30: Actions

The sun was still high when class let out.

Every student limped home.

Kiba Inuzuka had it the worst. He was flat on the practice field’s packed earth, arms spread, staring up at the sky like it owed him an explanation.

“I’m dying,” he announced. “Tell my family I died bravely.”

Shin was doing better than most—the pain was manageable. He’d had worse. Sasuke wasn’t showing anything on his face, but his jaw was tight and he hadn’t moved from where he’d landed when his legs gave out.

Then there was Naruto.

Shin watched him. During drills, Naruto had been in just as rough a shape as Kiba—stumbling, wincing, the same raw patches on both legs. But after sitting still for a few minutes, he’d stood up like nothing had happened.

Shin crouched and rolled up Naruto’s pant leg. The skin underneath was barely pink.

He stared at it.

Interesting.

The field had emptied around them. Five of them remained: Shin, Kiba, Shino, Naruto, and Sasuke. Shino had been spared the punishment—his form had been passable—so he sat off to one side and watched the rest of them with his usual quiet.

“You two,” Shin said. He looked at Kiba, then across the field at Sasuke. “Can you walk?”

“If I could walk,” Kiba said without opening his eyes, “I’d be walking.”

He kept going after that. Shin caught the words sadistic and psycho teacher before he stopped listening.

Sasuke had tried to stand. He’d gotten halfway up before his legs gave out, caught himself with one hand just before he hit the ground.

Shin looked at Naruto. “Help them.”

“Shin—let me help you first—”

“I’m fine.”

He stood, got his feet under him. Naruto drifted over anyway, hands hovering, and Shin shook his head once. He reached down for his pant leg and let it drop slowly. The fabric caught on raw skin. He breathed through it.

“Go help one of them.”

Naruto looked at him—really looked, the way he did sometimes—then glanced between Kiba flat on his back and Sasuke braced against one knee.

He went to Kiba.

“Here—” Naruto grabbed his shoulder, hauling upward.

Kiba made a sound like he’d been stabbed.

“Naruto.“

“What? You were fine two minutes ago—”

“I was dying two minutes ago and I’m still dying, you complete idiot—”

“Can you be a man about this?” Naruto let go long enough to gesture broadly at himself. “Look at me. Look at Shin. Neither of us is making noise about it.”

“Shin is a freak,” Kiba said, with genuine feeling.

Shin had reached Sasuke by then. He stopped in front of him and held out his hand.

Sasuke looked up at him. Then at the hand.

He didn’t take it. He set his teeth and pushed himself upward—got halfway up, same as before—and this time Shin caught his arm before he went down again.

“Stop that,” Shin said.

Sasuke’s weight settled against him, just enough to stay upright. He tried to pull back and mostly didn’t succeed.

“…Why,” Sasuke said, quietly, “can you stand?”

Shin steadied him. Waited while he found his footing.

“If I couldn’t,” he said, “who would help you?”

A pause.

Sasuke turned his head away. The tips of his ears had gone pink.

“Tch.“

---

By the still lake on the village’s eastern edge, a white-haired old man sat with his fishing rod and his eyes closed.

Hiruzen Sarutobi had walked halfway across Konoha before he found him.

“Nothing better to do than fish?”

Homura Mitokado didn’t open his eyes. “You came to watch. What does that say about you?”

Hiruzen stood at his back, hands clasped behind him, looking out over the water. The surface was mirror-flat. A heron moved somewhere in the reeds along the far bank.

“Torifu used to like fishing,” he said.

“Mm.” A small sound from Homura. “Torifu liked everything except fighting.” A pause. “Nothing like us. Nothing like us at all.”

Neither of them said anything for a moment.

“Kagami was the same,” Homura said.

“…”

“As students of our teacher—they had it rough.”

The light was shifting. Hiruzen watched the sun’s reflection stretch and flatten on the water.

“What’s the situation with the Uchiha?” Homura asked.

“I thought you’d changed. The clan meeting is a smokescreen.” Homura’s tone didn’t waver. “Some things can’t be discussed openly in a formal assembly. You know that.”

“Whose eyes are they trying to cover, then?”

Hiruzen sighed.

“That’s a fair question.”

Homura’s eyes opened. He looked at the water the same way Hiruzen did—with the same stillness, the same weight of decades behind it.

“What,” he said slowly, “is Fugaku Uchiha trying to obscure?”

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---

The unease had been building in Itachi all morning.

The meeting’s agenda: asset management, distribution of clan holdings, revenue from family-operated businesses. Dry and practical. The kind of matters that had never required his presence before—he was too young, too far outside these particular decisions, regardless of rank.

And yet his father had told him last night that he needed to be here.

Why.

Shisui wasn’t here. And then there was the other thing—his father’s Mangekyō, and what Itachi hadn’t quite let himself think through, and the growing sense that he needed to speak with Shisui before something moved without him.

He leaned forward slightly. “Father.”

Fugaku’s gaze stayed on the courtyard. “Mm.”

“I just remembered—there’s something urgent at ANBU that needs my attention—”

“I’ve already cleared your schedule for the day.” Mild. “Your team will handle it.”

“Some of it requires the squad captain’s clearance—”

Fugaku’s eyes moved toward him for just a moment. Itachi thought he saw something that might have been contempt.

“Kaoma.”

The man speaking in the center of the courtyard—mid-forties, currently in the middle of an explanation about the eastern trade holdings—paused.

“Clan Head.”

“My son still has much to learn about these matters.” Something warm moved across Fugaku’s face. It looked, from the outside, exactly like paternal affection. “Would you walk him through the particulars? He’ll need to understand all of this eventually.”

“Of course. Itachi, please—”

Father, Itachi thought. You’re doing this on purpose.

He breathed. Let his face settle.

He stood.

In his black kimono, there was something in the cut of it, something that made him seem almost soft. His expression said otherwise.

“I have one question,” he said.

Every face in the courtyard turned to him.

“Why,” he said, “is Shisui Uchiha not here?”

Silence.

“As the strongest member of our clan, he has more than enough standing to attend.” His gaze moved across the assembled faces, unhurried. “The Shisui line descends from Kagami-sama. Considerable holdings. A voice in family affairs.” A pause. “If this meeting concerns clan business and assets—why isn’t he here?”

No one answered.

Every eye in the courtyard shifted toward Fugaku.

---

“These younger generations,” Hiruzen muttered, “never stopping to think about the trouble they cause their elders.”

He’d found a flat rock near Homura’s spot and settled onto it. His pipe was out—he packed it, breathed on the leaves until they caught, and exhaled a slow ring that dissolved in the evening air.