22: Leaf and Root, Tree and Shadow – 2

A bar somewhere in the Hidden Leaf.

“You don’t have to do this to yourself, Tsume.”

Shibi Aburame watched Tsume Inuzuka pour another drink and get it down before he’d finished the sentence. Her face carried the particular flush of someone who’d been at it a while.

“Why not?” She gave him a sideways look. “I got my heart broken. I can drink.”

“…Fair enough.” He pressed two fingers to his temple.

She set the cup down and stared at it. “Yuki’s perfect,” she muttered. “I’m not.”

“She’s just—” Another pour. Her voice went up. “Ugh. Infuriating.”

Shibi lifted his own cup and took a small, quiet sip.

Yuki Kuriyama and Tsume Inuzuka were, personality-wise, almost perfectly opposite. Tsukasa’s choice wasn’t hard to understand. It was her unique combination of mindfulness, warmth, and a comforting presence that truly won his heart.

“I was there first,” Tsume said. “I was first. And she just—”

“Tsume,” Shibi said, choosing his words with care.

“Love doesn’t really work on a first-come basis.”

She turned and fixed him with a look.

“…I didn’t say anything.”

“Right.” She poured again. Her gaze drifted to him, appraising. “You’ve got an arranged marriage, don’t you.”

Something cold moved through him. He straightened. “I do,” he said, very carefully.

“I wasn’t even—” She waved him off. “Why would I want you?”

“…Good,” he said, and let out a quiet breath.

She sat there running something over in her mind, and he watched her with the wariness of a man who’d known her long enough to recognize the signs.

“Tsume,” he said, when the silence had gone long enough to feel like weather. “Don’t make any decisions right now. Get back to the front. Get out of your own head.”

“I’m not going back!” The cup hit the table. “Tsukasa said the Land of Water’s almost done anyway, just go by yourself.”

“I’m not stationed at the front,” Shibi said.

“I know that.”

He pressed his fingers to his temple and held them there.

A week passed.

There were few jonin left in the village. Tsukasa—nominally assigned to logistics support—spent most of his days walking the market streets with nowhere to be. He had nothing to do and he knew it.

Fugaku hadn’t come to find him since the Hokage Monument.

That conversation sat in the back of his mind like a stone he kept stepping around. Fugaku’s expression. The things he’d said. Every time Tsukasa turned it over he felt a low, specific dread.

Yuki told him, when she visited Mikoto at the Uchiha compound before returning to the front: Fugaku seemed different now. Quieter. More contained. Like something had settled into him and decided to make itself permanent.

Tsukasa didn’t know how to pull his friend back. He wasn’t even sure pulling was possible.

He was on the market street, watching the day go nowhere, when he noticed the rooflines above him had gotten busier—more shinobi than usual, all moving in the same direction.

Toward the Hokage’s building.

He watched a moment, then jumped up to the rooftops and stopped the nearest one.

“What’s going on?”

The man recognized him immediately. “Tsukasa-san.” His expression was respectful. “Emergency summons from the Hokage. Word is—the Land of Water has submitted terms of surrender.”

Something lit up in his chest.

“Good news,” he said. “Go on.”

“Sir.”

The shinobi left. Tsukasa stood on the rooftop and watched the stream of jonin flooding toward the building. Then he followed.

…..

Two ANBU were waiting at the door.

“Tsukasa-san.” They stepped forward together, arms out. “You can’t go in.”

He stopped.

He looked at the jonin filing past him on either side—unchecked, unquestioned—and then back at the two ANBU.

“Excuse me?” he said.

“The Hokage’s orders. You’re not authorized to attend today’s meeting.”

The people walking by noticed. None of them said anything. Looked, briefly, and kept moving.

“The Hokage’s orders.” He said it quietly. Then his voice sharpened. “I’m a jonin. I am a jonin in this village. Why am I the only one being kept out of a jonin meeting?”

“These are the Hokage’s orders, Tsukasa-san. Please step back.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

He looked past them at the open door.

“Lord Hokage!”

He knew every person inside could hear him.

“Lord Hokage—why? Why?“

His voice fell into the silence and stayed there. Nobody answered.

The jonin around him were beginning to look uncomfortable. A few tried.

“Tsukasa-san, please—”

“The Hokage must have his reasons—”

He stood there, jaw tight, and could not find a single thread that made sense of any of it.

Then two more ANBU appeared at his flanks without a sound. No warning, no words—they formed seals, and black markings crawled up Tsukasa’s body like vines, fast and total.

His chakra locked shut. His limbs stopped answering.

“A sealing jutsu?” He couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice.

He fought it. Got nowhere. Eventually he stopped fighting and let them hold him.

“Lord Hokage…”

The ANBU marched him away from the building.

In the crowd at the back, Fugaku watched in silence.

“I thought you might step in,” Sayama said, beside him.

A cold smile crossed Fugaku’s face.

Let him lose faith in them first.

That’s what I need.

……

The meeting proceeded without him.

They released Tsukasa in an empty lot somewhere in the village, dispelled the sealing jutsu, and bowed.

“We apologize for the inconvenience, Tsukasa-san. Please refrain from disrupting official proceedings going forward.”

“…disrupting,” he said, mostly to himself. A quiet sound came out of him. Not quite a laugh.

The two ANBU bowed once more and vanished.

He stood there, face blank, looking in the direction of the Hokage building.

Then he turned and walked away. He knew he was still being watched. He didn’t care.

The same bar. Later that afternoon.

Tsukasa was drinking alone, the hours moving nowhere in particular, when someone sat down across from him uninvited.

He looked up.

The face across the table was young—too young, given everything he knew about what this man had already done and what he was still going to do. Short blond hair. A forehead protector. The kind of face that inspired trust on instinct, which was exactly as useful as it sounded. He was wearing his flak jacket, which meant he’d come straight here.

“Minato,” Tsukasa said.

“Senpai.” He dipped his head. Something worried was sitting in his expression and he wasn’t working hard to hide it.

“I thought you were stationed on the Land of Earth front.”