always interrupting." Itachi didn't turn.

"That's what makes me reliable." Shisui settled cross-legged at the dock's edge and leaned back on his hands. The wood was warm under his palms. "You two look cozy."

Izumi's cheeks went pink. "We're not—I was just—Itachi-kun was helping me with a technique and—"

"On the dock."

"We took a break!"

"Izumi-chan." Shisui leaned forward. "Do you always practice techniques while sitting this close to someone?"

"It's a—the dock is narrow—"

"The dock is three meters wide."

"Shisui." Itachi's voice dropped half a register. "Stop."

"Fine, fine." Shisui spread his hands. "So. I went to check on that baby brother of yours today."

Itachi's shoulders stiffened a fraction. "...You went to see Sasuke."

"At the Academy. Walked him partway home." Shisui picked up a flat stone from between the planks and turned it in his fingers. "Had a spar with him too."

Itachi turned fully. "You sparred with a six-year-old."

"I sparred with your six-year-old. There's a significant difference." He weighed the stone in his palm. "Kid's got a mean arm and an even sharper mouth. Man, if only I had a brother like that. Things would never get boring."

Izumi smiled faintly. "That's one way to put it." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Last time I came over he told me my kunai grip would get me killed in a real exchange, and then went back to peeling carrots. I still don't know if he was helping me or insulting me."

"Both." Shisui laughed. "Definitely both."

A dragonfly skimmed the surface of the river and banked toward the reeds on the far side.

Izumi stood and brushed off her shorts. "I should head back. Mother wants me home before dark." She glanced between them, lingered a beat, then dipped her head. "Good night, Itachi-kun. Shisui-san."

"Night, Izumi-chan." Shisui waved once.

Itachi inclined his head.

Her footsteps receded along the dock and faded onto the path. The planks settled back into stillness.

Shisui rolled the stone between his thumb and forefinger. The copper light was thinning. Downstream, a leaf caught the current and pulled under.

"He's going to be fine, you know." Shisui didn't look at Itachi when he said it. "Whatever happens. That kid is going to be fine." His thumb ran along the stone's edge. "Everything's going to be fine."

Itachi didn't answer for a while. "...You sound certain."

"Of course I am." Shisui flicked the stone.

It left his hand in a shadowed streak, kissing the water without breaking it as it glided across the Naka River. A tail of rippling light followed. The stone cleared the far bank, clattering into the rocks on the other side.

"I'm Shunshin no Shisui, after all."

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Next Chapter Preview

Sparks arced between two blurs clashing across the training ground.

"Damn good for a kid your age."

"No zoning out during a fight!"

He pulled the blanket over her and tucked the edge beneath her shoulder.

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

Want to keep reading?

Advance chapters (up to 12 ahead) are available here:

pa tre on .com (slash) TheTangerineCat

Your support directly keeps the story going.

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[The Tangerine Cat]

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

Chapter 9—The Uchiha That Smiled

​

---———---<<O>>---———---

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Soft booms echoed through the forest clearing in rapid succession. A flock of starlings burst from the canopy and scattered into the sky.

Sparks arced between two blurs clashing across the training ground, sending pale ripples through the grass.

They broke apart, forty meters of churned earth between them.

Emiya released a slow breath. His knuckles were scraped, his guard arm aching from the shoulder down.

Across the clearing, Shisui grinned. "You're good. Damn good for a kid your age."

"I could say the same about you." Emiya spun the kunai by its ring. The blade snapped into his grip in reverse.

The ground cracked. Emiya vanished. His figure streaked across the distance, kunai already slamming into the older boy's.

Their hair drifted up. Shisui's grin widened as sparks dragged against the edge of the blades.

Emiya spun around and slammed his elbow into the older boy's guard. The arms lifted. He leaned back, and his leg snapped forth in a blur, burying into Shisui's stomach.

The impact flattened the grass beneath their feet and folded the older boy, lifting his body off the ground.

A muffled crack sounded from beneath Emiya's heel. A shockwave ballooned between them, and Shisui's body shot across the clearing, impacting a boulder before bursting into smoke and splinters.

Emiya clicked his tongue. Being six and less than half his opponent's age was not a common disadvantage he had to factor into his calculus. The strikes had been suboptimal. And the kick...

The smoke hadn't cleared before the air split behind him.

"No zoning out during a fight!"

A knee clad in navy blue slammed into the side of Emiya's head, and his figure was thrown into the ground, sending spiderwebs through the earth. His body popped, a log replaced where he'd been.

Shisui turned around, studying Emiya who was standing several paces away. "Hm..." The teen held his chin for a beat before a large smile broke across his face. "You ready to kick it up a notch?"

"By all means." Emiya flexed his wrist once and lowered his arm. "Ready when you are."

Shisui vanished.

The air where he'd stood collapsed inward, loose dirt expelled in a ring. A genjutsu copy held the vacated position, kunai raised, half-solid and thrumming at the edges. He materialized behind, then another copy, then a third dropped from above, flickering in a ring around Emiya.

Emiya's kunai caught the real strike just beyond his peripherals. The impact blew through his guard. Shisui's trailing fist caught in his smaller hand. The knuckles cracked across his ribs regardless, and Emiya was sent flying, swallowed by the treelines.

Shisui followed, five departures flickered into streaks that plunged into the forest.

Emiya's hair lashed across his face.

The canopy bent.

Leaves stripped from their branches and spiraled in the turbulence. Their bodies blinked through the woods, reducing the sea of trees into a smear.

Shisui's real body threaded between the afterimages, striking Emiya from every direction as they raced forth.

The afterimages hit seven.

The air tore. Bark peeled off the nearest trunk in long curls. A branch snapped under Shisui's foot.

Twice Emiya was already flying into where Shisui arrived, kunai there to meet the strike. Twice the deflection buckled his guard, knocking his arm wide. Each impact sent him spiraling, shooting faster into the woods. And each time, Emiya twisted his body, heels snapping off tree trunks, and his figure blurred further ahead of the pursuit.

The count hit ten.

His guard dropped lower after each exchange. A strike from the side drove through his block and glanced off his shoulder. Another one materialized at his back. He spun, midair. The tanto hammered into his kunai. Emiya crashed into the ground and plowed a thirty-meter trench before his heels caught and he slid to a halt in a low crouch.

The silhouettes settled at fifteen.

Emiya exhaled quietly.

The afterimages burst into motion.

Emiya flung his arm. A soft boom cracked from his wrist and the kunai vanished into a black streak.

It didn't go toward Shisui. It went left—flat, toward a point in the air twenty meters away where nothing stood. The blade caught the light through the canopy as it turned.

Once. Twice.

The space shuddered. The air at that point collapsed inward. Shisui's body materialized from the Shunshin. The kunai was already there, its edge closing in on the space of his right eye.

Shisui's pupils widened.

The leaves froze mid-spiral. The dust hung at knee height.

And then the charcoal-black irises shifted. Three tomoe bled into them, spinning, slow, each one locking into place as the reflection of the blade edged closer to blood-red orbs—

The boy was throwing shuriken at a row of posts, eight targets. Every blade hit center.

Shisui dropped from the branch. The boy didn't flinch.

Two rice balls sat on a cloth beside his bag, untouched.

"Eight for eight again." Shisui settled onto the grass beside the cloth, picked up one of the rice balls, and bit into it. "You ever miss on purpose just to keep things interesting?"

Itachi collected his shuriken, walked back, and sat down. He picked up the remaining rice ball and held it in his lap without eating.

"You're out here more than usual." Shisui chewed. "Last three days straight. Mikoto-san's going to start sending search parties."

The boy turned the rice ball over in his hands. His eyes went to the compound wall visible above the tree line, then down.

"I have a brother now." The words came out quiet. "He's small."

Shisui looked at him for a long moment. Then he took another bite of the rice ball.

"All right. Eat your food first. Then I'll show you something with the fourth post."

The crows took off in a flurry of wingbeats. The last of the purple receded into the dusk.

—Shisui's head snapped to the side.

The kunai cut past his cheek.

Blood streamed from his right socket, and his breath came in haggard wheezes.

Shisui's blade hammered into the trailing tantō in a white flash. The steel sang off the contact. The agent's arm wrenched outward, porcelain mask gazing back at him silently. Several more kunai came from behind. His hand blurred across his back and both blades ricocheted off his guard in clear thrums.

He turned.

Two Root agents dropped from the canopy. The first lunged. Shisui's palm detonated against the chest plate. The agent's body cratered into an oak and the trunk folded around him.

The second was already inside his guard. Shisui's tantō flashed twice. The mask split down the center and the agent crumpled.

A third landed behind him. He didn't last either.

Shisui's left eye burned, three tomoe spinning. His right socket was a dark, wet ruin—blood running from it in a line that painted his collar.

His hands blurred through the seals before his legs found their footing.

His chest expanded. The chakra ignited behind his teeth.

The fireball erupted outward and swallowed the tree line whole. The grass flattened in a radial wave. The nearest trunks split and popped as the sap inside them boiled. The canopy charred black. The Root agents vanished behind the blaze.

Shisui didn't check. He turned and the Shunshin fired.

The first landing punched a crater into the forest floor. His legs buckled on arrival. The next Shunshin tore him forward before he'd straightened, branches snapping against his body, a spray of blood left across the bark of a trunk he barely cleared. The third landing drove him to one knee. The fourth sent him through the canopy. A branch exploded around him. The fifth barely fired at all.

The blood from his socket caught the wind. His remaining eye stung. The trees blurred. The dark blurred.

Somewhere along, a familiar chakra signature began to keep pace.

He landed on the cliff overlooking the Naka River and his chakra coils gave out.

The river was below. The willows on the near bank were dark shapes against the water. Moonlight caught the current in pale, broken lines.

"Shisui!" The pursuer skidded to a halt. A voice cracked open in a way that didn't sound like Itachi. "Shisui, what—your eye—"

"Danzo." Shisui's voice came out thin. Blood dripped from his chin and into his collar, a trail of warmth against the numbness of his skin. "Sugaru poisoned me. Danzo took the right one."

"We can—"

"Itachi." He couldn't feel his legs anymore. "It's already done."

Itachi's breathing changed, short and shuddering as they pulled through his teeth. "Shisui—"

"Protect the village. And protect the Uchiha name. Can you do that?"

"Stop talking. We need to—"

"Can you do that?" Shisui took in the image of the boy before him one more time. Then he reached for his cheek. His vision went dark. When his arm came forth, he closed his remaining eye, holding nothing but the glistening orb within the clasps of his outstretched arm. "Can you do that?"

"...Yes."

The wind moved through the trees above the cliff. The eye was taken from his grasp.

The corner of Shisui's mouth lifted. "Don't shoulder everything alone."

Itachi was silent.

"You have a brother, don't you?" The blood cracked on his cheeks. "One that has a lot of attitude."

"...Why are you talking about Sasuke right now?"

"So you don't know at all then." He grinned. His body felt strangely warm now. He leaned back, and the updrafts of the cliff cradled his body. "Your brother is going to be incredible one day."

"Shisui—"

"Take care of yourself, Itachi."

He fell.

The wind caught his hair. His arms hung loose. The river rose toward him.

He had found a boy in a clearing once. Eight for eight. Two rice balls on a cloth. I have a brother now.

And two weeks ago, he had found another one. Six years old. Flat dark eyes and a mouth that never stopped.

"Three tomoe." The boy's voice was flat between ragged breaths. "Against a kid almost ten years younger. That's not overkill at all."

The fourteen afterimages burst into motion.

They came from every direction. Shisui's real body threaded between them as they drove into the boy. The flurry of onslaught pushed him through the underbrush, his feet skidding across roots and loose earth.

They exploded from the forest and into another clearing. The boy rose, breath labored and figure disheveled. The crimson of the afternoon sun bled his tiny silhouette a deep red. He had somehow deflected every strike.

The flock of figures shot out of the tree lines and converged on the boy in a barrage of strikes once more.

And then Shisui spotted it, through the smear of everything that thundered around them. The opening. The boy's right side had dropped... just ever so slightly.

Shisui leaned forward. The ground cratered beneath his soles. One step, and tens of meters vanished between them. The gap shrank to nothing. His foot slammed into the grass, body twisting as the butt of his tantō closed on the boy's sternum.

Only an arm's breadth remained between them. The afterimages hung in space. Blades of grass hovered at their knees.

Something nagged at the back of Shisui's mind.

A tingle danced across his right flank, under the single, overextended spot beneath his ribs.

Within the glistening red orbs of Shisui's sharingan, the boy gazed back with his deep, onyx eyes. The kunai in the boy's hand sat unusually still, lowered at his hip—edge angled inward, blade reversed.

Shisui's pupils widened slowly.

The swing never came.

A low boom sounded across the clearing as Shisui came to a stop. The butt of the tantō tapped against the younger boy's sternum. The wind flattened the grass. Overhead, the branches snapped back and stilled.

"...I've won." A laugh bubbled out of Shisui's chest, incredulous. His heart hammered behind his ribs, the sweat cooling between his shoulder blades.

He would have died if the boy had decided to swing his blade.

"Congratulations." The six-year-old looked at him, flat and utterly still despite the heaving chest. "You won against a kid almost ten years younger. I hope it was worth the effort."

Shisui smiled.

The water broke beneath him, and then there was nothing.

On the cliff, the three tomoe in each of Itachi's eyes dissolved. The pattern that replaced them was not the same.

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

The apartment was dark except for the kitchen light. The bulb buzzed faintly behind its plastic cover.

Emiya eased the window open from the outside and stepped over the ledge. The empty bento container sat where it always sat—washed, dried, placed upside down on the sill with the cloth folded beneath it. She'd gotten more precise about the placement over the past few months.

He set the full container beside the empty one and swapped them.

The bedroom door was open. Naruko had migrated diagonally across the mattress, one arm hanging off the side, the other wrapped around a pillow she'd pulled over her head. One leg dangled off the edge, her foot hovering above the floor, and the blanket had slipped to her waist.

He opened the fridge. The light from inside cast a pale rectangle across the floor. He turned the first of three milk cartons—four days past, and the second, two days. There was a container of leftover rice that should have been thrown out days ago, and half an apple browning at the edges.

He uncapped the first carton, poured it down the sink, and flattened the empty container. The second followed. He stacked them neatly beside the trash, moved the good carton to the front. The rice went too. The apple he left. She'd eat it in the morning if it were the first thing she saw.

The fridge door closed, and the pale rectangle disappeared.

The bulb buzzed. Outside, the village had gone still—streets emptied, lanterns left to the moths.

He passed the bedroom on his way to the window. Her leg was still hanging off the edge. He lifted it by the ankle and set it back on the mattress. She mumbled something and curled into the pillow without waking. He pulled the blanket over her and tucked the edge beneath her shoulder.

Emiya climbed back over the window ledge, pulled it shut behind him, and dropped into the alley below. The bento cloth was tucked under his arm, the empty container clicked inside, and the moon hung round and full in the night sky.

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

Next Chapter Preview

Shisui was dead.

Nobody said Itachi's name. They didn't need to.

He had never looked like this.

"Stay, Sasuke-kun."

---———---<<O>>---———---

​

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