32: The Clan Meeting

The black-uniformed ROOT weren’t rushing him anymore. They’d learned what his speed cost—had been the demonstration—and without the Sharingan, he was reading angles the slow way. By eye. By instinct and guesswork, the way any ordinary jonin navigated a fight. The gaps between his movements were slightly wider now. And in those gaps, the ROOT were finding room.

The sealing barrier was at his back. The formation curved in front of him, a half-moon with Danzō at its center point.

Getting through them means going through Danzō. The only other option is the barrier.

He reached into the equipment pouch at his lower back. Three kunai, wire wrapped, already prepared. He flung them behind him toward the sealing net in one motion.

The black-uniformed fighters moved immediately—all of them, rushing from every angle.

The kunai hit the net and stopped.

Not caught in it. Not embedded. Frozen, suspended in place as if something invisible had reached out and simply held them there. He pulled at the wire. Nothing gave. He pulled harder.

The kunai didn’t move.

Interesting. He filed it and turned.

“Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!“

His palm came up in front of his mouth. The fire arrived as a detonation, a sphere of orange expanding outward faster than the nearest ROOT could clear the blast radius—

Three shapes moved through the heat. White coats, hands already moving.

“Water Release: Water Encampment Wall!“

The jutsu met his fire head-on. Steam. The crash and scatter of contact, and the fog rolling in to swallow the visibility, and the smell of scorched air replacing oxygen.

They’re prepared for fire. They’ll trade water for it all day until I run out.

He checked the wire. Still taut between his fingers and the stuck kunai.

He raised it to his mouth and bit down on the end.

Fire started from his lips and traveled the wire’s length—thin, fast, a moving line of heat almost too quick to track—toward the sealing net.

Fire Release: Dragon Fire Jutsu.

The fire reached the barrier.

It caught.

He felt something shift in his chest that wasn’t hope but was adjacent to it.

Then three chakra signatures moved in his peripheral awareness—close, coordinated, precise. Not the black-uniformed fighters, who moved in mass and counted on numbers. Something more deliberate.

Sensor-type.

They’d been in here the whole time. That was how the water squad had been targeting him through zero visibility—not guessing, not using the Sharingan, just reading his chakra through the mist like a signature in water.

Moving blindly against a sensor is a fast way to die.

He had approximately two seconds before the water squad hit him again.

He went back into the black-uniformed ROOT because moving was better than standing still and being a target.

The formation buckled. He moved through it, the second kodachi in his hand, no fire this time—chakra conserved, just steel and angles and his own velocity. Without the Sharingan he was fighting in the dark compared to what he’d had, and he knew it, and he kept moving anyway because the alternative was worse.

Cuts found him. His arm. His shoulder. A line across his ribs that burned.

He’d had worse. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that the water squad was about to—

“Water Release: Great Waterfall Jutsu!“

He heard the seals break and felt the chakra mass before the sound reached him: a roar from inside the fog, building fast, too wide to dodge laterally, too much water to push through.

He bent his knees and leapt.

The wall of water passed beneath his feet, taking the ground with it—churning the earth, spreading in every direction, turning the battlefield into a shallow lake that reflected the orange of the still-burning sealing net.

The ROOT locked onto him.

Chakra moved in the air above him. Wind-attribute, concentrated, punching upward.

No footing up here. No angles.

He bit down on the loose wire—the one running back to the stuck kunai at the net—and shifted his weight in midair, using the taut line to redirect his trajectory toward the barrier.

A gust caught him anyway. He formed a single seal.

“Wind Release: Vacuum Sphere!“

The compressed air punched out of his mouth in a focused stream, not wide but direct, intercepting the wind jutsu mid-path. The collision scattered both. The Vacuum Sphere kept going, carrying the remainder of its force into the formation below.

He hit the flooded ground ankle-deep with a splash.

Chakra moved in the water immediately—along it, branching—lightning, following the water’s conductive path toward the nearest living thing.

He jumped sideways. The lightning passed through the place he’d been and dissipated.

The fog held. The ROOT refused to let it clear. From somewhere inside it the sensor was still tracking, still feeding coordinates to the water and lightning squads.

He checked the wire. The net was still burning at the far edge of his perception. Still burning. If he could reach it—

The mist thinned slightly. Just enough.

Three white-coated operatives had formed a line in the clearing ahead, hands held in the Tiger sign. Three of them, combined chakra rising.

“Fire Style: Flame Bullet!“

Three enormous fireballs. Moving close together, edges nearly overlapping, the combined heat of three chakra reserves turning the air in front of them into a wall of distortion. They hit the mist and the mist ended—the fire burning through water vapor, the visibility dying all at once—

And in the sudden brilliant orange light, in the moment before everything became too bright to parse—

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Shisui’s entire world turned red.

---

Shin had one arm around Sasuke’s shoulders, half-supporting his weight, as they reached the entrance to the Uchiha compound.

Kiba had gone with Naruto. Shino had managed on his own—the substitute instructor had calibrated things precisely, leaving his students just enough to limp home unassisted. Except for Shin’s group, who had earned the extra punishment.

“How are you doing?” Shin asked once they stopped, still holding Sasuke by the arm.

Sasuke didn’t answer right away. He straightened, trying to stand on his own.

Shin let go.

Sasuke nearly went down. Shin caught him again.

“…”

He let out a slow breath. “Is there anyone here you know? Someone who can take you in?”

Sasuke turned his head to the side and said nothing.

Shin looked at him for a moment. “All right. Tell me which way to go. I’ll walk you home.”

He was mostly hoping Tsume never found out about this.

……

The Uchiha compound was larger than it looked from outside. The streets between its buildings were nearly empty—but not unobserved. Every person they passed had the same eyes, the same careful, cold attention fixed on Shin.

“Your clan doesn’t seem very welcoming to outsiders,” Shin said quietly.

Sasuke glanced at him. “We don’t get many.”

Shin thought of what he knew about the Uchiha. That made a certain kind of sense.

“Here.”

A small, unpretentious courtyard. Nothing like what Shin had imagined.

“Your father is the clan head,” he said, looking at it. “I thought your house would be bigger.”

Sasuke gave him a sideways look and said nothing.

Shin started toward the front gate, but felt a tug on his sleeve.

“Not that way.”

Sasuke shook his head. “There should still be a clan meeting going on. We can’t use the front entrance. And you’re not Uchiha.”

“Understood. Where do we go?”

“Around back. Side entrance through the training grounds.”

“Your family has its own training ground,” Shin said. “You really are rich.”

“…”

……

The side door was unlocked. They stepped in without knocking.

“I’m home,” Sasuke called, voice low.

A wooden panel slid back. A woman stood in the opening—black hair, dark home clothes, an apron still tied at her waist. She had that unhurried kind of beauty that didn’t ask for anything.

“Sasuke, welcome back—” Her eyes landed on Shin. Her expression shifted, some internal clarity flickering just out of reach.

“My name is Shin Takami,” Shin said quickly, since both hands were occupied. He managed a small incline of his head instead of a bow. “I’m in the same class as Sasuke.”

“Takami…” She was barely whispering. Her gaze stayed on him.

Both boys had gone still. Neither of them understood what they were seeing.

“Mom?” Sasuke said.

Mikoto stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Shin.

She held on.

Shin: ???

Sasuke, now on the floor because Shin had been the only thing holding him up: !!!

Mom. Your actual son is right here.

---

Inside, Itachi stood at Fugaku’s side and faced the assembled clan.

No one had answered him yet. Fugaku sat with his eyes closed.