19: The Uchiha

Dawn hadn’t fully broken yet.

The little courtyard was empty save for an old tree, its gnarled branches still dark against the lightening sky. A few fallen leaves lay scattered across the asphalt, going nowhere.

Shin sat alone on the wooden engawa, eyes closed, hands resting open on his thighs. He wore a black yukata, the sleeves pooled at his sides. He hadn’t moved in a long time.

He did this every morning. Had, for years.

A bamboo sword lay beside him. He didn’t own a real blade — and he’d never given anyone reason to think he knew how to use one. That was a problem without a clean solution. Skills had to come from somewhere. A teacher, a family tradition, something. No teacher wasn’t an answer he could give out loud.

So he practiced ninjutsu. He practiced shuriken. And in the privacy of his own courtyard, before the village woke up, he ran through the forms with bamboo.

The sun crept past the horizon. Light spread, slow and thin, across the asphalt.

“—hh.”

He exhaled. Long and quiet. His eyes opened.

He picked up the bamboo sword, rose from the engawa, and went back inside. When he came out again his hands were empty. He crossed the courtyard toward the gate.

Creak.

He pushed it open — and stopped.

Someone was already there.

“Auntie?”

Tsume Inuzuka stood with her arms crossed, looking down at him. She didn’t answer. She just watched him, the way she watched things she’d already made up her mind about.

“Is something…?” Shin began carefully. “Is there something you needed?”

Her eyes dropped to his black yukata, then came back up.

“Memorial Stone?” she asked.

A beat. “…Yes.” He paused. “Today’s my parents’ death anniversary.”

“Go later,” she said, and stepped past him into the courtyard without waiting for an invitation.

He followed her in.

She crossed to the main room, settled onto the couch. Shin stood to one side and waited. He knew she had something to say.

The silence stretched a moment.

“You train hard,” she said finally.

“There’s not much else to do.”

“Hm.” Her eyes narrowed. “Your shuriken scores are the highest in your year. Tied for first?”

Another pause.

“I hear there’s an Uchiha kid in your class. Sasuke Uchiha.” She let that sit. “And you’re keeping pace with him?”

“…Tied,” Shin said. “Not ahead. Tied.”

“Still impressive.” She tilted her head slightly. “Someone teaching you?”

Shin kept his expression level.

The question landed the way she’d meant it to — clean, with no room to slip around it. His first instinct was to say no. His second instinct, slower, reminded him that she would know.

What he was actually afraid of: if the connection to Shisui came out, it would cause problems for Shisui. Secrets passed outside the clan weren’t something any family tolerated quietly. And there was the other thing — she’d warned him, once, not to involve himself with the Uchiha.

“No?” Tsume said, reading his silence. “How about this, then.” She held his gaze. “Do you know someone named Shisui Uchiha?”

“…”

“…Yes.”

“Oh?” Her brow lifted. “And how did that happen?”

“Two months ago. I was training, and—”

“Two months.” Her voice sharpened. Not a shout. But the word came out like something set down very hard. “You’ve known him for two months and said nothing?”

“…I didn’t think it was necessary to tell you.”

“Shin.”

He didn’t answer.

“I’m your guardian.” Her voice was flat. “I’m telling you now: no more contact with him.”

Silence.

“…Why?” he asked, after a moment.

“No reason.”

“There has to be a reason.”

“There doesn’t.”

“…”

She watched him sit in that silence — very still, very quiet, the way he always was. She remembered, suddenly, that he was usually well-behaved. That this version of him — the one that pushed back — was rare.

Something in her shifted.

“…For now,” she said, quieter. “Stay away from him for now. That’s all.”

For now.

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He turned the phrase over. There was a limit to it, then. He didn’t know where that limit was, but it was there.

“Do you understand?” she asked.

He hesitated. Then nodded.

“Good.” She stood. “This period — don’t let me find out you’ve had contact with any of the Uchiha.”

“…”

He walked her to the gate.

After she left, he stood in the empty courtyard for a while.

Something’s going to happen to the Uchiha.

The things he already knew, strung together, still didn’t resolve into anything clear. He exhaled.

He’d stop going to the forest to train. For now.

Shisui probably wouldn’t be angry about it. Probably.

He shook his head, a thin, rueful line at the corner of his mouth, and walked out into the morning. He still had somewhere to be.

The room had no windows. Four old people sat around a low table. One of them knelt on a single knee, facing them.

“Thirteen years old,” said the man with the pipe, white-haired and white-bearded, smoke drifting from between his teeth. “Youngest ANBU squad captain on record, I believe.”

“Quite an achievement,” Homura Mitokado agreed. “Even in peacetime.”

“The last one to reach this rank so young was Kakashi,” Koharu Utatane said.

“Kakashi…” Hiruzen tapped the pipe lightly against the table edge, knocking a bit of ash free. “Kakashi…”

“When I first joined ANBU,” Itachi said quietly, “Kakashi-senpai looked out for me.”

“I’ve always admired him.”

“Itachi.” Hiruzen set the pipe down. “The village has never shortchanged anyone who served it.”

“Remember that.”

“…Yes, Lord Hokage.”

A nod. No more words.

“That will be all,” Itachi said. His form disappeared.

The room was left to the four of them.

……

“The situation with the Uchiha is settled,” Koharu said. “Arrangements can be made. It can be handled.”

“Handled.” Hiruzen picked up his pipe and sighed through it. “There’s no clean handling here. Whatever happens to the Uchiha — it won’t be good for Konoha.”

“This whole thing should never have started.”

“But it did,” Homura said. “Saying that now changes nothing. We work with what’s in front of us.”

“And with Itachi in place, we have full visibility into the clan’s movements.”

“…Homura.” Hiruzen sounded tired. “Fugaku Uchiha almost certainly knew from the beginning that Itachi was reporting to us.”

“Itachi knows this too.”

Homura’s expression shifted. “Then — has Itachi been lying to us?”

“No. He’s been telling the truth.”