Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A world of hell in 72 hours and the time it takes for him to blink. His body reacts before his brain registers that he's still there, still in the same place as before he made eye contact and everything bled-

His knees give out first, smacking into the hardwood floor with his full weight behind them, the pain dull and inconsequential as his mind struggles with comprehension.

His stomach gives out next and he folds over his knees to throw up on the ground in front of him. He draws breath to scream, to throw up again; bile splatters against his knees and the smell stings his eyes. His vision goes hazy as he violently empties his stomach at the thought of the deaths that have burned themselves into his brain, gasping like a dying fish as he tries to draw breath to scream.

He can't look up. He can't. His throat burns. His eyes burn. His mind tries to erase the bloody sights from memory but all it does is bring them to the forefront again. The image of his newly born cousin stabbed in her mother's arms strangles him, leaving him gagging and gasping for breath.

Something hits his jaw. 

There's a disconnect between his last moment hunched over on the floor and his body going through the shogi door and sliding down the wall like wet, peeling paper. There is nothing left in his lungs, in his stomach, so he gasps and heaves and finally ekes out a sob. His stubby fingernails dig into the floorboards uselessly, needing assurance that something is solid and real in this hazy in-between of shadows and nightmares. His ears buzz. His awareness constricts itself to the patch of floor his eyes are drawn to, stained with strings of drool and something hot and wet and dark. He smells iron-

He retches. Nothing but saliva comes out. What - why - how - please - questions flit uselessly through his mind, more white noise contributing to the hysterical panicked refusal to accept any form of logic. But he breathes, little fish-gasps of air like something drowning as his eyes flicker in and out of clarity. He is not by any means calm when he raises his eyes again. 

Through the hole in the shogi door, the moonlight gleams on the slowly spreading puddle of - beneath two bodies.

Dark hair sticks to the substance, stains growing on cloth like a flower in bloom as seen through a ghastly filter of black and white. His fingers twitch, irritating raw skin, as he stares at them unblinkingly with wide eyes. His side aches with a previously unnoted injury.

“Oh god.” He says aloud, as quietly as a child not wanting to draw a monster's attention. There are dead bodies in the room across from him. There are dead bodies in the room he has just been thrown out of. There are dead bodies and if not for the different clothing he would think them the same mass, slumped over each other as they are. 

The smell of metal hangs heavy in the air. The scene is preternaturally still. Fear holds his empty stomach in an iron grip as he hopes in vain that nothing will break the silence.

His quickened breaths seem too loud, now. The sound of his clothes sliding together as he shifts in position sets his teeth on edge.

Something tells him those bodies are his parents. He violently rejects the thought. His parents are - where are his parents? Where is he?

His mother doesn't look like that; long, silky dark hair drenched in-

She doesn't wear dresses like that. His father is taller, darker; not this man with lank, straight hair and what looks to be a man's kimono. 

The dissonance confuses him enough that his mind begins to clear. He slowly rises to his feet and inches across the hallway, climbing back through the hole in the shogi paper to avoid making noise by opening the door.

They aren't his parents. They're terribly, obviously, dead. The woman's chest weeps sluggishly and the man isn't moving, not even to breathe. A fly drones as it spirals down to land on the woman's cheek.

He stands stooped, trembling, before the pair. He hopes they don't move, then feels bad for thinking it. He draws closer, skirting around the pool of blood that has now stopped reaching across the floor and the remains of his vomit. The bodies remain still. They don't move, not even when he tentatively reaches out to touch the woman's cheek. 

It's still warm, but the heat is fading. Nothing happens other than the fly rising into the air again at the disturbance. He gently pushes the woman's hair from her face with shaking, raw-skinned fingers. Her features are lax, peaceful, and she would almost look asleep were it not for the context in which she is sleeping.

Tears fall down his face anew without his knowledge. From her expression and the faint wrinkles on her face, she looks to be a pleasant, kind woman. Whoever’s mother she is, they were lucky. Past tense. Is he going to have to tell her children that their mother is dead? He hopes not. Who is responsible for telling the next of kin that their parents are dead? It's the police, right? 

He turns to the man and sniffles. It takes all his meagre strength to lift his body off the woman and onto the floor beside her, right side up. Blood winds its way down the man's face from a mark on his forehead. His eyes are glassy and half closed, black as pitch and gleaming with the light of the moon.

He closes the man's eyes with trembling fingers. He doesn't know what to do, now. In the cop shows, they always cover the bodies with a sheet, right? What purpose does that serve? Should he do it anyway?

He gets to his feet intending to do it anyway. He can't stay here; there are two dead bodies on the floor and whoever kicked him through the door might come back for him. The realisation that whoever killed these people and left him for dead could come back chills him to the core, and he abandons the thought of respecting the dead in favour of keeping himself alive. 

Don't stay in the house. You don't know the house; you don't know where to hide in it. The house is an enclosure that you need to escape. 

From the layout of the room that he leaves through the shogi door and the dip at the end of the hallway before the door, the house seems to be traditionally Japanese. He doesn't know why or how he ended up in a Japanese-style house. As far as he knows, there are none in his city.

Perhaps he was on holiday somewhere, and he just can't remember. 

He slides the door open a crack to peer outside. More Japanese houses. A beaten dirt path, wide and smooth. 

A body lying on the road. 

Evidence of forced entry into another house. 

There's a fucking serial killer on the loose in this Japanese-style town, he thinks to himself hysterically as his heart rate picks up again. Should he just stay in the house after all? Lay down and use the blood from the other two bodies to pretend to be dead? If he tries to hide, will the serial killer hunt him down? 

If he hides under the house, the serial killer won't be able to get him without crawling under himself. That could give him enough time to wiggle out and run like hell - where to would be a later issue. If he plays dead, the serial killer might stab him again just to make sure. 

He unsuccessfully tries to ignore his rising terror as he ducks to collect a pair of knockoff shinobi sandal-looking shoes, pulls the door wide enough to slip through and slides it shut behind him. The world is washed out under the light of the moon, dark-tiled houses now watercolour; the only true darkness is the night sky and the blood that he is starting to notice everywhere.

He scurries under the house without a second thought, reasoning that snakes and spiders would be preferable to dealing with a serial killer. He's wearing bandages around his ankles, he notes to himself as he crawls towards where the centre of the house is marked by a mound of dirt. Did he injure himself previously? Why can't he remember?

The mound of dirt moves as he approaches it. He freezes, his breath caught in his throat, as the mound uncurls itself and stretches.

It's a cat. It's just a cat. It blinks at him as if mildly irritated at being woken up and resettles itself.

He lets out as loud of a sigh as he dares and wriggles forward until he's curled around the cat. It's warm and fluffy and doesn't take offence to his presence, which is all he needs right now. Something alive. 

Tears prick at his eyes. He breathes in and out with measured breaths and closes his mouth to stop his lower lip from trembling. The cat seemingly falls asleep again as he curls up tighter and cries quietly.

Sunrise. The serial killer should be gone by sunrise. He'll leave and find a cop or someone, anyone, and get out of this fake village with its dead bodies and bloodstains and the hellish nightmare he had woken up to. He'll go home. He's tired and scared and his side aches and his eyes burn but he can't close them because he needs to keep a lookout so he doesn't die. There are someone's feet approaching the house and he is so, so scared.

They stop in front of the door and toe the disturbed dirt. He holds his breath as they crouch - why is the serial killer so small - and a head appears over the edge of the engawa.

He stops breathing.

In the shadows cast by the underside of the house, a head that is nothing more than dark stringy hair and bright red eyes looks at him unerringly.

“Sasuke. Get out and face me.” A quiet voice commands him.

Sasuke? 

Who is Sasuke supposed to be what kind of weeb would call their murder victim Sasuke is that why he killed everybody as far as the eye can see (is that why he's so small) but Itachi isn't real this is just some psycho who thinks he's an anime character why is this happening who is this guy am I supposed to be Sasuke? How can I be Sasuke if Naruto is just a manga am I going to die

“Itachi isn't real.” He whispers to himself. 

“I'm real.” The serial killer tells him. He shivers involuntarily. How did they hear him from so far away? 

“Itachi isn't.” He insists. “You're just some sick freak who thinks he's him. Does killing people who have nothing to do with you just because of your sick fantasies make you feel good? You fucking psychopath. I hope you rot.”

His fear encourages a goading sort of audacity. “At least Itachi had a reason, shitty as it was. You're just a jobless nobody who lives in his mother's basement and kills people to escape your shitty little life. Are you going to blame Danzo when-”

The world bleeds again. He curls into a ball and shuts his eyes when he finds the protection of the house has vanished. Quick footsteps approach him and he is yanked up by his hair. 

“What do you know about Danzo?”

He squirms and kicks and bites when all proves futile. The - oh my god is that a fucking child - boy? Who could've been the spitting image of Itachi if he was real stares intently at him with bright red eyes. One hand effortlessly keeps his jaw in its grip.

“Get your fucking hands off me, you fucking arsehole.” He spits (pleads). His voice breaks embarrassingly. “I’ll fucking kill you. Let me go.”

“Who told you about Danzo?” The boy insists - it’s a boy, it’s a fucking little boy, his face round with baby fat and his eyes too big for his face. He laughs out loud despite himself and jerks his head downwards to sink his teeth into the skin between the boy’s thumb and forefinger. He tastes blood.

The boy throws him to the floor. He crumples like a wet piece of paper and doesn’t try to get up, too busy trying to expel the taste of blood from his mouth. His head throbs like his brain is shaking in its cavity. He’s crying again.

The boy forces him to look up again. “Where did you find out about Danzo?” He repeats. He looks up at the boy, the taste of his blood in his mouth and saliva staining his chin.

He reaches out with claws for hands and digs his fingernails into whatever he can grasp onto.

“Get…the fuck…away from me.” He gasps out between sobs. “You fucking…psychopath. You should kill yourself.”

The boy’s red eyes spin and pull.

He screams. His head splits open to reveal his brain like a soft-boiled egg and there is blood everywhere, a flood - his nerves are being unravelled one by one and dragged over broken glass - his head hurts his head hurts his head hurts-

His face feels wet and warm and sticky. He’s not sure how he ended up on the floor. His head throbs, a war drum, the sensation reverberating within the walls of his skull. His eyes ache like they want to pop out of their sockets. He reaches for his face with a shaking hand and yanks one out like a loose tooth.

The pain spikes and then dulls. He breathes and cradles his eye in his palm gently, wondering if he should take out the other one as well to relieve the pressure.

Someone suddenly grabs his wrist. His lone eye opens wide, his hand jerking as he tries to reclaim his lost eye.

The boy catches it and looks down at the eye with an expression of pure fear.

“What did you do.” He asks - demands. His hand begins to tremble, faintly. “What have you - put it back. Sasuke, put it back.”

The boy shoves the eye at his face. He takes it with his newly freed hand and doesn’t think twice as he crushes it to a pulp just to watch the terror dawn on the boy’s face.

“I’ll destroy the other one too if you don’t get the fuck away from me.” He whispers. The pain slowly begins to dull in the face of the return of his unfounded confidence and the rising sound of his heartbeat pounding in his ears. Blood dribbles down his arm and drips off the point of his elbow.

The boy raises his hands. “Sasuke. Please. Don’t you - don’t. I don’t know where you heard about Danzo, but you have to listen to me. Never mention his name again, understand? He is not someone who you should attract the attention of. And please, for all that is bright and holy, leave your eyes alone-”

The boy snatches his wrist as he reaches for his other eye. “Don’t.” His voice breaks, but he doesn’t acknowledge it, the full weight of his red gaze bearing down on him. He has to look away and distract himself with the impossibility of spinning contact lenses to stop himself from shirking in fear at the sight.

“Stop lying to me.” His voice is far weaker than he wants it to be and so is his physical strength - he only snatches his wrist back because the boy allows him to, and it galls him. “None of that exists. You’re lying to me because in your head, that’s the only way you can justify killing people. Get the fuck out of my head or whatever you’re doing and fuck off before I call the cops.”

There’s no phone in his pocket. There’s nothing in his pockets other than a scrunched-up piece of paper, which adds to the growing list of things that are wrong - he might leave the house without his earbuds and maybe even chapstick when he forgets it, but he never goes anywhere without his phone. All he does is succeed in smearing his crushed eye on a pair of grey shorts he’s pretty sure he doesn’t own.

The boy frowns at him and his next words stop his suddenly heightened breathing entirely purely out of surprise. “There is no one here who can help you, not even the…cops,” He says the word like it’s a flavour he’s never tasted before. The boy’s words take on a more urgent tone, but he had stopped listening after the strange pronunciation of ‘cops’. “You have to listen to me. Do not antagonise Danzo. Do not talk to him, do not look at him, do not give him any reason to take interest in you. Do you understand? Otherwise, you will never be able to take revenge for our clan.”

“You don’t know who the cops are…?” He shakes his head. Air brushes against his empty eye socket with the movement, and he winces. “Never mind. Look, whoever you think Danzo is, I don’t give a shit. Get the fuck out of here before you find out there are consequences to your actions.” He spits.

The boy draws back. “I see there is much hate in you-”

He can’t help the startled, scornful laugh that bursts from his throat. “Who the fuck do you think you are, Master Oogway? No - that would be Palpatine, wouldn’t it? You think you can talk like a fucking Sith Lord and that’ll make your murders seem cool? You’re fucked in the head. Get help.”

The boy frowns at him. His gaze slides off to the side of the boy’s face. “You will hate me.” He corrects himself. “You will despise me until the day I die. And when you have eyes like mine, you will come and find me again.”

“I’d rather kill myself.” He snarls. His final coherent thought as the world bleeds again is that he is beginning to hate the colour red.

…

He wakes up to the bright lights of a hospital.

For a moment, he doesn’t move - the room becomes red again when he closes his eyes - and simply lets the familiar scents and sights of a hospital wash over him.
He has two eyes. He can see bright white lights above him that light up the white ceiling, white walls, white floor. The room smells of antiseptic. Machines beep softly to his right. The room feels cold and the blanket over him is scratchy.

For the love of God, it was all a dream.

Or something. He’s back to reality. He’s been found. There are no more confusing Japanese houses, no more bodies (the multitude hangs behind his eyes), no more fucked up kid who calls himself Itachi. It’s just him in a quiet room that fills with the sound of his disbelieving laughter until they gradually become sobs of relief.

God, the memories are burned into his brain but it’s okay, it’s not real. It’s not real. There’s some sort of reasonable explanation for what he experienced because it wasn’t real. He can go see a therapist or something, tell the cops what he saw - they’ll deal with it, it’s not his responsibility anymore - and go home. He’ll see his parents, who aren’t actually dead, and bully his brothers about whether or not they’ve already laid dibs on his room. He’ll give his dog all the pats he possibly can and sneak him something good to eat. He’ll meet up with his friends again, get some hugs and just cry because he’s so happy to be alive. He covers his face with his hands because they’re clean, it wasn’t real, and he’s alive.

Eventually, his sobs subside enough for him to take better stock of his surroundings. He’s got a tube stuck in his arm which he pokes at gingerly - he’s never liked needles, no matter how life-saving they are. He resolves not to look at it unless he decides to move. Out of sight, out of mind.

He’s in a room by himself, as well. None of the blue curtains he’s seen on TV, no bed neighbours, just him and the white walls and a chair and the bedside table with a glass and a pitcher of water. He notes that there aren’t any cards or flowers, which he marks as strange. At the very least, he thought his youngest brother would’ve made one. The empty room can be explained as perhaps a result of being put in long-term care. But why? How long was he unconscious? Was he in a coma?

The thought clicks in his mind. A coma. It must’ve been. That’s why everything was so weird and fucked-up - it had been some sort of weird coma dream, probably born of reading too much Naruto and liking angst and analogue horror far too much. He snorts. He wonders what his mother would be able to psychologically derive from that.

And that’s why he had bandages on his legs in the dream! Maybe the injury that knocked him out injured his legs, and that’s why he had bandages on in the dream. He can’t remember if Sasuke wore bandages as a child, but that’s another explanation.

Maybe he got hit by a truck, in true isekai fashion, he muses thoughtlessly as he checks his legs under the sheets and frowns.

They’re a lot shorter than he remembers. Muscle atrophy? He wiggles his feet experimentally and breathes a sigh of relief when they respond. Nothing too terrible, then. He can’t even see any surgical scars.

He should see if he can walk and check his patient’s notes, then maybe see if he can find a nurse and get them to call his parents so he can go home. Hospitals are interesting but he feels haggard and raw and he’d much rather be home than anywhere else in the world right now.

Maybe he’ll let the dog in his room while he sleeps to forget everything. Even if it keeps him up, it’ll be entertaining at least. The dog will probably like it as well. He doesn’t spend nearly enough time in the house as he and his brothers would like.

He regretfully has to look down at the tube coming out of him again to see which machines he’s hooked up to and whether or not it can be moved. At the very least, he’s grateful there isn’t one coming out of his ass. He doesn’t think he would be able to stomach pulling out any needles, let alone ones in intimate places. 

There’s a clip on his finger that is easily removed without any adverse reactions. The needle in his arm, though…

It’s the classic IV drip on wheels. He can move around without taking it out, for all that he will now be horribly conscious of how he moves so he doesn’t accidentally jerk the tube or the needle attached to it. It can act as a crutch if he finds he can’t walk as well.

He swings his legs out of bed and grasps the IV stand tightly as he places his feet on the floor and hisses at the cool temperature. The short drop to standing on the floor is jarring - not because he can’t walk; he can, small mercies - but because it's so easy to stand. He’s used to being far taller than he feels now.

Surely muscle atrophy can’t stunt your height. It’s not even muscle atrophy - he can stand just fine, and the few tentative steps he takes are as steady as can be expected. He’s just weirdly short for some reason.

His grandmother was short, but she was also old. He’s not old enough to start shrinking - at least, he thinks he is, and his unwrinkled skin confirms it. His hands are pudgier than he remembers, though. He stares at them and turns them over.

He remembers having long, skinny fingers and skinny palms, with a mole on his right index knuckle that for some reason no longer exists. His hands now are a little chubby and are beginning to develop callouses that he doesn't remember getting - his father had always teased him for having ‘office fingers’. His nails, which were often long because he simply forgot to cut them, are short and nibbled on.

One of his fingers had a scar on the inside which he doesn’t remember getting but is fond of. It was the inside of one of his ring fingers; he turns both his hands over, but the scar is nowhere to be found.

Okay, so a scar could’ve healed over. The mole on his knuckle had been small, anyway, so perhaps he was misremembering or it had vanished…for some reason. His lack of height could be…he doesn’t know, maybe something medical. His vague explanations do little to quell his rising panic.

The bathroom, he thinks, and wildly casts his gaze about until he spies a door on the right wall. He needs to see his reflection.

He steps forward and nearly forgets the IV stand in his haste until he spots the tube out of the corner of his eye and grabs the stand to drag it along with him. The boy who called himself Itachi’s words echo in his mind.

Sasuke.

…I’m real.

He banishes the thought with a shake of his head and opens the bathroom door.

It’s as white as the rest of his room, with a bath/shower combination, a toilet, and a mirror over the sink. He makes a beeline for the sink, dragging the IV stand with him, and doesn’t recognise himself as he comes into view.

First and foremost: He had been a young woman, not a child.

He should’ve been tall enough to see his face in the centre of the mirror, not at the bottom. His hair couldn’t be straightened even professionally and had been partially dyed orange at the ends (though it had faded to blonde without upkeep), not full black. The hair he has now hangs like curtains to frame either side of his face, with bits sticking up at the back like someone had taken a pair of scissors to it blind. His eyes are now so dark he can no longer see his pupils even with the light shining on his face; at the very least, the eyebags are familiar even if his chubby cheeks and alabaster skin are not.

The mole beside his eye is gone. It shouldn’t distress him as much as it does.

He doesn’t realise that his breathing has quickened until his vision blurs and he finds himself on the floor with his arms wrapped around his stomach.

He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath to avoid breathing entirely.

He’s fine. Maybe he’s just having a waking nightmare, or his coma dream is starting to incorporate elements of the state he’s currently in. Maybe he imagined it. Maybe the mirror’s haunted.

Honestly, he’d much rather deal with a ghost than being fucking Sasuke.

He crouches on the floor until he gets his breathing under control - inhale for five counts, hold the breath for three, exhale for five - and slowly rises from the floor to peer at the mirror again.

He has to straighten to almost his full height just to see himself, and it’s still Sasuke who looks back at him. He exhales shudderingly.

Okay. Alright.

He’s a guy now. And not just any old Joe - he’s fucking Uchiha Sasuke, madman extraordinaire and general traumatised orphan. Anyone with sense in their noggins wouldn’t want to be him.

He covers his mouth. The Sasuke that is his reflection moves with him, looking just as horrified as he feels.

This means that the boy he had seen that night had been Itachi. As in, the real Itachi - and he’d called him several unflattering names, made several pop culture references that now make sense that he didn’t understand, and told him to kill himself. Possibly repeatedly.

The horrors of the night stop him from feeling too guilty. He was operating under the perfectly reasonable and correct assumption that Itachi was a mass murderer out to get him - which he was - and reacted appropriately. Despite his youth, Itachi was still the murderer that helped kill their family and acted accordingly; if he didn’t want to be treated by a criminal, he shouldn’t’ve committed the crime.

He still feels guilty, though, and then feels mad at himself for feeling guilty. He’s older than Itachi by at least half a decade, but Sasuke is less than half Itachi’s age. He should know better.

The sound of the door to his room clicking open distracts him from his spiralling thoughts. He watches the man in a white medic’s uniform go through all five stages of grief in an instant as he looks at his empty bed. He visibly relaxes once he spots him through the open door to the bathroom.

“Oh, good. You’re still here.” The man sighs. He doesn’t know whether to think of him as a doctor or a nurse and so settles on medic. He blinks.

“...I had to go to the bathroom.”

The medic smiles at him ruefully. “Of course. You’ve been unconscious for three days…erm, how are you feeling, Sasuke-kun?”

He’s heard the term of address thrown out in the anime several times by various individuals, each more discomforting than the last, and hasn’t so much as batted an eye. Hell, he’d even written the term himself. But for some reason, having the diminutive form of address directed at him makes his skin crawl.

His hands curl into fists on the edge of the sink. “Sasuke-san.” He corrects, and viciously squashes the urge to apologise for the presumption of greater authority. If he lets one person walk over him now he may as well become the doormat for Konoha.

And technically, by right of succession and Itachi’s departure, isn’t he the de facto Uchiha Clan Head? Shit, that’s a lot of power in one tiny boy’s hands. The real Sasuke probably wasn’t informed enough about what came under his purview to make use of it since no one would want a child running around with unfounded political power. The ultimate nepo baby.

Too bad he’s going to look into it. They’ll just have to deal with the fact that he’s the height of a knee and still has a seat on the Clan Council.

The medic looks caught between embarrassment and pitying indulgence. “Of course, Sasuke-san. May I check you over?”

He’s struck with the sudden fear that he wouldn’t know this guy from a ROOT agent. There had never been any mention of Sasuke getting kidnapped after the Massacre, but perhaps Kishimoto just hadn’t mentioned it and they’d put him back right as rain so it didn’t matter anyway.

What would he do if the medic did turn out to be a ROOT agent, anyway? Call for ANBU? Every man and his dog knew that Danzo had moles in the force, they just couldn’t prove it without painting a target on their backs or having their suspicions go unremarked under the Sandaime’s leniency.

…No, Danzo wouldn’t kidnap him. Itachi scared him too much for him to do anything until after he was dead. If anyone wanted to kidnap him it would be Kumo or some other hidden village, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything anyway but hope to be rescued. And so with great reluctance, he leaves the relative safety of the bathroom with a nod.

The man’s nametag identifies him as Asahi, and his brown hair and nondescript features don’t identify him as anyone in particular. He wonders what he’s done to get enough clearance to care for the last loyal Uchiha.

The medical chakra is a surprise for all that he’s expecting it. It’s one thing to see it in the anime and it’s another to watch someone’s hand glow teal in real life like they’ve injected glowstick juice in their veins. But the glow isn’t coming from within his hands, it’s surrounding his palms, and the medic’s hands touch his shoulders out of his direct line of sight before he can get a better look. Once he’s given the all-clear, he asks to observe it more closely.

“Are you interested in becoming a medic, Sasuke…Sasuke-san?” Asahi asks as he obligingly lets him manhandle his hands.

“I don’t know yet. When I touch your hands, do you instantly get a read on how my body’s working, or is it a conscious choice?” Chakra is insane. Things shouldn’t be glowing green unless they’re radioactive. And if it’s your body parts that are glowing green, that’s usually a pretty bad sign. The glow seems to be coming from the topmost layer of skin and exuding outwards - it’s a bit like things that glow in the dark, but the light is stronger.

“It’s a conscious decision. As chakra can take many forms, so can medical chakra - multiple applications of the same chakra come from the same point - that’s what we call jutsu, and medical chakra is no different.”

Ah, right. “Like the chakra scalpel.” He mumbles to himself. Asahi’s smile grows.

“Precisely. The chakra scalpel and the diagnostic jutsu both use medical chakra, just in different forms.”

God, how he wishes he could whip out his Sharingan and memorise the sight. But alas, not only would that probably scare the living daylights out of the medic, but he has no idea how to activate it.

“When you use the diagnostic jutsu on someone, do you instantly get a map of their whole body, as it were, or is it just the isolated limb and then your view expands from there?”

“The entire body. But it’s overwhelming to try and focus on everything at once, so usually we focus on what’s substandard and compartmentalise what’s not important. When you start learning to use the diagnostic jutsu, a large part is learning how not to be overwhelmed. I’ve had some coworkers say that it helps them focus if they start their observations by placing their hands on the affected part of the body, but we’re not sure if that’s purely psychological or actually has some merit.”

He keeps his thoughts about combat uses for the unobtrusive nature of medical chakra to himself and reluctantly lets Asahi’s hands go. “Thank you for showing me.”

“If it interests you, the hospital offers free classes to aspiring med-nin once they’ve graduated from the Academy. We usually ask for a high percentage of chakra control and lots of study, so now’s the best time to start.” Asahi tells him with a wink. He smiles awkwardly.

“I’ll keep that in mind, thank you. Um…when can you take the IV out?”

“Oh!” Asahi smacks his forehead. He startles; he didn’t think people actually did that in real life. Is this real life? He dismisses the thought. “Of course. We can do it right now; since you’re up, you don’t need it anymore. I’ll get some food sent up as soon as possible, alright?”

He obediently offers up his arm and looks away with a twist to his mouth as Asahi sets about removing the needle. When he looks down again, there’s a small hole in the veins of his arm that looks much more saturated in colour than it was on his olive skin. It almost looks like an eye.

He realises he’s been staring at the hole for too long when Asahi waves a hand in his face.

“Oh. Thank you. Um…about the food. Can I just have snacks, or fruit, or something like that? I don’t know if I’ll be able to eat anything too heavy right now…”

“Of course. Feel free to freshen up while I’m gone - I’ll be back as soon as I can, don’t worry.” Asahi gives him a bright grin and a thumbs up. He hesitantly returns the grin.

“Do I have spare clothes here…?”

Asahi’s smile dims. “I can get you some normal clothes,” He says in a low tone, as if speaking too loudly will cause him to shatter. “But I don’t think we’ll be able to get you any clothes from home. Is that okay?”

He shrugs. It doesn’t really matter if it’s okay with him or not. If it can’t be done, it can’t be done, simple as that. Would the Uchiha Compound still be considered an active crime scene? He doesn’t know. “That’s fine.”

“Alright.” Asahi pats his shoulder. He keeps his gaze on anywhere on his face but his pitying eyes. “And also…I have to let the Hokage know that you’re awake. So he might come by soon, alright? You’re not in trouble, he just wants to ask you some questions.”

He shrugs again. “Okay.”

Not much he can do about that. Running away would only look suspicious - or perhaps the Hokage would handwave it as the antics of a scared child. Hiruzen was a master of handwaving and playing down genuine concerns, after all. All he can do is hope he doesn’t look suspicious to the Yamanaka who would inevitably be poking through his mind. Asahi leaves him with a final pitying look and promises to return with snacks and clothes, taking the IV with him.

With nothing better to do, he goes back to the bed, sits in it for a while, gets bored and gets up to poke about the room. Surely this should be classified as white torture, he muses to himself as he finds little else but white and more white. The room has one window that he makes a beeline to once he’s satisfied that he’s seen the rest of the room.

The white curtains pull back to reveal not much of what he expected Konoha to be. The setting himself hadn’t mattered to him so much as the characters; and now, looking down at the famed Village Hidden in the Leaves (not very hidden, is it. He can see the walls from his room and giant trees towering above them. He wonders if what he's read about the trees being semi-sentient is true), he’s vaguely disappointed.

The OSHA violation of exposed pipes looks cool until one of them is yours and gets clogged because some stupid ninja stepped on it or used it for a jutsu or something. Also, why are there round structures placed seemingly randomly throughout the village? Are they supposed to be outposts or something, or did some idiot really like cylinders and just put them everywhere?

It just looks like a mishmash of modern storied buildings combined with traditional Japanese gable rooves and those fucking cylinders dotted everywhere for variety. There are fewer trees within the village than he expected, but he supposes the massive trees outside the walls make up for them. There is a particularly dense patch within the village that he thinks is either the Forest of Death or part of Nara lands - either way, he’s steering clear of it. He’s read enough Nara-centric stories to know that You Do Not Fuck With The Forest; the Forest of Death simply speaks for itself.

He leans back and closes the curtains before the sun can blind him with its glare. It must be summer or something. That probably can’t be good for storing all the Uchiha bodies. No wonder Danzo took them all underground; he was just trying to stop them from decomposing so they could be buried properly. What a kind man. (Sarcasm)

Speaking of which, he’ll have to deal with them, or the village will. Three days is probably more than enough time for Danzo to steal all the eyes he needs, but at the very least, he’d like to deal with the bodies with the respect they deserve.

…Whatever that means, he thinks to himself despondently as he crawls back into the hospital bed. It has enough of his retained body heat to feel more comfortable than the cool room. He has no idea about Uchiha funeral rites and he doubts even the real Sasuke knew. A lot of people headcanon that they prefer cremations, but he’s not sure. Maybe there’ll be notes in the compound he can look at, or wills with instructions to follow.

He grimaces at the thought. At the very least, the shinobi will all have wills. And the Clan Head, Fugaku - his father - would probably have a mountain of outstanding paperwork to go through, not to mention all the police files and whatever else the Uchiha needed paperwork for…

He groans aloud. He’ll need an accountant, probably, and maybe even a lawyer…and someone to intimidate anyone trying to take advantage of him. Preferably someone without contacts or family in either law or accounting. Some appropriately threatening chunin orphan would do.

He traces the outlines of his fingers with his index fingernail as he thinks. He needs access to Uchiha funds to do anything. He’d probably need access to a bunch of things, he reckons. The police department, Fugaku - his father’s office, the compound itself, any and all bank accounts associated with the Uchiha clan, possible business records, etc. And then there’s the trouble of figuring out what to do with all the leftover possessions, the Uchiha-brand things, and the compound itself.

He’ll probably keep the compound. It’s ancestral Uchiha land, after all, and it would probably bring down seven generations’ worth of curses on his head if he sold it off. Maybe he can turn it into housing or something, and keep the main house for himself. It probably looks less ominous in the daytime. Surely.

Any shrines or religious artifacts he is not touching without a ten-foot pole and maybe a priest. Or a monk. Whoever Japan’s spiritual guardians are. His grandma warned him severely not to fuck with the supernatural and he’s not going to disobey her out of spite and especially not out of materialistic greed. He’ll probably have to figure out how to take care of the shrines and everything purely out of self-preservation, regardless of what he thinks of Shinto.

So: access to the bank, a suitably threatening enforcer, a lawyer and/or an accountant, a priest or monk and maybe whatever the Naruto equivalent of a real estate agent is. A ninja property distribution officer?

On second thoughts, if he’s going to be dealing with the bodies, maybe the priest or monk should be bumped up the priority list. Hm. Food for thought. He really needs a piece of paper or he’s going to start forgetting things.

He’d love to request one of the named jonin from the series, but doing so might mean he would have to answer some very awkward questions and the T&I building is at the bottom of the list of places he wants to visit, second only to the T&I departments of other villages.

A shame. He’d like to see Kakashi for all that the man would probably piss him off.

Perhaps he could ask whichever Yamanaka - probably Inoichi - comes to read his mind. If it’s Inoichi, he might be more amenable to helping his daughter’s pitiable and traumatised classmate. If it's not, he may have to reconsider.

He’s trying to think of famous jonin associated with the Uchiha clan that aren’t dead and is coming up blank when the Hokage arrives. He’s a bit annoyed that his snacks didn’t arrive first.

The Sandaime is accompanied by Inoichi - wonder of wonders - and a Yamanaka woman dressed in a T&I uniform that he’s reasonably sure he’s never seen before. The Hokage holds up a hand to stop him before he can hurriedly clamber out of bed to bow.

“There’s no need, Sasuke-kun. I understand you’ve been through a lot lately, so there’s no need to go above and beyond for an old man like me.” He smiles.

There’s that form of address again. His mouth twists.

“Could you call me Sasuke-san, please, Hokage-sama? Only my mum calls me Sasuke-kun.” He’s not lying if he doesn’t know if what he’s saying is true or not. He inclines his head at Inoichi next. “Hello, Ino’s dad. And…”

Inoichi’s smile is more reserved than the Hokage’s. “Hello, Sasuke-san. This is Kayo-san, a relative of mine,” He indicates the blonde standing to his left, who waves. She has colourful nail polish and fluffy bangs like Inoichi. He decides she looks like a nice, if still not entirely trustworthy, person. “And she’ll be helping us through some standard procedures today.”

“Sasuke-san.” There’s a bit more emphasis on the ‘-san’ than he thinks is warranted, but he can’t exactly call the Hokage out on his manners. “If it’s alright with you, could you tell us what happened three nights ago?” The Hokage asks gently.

He mulls over the question. It’s too open-ended for his liking. “Are you asking for anything in particular, or do you just want a recount…?” He hopes it’s not a recount, or he’s going to figure out how well he can lie real fast.

“Whatever you can remember.” The Hokage tells him, which isn’t helpful at all. He looks to Inoichi for help.

“Was your brother acting strangely at all in the lead-up to the incident three nights ago?” Inoichi doesn’t hesitate. Calling it an incident makes it sound trivial, but calling what happened to a child's family a massacre to his face probably isn’t tactful either. Still, it’s better than dodging the topic entirely.

He drags the ragged fingernail of his index finger over the outlines of the rest of his fingers thoughtfully.

He has no fucking idea what Itachi was doing ever other than what was written in the manga. Hopefully they assume his hesitance is due to the pain of reliving memories of the boy who killed their family, and not because he's trying to plausibly lie about a kid he wouldn't know from Adam. 

(Itachi isn't a man. Sasuke referring to him as such is horribly misleading. He is terrifying and terrible, yes, but he is also thirteen years old. Not a man or anything that should be capable of the level of maturity and responsibility that people expect of him, but people tend to conveniently forget that.)

“He…wasn't at home much. I don't know.” He says haltingly. “He seemed really sad when Shisui-nii died.”

A fucking understatement. He’d tacked a cutesy honorific onto the end of Shisui's name because surely they would've been close enough for him to do so. He is - was - the six-year-old brother of his best friend, after all. How are Inoichi and the Hokage going to know if he addressed him that way at all?

He sincerely hopes they don't know how Sasuke referred to Shisui or he's fucked. His tongue feels clumsy trying to use terms of address he'd never usually say.

“He only came in for meals, and sometimes not even then. He spent a lot of his time in his room or away. Mama said I shouldn't bother him, so I didn't.” His hands twist anxiously. He can't look the adults in the eye. “I didn't really think about him a lot. Maybe I should've.”

“It's not your fault that Itachi did what he did.” The woman - Kayo - tells him gently. He presses his lips together to unsuccessfully hide a grimace.

Itachi seemed pretty damn convinced Sasuke could've done something to stop it, he thinks to himself moodily as he rubs his shoulders to bring some warmth back into his limbs. But no. That comes later. It wasn't Sasuke's fault anyway; it was the village. Maybe Madara had the right idea. 

Look at him, thinking like an Uchiha. Why was he so worried about acting like Sasuke? He's got the thought processes in the bag. 

“Okay. Did you notice anything strange when you went home that night?” Inoichi asks him. 

He furrows his brow. “No one came to help.” Is what he settles on. He only vaguely knows what he's talking about; most of it is speculation, inference, and things he's read in fanfictions. “I thought it was strange when I got home and everything was quiet, but no one came looking. There were…”

He swallows. The man by the gate had died trying to defend a younger relative. Itachi had run them both through with a single strike. In the memories of their final moments that Itachi had drilled repeatedly and viciously into his head, he remembers being able to see the street. 

“I could see my uncle lying on the ground from the street. But there was no one around to help him or even notice he was dead. It was like nothing but the compound existed.”

He doesn’t remember Sasuke’s mad dash through the compound as he realised everyone in his family was in varying states of being dead and he doesn’t want to. He’s not sure how his little six-year-old mind could comprehend it without going mad - even without the added stress of not one but two hits of Tsukuyomi. He’s determinedly Not Thinking about what he had to endure on Sasuke’s behalf, and he’s a grown-ass woman with a job and an attitude. Or rather, he was. Has the mind of one. Whatever.

“Sasuke-san?”

His frown smooths out as he looks up, startled out of his thoughts. “Hm? Can you repeat that, please?”

“Just checking you’re still with us.” Inoichi states as Kayo takes a step back to his side.

He tries for a smile. “Sorry. I got lost in thought.”

“That’s to be expected. What you’ve experienced is not something even our strongest jonin can say they have faced. It takes a special kind of willpower to bounce back from such an intense event.” The Hokage tells him lugubriously. He politely doesn’t mention Kakashi.

His smile becomes strained. “I don’t think I’ve done much of anything yet, Hokage-sama.” He mumbles.

“That’s alright. We aren’t expecting you to do anything but recover, Sasuke-san.” Kayo says gently. Inoichi nods in silent agreement. “Thank you for your answers. They’ll be very helpful in our investigation. With your permission, I’d like to check your memories for anything that might be another piece of the puzzle, as it were. Is that okay with you?”

He worries his lower lip between his teeth. God, he really doesn’t want anyone poking around in his mind, especially not when Hiruzen is the current reigning Hokage. Not only is his knowledge of the series as good as a target on his back and an apple between his teeth, but he really, really doesn’t want to relive the memories Itachi forced on him again. He’s already not looking forward to the next time he tries to sleep.

“...If I say no. Would that be okay?” He doesn’t dare look up. He swallows the bits of skin he peels off his bottom lip. Surely his not wanting to relive his family’s murders is a real and viable reason not to want someone poking around his mind. Surely it doesn’t look suspicious. Will he get put into T&I for refusing? He hopes to god not. He doesn’t want a crash course on whether or not he has any preexisting mental defences no matter how useful the information would be.

“That’s perfectly fine, Sasuke-san. I understand that reliving such painful memories so soon is asking a lot of you; it’s understandable that you’d rather avoid such a situation.” Inoichi tells him. The words ease the tightness of his chest that he hadn’t even noticed until he relaxed. “I won’t push further. Thank you for your help so far.”

“No worries.” He replies automatically despite the several worries that had surfaced as soon as a sentence ago. With one hurdle surmounted, he finally feels brave enough to look up, though he still can’t quite look either of the three in the eye. “...If that’s all, can I ask you a question?”

Inoichi’s smile twists into something more wry. “I think Sandaime-sama has a few things to say first. You can ask me afterwards, how about that?”

As long as Inoichi’ll listen. He nods and turns to the Hokage expectantly, his fingers finding the edge of his bedsheet to fiddle with.

The Hokage’s expression is pitying. “There is nothing I can say to fully ease your grief, Sasuke-san; all I can say is I am truly sorry for your loss. But unfortunately, the world keeps spinning. Your family played a big part in the way the village is run; and now in their absence, there is a lot to take care of. And the responsibility of dealing with your family’s matters unfortunately falls onto you.”

“The bodies. The Police Force.” He says more to himself. He really needs to find impartial helpers; he can’t trust the Hokage to act in his best interests. Exhibit A: the Massacre itself. “All of tou-san’s paperwork.”

God, he feels so cringe using Japanese terminology as a non-Japanese person. It feels like cultural appropriation no matter who he looks like now. His grimace goes unnoted but likely not unobserved.

Inoichi and Kayo look similarly dissatisfied with the Hokage’s dumping of an entire clan’s worth of problems onto the head of a newly traumatised six-year-old orphan, as anyone would be. He sympathises. Even the grown woman that he is or was doesn’t want to deal with what is now his problem. He was studying to do silly little drawings, not manage the financial problems of god knows how many deceased people.

The Hokage nods, a pleased tilt to his mouth. Aren’t weirdly smart little kids so convenient, Hiruzen? “Precisely. ANBU have been dealing with what you’ve just mentioned up until now, though some records we haven’t been able to access without Uchiha blood. We’ll need your help with that. My agents will be with you every step of the way, so rest assured you won’t have to deal with everything alone. I will ensure that anything not directly related to your family is handled by the Village’s administration department, so you can just focus on what is rightfully yours.”

…That sounds like robbery.

Granted, he’d specified anything not directly related to the Uchiha Clan, so he assumes the Hokage means the Police Force and any other external Uchiha-run operations. He knows he’s probably being extremely charitable to a man who is essentially the greatest thief and murderer by common vote, but he’s currently alone without allies or even a responsible adult to turn to. The Hokage does Not count as a responsible adult; if he was, the Uchiha Clan would still be alive.

Another thing: how is he going to dodge Hokage-appointed minders? He can’t exactly ask Inoichi now that the Hokage’s offered to help in front of him, because then he’d have to explain why he doesn’t trust anyone appointed by the Hokage to deal with his family’s business.

That depends on how many minders he’s appointed, actually. He could claim that he wants different people with more specialised jobs to help him - he doubts the Hokage has a monk or priest on staff - but then how would he reasonably stop the Hokage from just surrounding him with more of his people?

The thought of just trying to do everything himself while doing his best to keep the Hokage’s minder’s dirty paws off his family’s secrets has occurred to him and is the option he’s most biased towards, but he knows it isn’t realistic.

He’s six. He couldn’t fend off a particularly determined duck. He wouldn’t know manipulation from a slap across the face - despite his older mental age, he’s always been irritatingly trusting of people’s assumed goodwill. And he certainly has no goddamn idea how to counter or even spot genjutsu. Having a Sharingan is all well and good unless you can’t fucking use it.

That has to go on his currently non-existent list of priorities.

…He really needs a piece of paper.

“...Thank you.” He says for want of something to say, and hopes he hasn’t gotten lost in his thoughts for so long that the silence has become awkward. “When will I be expected to pick up the work that’s been assigned to me?”

“As soon as you can. I believe the hospital will try and keep you overnight to make sure there are no lingering problems; but after that, you should be good to go.” The Hokage says it like he doesn’t expect him to have any problems as a result of being tortured within an inch of his life. Judging by the microexpressions that pull at the Yamanakas’ faces, he is the only one in the room - perhaps even in the entire hospital - who thinks that way. “The bodies of your clan have already been buried to discourage bloodline thieves. You will be given a two-week grace period from the Academy to get your affairs in order. After that, you’ll be expected to return to classes as normal.”

Kayo’s mouth pulls into a grim line. Inoichi is probably too good of a shinobi for his distaste to show on his face.

The wall looks like a great place to familiarise his head with. Repeatedly.

Okay. Okay, so that takes care of the bodies. It’s probably sacrilegious, but as long as he isn’t the one committing the blasphemy…he can’t exactly dig all the bodies up and burn them all by himself. Moreover, the thieves have probably already been and gone. Danzo probably maintained prolonged eye contact with the Sandaime as they watched his ROOT agents steal the eyes from the Uchiha corpses.

Is this how the Hokage talked to Sasuke in Canon? He thinks in a daze. Is this how he talks to any poor sap who happens to be important enough that Hiruzen feels the need to sweep in and dispense misplaced grandfatherly sympathies? Christ alive, he really is like a grandfather - most of the shit that spews out of his mouth makes the entire family wince, but you can’t say anything because poor gramps has one foot in the grave and no sort of filter or social awareness at all. It doesn’t help that this particular grandpa is the leader of a military dictatorship by popular vote.

Absurdly, he feels like laughing. The strange humour drags the corners of his mouth up into a facsimile of a smile. “Thank you for your generosity, Hokage-sama. May I ask where my family’s bodies have been buried?”

“Of course. They’ve been buried in a new part of the cemetery solely dedicated to them, so rest assured we handled the bodies with utmost respect.”

Even in death, the fucking Uchiha were kept separate from the rest of the village. The prejudice is insane. How does the Sandaime not realise this? Or is he wilfully ignorant?

“Please remember that you have my full support in this trying time, Sasuke-san. My door will always be open to you.”

He startles as an ANBU agent suddenly appears at the Hokage’s shoulder in the time it takes to blink. Watching them bend their head to whisper something into the man’s ear reminds him of just how woefully underpowered he is at this point in - the series? - his life. The idea that a strangely dedicated duck could take him out suddenly looks a lot more realistic. He shivers.

The brief glimpse he catches of the ANBU agent makes them look a whole lot more menacing than in the manga or anime. There’s just something about the dark, slim-fit clothing with no discernible features other than a brightly-coloured mask that feels oddly dehumanising. It’s as if they stop being humans and become whatever animal their mask is designed to emulate. The mask becomes the focus by drawing the eye and their body is simply an attachment, the blackened stand that props the mask up. It’s eerie - especially with how starkly they stand out against the painfully white room. Kayo’s grey T&I uniform looks almost soft in comparison.

(The sight reminds him of a memory he is doing his hardest to suppress. He strangles the thought before it can fully form)

He hopes to god he never sees one again. Deep down, he knows his hope is futile. He’s achingly glad when they vanish.

“That’s my cue to leave, unfortunately. I’ll see you around, Sasuke-san. Rest well.” With one last smile that he assumes is supposed to be reassuring, the Hokage sweeps from the room with a swirl of fabric flames. His shoulders slump reflexively, and he feels he can breathe a little easier even if the arguably more worrisome man is still in the room with him.

Inoichi exhales slowly and deeply. Calming technique, he recognises distantly. He wonders if the man’s developed a microaggression solely dedicated to that disastrous conversation.

“You mentioned you wanted to speak to Inoichi-sama, Sasuke-san?” Kayo asks him. At his nod, she continues. “Would you like me to leave so you can talk privately?”

He considers it.

He doesn’t really have a reason to send her away. Sure, she might go off and run her mouth or something, but she seems nice enough not to - and there goes his assumption of goodwill again. There’s not much point if Inoichi would probably have to discuss his query with his clan anyway.

“No, it’s okay. I just wanted to ask if he could help me with finding some people to help organise my clan’s stuff.” He looks down to fiddle with the blankets. “I know the Hokage’s going to give me an assistant or something…but if I’m going to be dealing with my family’s finances and business connections, I want to make sure I don’t get scammed or bullied out of my inheritance. I’d like to find someone who looks menacing enough to scare off the weaker-minded and smart enough to tell me when I’m being scammed without also pushing their own agenda, but I have no idea where to start…and I don’t really want to bother Hokage-sama by asking. …Would you be able to help?”

There’s a moment of worrying silence where he goes back to chewing on his lower lip. The skin tastes raw and he’s running out of skin to peel off when Inoichi lets out a long sigh and makes an audible movement. He looks up hesitantly.

Inoichi fixes him with a flat stare that he can’t quite match. Kayo’s expression when he glances at her for respite is unreadable. “That’s a tall order, Sasuke-san. You’re in a shaky position at the moment - of course people are going to have agendas of their own when they approach you, no matter who they are. Even me. Are you sure I’m the right person to ask?”

“...I don’t think there’s much the Yamanaka could gain from having any sort of stake in the Uchiha clan.” He says slowly. He doesn’t have the brainpower for this. He dreads the idea of having this same conversation with Shikaku or any Nara. “I’m not sure how much the Uchiha clan’s collective wealth is, but it’s stagnant - and I doubt you’d have much use for it. You already have your own source of income from T&I and the flower shop and probably other things that I don’t know about. The Akimichi and the Nara too. None of that aligns with the Uchiha’s primary exports, which were-” He’s speculating here. “The forges and the grocery shops we had. You might want the Police Force, but that’s more of a village operation than a clan one - I’d argue the Nidaime assigning the Uchiha as the primary caretakers of the Police Force wasn’t to make it an entirely clan-run operation but because he thought we were best suited for the job, and it just turned out to be primarily clan-run. I think the Hokage’s going to pass that job off onto the most-suited bidder anyway, so it’s out of my hands.”

The Yamanaka are silent. His thoughts keep popping up one after the other and his mouth is scrambling to translate them into comprehensible words. “Moreover, I’m just a kid. I don’t even know if I qualify for a seat on the Clan Council. I’m a clan of one. What I can do and may do in the future is limited to what one person can achieve, and I dearly hope you don’t think I will be powerful enough to stake a claim on, because that’s far too weighty an expectation to live up to.”

He curls his fingers back into his palms. “I could talk about the possible assumption that you want the Sharingan or my bloodline for whatever reason, but it would make me sick and I’d like to think better of you.” He shrugs helplessly. “Regardless of my thoughts or reservations or your hidden agenda, you’re the third person I’ve seen today besides a nurse and the Hokage. I know you only because you’re Ino’s dad; and I’m hoping that counts for something, because I physically have no one else to ask about this.”

“You’re very smart, Sasuke-san.” Kayo says quietly. Inoichi looks thoughtful. He hopes it’s a good kind of thoughtful - one that’s helpful to him.

His answering smile is a little bitter. “Itachi is a high bar to live up to.” Is all he can say on the matter. He hopes he hasn’t just earned himself a one-way ticket to T&I.

“And not something to emulate.” Inoichi mutters, voice low as if he had spoken a thought aloud. His grin gets less jovial and more caustic.

“I don’t think I could even if I tried.” Can’t exactly match Itachi’s record if he’s murdered their entire family, can he?

Kayo’s smile looks distinctly more uncomfortable. “Probably best not to aspire to be like him, hm?” She tells him gently.

Inoichi shakes himself out of his thoughts. “I think he knows that better than anyone, Kayo.” To him, “I’ll see about finding someone for you, Sasuke-san. I’ll personally introduce you to whoever I’ve chosen - if someone comes along without me and tells you I’ve chosen them, confirm it with me before you trust them with anything. Okay?”

“Okay.” Good. He’s got some help now - he has no idea when this help will arrive or what he’ll do before it does, or even if he’ll be able to stomach the sight of the Uchiha Compound again - but he’s got help now. He doesn’t have to deal with everything alone.

He’d prefer not to be dealing with anything complicated at all and would much rather fall into a comfortable bed, have a good long sleep, and maybe cry, but it’s better than nothing. He’ll make do.

“Is that all, Sasuke-san?”

He nods. “Yeah. Thank you for everything, Ino - Yamanaka-sama, Yamanaka-san. I’ll try and repay you somehow once I’ve gotten everything in order.”

He bows from his place still sitting in his hospital bed. This aspect of Japanese culture, at least, he feels is appropriate for the situation. Inoichi huffs and it sounds distinctly amused.

“You don’t need to pay us back for a favour freely given, Sasuke-san.” Kayo tells him with a genuine smile in her voice. “Raise your head. We’re just doing what anyone would’ve done.”

“Still…” Anytime someone does something for him without expecting something in return, it discomforts him. He feels he’s somehow incurred an invisible debt and he’d much rather have a simple relationship based on equal exchanges rather than live under the uncertainty of whether or not the favour will be called in for the rest of his life.
“It’s fine. You may not believe me, but I don’t hold any hidden agenda that I intend to use you for, Sasuke-san.” Inoichi tells him with a quirk to his lips. “All I ask-”

And there it is. He relaxes despite himself.

“Is that you maintain a civil relationship with my daughter when the time comes for both of you to take your seats on the Clan Council. I know Ino-chan can be a bit…strong-willed, sometimes, but she’s a good girl with a good head on her shoulders. She’ll be a strong ally to have in your corner. That’s all I want from you.”

That, at least, he can do. He inclines his head. “I’ll give her my respect if she deserves it, and I don’t see any reason why she shouldn’t.”

Except for the fact that she’s currently a six-year-old who grows up to be a twelve-year-old who’s obsessed with her looks and him. He hopes that when he goes back to the Academy, his general aura will be weird enough that she doesn’t develop an interest in him. At least she gets better as she grows up…he thinks. Hopes.

Regardless, if that’s all Inoichi is asking, then his debt is repaid. He can rest easy.

His attention wanes as they go through the social rigamarole of goodbyes. Inoichi promises to get on his case as soon as he can - he’s not sure how fast that means, but it’s the best he can hope for - and thankfully his snacks and spare clothes arrive almost immediately after the Yamanaka leave. The food is trail mix, a plate of sliced apples (minus the knife), a packet of banana chips and a bowl of sliced vegetables. He already knows he’s only going to eat the carrots out of the vegetables.

It’s a different nurse who brings his requests to him, a woman with a night sky of freckles dotting her face and soft, light hair. Her hands are gentle as she sets the tray down on his bed and touches his shoulder to check his vitals. He thinks he’s physically fine; and since she doesn’t identify any immediately fatal threats to him, he thinks he can sit comfortably on his assumption. Her nametag identifies her as Sayuri.

She’s there for a moment and gone the next, and for that he’s grateful. His head feels lightly scrambled and he needs time to chew over the previous conversation, both literally and figuratively.

He reaches for the apple slices first. He doesn’t think he’s fooled the Yamanaka or the Hokage in any capacity into thinking he’s just some stupid kid, he thinks morosely as he crunches through firm white flesh. He’s not thinking about death. He’s not. He’s thinking about the conversation he’s just had.

The Hokage looked as if he wanted to click his heels and float away in delight at the thought of a new, previously undiscovered ‘genius’ from the Uchiha clan. Granted, public opinion on Uchiha geniuses is currently at an all-time low, but the long-term benefits of having one in his forces are clear. It also means the Hokage doesn’t have to pay as much attention to him beyond keeping an eye out for any mental breaks, and can assume that any and all problems that are assigned to him will be dealt with shortly. Small problem: he’s not a genius.

His brain is unnaturally advanced for a six-year-old, yes, but he isn’t any smarter than adults his age. He’s an Arts student, for crying out loud. He barely passed high school math. While most kids his age would struggle to keep up with him intellectually, he wouldn’t stand a chance against battle-hardened shinobi who have been trained to talk in circles and be generally confusing all their lives. He certainly isn’t capable of the career advancement that Itachi had done - or heaven forbid, Shisui. He’s a couch potato at heart; no way is he going out of his way to be the very best, like no one ever was. That'll just paint an even bigger target on his back.

He’s finished the apples. The next crunchiest thing is the carrots or the banana chips. He reaches for the carrots first.

It’s probably more concerning that the Yamanaka now know he isn’t going to pick his nose and cry like your average six-year-old. The carrots taste surprisingly good. He wonders if they were grown on mokuton farmland. That leads to speculation of whether or not mokuton could influence the ground to grow plants better, since it was made up of equal parts water and earth…and what kind of effect chakra had on plants…did plants naturally have chakra? That’s nature chakra, right? If so, did mokuton interfere with natural chakra to manipulate the plants, or did it create entirely new ones to manipulate? If so, then what was the difference between natural plants and mokuton plants, and what happened when they interacted?

…And he’s getting distracted again. Why’s he worried about the Yamanaka again? Something to do with his perceived geniusness…

He’s not sure whether or not the Yamanaka believe that he was always smart and just seemed less so when compared with Itachi. He probably doesn’t act like a typical six-year-old either, but how much of that could be explained by trauma? He’s not sure, and it’s worrying.

But he’s not sure if he can convincingly lie to people trained to spot them. He can try and dumb himself down, but the idea of not being taken seriously and being treated - not just like a child, but a dumb one - is already frustrating enough. He’ll have to go the route of ‘crouching genius, hidden idiot’ because he is under no illusion that reading Naruto cover to cover will give him any sort of intellectual boost when it comes to common knowledge in the Narutoverse. Does he know what edicts Tobi - the Nidaime is the most famous for? No, but he can tell you who unleashed the Kyuubi on the village six years ago and why, as well as his plans spanning the next ten years. Which is probably not a good thing since the Uchiha were blamed for it, and technically they aren’t wrong…another reason not to let a Yamanaka anywhere near his mind.

The familiar ‘thock’ of his teeth cutting the carrot sticks into smaller segments draws his mind to the fact that apparently, the amount of force required to bite through a carrot is the same amount of force needed to bite through a human finger. He wonders if that applies to an entire carrot or just the sticks. He wonders if he’ll need to bite someone’s fingers off to defend himself in the future.

The taste of iron fills his mouth. He blinks, and the backs of his eyelids are red - the world is red, and it’s just him and the boy he now knows to be Itachi before him, holding him by the hair and the jaw, his eyes spinning, spinning, spinning,

He distantly feels the carrot stick drop into his lap. His mouth tastes of the bite he’d taken out of Itachi’s hand. He can’t seem to reconcile the name Itachi with the small figure that inspires pure terror in his (too-big-too-small) brain. Itachi is pixels on a screen, ink on paper, and the boy was-

He’s red. He’s larger than life and his eerily red eyes bug out his too-young-too-old face, his side is plastered in something his brain had immediately censored for him but now admits was blood, staining the same dark and dehumanising clothes as an ANBU agent. The boy’s nails dig into his jawline as he looks down at him with eyes wide and haunted.

And he…

He’s a cockroach, gum on the bottom of a shoe, three seconds away from experiencing pain like he’s never felt before nor can quite comprehend. The red and black swallows the world as if he’s Alice falling down a well and there is nothing to stop him from hitting the bottom.

Something is hit and he knows intrinsically that it’s his great-great aunt’s body. Hibari-obasama looks so much like the face in the mirror that is now his that it makes him sick to look at her, crumpled over her desk as blood slowly creeps out from the wound through her back to stain her brilliant kimono. The boy hadn’t even had the decency to kill her in one strike - he’d watched her fold over her desk and gasp for air, nails scrabbling weakly against the wooden surface until movement and breath had ceased. Only then had he left her lying there like a dog to continue his reign of terror, the next victim being a young boy staring into the river in the dead of night-

His knees hit something cold. He’s freezing - his throat burns - something smells acrid. He vomits again. The world is white, the world is blurred, the world is cold, the world is red. Nothing makes sense. He’s not supposed to be here. He can’t breathe. Something touches his back and he flinches downwards only for someone to fully grab him and drag him off the floor. The world is red again-

He screams, kicks, reaches to grab something of whoever’s holding him and make them hurt. He's not scared, he’s not scared - he’s far older and far taller than the boy and he’s always won in fights against his brothers, he’ll fucking beat his ass-

He will not be forced to relive the deaths again-

He turns his head and throws up. As soon as he regains his breath, he begins screaming again - fuck you, fuck all of you, if he keeps screaming someone will come to help - they have to -

Something jabs him. It’s contact. He twists around until he’s facing the point on his shoulder where the object went in and yanks himself forward out of whatever’s holding him, hands set to grab or tear and vision blurred with tears. He hits something and sinks his fingers in like a vice, hoping his rough fingernails tear something as he claws his way up whatever he’s grasped with his teeth bared. And then he’s falling again, his muscles relaxing without conscious thought, his thoughts piling up in the space where they should translate into action until his head feels stuffed with cotton wool and he can’t keep his eyes open.

He slips away.

Chapter Text

The ceiling is white.

The lights are brighter.

He blinks. Surely he’s home now. Surely he’s in a hospital he recognises.

Surely he’s no longer Uchiha Sasuke.

It’s still cold, but that’s standard for hospitals. When he sits up and looks at himself, his heart sinks; no moles, no long fingernails, no curls tumbling past his face. Just pale, calloused skin and strands of dark hair dancing at his peripherals. He presses his lips together and resists the urge to cry.

His throat feels raw and his eyes ache. He wonders if he's activated his Sharingan as he parses through his fading memories and takes stock of his room.

It’s still the same room, if only smelling more of antiseptic. The tray of snacks and his new clothes are missing, and his sheets feel starched and new. At the very least, there’s still a pitcher and glass of water on his bedside table, but he finds to his surprise that the machines to his right have been cleared away. It makes the room feel emptier.

He glances back at the window. What little he can see through the white fabric is dark.

He sighs, turning back to the room at large and rocking his feet from side to side absently. He doesn’t sit at a ninety-degree angle often, courtesy of his terrible posture; he finds it more comfortable to sit on the edge of the bed with his shoulders hunched, even if the floor is bloody cold. He wants slippers.

He never would’ve thought that it would’ve been carrots to set him off. He’d thought it would’ve just been terrible nightmares when he fell asleep like it was in media, not staring at a goddamned carrot for too long and getting bad ideas. He can think about carrots just fine now, but anything to do with biting and human flesh makes his breathing pick up and he hurriedly thinks of something else. Namely, the utter absurdity of the situation.

He supposes it’s his fault for thinking real life would be like in the movies or fanfictions instead of what his psychology lessons told him. (He uses the term ‘real life’ loosely. He’s still not quite sure if this is real, or if being in a world where the universe created as a manga is real makes it real. He tries not to think too hard about it). The thought that he should probably see a therapist is hesitantly considered.

On one hand…whoever stopped him from face-planting into his own vomit and tried (rather stupidly) to stop him from having a panic attack wasn’t going to be around forever. It was probably an ANBU agent, now that he thinks about it…and he’s deathly glad he doesn’t remember them. It was terrifying enough to be grabbed when already in a precarious state of mind - don’t they teach ANBU proper ways to manage stress and deal with someone having a mental health crisis? You’d think they would, considering that the whole force was prime psychological real estate.

He blinks. What was he thinking about, again?

Therapy. Right.

He pulls a face just at the thought of it. He’d been to therapy for a few sessions in his life and given up after his therapists kept leaving (for entirely separate, unrelated reasons) and comforted himself that he had been fine without therapy and would continue to be. The whole reason he’d wanted to go to therapy in the first place was because he wanted to feel like he was being listened to instead of being the listener, but he clearly hadn’t communicated that well enough because he hadn’t felt listened to in therapy either. Long story short, he sincerely doubted the effectiveness of therapy, even despite his mother being a psychologist. Perhaps especially because his mother was a psychologist.

So. Random panic attacks that were proven to debilitate him and make it hard to live life, or talking to an abject stranger about his troubles while dancing around the fact that he had a whole host of other troubles that would make any T&I interrogator foam at the mouth? No contest. He’s pretty sure the mental health facilities in Konoha are shit anyway, considering the amount of high-profile missing-nin with grudges against the place.

He desperately needs a piece of paper. He’s not too keen on going to sleep after everything that’s happened and he needs something to do or the too-white room is going to get to him. He slides out of bed and his mouth pulls into a grimace at the sensation of cold tile under his feet as he pads over to the front of his bed to take a look at his patient notes. They would have a pen with them, surely, and he could just write on the back-

He stops as he actually registers what he’s looking at.

He’d studied Japanese all throughout high school - he’d been a weeb and it was an option, why wouldn’t he - and that’s what allows him to recognise that the characters on the patient notes are hiragana and kanji even when his brain automatically translates their meanings into English, as if the switch for thought subtitles had flicked on somewhere in his trauma-addled brain. What disconcerts him is that he had never been good enough at learning the language to do so, and he has never seen half if not all of the kanji on the sheet in his life. He’d been learning basic conversation phrases, not whatever the fuck this was, and had lost half of that knowledge due to disuse, so why is it that he can suddenly read Japanese perfectly fine when the Hokage and the Yamanaka had been speaking in…

He stops. Thinks. Can’t find anything wrong with anything he’d heard because he’d understood it as English. He opens his mouth.

“My name is Sasuke.” He whispers to himself. Once he stops cringing, he tries to ignore the meaning he intended his words to convey and focuses on the words themselves. “My name is Sasuke.”

“なまえはサスケです。” Is what he hears coming out of his mouth. He stares off into the middle distance and blinks.

In his head, the phrase ‘what the fuck’ is repeated several times at increasingly louder volumes. That, at least, he knows is in English. He anxiously runs his hands through his hair and is thankfully distracted when his fingers catch on knots. He heads for the bathroom, turning the disconcerted chanting into a tune as he tugs on the knots in his hair until they come loose, one by one. Surely there’d be a brush or something in the bathroom.

He distracts himself by rummaging through the bathroom drawers. He finds toothpaste and a toothbrush, hand soap, a hand towel, a normal towel - and a hairbrush! He spots more soap and shampoo in the shower out of the corner of his eye as he sets himself in front of the bathroom mirror.

He keeps expecting his reflection to be higher up than it is. Looking at himself is looking at an entirely different person, now, even if they move when he moves and frowns when he frowns. He watches all of his discomforted microexpressions flicker across someone else’s face and feels even more uncomfortable with the whole situation.

Even the hair texture is different. He’s used to setting his jaw and ripping the brush through all the knots his curls hid, and being rewarded with ringlets that had been the envy of his female relatives and even a few of his friends.

There are fewer knots in Sasuke’s hair. His hair had been short once, but he’d grown it out for so long that he’d forgotten how much easier it was to brush short hair. And when the knots are gone, it stays straight. There’s none of the volume that had given him almost an inch in extra height when he hadn’t been Sasuke. The fluffy bits at the back only go down a little despite his best efforts, but it’s satisfying to pull the brush through his hair without it catching on any knots. He’d always wanted straight hair, in the same way a person with straight hair wants curly hair.

 He sets the brush down on the edge of the sink and tries to look himself square in the eye.

“I am,” He says slowly, quietly, placing extra emphasis on the sounds and letters. Instinct - not his - tries to soften the hard consonants with extra vowels, and it annoys him enough that he tries again. He's used to slurring his words together to get them out faster, but this is another matter entirely. It doesn’t sound like him. “I am. I think, therefore I am.”

His practice sentence was initially going to be ‘I am Sasuke’ again - but not only did that sound positively cringeworthy, but ‘Sasuke’ was still an inherently Japanese word. There would be no point trying to pronounce a Japanese word in English unless he wanted to insult an entire race of people, which he did not.

His mouth struggles with saying ‘therefore’ without adding unnecessary vowels. He moodily supposes it’s because it has more than one syllable. Studying in the top English class at his high school had cemented his skills with the English language as something he could always count on as well as being a constant source of pride, and it rankled him now that one of the foundations of him as a person was looking rather shaky.

He tries saying it again with more of his familiar slur blurring the words in the hopes that less to pronounce would mean that he would insert fewer unnecessary syllables into his words. “I think, therefore I am.”

Not pronouncing the ‘k’ at the end of ‘think’ negated the ‘u’ that kept trying to sneak in, since some Japanese words did end with ‘n’. ‘Therefore’ became ‘theehfo’, which ended in a vowel and could thus be pronounced in Japanese-accented English. Relearning to pronounce the ‘th’ sound was an exercise in itself.

Eventually, he gets tired (frustrated) of trying to relearn what should’ve been his native tongue and wanders out of the bathroom to resume his quest for something to write on. Unfortunately, his patient notes are double-sided, and he would feel bad if he took the pen, so he decides despite great trepidation that he will have to search the hospital until he finds something. Or someone. Would people still be working, however late at night it was? Surely they would be; weren’t hospitals open 24/7?

The door handle is also cold, and the corridor outside his room is as white as the inside. It makes him feel vaguely uneasy, which is probably not the kind of feeling a hospital wants to instil in its patients. There are no discerning features to tell him where he is either, which is annoying; he only has a good sense of direction by memorising the paths between landmarks, and everything in the corridor looks exactly the same. He takes one last lingering look at his bland room and quickly ducks inside to prop the door open with the chair that’s still sitting by his bedside - at least that should discern his room from any others he might come across. Satisfied, and hoping to god nothing happens that makes the door close, he takes his first step to the right in order to follow the rule of mazes and hopefully find someone or at least a way out.

That leads to the thought of whether or not the hospital was designed with defensibility or manoeuvrability in mind, and how that affected the day-to-day workings of the staff that had to operate in it. As the white corridors stretched on endlessly he was beginning to believe it was the former and was becoming increasingly more annoyed with the architect. Surely Konoha would’ve figured out white torture by now, or did they just chalk it up to shinobi craziness?

He wished he’d spent his time in the bathroom trying to activate his Sharingan instead of trying to relearn his previous level of elocution, because then he might know whether or not he was going in circles. He stops in the middle of yet another featureless white hallway and squints at the walls.

He has no goddamned idea how to activate his Sharingan. He can’t even feel his chakra despite knowing it should exist - unless he somehow fucked it up by becoming Sasuke, but if something was so terribly wrong then how did two medics and Inoichi miss it?

He knows the Hyuuga use a hand sign to help activate their Byakugan, but he has no idea if that would work with the Sharingan or how it works at all. With a sigh, he sits down against the wall with the intent to figure it out. Hopefully, someone will just stumble across him when he starts getting too irritated by his lack of progress.

He's never been good at sitting still. He can lay on his bed and stare at the ceiling for hours, but some part of him has to be moving, whether it’s his fingers drumming against his stomach, his eyes focusing on different points of the room, or his leg moving idly from side to side. It’s usually much more doable when music or a podcast is playing as well, but he doesn’t have any of that here. He misses Spotify.

Still, he tries. He sits like his ballet teacher taught him to; feet together, back straight against the wall, hands on his knees or in his lap. He closes his eyes and focuses on what he can feel of himself.

Cold, hard floor under his butt and ankles. Cold wall against his back. Warm hands on his legs. Something between his legs that he’s been steadfastly Not Thinking About.

Cottony shirt, cottony pants. They don’t warm him as much as he’d like. At least the pants are long.

Hair tickling his cheeks. Gentle breath brushing the skin above his upper lip. His breathing, as even as he can make it until he focuses on the action and throws the unconscious rhythm all out of whack. He settles for breathing manually.

Inhale for five counts, hold the breath for three, and exhale for five. Repeat.

As time passes and he continues to breathe and nothing happens, he finally feels the sensation of his eyeballs sinking back into his head. The recognition of his bodily functions is amplified as he retreats into his head, away from the outside world, to focus on himself.

He enters the feeling with his expectations low. He doesn’t call what he does meditation or anything of the sort - if anything, he’s done it most often when he’s tried to force himself to sleep. What he tentatively names it is physical introspection, and it reveals a concentrated warmth in his gut that he’s reasonably sure wasn’t there before.

It’s probably chakra. He wants to poke at it, but he’s not sure how. He settles for focusing on it intently. People can’t feel their own veins if they concentrate enough - at least, he thinks - but surely since chakra is different, he’ll be able to follow a trail up to his eyes and…see something. Hopefully. He’ll figure it out somehow.

The discovery of chakra keeps him interested enough to focus on the spiderweb-thin threads of chakra branching off from the main - glob? Bowl? Gate? Pool? Whatever - up his torso and neck into his head. It’s weird, especially since he’s trying to visualise it with his ‘eyes’ mentally, and it takes a bit of mental gymnastics to reorient himself and his logic once he can’t visualise the thread anymore as it reaches his head. He instead focuses on just his head and what he can feel in the isolated space, picking through all the new threads he’s suddenly noticing now that he knows what to look for until he finds the one he was following earlier.

It doesn’t end at his eye like he’d hoped but instead somewhere near his ear. He travels back down to the main intersection of threads in his head and muddles around until he finds a branch that connects to one eye - and when he follows it back to the intersection to see if he can find another thread leading to his other eye, he finds it’s connected to both.

He grins and opens his eyes.

Nothing has changed, because he hasn’t done anything other than find the thread. He’s hesitant to mess around with it - he doesn’t want to blow his eyeballs out of his head or something - so he decides to procrastinate by practising finding the thread until it’s as easy as breathing. That way, he won’t have to go through the whole song and dance of medicating and following the threads to at least find the connection to his eyes. He can already feel one of his legs developing pins and needles.

With a grimace, he repositions himself so his legs stop feeling so ticklish, then closes his eyes again and focuses on trying to find the specific thread from the intersection in his head. He works best when he has landmarks, after all, and the thread connecting his eyes is close enough to the intersection that he feels confident he can find his way back from there.

It’s easier to find the threads again now that he knows they’re there, but he still has to focus and wait until his brain registers he’s trying to interact with the threads in some capacity to have them fully come into focus. He can remember the rough location of where the threads are in his head, but until his brain realises he wants to actually ‘see’ the threads, he may as well try to sense his veins through meditation.

It’s annoying and he hopes that practice will eventually smooth out the process. Not that he thinks he has the patience for it.

He gets confident and bored enough of the same repetitive process to stop looking for the thread and instead start poking at it. Only he had no idea how to, so he had to take a step back and try to figure out how to make his chakra respond to his intent.

He wishes he remembered more of the instructional worldbuilding that had been at the start of the manga. Handsigns guided chakra, didn’t they? But there were like twenty of those and he hadn’t bothered to memorise them - which is why one part of his mind was solely dedicated to mourning the loss of the knowledge of the Grand Fireball jutsu - and once again, even if he knew them, he wouldn’t know what to do with them.

He knew maybe four handsigns - kai/tora/something, two fingers clasped against his other hand which also held up two fingers; what he was pretty sure was snake or monkey or something like that, both hands clasped together; dog, maybe, a closed fist and a hand held flat on top of it; and the sign for the Shadow Clone jutsu.

He’s pretty sure the sign the Hyuuga use is kai or tora or whatever it is, holding up two fingers on either hand. Again, he doesn’t know if it’ll be useful - but it’s all he has to go on right now.

The opposite wall comes back into focus as he pulls himself out of his head enough to move and not just think about it. His hands are clumsy and unpractised as he fits his hands together and adjusts them until they look more like the picture he has in his head. Once he’s satisfied, he finds the pool within himself again and follows a thread up one of his arms into his hands. Ugh, another pathway he’ll have to memorise. He’s not sure what it is, but something’s changed - and for some reason, his hands are now connected by threads of chakra that either spontaneously came into being to connect them or preexisting threads that somehow moved to connect themselves through his hands. He’s not sure which theory disturbs him less, but he’s leaning towards the latter. Maybe they were open-ended in the first place in order to connect with the other threads on the opposing hands? He comforts himself with the thought.

Okay, so that’s a thing, he thinks to himself. He tries moving his hands while maintaining his meditative state and finds to his smug satisfaction that his last thought was right and the threads are open-ended. That means that the chakra system is formed to make connections with different parts of the body - specifically the hands - and the way those connections were positioned could be the key to figuring out how to manipulate his chakra despite knowing next to nothing about hand signs.

He blinks. The opposite wall remains impassive to his sudden revelation.

Surely if he figures out how to manipulate chakra the right way, he won’t even need to use handsigns. He’d just need to create the connection between his pathways, and that would be as easy as slapping his hands together; the Sharingan could memorise the way the chakra moved, because that was one of the things it could do, and all he would have to do was mimic the pattern in his own system to achieve the same effect. In theory.

Wait, but then how did people use one-handed signs-?

He slaps his knee. It isn’t as satisfying as it would’ve been if his skin was bare, but it’s too cold to even think about rolling up his pant legs. “It goes both ways.” He hisses triumphantly.

Both hands are connected to the main pool by their threads. Therefore, it stands to reason that at least one thread would connect them both, and the reason why no one but a few genetically predisposed individuals could use one-handed signs was because the thread was indistinguishable from the others when it passed through the main pool - unless you went through all the threads one by one to see which one had a dual branch. He has no idea how being genetically predisposed to one-handed signs worked - maybe the thread was more obvious, or something? - but if his theory is correct, it’s doable. Probably boring, but doable. He would never have to cripple himself in battle by trying to figure out how to use handsigns because he could simply bypass the matter entirely.

He pumps his fist in the air and distantly acknowledges that he probably looks like a maniac to any ANBU watching - and he still hasn’t figured out how to turn the Sharingan on.

Fuck it. Eyeball exploding time. He’s in a hospital; someone will fix him if he happens to explode the hot commodities that are his eyes, even though it is weird that no one’s walked past him yet. Another point in the ‘probably a genjutsu’ column. At the very least, the ANBU will be concerned if something weird starts happening to his eyes.

He resettles into what he calls butterfly position and closes his eyes again, tracing the thread from the intersection up until it connects to his eyes. There, he stalls.

…Does he just…pluck it like a guitar string and hope it works? Do his eyes need more chakra to turn the Sharingan on? If they do, does he pull it from the main pool itself, or will the intersection suffice?

He decides to bring up chakra from the main pool, just in case pulling it from the head’s main intersection causes him to become immediately brain-dead or something. He’s just woken up from a second blackout and isn’t keen on gunning for a third time. Handling his chakra - for want of a better descriptor - is an exercise in patience and trying to hold goop. Perhaps ‘glob’ had been an accurate descriptor for chakra after all.

It’s stringy, but also fluid - his mind makes a very inappropriate comparison - and it’s like trying to grasp his dog when he doesn’t want a bath. It’s probably for the best that he only manages to drag up a little extra chakra from the handful he’d started with; the rest dribbles through his imaginary grip to rejoin the pool of goop. For want of a more graceful technique, he presses the extra chakra against the inside of his skull where his eyes are and wills it to do something. When he moves his intent away, the chakra clings to the dual thread and thickens it, strengthening it.

He opens his eyes.

“Holy fucking shit.”

All the chakra and goop in his body pales in comparison to the ambient chakra in the world, to say nothing of deliberate chakra. And by deliberate, he means anything not naturally occurring and with purpose, like human chakra systems and the genjutsu he can finally fucking see. He has to squint to make out the details, because the hospital is absolutely chock-full of chakra from the walls to the ceiling and what he assumes are ANBU agents perched on the roof above him. The genjutsu manifests as what he can only assume looks like a cell wall barricading both sides of the hallway that his room is in. The projected reality and the true reality overlap in his sight, as well as the deliberate chakra in the air that marks the genjutsu’s area of effect; he’s simultaneously standing up and sitting down, and it’s disorienting enough that he fears a headache.

It’s fucking incredible.

He hurriedly checks inwards to make sure he isn’t in danger of pulling a Kakashi and fainting from chakra exhaustion and is immediately distracted by the way his chakra pool automatically feeds his eyes more chakra to sustain the Sharingan. Oh fuck - if it’s doing that automatically, then how does he turn it off?

Spurred on by a sharp spike of panic, he closes his eyes and fiddles around in his skull until he figures out he has to turn off the tap at the source, as it were, and the remaining chakra is quickly used up by the Sharingan or redistributed elsewhere. He watches with morbid fascination as a small part of his chakra ever so slightly damages a speck of his eye before it fizzles out. And when he opens his eyes again, he’s back on the floor in the hallway he thinks he’s in and the world is so much duller.

He stares at the wall that he now knows is not what he thinks it is.

Christ alive, no wonder people abandoned their morals just for the chance of getting their hands on even one Sharingan. They made the world look like it had been repopulated by stars. He could honestly see himself plonking himself down in some chakra-rich area and whiling life away looking at the patterns chakra made until hunger, thirst, sleep deprivation or chakra exhaustion killed him.

But no, that would be insane, and someone would probably stop him beforehand. Hm.

Maybe he could deal with Sasuke’s problems and then go off and kill himself looking at chakra. He can’t even begin to comprehend how much more incredible everything would look with a Mangekyou Sharingan.

Sounds like a plan. But first, he wants to look at chakra again. He's never taken drugs other than the medical kind, but he imagines looking at the world through the Sharingan’s gaze is what it feels like. It’s addictive.

The scoop and the smearing of chakra across the insides of his eyes is a little more haphazard this time, too eager with the view he’d tasted that is still burned into the forefront of his mind. He thinks he’s unnecessarily wasted chakra…and then he doesn’t think much of anything at all as he stares into the middle distance with open-mouthed awe.

It’s so bright.

The disconnect between genjutsu and reality is insane. His brain is convinced that he’s sitting against the wall in some nondescript, painfully white hallway while his eyes tell him that he’s only just taken a step outside his door and depending on how genjutsu time and real time operate, he may have even been standing there for an embarrassingly long time. Fuck that, though; he’s seeing chakra.

His first port of call is to immediately go poking at the genjutsu.

His brain protests as he walks forward without getting off the floor like he’d been convinced he was and the dissonance makes him stumble, but he stays on his feet. Poking at what is essentially a spiritual (?) construct with a physical finger does precisely nothing, but it’s worth the sight of the chakra membrane stretching to accommodate his attempt to breach it. He stretches out his arm as far as it can go and observes with delight that despite having the same look and properties as a spiderweb, chakra has none of its frailty. Incredible.

Step two: how on earth does one get out of a genjutsu, again?

The manga had said something about flexing your chakra or something - which, what? How the fuck? Is it like a muscle? It looks like a spider’s spool of web fluid to him and behaves as such; or does it only behave that way because that’s how he perceives it? - and the fanfictions told him that it’s reversing his chakra that does the trick. He has no idea how to do either. Does he just, what, grab his chakra and squeeze it or try to make it go backwards or something?

The description ‘disrupting chakra flow’ occurs to him as he looks down at his pathways, now visible under his skin with the gaze of the Sharingan. They look like the paths of comets. He tries to lessen the amount of chakra being sent to his eyes without cutting off the flow entirely as he thinks.

What if he reuses his idea of plucking a chakra pathway like a guitar string? Not hard enough to snap it, obviously; just enough to disturb his chakra system, and hopefully snap him out of the genjutsu. He dearly hopes he doesn’t injure himself in the process because he’s pretty sure chakra fuckups of that nature can only be healed by Tsunade, and she’s off god knows where getting blackout drunk.

He holds out his forearms to assist in visualisation as his imaginary hands tentatively poke at one of his pathways. Nothing happens, so he tugs a little harder.

He looks up as his surroundings ripple queasily. He grins and tugs harder, emboldened by progress.

It takes several more tugs until he gets to an appropriate amount of pressure and the genjutsu vanishes from his sight like it had never been there in the first place. He’d been tensed for some grand destruction as it broke and now slowly straightens his posture as nothing continues to happen. The genjutsu membrane itself still exists, though, and now he can pass his hand through it like it isn’t there.

“That is so fucking cool.” He says to himself under his breath. He’s not even sure what he’s doing out of his room in the first place - his Sharingan sight is infinitely cooler anyway - and casts his gaze about under the pretence of looking for what he was doing before he got preoccupied with the awesomeness of chakra. His eyes catch on the patient notes at the foot of his bed - and just like that, his good mood deflates.

Right. He was going to look for something to write down all of the things he’ll have to take care of once he leaves the hospital. Still, he’s feeling a lot more optimistic than before, and the journey through the hospital in search of something or someone helpful will be much more exciting with this new filter over his view. He glances up at his ANBU guards and when no argument or disapproval is forthcoming, he takes a step to the right. Again. Hopefully not into another genjutsu - and if there was, he’d see it now. Surely.

The Sharingan is such a fucking hack, he thinks to himself as he bounces forward eagerly.

The plain walls of the hospital and the shadows of the night make for the perfect canvas to boggle at all of the sparks and lines of chakra he can see. One of the differences between the genjutsu hospital and reality is that the real hospital has a lot more windows, which are warded so heavily he has to squint to look at them despite the darkness barely visible through the glowing wards. The chakra painted across the other three dimensions of the hallway isn’t as thick, but they're bright enough combined with the fuinjutsu on the windows that he keeps his eyes heavy-lidded as he stalks through the corridors in search of pen and paper.

His guards trail along behind him, identifiable by the vague impressions of their chakra but otherwise invisible. It makes him feel vaguely paranoid; but there’s not much he can do about it, so he soldiers on and pretends they aren’t there.

(The idea that one of them could be Itachi and he wouldn’t even know is considered and summarily repressed).

He spots the flap of a doctor’s coat rounding a corner and hurries towards it expectantly. The Sharingan had caught the movement despite all the bright, glowy distractions around him and once again he is baffled by the sheer capabilities a pair of eyes can have. His feet have gotten used to the cold floor now but that doesn’t mean he likes walking across it as fast as he dares. “Excuse me-”

It’s a man who looks to have suffered a bad bleach job that looks back at him. The Sharingan tracks every minute detail of his face down to the contracting of his muscles under his skin as his green eyes go wide and he screams.

He startles badly and falls ass-first onto the floor, looking up at the medic who takes several stumbling steps back, never once looking away with his side twisted to face him as if he’s trying to protect himself from the child that he is. His mind stutters on comprehension as fear and worry both shoot through him simultaneously and he scrambles to his feet because sitting on the floor is not a defensible position. Two dark figures appear at his side and he startles again, his heart jumping to his throat and his gaze sharpening. One steps forward to address the shaking medic while the other merely stands at his side, neither helping nor hindering, and for that he’s grateful. He’s not sure what he would’ve done if one of them had touched him.

He looks up at the one beside him as the other exchanges quiet words with the medic, who’s slowly and badly recovering from shock.

They’re of a height, much taller than him - though that’s everyone with an age in the double digits nowadays - and any identifying features are blurred even with the Sharingan except for their mask. It has a protruding beak or hooked nose with large round eyes and red facial markings that emphasise the beak/nose and bags under its eyes. It’s a bit ugly, but he won’t say that out loud. He assumes based on their build that they might be a man - or maybe the most insanely muscular woman he’s ever seen. He could go either way.

“-fucking looking at me with those eyes and you expect me not to-!”

He snaps back to attention and accidentally makes eye contact with the medic again. As the man shudders involuntarily, he belatedly realises that all he’s seeing is going to be burned into his brain now. Unappealing as the option is, perhaps he should turn his Sharingan off.

He closes his eyes and cuts off the extra chakra at its source, and notices with no small amount of fascination that his pool of goop looks markedly smaller now. Hm. Probably shouldn’t be messing with his Sharingan so much. Kakashi is not a good role model in any way, shape or form no matter how juicy his waist is. Now that’s a sight he wouldn’t mind having burned into his brain.

He opens his eyes again amidst unwilling speculation on the more inappropriate uses of the Sharingan’s perfect memory - did past Uchiha use Sharingan-recorded intimate memories of their lovers to jack off to? Probably, but he doesn’t want to consider that, especially not in relation to Sasuke’s parents - and finds that the medic is slowly calming down, even if he keeps shooting wary glances at him over the shorter ANBU agent’s shoulder. They’re either a woman or a twink, he thinks to himself decisively.

The shorter ANBU agent finally steps away, back to his side, leaving the medic defenceless. They both eye each other gingerly.

“...Is there something you need, Uchiha-san?” The medic asks finally, sounding as if the words are being forced from him. His mouth flattens into a grim line.

“Just a pen and something to write on.” He mutters. Maybe he should’ve asked the ANBU agents to get them for him.

The medic seems to have the same idea. “Couldn’t you just ask…?” He glances at the two agents and visibly swallows. “Nevermind. Here.”

The medic digs a pen and a small notebook out of his jacket pocket and holds them out with the very tips of his fingers. He goes to take a step forward and accept them, but the smaller ANBU agent is faster and plucks them out of the medic’s hands, looking them over to see if they meet an indiscernible criteria as the medic retreats.

“Thank you.” He tells the medic, if only to be polite. He’s feeling less well-inclined to the man the longer he looks at him like he’s secretly carrying a bomb. The man nods stiffly.

“Is there anything else you need?” The man asks, sounding like he hopes there isn’t. Thankfully for both of them, that’s all he needs for now.

“No. Thank you. I’ll…see if I can reimburse you somehow.” He adds, but the man is already shaking his head.

“No. It’s okay. I have more pens and paper in my office and they don’t cost much anyway. Just - keep it. Don’t worry about it. Please.”

“...Alright then.” That’s one unequal exchange he won’t mind not equalising. The shorter ANBU agent taps his shoulder with the notebook and he accepts it from them with a nod of thanks. “Thanks again.”

“If that’s all, then…” At the tip of his head, the medic nods hurriedly and scurries off further into the hospital. When he turns around to go back to his room, the ANBU agents have disappeared. The interaction leaves him feeling oddly empty; there’s no indication that it even happened but the sound of rapidly retreating footsteps and the memories of it that are etched into his mind with the crisp recall of the Sharingan.

The way the medic’s - Subaru, his name had been Subaru, scrawled in a sharp hand on his name tag - face had contorted upon seeing him is painted across his memory in cruel strokes. The naked fear on his face tinged with something he’s hesitant (afraid) to call disgust makes his skin crawl under his thin, hospital-issue clothes. His lips curl inwards to press against each other for strength.

He’s not going to cry. One man’s disdain means nothing (everything) to him. He’s a grown-ass woman, for god’s sake. He’s gotten what he wanted and he doesn’t even have to feel bad for taking it without proper recompense.

He turns on his heel and stalks back to his room, breathing heavily through his mouth. Tears threaten to blur his vision and he keeps breathing, keeps turning the interaction over in his head until he works himself up nearly to tears. Still, he does not cry beyond the shaking of his breath and the wetness of his eyes. He’s taught himself better than that.

He did nothing wrong. He did nothing wrong.

(He should’ve been more cautious, should’ve known that people would be wary of the Sharingan after the massacre. Should’ve been more polite. Should’ve asked the ANBU to get things for him. Should’ve left his chakra and the Sharingan alone.

He should’ve stayed in his fucking room.)

He did nothing wrong.

The words are as empty as he feels. His breathing is laden with choked-back sobs. His feet stumble a little and carry unerringly on - left, left, always left - until he finds the open door to his room and yanks the chair away as he passes so the door can fall shut behind him. It clatters across the floor but doesn’t fall. He’s both irritated and thankful that it doesn’t - for all that he would like an act of violence to snap him out of his misery and twist his emotions into something more manageable, but in the end, he’s still the same five-year-old kid who covered his ears when the noise of his classmates got too loud. Loud, abrupt noises startle him more than he’d like to think.

He tosses the notebook onto the bed so he doesn’t crush it further and keeps the pen in his tight grip as he clambers into bed after it. The notebook and pen are then swiftly transferred to the bedside table as he fills up the glass and takes a drink to swallow back the lump in his throat. When it doesn’t work the first time, he does it again. And again. And again, until the water is gone and he feels steadier. Less volatile. He gets comfortable under the covers to distract himself from his next task until he finally, reluctantly reaches for the notebook and pen. He writes ‘To Do (Unorganised)’ at the top of the first blank page and fiddles with his pen.

He sighs. He’s just procrastinating. He needs to get a wiggle on; time stops for no one, and he needs all the time he can get.

The first thing he writes is a good enforcer (Inoichi). It comes out in Japanese. He blinks.

He resolves not to think about it lest he muck up the weird English-to-Japanese filter he’s got going on and start writing in a language that doesn’t exist and would be very hard to explain to his ANBU minders.

He moves on to the next points of action. Lawyer, accountant, and priest/monk all take up their own lines. He’ll organise them in order of necessity on another page. Real estate agent makes the cut after a long moment of deliberation, but is marked with a question mark to indicate later thought. He’ll be putting that close to the end of the prioritised list.

He crosses out the title once he realises it no longer applies and squishes in the new title, ‘People to Hire’, where he can in the margin. Then he turns another page and rewrites the previous title again. Despite his own unconscious preferences, his hands always move to start writing from the right, top-down, rather than left to right like he’s used to. Another thing he resolves not to think about so he doesn’t blow his cover.

To Do (Unorganised):

• Take control of previous finances and business holdings

• Locate the Uchiha section of the cemetery and see if anything can be done

• Clean out all the houses and deal with leftover property

• Go through wills and deal with any external fulfilments

• Go through Uchiha transaction records and make sure not to get scammed in anything

• Look after the cats? Take care of any remaining animals

• Figure out something to do with the compound

• Deal with whatever the Hokage wants

• Do something about the Police Force and associated…everything

He rolls his wrist languidly. His body is too young for anything to actually start hurting, but he wants something to do to distract himself from the growing list of things that need doing. He barely feels motivated enough to reorganise his to-do list.

The Japanese-translated sentences of the shorthand he’s used to writing in English struggle to accommodate for the missing words while still appearing coherent. He squints at his words as he reads his lists back for anything he might’ve missed. God, his Japanese teachers would cry if they saw the fucked-up jumble of words that only he can understand as phrases. All the verbs have no tense or usage indicators and are slapped together in an English sentence structure alongside nouns. The conjunctions are treated as optional. Punctuation? Unnecessary. Forget it. It makes sense to him and that’s all that matters.

Hopefully, his shitty writing doesn’t get misconstrued as some sort of secret code. Surely traditional Japanese speakers would be able to understand it after they stop cringing in the face of such an atrocity.

That’s their problem. He washes his hands of the matter and goes over his to-do list again with a more discerning eye.

Taking control of what Fugaku was originally in charge of is at the top of the list, mostly because what he was in charge of is such a broad descriptor. The Police Force and all of the clan’s dealings, both internal and external, any responsibilities he may’ve had on the Clan Council…and whatever else there was. He needs the authority of the Uchiha Clan Head to complete more than half of his list. People might not like a six-year-old bossing them around or sticking his nose into adult matters, but if he wrapped Fugaku’s authority around himself like a protective cloak, they can’t dissuade him without convincing him it was his idea first. And while he is under no illusion that he will suddenly gain newfound confidence to stand up for himself when he knows he’s being disrespected, he has no qualms about dodging condemnable statements by being as vague as possible or just straight-up lying. He’s never liked giving straight answers lest they be turned against him and he’ll only have to get better at doing so now.

He smiles bitterly to himself. He’ll learn to lie with the best, like any good shinobi; because that’s what he is now.

Anything to do with the graves or the compound can wait until he’s sorted out the Clan’s affairs. Organising the wills ranks below looking through the Uchiha business records and dealing with the Police Station. He hopes most of what’s in the Police Station isn’t secret Uchiha records and can be easily transferred over to whoever will be taking over the Police Force, because the mere thought of going through all that paperwork makes his brain shut off that particular train of thought to avoid even conceptualising the work he’d have to do to sort through everything.

Simple things like making sure the Main House will be liveable and making sure any pets are taken care of will have to wait until he actually gets back to the Compound. He plans to be out and about as much as possible to delay the inevitable homecoming.

He’d only seen the Compound once (over 518,400 times), but he hadn’t concerned himself with admiring the architecture when he had been heartily convinced he was being hunted by some fucked-up serial killer - and he still isn’t wrong. He’s hesitant to return because he has no idea how the sight will cause him to react. If a godforsaken carrot can send him into hysterics, what will the sight of the Massacre do?

Best to avoid it until he can’t stay away any longer. If all is well, this will be his last night in the hospital - for all that he thinks it’s irresponsible to send a child straight back to the house his parents were murdered in, and he can’t tell if that’s his dislike for injustice speaking or his childish fear of going back to the house - and he’ll keep himself busy trying to figure out how to complete his to-do list until he’s forced to go back to the compound to sleep. He’ll have a whole day, after all, unless he happens to sleep in or black out again.

He doesn’t know what time it is now. He idly adds ‘get a watch’ to his to-do list just to note the thought down in case knowing the time becomes more important later. Will he have to attend meetings? How will he know what to do on the Clan Council or if he even qualifies for a seat at all? He’ll probably have to bother Inoichi again for information, but if there’s anything specific to the Uchiha clan that he has to do he’s screwed.

He rewrites his prioritised to-do list on the next page and puts ‘Deal with whatever the Hokage wants’ at the bottom because he has no idea when that’ll spring up or what to do. He supposes the minder will tell him. His mouth twists at the reminder.

Not that he’d hate someone telling him what to do, but he desperately - and perhaps naively - hopes that the minder won’t be someone greedy for the sake of greed. He’s expecting the worst; while Inoichi had been kind, this was still the village that let the Uchiha Clan get murdered and did nothing about it. Hell, some people were even relieved. And while he hopes that the Hokage chooses someone decent to hover over his shoulder, in a village built for thieves and murderers, kindness for the sake of kindness is rarer than he’d like. If they can’t be kind, at least let them be ineffective at stealing anything related to the Uchiha.

He rubs his eyes. They ache from restrained tears and overuse, and probably tiredness as well. He doesn’t know when he woke up again and he has no idea what time it is now. He wishes the hospital would put clocks in people’s rooms, even if they were white.

He places the pen and notebook on the bedside table and swings his legs out of bed. If he can’t shower, he may as well go to the bathroom and maybe drink some tap water while he’s there. The floor is still uninvitingly cold and he skips over it with quick steps to avoid lingering on it for too long. The door wasn’t closed last he remembered it, but that was before his blackout. He has no idea why they would’ve closed it after - did it pose some sort of hazard to him? - and he opens it again to find his spare clothes sitting on the edge of the sink. He breathes a sigh of relief.

Okay, so he won’t have to go to bed feeling grotty. Brilliant. It’s a simple pair of shorts, a t-shirt and a pair of underwear all in dull, boyish colours. He lifts the dark green shirt to eye the ninja logo on the front with a critical eye. The art is a bit too childish for his tastes, but he’d enjoyed wearing shirts with cartoons on them even as an adult so it’s something he can overlook. He looks over his pants - dull blue, barely clashing with the green only by virtue of being so dull and dark the colours were nearly the same - and presses his lips together in a grimace when his eyes are inevitably drawn to the pair of underwear.

He’s been a woman all his life. He’s had moments where he’d wished he was a boy, if only to wear male clothes without judgement, but he had been comfortable in his birth gender and hadn’t had a serious inclination to change. If anything, he’d rather have been sexless so he could wear both kinds of gendered clothing without an inclination for either. But now he’s a boy, physically and obviously, and he has no goddamned idea how to feel about that.

There’s no grand change in his brain chemistry, no change at all other than physically to indicate his sudden switch from femininity to masculinity. He still likes the idea of wearing dresses and skirts and he reckons if he grows up to look just as good as he did in canon, he could pull it off. He misses having boobs. He has no idea what to do with what’s between his legs right now and it makes him feel like the worst kind of pervert. He doesn’t even know if he’ll continue to live as Sasuke; and if this isn’t a permanent thing, he doesn’t want Sasuke to come back to find himself half-dressed.

…But he also feels pretty grotty and he wants to go to bed clean. And if this situation is permanent, he’s going to have to get over his new body and deal with it because it’s his life now. Does he remember the last time he showered? No, and that’s not a good thing. He’ll get over it.

He’ll get over it, he chants in his head as he locks the bathroom door behind him and pulls off his hospital-issue shirt. He’ll get over it, he tells himself as his shirt is unceremoniously chucked into a corner and he pulls the towel out from the bathroom cabinets to set it beside the entrance to the shower. He’ll get over it, he tells himself as he shimmies out of his pants and chucks them across the room to join his shirt. He’ll get over it, he chants aggressively in his head as he finds a featureless, pale body under his clothes with a small scar on its hip that he’ll never know the story behind. He’ll get over it, he tells himself as he chucks his underwear onto the pile of dirty clothes determinedly without looking down and steps into the shower. He’ll get over it, he promises himself as he turns the water on and waits for it to warm up. He’ll get over it.

There’s so much less of himself to wash. He shampoos his hair as well because he knows the value of good-looking hair and he’s not an animal. It feels nice and silky and it’s satisfying to just pull out any stray knots with his fingers and feel the smoothness when there’s none left. It’s satisfying and monotonous to wash himself even when he suffers a mild shock when he bends down to rub soap on his legs, but he recovers and finally steps out of the shower feeling only mildly hysterical. He towels himself dry and wishes for leave-in hair conditioner or even just normal conditioner to put through his hair. He has no idea how taking care of straight hair works - he assumes it’s much easier than curly hair, anyway - so he’s treating it how he treated his hair when he was a woman. He carefully squeezes as much excess water out of his hair with his hands and lets it drain in the shower, then uses his annoyingly thin hospital shirt to squeeze out the rest. He catches sight of himself in the mirror and tries to arrange his hair better with his fingers until he remembers that people with straight hair can brush their hair when it’s wet or dry, without any resulting frizz.

Incredible. Amazing. This is why he’s always wanted straight hair, he thinks to himself gleefully as he brushes his bangs out of his face. The hair at the back of his head is both too long and too short to do anything else but stick out awkwardly, but he’s feeling cheerful enough that he doesn’t mind. His hair still feels a little damp after he finishes getting dressed, but he’s slept with damp hair before. It doesn’t bother him. There’s less of it for him to worry about, anyway.

He brushes his teeth with the provided toothpaste and toothbrush, carefully folds his old clothes, and leaves them on the edge of the bathroom sink. He feels proud of himself for surviving all bathroom-related discomforts - at least for today - until he goes to leave and feels the need to piss.

He covers his face with his hands. Dear god in heaven, he thinks to himself despairingly, please spare me from confronting the fact that I’m now a guy.

God tellingly does not answer. And even if they did, he doubts it would be his mother and father’s god.

Now that’s a terrible thought. Gods exist here. Like, in real life. Or rather in the Narutoverse, which is currently his real life. Dear god.

There could even be a deer god in the Nara forest and he wouldn’t know. He certainly isn’t going to tempt fate by trying to find out. Once again, he is reminded of all the Nara-centric fanfictions that insist You Do Not Fuck With The Forest.

His body helpfully reminds him that he still needs to piss. He is not feeling any more confident about doing so than he was five minutes ago. He sighs and completes part of the ordeal by walking over to the toilet and staring at it despairingly. Surely he can continue sitting down. Boys sit down to shit, don’t they? Surely he can sit down to piss.

He clenches his hands for a moment and then forces himself to relax. It’s just a trip to the toilet, for god’s sake. He’s been bludgeoned in the head with an instant with memories of people dying on loop for days. This shouldn’t bother him as much as it is.

He fidgets with his hands for a little longer before he gives in and sits on the toilet like a woman. Nothing overly terrible happens and the world doesn’t end, but he’s still deathly relieved when he finally flushes the toilet and washes his hands in the sink.

It’ll get better with time, he (tries to convince) promises himself as he dries his hands. The child that looks back at him is him for as long as this lasts, all the bruised alabaster skin and dark features of him. He’ll get out of this alive.

Just ten years. Ten years, and he can fuck off to be a sheep farmer in Iwa or something. Ten years and it’ll be just himself that he has to worry about.

He toys with the idea of dissolving the Uchiha clan as he unlocks the bathroom door and makes a beeline for the bed. He’ll have milked the prestige for all its worth in ten years’ time and he has no plans to have children ever. He’d liked Sarada as a character, but the thought of himself having sex even just casually makes him want to crawl out of his skin.

He hates it. He doesn’t mind reading about it and he’s of the opinion that people can do whatever they damn like in their relationships as long as they’re not engaging in intimate relations in front of him, but anything sexual pertaining to him makes his nervous system attempt to escape into the upper atmosphere. He’s not contributing to the Uchiha clan in any way, shape or form, and he’s deeply sorry to all the Uchiha ancestors he’s disappointing but if they want him to change then they’re gonna have to rise from the grave and make him.

…Probably best not to make that threat in a world where the dead rising is a distinct possibility. Point being, the Uchiha Clan will die with him anyway. Even if he did have children, unless they engaged in some Alabama-level family relations, the Uchiha genes are destined to eventually become nothing but freak recurrences. He doubts Itachi and Obito are the type to have children either.

It might be uncharitable to think considering whose body he’s currently wearing, he thinks to himself as he wriggles under the covers and arranges the pillow to his liking, but he has no great personal attachment to the Uchiha Clan. He likes them as a literary concept and he’d be a psychopath not to feel sorry for the people whose deaths are literally burned into his brain, but they weren’t his family. The strength of his feeling towards them isn’t his own.

He tucks his arm under his pillow and stares at the wall. Still white as ever. Unblemished. He wonders if they’re cleaned rigorously every day.

He doesn’t intend to be in Konoha after the age of sixteen. Too much pressure, too much danger, too many bad memories. He hasn’t even existed in this universe for more than a week and he was unconscious for more than half of it. Still better than what he experienced. Konoha can survive damn well without the Uchiha and if Itachi doesn’t like it then he can make more or suck it up. Whose fault was it that they were dead again? His and the village. Both things he intends to tolerate only as long as he isn’t strong enough to flip them the bird and fend off their attempts to bring him back to Konoha. He can set the main house and all remaining Uchiha paraphernalia alight in a burning monument to their history when he leaves; one last homage to a people he can only respect for their tenacity.

His eyes flutter shut as his mind conjures up images of himself under the stars in some foreign country, a cool evening wind ruffling his hair and clothes as he watches a storm roll in over the horizon to comfort himself. He doesn’t dream.

Chapter Text

Though he’s reluctant to leave the now comforting familiarity of his terribly bland hospital room, he won't be sad to leave it.

Asahi arrives with a breakfast tray once he’s woken up in the morning and checks him over as he blinks sleepily at the room. There’s a smile on his face from when he first saw the clothes he was wearing, but the look in his eyes doesn’t match his expression and his hands linger for a moment on his shoulder.

“How are you feeling about going home, Sasuke-san?” Asahi asks him when he catches him looking. He shrugs.

“It is what it is.”

He’s planning to be out most of the day anyway. Returning to the compound is close to the bottom of the list of things he has to do today for all that he’ll have to go back for somewhere to sleep. Oh shit - access to the bank has shot to the top of the list if it wasn’t there already, because he needs money to buy food for lunch today. And for the rest of the week. And for the rest of his life. Though he’s dreading it, he hopes the Hokage’s minder comes soon.

Asahi leaves him with a rueful smile and promises to return in a few minutes. The hospital has provided him with raw egg over plain rice, an apple and some biscuits for breakfast. The raw egg is a new experience - he’d thought eating raw egg led to salmonella, but he supposes if a hospital’s giving it to him then they know what they’re doing - but a pleasant one, and the biscuits are the softest and nicest he’s ever tasted in his life. He could live off them, he thinks to himself wistfully as he searches in vain for a wrapper or a brand. Let it be known that the Japanese never fuck around when it comes to quality, especially food.

He doesn’t think of anything when he eats the apple. He doesn’t. He just stares off into the middle distance until he tastes the core and puts it down.

Asahi returns with his discharge form and shoes, thank the Lord, even if they are the classic open-toed sandals that his best friend loved to hate. He can’t afford to be picky, so he stretches and puts them on, glad for the respite from the godforsakenly cold floor.

“Is the hospital supposed to make you want to leave, or is that a design flaw?” He asks, because he has to know. Asahi huffs out a laugh.

“Depends who you ask.” The man tells him. “Some say it’s so uncomfortable to make shinobi rethink their recklessness on missions so they don’t end up in the hospital repeatedly. Others say it’s not fair to the civilians who also come through the hospital, as well as the staff who have to endure it just to do their jobs. A lot of people blame the hospital’s environment for Hatake’s unwillingness to stay in the building any longer than he’s unconscious,”

A flicker of annoyance crosses Asahi’s face before it smooths out into a smile. “Ah, but you wouldn’t know who that is. The point is, no one knows why the hospital is such an unfriendly environment, and we haven’t had the budget to do any renovations since the Senju withdrew their funding after Senju-hime’s departure.”

What the - the Senju are still around?

He’d thought they were gone; the series had never given any indication that there were Senju other than Tsunade herself - and it would’ve, if only to revive the mokuton as a retcon once Kishimoto started pulling things out of his ass to patch the plotholes he created in Shippuden. But he doesn’t want to accidentally make himself look stupid by asking, so he just nods. Asahi’s smile becomes pitying.

“But I won’t bother you with the hospital’s problems, Sasuke-san. You have more than enough to deal with now. The assistant the Hokage assigned to you will be waiting by the front desk, so come down when you’re ready, okay? And remember,” Asahi places a careful hand on his shoulder. “If you ever need help, that’s what the hospital is here for. We’re all rooting for you, Sasuke-san.”

Man, that’s a weird thing to say. Who cares if the entire hospital thinks he farts rainbows and exudes sunshine from his pores? They can’t do anything to help other than patch him up when he inevitably fucks something up. The thought is appreciated, at least, even if they’re nothing but empty words.

“...Thanks.”

Asahi draws back with a nod and one last smile. He takes the trolley of food with him when he leaves.

Left all on his lonesome, he looks over his discharge form curiously. All of the details have been filled in except for his signature at the bottom. When he looks up, his notebook and pen are still on the bedside table, and he stuffs the former in his pocket. He has no idea what Sasuke’s signature is supposed to be - don’t the Japanese use stamps or something instead? - so he just writes Sasuke’s name as neatly as he can manage. He casts one final glance about the room just to see if there’s anything he needs to take that he isn’t wearing or holding already and steps towards the door.

He frowns at the hallway he sees when he opens the door. Surely he won’t get caught in the area genjutsu again now that he’s broken it, or did it reset once he went to sleep? Just to make sure, he closes his eyes and focuses inwards to activate his Sharingan.

The spool of goop has filled up again, probably while he was asleep. He’s more careful now when he pulls chakra from the main pool to his eyes - this time, he tries to keep the chakra moving along a thread so it doesn’t spill everywhere and finds to his delight that chakra is naturally adhesive to itself. It takes a bit to find the correct thread and lessen the amount that goes to his eyes so he doesn’t waste any; but this time, he’s proud of himself as he opens his eyes again to see the world with the addition of the bright lights of ambient and deliberate chakra. The genjutsu is still there, but there’s no confusing second layer to reality and his hand passes through it again. His shoulders slump in relief.

He looks around the hall at all the bright points and lines of chakra he can see one last time before he regretfully deactivates his Sharingan. He doesn’t want a repeat of yesterday.

He sets off once again using the rule of mazes and thankfully doesn’t encounter anyone or anything, other than the windows that he slows down to admire the sight of Konoha during the morning through, and several closed doors identical to his until the corridor ends at another closed door. There’s no indication of where he has to go next - another point against the hospital’s infrastructure - and he’s considering turning his Sharingan on again when someone materialises behind him.

It’s another ANBU agent, he realises as he forces himself to relax his grip on the clipboard holding his discharge form. “You people need to stop doing that.” He tells the figure with the cat mask flatly. They don’t reply; and instead of opening the door at the end of the hall like he’d thought, they open the door to the left. Within it, he can see the stairwell. He blinks once and the ANBU agent disappears.

“...Thank you.” He says aloud, and heads for the stairs. The door swings shut behind him of its own accord…or maybe not. He shivers involuntarily. ANBU are fucking creepy, man.

He peers over the railing to look down at the floors below. He can see and hear three people milling about on the ground floor, though he can’t hear their conversation, and someone going down the stairs.

It’s a lot of white. White walls, white ceiling, white tiled floor six levels down, white coats, white uniforms. Even the grey metal stairs shine white under the bright white lights above them.

The metal of the railings is cool under his hand, and the clipboard with his discharge paper is warm with his body heat in the other. It takes him long enough to pull away from the sight of the floors below that when he turns around, the ANBU agent with the cat mask is looking at him with a tilted head. He doesn’t startle this time, too preoccupied with trying to pull himself out of the fog of his head. What had set him off this time? He tries to catch the memory so he won’t be caught off guard if it happens again but it slips through his mind’s grasp.

He tilts his head to match the ANBU agent. They look at each other sideways for a moment before Agent Cat rightens their head and nods once before disappearing. He wishes he’d had his Sharingan on to record the disappearance just to see if he could spot anything of their leaving other than the here-one-moment-gone-the-next disappearance. And honestly? He’d like to be able to do the same. The Uchiha were known for stealing jutsu - though that’s Kakashi’s moniker now - because they literally developed eyeballs specialised for that, cool chakra visualisation notwithstanding. They can’t blame him for doing what his clan is famous for.

He lets out an amused breath as he descends the stairs and wonders if he can claim that stealing jutsu is part of his culture.

He’s trying to figure out how he would be able to perform stolen jutsu outside of his primary chakra natures and going off on a tangent on whether or not he’d be able to figure out his own chakra natures just by using physical introspection when he descends the stairs to the bottom floor. The Uchiha are predisposed to fire, but Sasuke had displayed a strong affinity for and a lot of headcanons said that his primary nature was actually lightning. Personally, he’s not sure; his chakra just looks like glowing goop to him, with no distinctive features whatsoever. That probably means he’s not a sensor, right? But if he can’t discern chakra natures even with the Sharingan, then how can chakra paper do it? Is it a mokuton thing? Can sensors see chakra natures? If so, what’s the common element between highly trained sensors and…a really special piece of paper?

The medics he saw at the bottom of the stairwell part to let him pass. He only peripherally notices them until one of them moves and he looks towards them instinctively to find Sayuri waving at him with a smile. He nods back, a little off-kilter, and hurries on so he doesn’t have to talk to her or anyone else.

The bottom floor of the hospital opens up to a wide mini-ward with wheelie beds arranged how he expected a hospital ward to be laid out. Three medic-nin flit about the shinobi lying on the beds in various states of injury while two more try to cajole the more persistent teammates of the injured into waiting in the actual waiting room that he can glimpse through the archway he’s striding towards. The windows of the room are big enough to flood the whole room with sunlight and are surprisingly closed. He surmises that despite shinobi using them as they would doors, the hospital can’t afford to run the risk of outside contamination from pollen or what have you. He worries about the potential for break-ins before he remembers how heavily warded the windows on his floor were and decides that he won’t even bother trying to look at these.

“Like hell we are!”

He jumps at the sound of a raised voice. He looks around the room until he sees a man with a large dog at his side and what must be an Aburame at his shoulder. Only the Inuzuka seems agitated - his ninken is nosing the hand of the round-stomached woman on the bed before them as she looks down at it fondly even though he can see her brow gleaming with sweat. The Aburame doesn't seem to be doing much of anything. He stops walking because he’s a stickybeak at heart and this is interesting. Even the other team have stopped arguing with their medic to watch, and the harried medic uses their distraction to step around them and assist their green-haired coworker.

“Nao-chan just collapsed, and she smells like blood and sick and sweat and you’re telling us to just leave her?!”

‘Nao-chan’ rolls her eyes from the bed. The Inuzuka’s dog makes a contented chuffing sound as it leans into her attentive pats, and the Aburame tries to step out from their teammate’s side only to get yanked back with a growl and an arm around their waist. The aura they project is decidedly long-suffering.

He ships them, then mentally kicks himself for speculating on the relationship between what are now real people. It’s interesting to see the speculated Inuzuka pack instincts on display, though; he’d only ever heard about it in fanfictions, and even then he had been more drawn to fics about the Hatake’s pack instincts. Kakashi’s floundering in the face of the desire to adopt any child that crossed his path was much more amusing to conceptualise, though he had read a really good Hinata-centric fic where Kiba had been the possessive one…good stuff.

The medic in charge of Nao-chan, a young man with dark blue hair and light eyes hidden behind big round glasses, waves his hands either out of nervousness or an attempt to placate. He snorts; he doesn’t think that would work to calm anyone down in any universe.

“Um, Inuzuka-san - I need to get close to Aoki-san to help her…”

“I’m fine, Bocchan.” Nao-chan tells the Inuzuka drily. Her casual demeanour is betrayed by the lines of pain carved into her face and the visible tightness of her muscles. “I told you about this, remember?”

The Inuzuka bares his teeth. “You didn’t tell me you were going to get hurt.”

His ninken’s tail whacks him in the leg.

He couldn’t tell if it was intentional or not since the ninken is looking rather pleased with the attention it’s getting from Nao-chan, but despite all the tail-wagging previously it hadn’t hit his partner until now. Judging by the look the Inuzuka gives his ninken, he thinks it was deliberate as well.

Nao-chan rolls her eyes and then squeezes them shut with a grimace, waving her overprotective teammate back without looking. “Women can’t just shit out kids like poop, Bocchan. It’s painful and terrible and only worth it when you finally get to hold your little potato gremlin and realise what it was all for. Now let go of Tonbo-kun and stop harassing the medic. I’d like to give birth in peace, please.”

The medic looks close to tears at the revelation. “Inuzuka-san, if your teammate really is giving birth, then we need to move her right away. I promise I will do my best to take care of her, so please let me do my job.”

“You should listen to the medic. Why? Because if you do not, you are stressing both the hospital staff and Nao-chan.” Aburame Tonbo tells his teammate matter-of-factly. “The waiting room will serve its purpose, and I have placed my kikachu on Nao-chan already. They will alert us if anything happens.”

Ooh, the classic Aburame tic! He leans forward a little eagerly in the hopes that he can catch a glimpse of the aforementioned kikachu and wonders if it will scare anyone if he activates his Sharingan to look for them. What would kikachu look like to a Sharingan? How small does something have to be before even the Sharingan can’t perceive it? If something microscopic has chakra, would he see the thing or its chakra first?

The Inuzuka deflates. “...Fine. But you’ll tell us if anything happens, you hear? And I mean anything.”

He blinks. The atmosphere gains weight and crushes the air from his lungs in one long breath.

He’s suddenly hyperaware of every movement and breath he takes - the short little gasps he’s reduced himself to taking to minimise his importance as something killable sound far too loud even over the sound of his heartbeat and a shrill ringing noise that gains volume with every intake of air. He knows with certainty that he will die; the Inuzuka will tear out his throat before he can even think to blink or move or protect himself - surely if he stays very, very still, he’ll go unnoticed because if he moves he’ll die-

The windows and open space are suddenly too open and he’s a dark speck in a room full of white, a cockroach on a field of snow, too blindingly obvious - he needs to disappear or die so he isn’t heard and spotted and dragged out from under the house like a dog-

Someone moves in front of him. He stops breathing entirely.

Dark clothes, white mask - some distant part of his mind recognises the uniform and it doesn’t bring any comfort. Tears slip down his cheeks unbidden as they reach out to place a careful hand on his shoulder. The pressure on his lungs vanishes upon contact and he staggers forward a step, his clipboard falling from suddenly nerveless fingers to hit the floor with a crash that makes him flinch. A sob tears itself from his throat and he covers his face, furiously rubbing his eyes and swallowing the lump in his throat to stop himself from making any more noise.

That scared him. That scared the shit out of him. He doesn’t want to be in this fucking hospital anymore-

The hand on his shoulder shakes him gently. His head jerks up on instinct and it’s still the same ANBU agent (who had he been expecting?), now with their other hand held out in silent invitation.

They can’t be from ROOT if they’re responding to emotional cues, he argues to himself as he steps forward and buries his face in their shoulder. His skinny little arms can barely wrap around the agent’s neck so he digs his fingers into the back of their vest and tries his hardest not to cry. He doesn’t quite manage it; when their arms wrap around him to hold him carefully against them he lets out a sad little noise he’d be ashamed to admit to and presses his face deeper into their shoulder to muffle any further sound.

There’s an explosion of noise before them both and he flinches, fingers spasming against the agent’s back, caught between fight or flight. For one wild moment, he reaches down into his pool of chakra, grasping, ready to activate his Sharingan and do…something, anything; but the ANBU agent picks him up with one hand placed carefully on his head and takes them both out of the room. He hopes they aren’t a ROOT agent sent to kidnap him - his legs can’t even fully wrap around their waist.

He sniffles a little and pulls his head out of their shoulder enough to wipe his face on his sleeve. He doesn’t remember himself ever being this sensitive, he thinks to himself despondently as he resettles his head against the agent’s neck. That weighty feeling had to’ve been killing intent or something because he’d never felt something so intense that it felt as if it affected his surroundings as well.

Hell, he’s never felt anything so intense as the emotions he’s felt over the past week. He hopes this isn’t an indicator of how things will continue to be for the rest of his life, because he doesn’t want to burst into tears at every minor inconvenience that comes his way. He’s already not looking forward to dealing with people under the unfortunately correct assumption that he’s a six-year-old snot-nosed brat - he doesn’t want to have the emotional regulation of one as well.

They’re in the waiting room now and the atmosphere is much calmer, even if a few of his fellow stickybeaks are returning to their seats looking far too gleeful about the confrontation. Usually he’d be one of the same, but he can’t shake the utter dread that’s settled into his bones in the face of the Inuzuka’s killing intent. His hands are still shaking and while keeping them clenched is probably not helping, he fears if he isn’t holding tightly onto something he’ll crumble like a house of cards.

ANBU agent Ram hands the bored-looking woman at the receptionist’s desk with a passing resemblance to the Nara his discharge form. She takes it without looking and drones out some half-hearted social nicety that he tunes out - it’s nothing that he hasn’t heard or said before - and he hurriedly tries to compose himself when he remembers he’s supposed to be meeting his minder here. Sure, crying can be explained by the fact that he’s a six-year-old that’s just gone through some horrific trauma; but he’s trying to look responsible, not pitiful, goddamnit. He can’t afford to be looked down on by the person who’s supposed to be helping him.

“Uchiha Sasuke-san?”

Both he and Ram turn. In his peripherals, the maybe-Nara woman’s head jerks up.

A woman bearing a striking resemblance to Sayuri steps briskly towards them, a smile fixed on her face that looks to be more out of habit than any genuine joy to see them. Her expression does soften when she takes a good look at his face, but that’s just because he currently looks as pathetic as a kicked and half-drowned rat. Uncharitably, he hopes her pity will let her turn a blind eye to her mission of taking whatever the Hokage wants from him; but looking at the T&I uniform and the way her expression smooths back into a placid smile, he sincerely doubts it.

Great. Someone actually competent at their job. Just what he needed.

He’s only being half sarcastic.

“My name is Hoshino Natsume, and I’ll be helping you sort through all the problems you’ve been saddled with as of late. Please call me Natsume. I look forward to working with you, Uchiha-san.”

And she bows. The action stuns him enough that for a moment he forgets he needs to reply. Okay, it’s one thing to assume a position of authority without any qualifications besides being born lucky - he hasn’t even claimed the spot of Uchiha Clan Head yet! What the hell is this woman on - and it’s another to trust and respect that claim for seemingly no reason at all. Hoshino Natsume doesn’t seem like the type to pander to a child just to - what, climb the social ladder? There’s very little he can do for her now, and he doubts he’ll be able to facilitate any more opportunities for her even after he’s established himself in the village’s social hierarchy. She could try for an emotional ploy, and he reckons she might even get away with it since he is in no way prepared to deal with the manipulations of someone of T&I’s calibre, no matter how suspicious he is of her; but again, there’s very little he can do for her.

He unclenches his hands from Ram’s back and clears his throat. The sound is grotty and catches on the snot that he wipes on his sleeve. “You can put me down. Thank you.” He adds as a hasty afterthought. He feels all of his body’s six years as Ram has to bend down to put him back on the floor. The height difference is humbling.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Natsume-san.” He says as he bemoans the fact that he has to look up to meet her eyes. He wishes he remembered the difference in degrees of Japanese bows as he does so shallowly. A lot of his foreign mannerisms are riding on the assumption that people will excuse a six-year-old for having no grasp on social niceties, he thinks despondently as he straightens up again. Ram had disappeared the moment he had looked away and he misses the company - however brief - as he shoves his hands into his pockets to hide the lingering tremors.

The smile hasn’t moved from Natsume’s face, so he thinks he’s in the clear. “If you’d like, Sasuke-san, we could take a walk first before we do anything complicated. I’ve heard that the food at the hospital leaves much to be desired.”

Her eyes crinkle like they’ve just shared a secret joke. She’s very pretty, he thinks distantly, the kind of beautiful that would make mothers bully their sons about marrying. He would probably admire her more if he didn’t find her smile so unsettling.

“I think the food’s fine.” He says faintly. “It could’ve been worse. I wouldn’t mind starting now, if you - please.”

“That’s not a problem, Sasuke-san. Please follow me.”

He has to take three steps for every one of hers as he follows her, squinting, into the bright morning sunlight. The feeling of eyes against his skin slides off with the quiet closure of the hospital door behind him and the morning bursts into bird songs that he has never heard before in his life. He hasn’t seen the flora before, either; he’s used to skinny trees and scrub brush, not the thick-trunked monoliths that line the path to the main door of the hospital, or any of the ornamental bushes that fill out the park on either side of the path. The grass looks plush and vibrant instead of stick-y and yellowed. It’s a novelty that he unconsciously slows down to appreciate, and he startles once he realises that Natsume has stopped entirely because of how far behind he is.

“...Natsume-san.” He calls out. She tilts her head in the same fashion as the ANBU agents he’s seen and walks back to join him. He instinctively tries to roll his shoulders back out of his habitual slouch to appear more confident than he actually is. “I would like to memorise the scenery. If the Sharingan is going to disturb you, you might want to look away for a bit.”

“I won’t mind.” Natsume tells him simply. He’s not sure how much he believes her - but if it turns out that she can’t handle the sight of the Sharingan, then he can use that to argue against having a minder. If she can, then…there’s not much he can do with that.

He lets his gaze drop to the dirt path beneath their feet and unfocuses his eyes as he reaches down inside himself to his main chakra pool. Hopefully one day activating his Sharingan will be automatic enough that he won’t need those precious few seconds of focus and careful chakra allocation. He blinks, and the world is brighter and more alive than the hospital could’ve ever been.

He’s sure he’s probably making a fool of himself as he stares, slack-jawed, at their surroundings, but the ambient chakra is so much more prominent outside than within the confines of man-made walls. He tracks the path of a squirrel - a squirrel! Isn’t that insane? He’s used to seeing possums up trees and squirrels in illustrated storybooks - up the trunk of a tree and into the leaves where he can barely identify its chakra signature from the tree’s ambient chakra. His eyes greedily lock in on every movement in their environment and switch to the next point of focus just as quickly - from the movement of leaves in the breeze to the small movement of something in the grass to the flight of a bird overhead to even the slightest shifting of the dirt path as the breeze blows across it. It’s incredible.

It’s bloody overwhelming.

His last point of contact before he screws his eyes shut with a wince is Natsume. She’d made some sort of movement that his eyes had been drawn to, and in the short moment before he’d closed his eyes the Sharingan had picked out every individual detail of her and memorised it; she had small stains around the wrists of her T&I jacket and he’d seen the peek of a white undershirt within the sleeve itself; he could see every one of the flyaways that escaped her tight braid and the small white scar poking out of the corner of her mouth. He really didn’t need to see her in that much detail, and he couldn’t even forget it. That’d teach him to recklessly use a dojutsu he still didn’t fully understand.

The world looks much more washed out than before when he opens his eyes again, but at least it’s manageable. His eyes don’t hurt, but he rubs at them as if they do.

“All right, Sasuke-san?” Natsume asks gently. He nods.

“Just a lot to take in. Sorry. We can go now.”

“Okay. Let me know if you start feeling strange, alright? As a member of Konoha’s Intelligence Department,” She notably doesn’t tack on the first word of the title. “I’m trained in first aid, and the hospital staff will be willing to assist however they can if necessary. Don’t be afraid to speak up.”

The thought is appreciated, if with hesitance, but he’s already decided that Kakashi’s wariness of the hospital is completely valid and intends to treat the place much the same. Not that he’s going to pick up any more of the man’s bad habits. He hopes. If he wakes up one day to find that he’s adopted all of Kakashi’s bad habits - and if he wakes up as yet another Naruto character entirely he will lose it - then no one other than maybe Itachi himself will be able to stop him from ending the Uchiha line for good. By suicide, that is - not castration. For all that he’s discomforted by his dick, his feelings towards it are not so extreme that he’d chop it off out of despair. That at least would be an overreaction.

But he nods again all the same. Hospital = evil, cold white walls and angry people with no qualms about throwing their killing intent around, even if the staff are nice. Since Natsume is from T&I, she probably knows he’s lying, but if she isn’t going to say anything then he isn’t going to shoot himself in the foot by speaking first. As it is, the corner of her mouth quirks up but she doesn’t speak, merely motioning with her hand for him to follow her and walking forward again.

“Our first stop will be the Administration offices in the Hokage Tower to get all of your father,” She glances back at him. He’s not sure what she’s looking for; probably some reaction to the notion of a father now that he doesn’t have one. (He’d lost two sets of parents that night. Though no one will know but him, and he’s not telling). A lump grows in his throat and he forces himself to think about other things, like the architecture of the buildings he can see as they exit the hospital grounds. It occurs to him that she’s going to start saying things that he’ll need to remember, so he hurriedly pulls his notebook and pen out of his pocket.

“All of your father’s authority as clan head signed over to you. That’ll make it easier to access any documentation related to your clan. That means wills, bank accounts,” He relaxes at the mention. Good. He won’t go hungry in the near future. It’s probably dumb to think, but he hopes the Uchiha clan will have enough funds to support him for the next six years until he can start making his own money. “Police and shinobi records, preexisting trade agreements, and so on. We won’t get through it all today, so don’t feel pressured to finish it all in one go. I expect today will be more of an introduction to what your new responsibilities are and planning for the delegations you’ll have to make over the next two weeks. Okay?”

He scribbles down the things she said he’d need access to in his notebook, repeating the words under his breath to make sure he knows what he’s writing. Once she stops, he goes to write the date at the top of the page, then pauses. Well, shit.

…He doesn’t need to know the date, right? For the title, he just writes ‘Notes’. He looks up and picks up his pace once he realises he’s fallen behind again. Curse his short little legs. He’ll have to re-cultivate his former quick pace and hope he hits a growth spurt soon. He misses having long legs.

As he stops focusing on what he’s writing and Natsume’s words now that she’s giving him time to mull them over, he realises that a lot of people are staring. At him. He’s not sure if he’s surreptitious enough with the way he glances around for anyone not looking, but damnit, if people are going to stare, they should expect to be stared at back.

It’s as he’s looking that he realises his dark and pale colouring stands out from the general Konoha populace as they titter into their hands and turn away when he catches them looking, as if he’s the one they should be afraid of and not the T&I agent three steps ahead of him. For hair colours, he sees shades of brown and blond and occasionally a shade closer to auburn. Uzumaki influence, he reasons distantly. The most common skin tone he sees is tan; while some are lighter-skinned, none can match the pallid colour he sees when he lowers his gaze to his hands.

“Chin up, Sasuke-san.” Natsume murmurs as she falls back into step with him. “People will always stare at what they find to be the latest curiosity. Keep your head held high and don’t give them any reason to bring you low, okay?”

He knows that logically, but knowing it doesn’t stop his skin from crawling or the stares from following them down the street. He’s half tempted to activate his Sharingan with the excuse of memorising the trip from the hospital to the Hokage Tower - something his mind is already doing by picking out landmarks as he passes them - and give the civilians something real to gossip about, but he knows it’s just his mind trying to lash out his discomfort. Again, knowing it logically doesn’t make him feel any less uncomfortable, but it stops him from doing anything stupid and inevitably embarrassing himself. He hopes the Hokage Tower isn’t too far away.

They turn a corner and he startles.

He has never seen Mount Rushmore before except in pictures, but he imagines the Hokage Face Rock is much the same. It’s…strange - as if the past week has been anything but - to see the past Hokage depicted realistically when he’s used to seeing their faces as cartoons on paper. Minato’s hair actually looks like it abides by the rules of physics - it’s slightly wavy and whoever the sculptor was had taken great care to depict how it couldn’t quite sit flat regardless of any attempt at taming it. Tobirama’s hair is curly, not spiky, and he feels a surge of solidarity for the man because of it. He wonders where the curly hair gene comes from, because what of Hashirama’s hair he can see is straight. Maybe his absent mother, he thinks to himself as he struggles to keep up with Natsume’s normal walking pace. Because heaven forbid an anime character has a living mother.

He goes back to looking at his surroundings because a supposed Konoha native probably shouldn’t be goggling at a rock they’ve probably seen all their life.

The average height of a building is two to three stories. He gets the impression that they’re on some sort of main street since they’re heading towards the Hokage Face Rock and most of the first-floor sections of the buildings are shopfronts. The road is wide and paved - surprisingly, considering that the path leading up to the hospital had been dirt - and people move out of the way of carts and wagons like schools of fish. They give him and Natsume a wide berth as well, though their eyes linger longer and he feels more than sees eyes on his back. He shoves his notebook, pen and hands back into his pockets and walks with his shoulders hunched. Not out of fear or nervousness, though he’s certainly feeling the latter; making himself as small as possible is just a habit that even he’s not sure how it started. It doesn’t help now that he’s a political spectacle and draws the eye naturally. Maybe he should dye his hair or get a tan or something.

He snorts to himself in amusement. Wouldn’t it be funny if Itachi rocked up to Konoha like the hammer of god only to find out that his precious baby brother whom he killed for has decided he’s going to blow their family’s money on looking like a gyaru fashionista? He thinks of himself facing off against Itachi with as terrible a bleach job as Subaru from the hospital, dressed in a gaudy leopard-print fur coat with a pleated mini skirt and chunky boots and has to cover his mouth to muffle his amusement. He probably looks insane to those watching and his thoughts are just the same. The look on Itachi’s face would be priceless - and now he’s genuinely considering doing it just for the look on his face. He would probably get beaten within an inch of his life for ‘dishonouring the Uchiha clan’ or just generally looking disrespectful but the thought alone would keep him giggling like a psych patient for years.

“Something funny, Sasuke-san?” Natsume asks. He presses his lips together to unsuccessfully repress a shit-eating grin.

“Just thought of something ridiculous.” He tells her. He refuses to explain what because he might end up seeing the inside of her workplace from the perspective of an inmate, and he wants to avoid that at all costs. There’s only so much he can excuse with trauma.

The corners of her eyes crinkle warmly. “I’m glad.” She says, and doesn’t ask further questions. He focuses his eyes ahead and tries to think of something else so he doesn’t start laughing again. He’s not going to think of gyaru Itachi; it’s ridiculous and probably uncharitable to his memory. He’s not going to imagine Itachi in faux fur and overdone makeup. He isn’t.

He’s failing miserably, and so is his composure. Tears sting his eyes as he bites his lip to keep himself from laughing out loud and for once they’re tears of mirth, not fear or anger or anything negative. Only positive vibes here, people; positive vibes and gyaru Itachi-

“Um - excuse me?”

He nearly walks into Natsume’s back as she steps in front of him to protect him from the stooped old man who’s called out to them from within his shop. He lets out all of his amusement in a raspberry of breath and does his best to compose himself as the man hesitantly draws closer now that he knows Natsume won’t take his head off for the transgression of approaching him, even if she won’t let him get within arm’s reach.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you.” He tells the man. He can’t help grinning like a fool - gyaru Itachi! No, stop, bad - but he’s trying anyway. Hopefully he comes off as jovial and not manic. “Um…were you asking for Natsume-san?”

“Oh - no. Um. I was asking for you, Uchiha-san - Uchiha-sama?” The man tries to take another step forward, then retreats when Natsume gives him a pointed look. He’s cradling an apple in his hands. “I’m sorry, I don’t know…”

“Uchiha-san is fine.” He tells the man as his mood calms down to something more appropriate for social interactions. Uchiha-sama will come later, and this old man seems like a nice guy. He has no idea who he is or how he’s supposed to know him, though. “What do you need?”

The old man gracefully rescues him from his ignorance. “You may not know me, Uchiha-san, but my name is Akamatsu Daichi. My daughter’s husband was an Uchiha. They didn’t part on the best of terms, and I’m ashamedly grateful that their divorce is likely the reason why my Toka-chan is alive today - but she had children, a wonderful little boy and a little girl, and she loved them even after she parted from their father. I loved them. They were the most wonderful grandchildren and I loved them wholeheartedly, and now to hear that they…”

Daichi trails off with a sniffle and covers his face to compose himself. The apple in his hand is damning. He looks at the old man with his bright apron and his greying hair and his eyes are unwillingly drawn to the bracelet around the wrist of the hand that’s covering Daichi’s face. It’s nothing special; in fact, it looks like it’s been made by children.

His mind combs through red memories looking for a young boy and a young girl with anything in common with the grandfather before him now. The corpses of children superimpose themselves over reality until he finds the memories of children killed in pairs. Two in particular stand out to him; a sister with her throat slit for the crime of protecting her sleeping brother with her life and being left to drown in her own blood as The Boy plunged his tanto through the sleeping boy’s eye up to the hilt. The boy’s comforter had been patterned with a sun peeking out from behind the clouds. The girl’s final thrown kunai had a camellia charm attached to the ring. She was wearing pyjamas that looked like a police uniform.

The second pair was a brother who had died on the street with a kunai buried in the back of his skull after he’d jumped out of a second-story window to avoid The Boy; his sister had barely wriggled her way out from under her brother’s corpse before The Boy separated her head from her body and left it rolling across the street. The snot and tears on her face left muddy streaks across her face and her eyes kept moving even after her head was no longer attached to her neck. Her hair had been tied in two short braids. Even in death, her brother had one hand out reaching towards his sister. He had been wearing a bracelet that looked the same as the one Daichi wore now.

The reminder of the man before him brings him back to some semblance of awareness. His breathing is too loud, his sight is blurred and Natsume’s hand on his shoulder feels like a brand. The sunlight stings his eyes - or maybe those are just tears. The sight of the apple on the counter makes him shudder in revulsion. It’s far too bright a red. Why can’t it be green, or yellow? It makes him sick to his stomach.

“Breathe, Sasuke-san. Breathe.”

What the fuck does Natsume think he’s doing? If anything, he’s breathing too much. He draws one final breath and holds it, closing his mouth and covering it with his hands in case the nausea he feels crawls up his throat. He drops his gaze to the road beneath his feet to avoid looking at the apple and his gaze finds Natsume’s instead.

“That’s it. Hello again, Sasuke-san. Can you focus on my voice for me, please? You need to breathe. Copy what I’m doing, okay? Let your breath go, and inhale again. Like this.”
He looks at her uncomprehendingly as she slows her breathing down for him to copy. If he opens his mouth, he’s going to throw up. If he tries to breathe again, it’s not going to come out right.

He wriggles out from under her hand and stumbles five paces to the right to throw up as close to the gap between Daichi’s store and the next building he can get. He sinks to his knees, clutching his stomach, and purges it of what little he’d eaten that day and regretted having. Snot and saliva drip in gooey strings from his face, just like Tomoe as she scrambled away from The Boy and her brother's body as fast as she could. She wasn’t fast enough.

What little air he can gather between vomits is wasted on the cries that he can’t help as his mind replays the final moments of the siblings’ terror over and over again. Will the nail marks on the floorboards still be there? Is their blood still on the windowsill? What happened to Tomoe’s kunai plushie? Had Tokito completed his homework before he died? Had they known their father had died moments before them, cut down without a thought for the kitchen knife he wielded inexpertly in self-defence?

He’s not sure how long he crouches there, heaving and gasping and sobbing into the ground. Natsume didn’t try to touch him after the first full-body flinch, but he can sense more than see her lingering behind him as he runs out of food to throw up and water to leak from his eyes. The acidity of his vomit stings his nose and he straightens, one hand on the wall to steady himself as he tries to calm down.

Deep breaths, deep breaths. Inhale for five counts, hold your breath for three, exhale for five. Repeat. Don’t inhale for longer than three counts or you’ll hyperventilate again.

Wipe your face on your sleeve. Think to yourself that you need to get some tissues. Cling to that slice of normalcy to drag yourself out of your despair. Deep breaths, deep breaths.

He looks up.

Daichi looks equal parts guilty and distraught, hands hovering midair like he’s not quite sure what to do with them or himself. He forces himself to look away from the bracelet on his wrist.

“I’m sorry,” He begins in a voice raspy and choked despite his attempt to compose himself. Daichi opens his mouth to speak and he talks over him. “I’m sorry for…your grandchildren. I…” I saw them, he didn’t say. “They were good. Great kids. I wish…”

He viciously rubs the tears from his eyes. “I wish they hadn’t died like that.” He whispers brokenly, unable to muster a stronger tone. God, they didn’t deserve that. Not Tokito and Tomoe, not Akira and Asano, not the multitudes of other children whose bodies flashed across the forefront of his mind when his mind unwillingly searched for the deaths of Daichi’s grandchildren.

The Tsukuyomi is terrible for two reasons.

One is the repeated view of the hundreds of murders The Boy committed in one night and the assurance that he will never, ever forget them. Not just the corpses themselves, but every intimate detail of how they died.

The second is that it burns the knowledge of people he’s only ever known as side characters, bodies to fill in Sasuke’s tragic backstory, into his brain and commits it to his memory that they were people. Real-life people - as real as his life is now, anyway - with names and personalities and histories beyond what little the anime showed. They're not cartoon characters on a screen anymore; the Uchiha clan was a family of people that he now has to live with the knowledge of who they were and how they died, and he doubts even amnesia would take away any of the knowledge that The Boy seared into his brain.

And he has to live with that.

“I’m sorry too.” Daichi tells him in a low, trembling voice. Tokito inherited the shape of his eyes and Tomoe got the round curve of his jaw. He swallows drily. “I’m sorry. I should’ve known that my pain could never compare to yours, Uchiha-kun. Please forgive me.”

The man bows, and his posture trembles. Natsume watches them evenly from the street.

“Your pain is just as valid as mine.” He tells the man. His stomach roils, and he hopes it’s just discomfort at having an elderly man bow to him and not more sickness. “You lost loved ones too. I may know how they died, but you know how they lived, and I think that makes their…loss equally as devastating for both of us. Please stand; it’s uncomfortable when people keep bowing to me.”

Daichi raises his head. His eyes are red-rimmed and teary. “Blessings upon you, Uchiha-kun. I know it isn’t much, but please know that the Uchiha clan will always have a supporter in me. If there’s anything you need at all, don’t hesitate to ask. I will help in any way I can.”

He nods and tries to swallow back the lump in his throat. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He whispers. “I’m sorry, but I have to go. Thank you for your words.”

“Anytime. Anything at all, Uchiha-kun. Please remember.” Daichi reaches for the apple and he averts his eyes. “Um. I know it’s not much, but…”

“I’m sorry, Akamatsu-san, but we have to go. Thank you for your offering regardless.” Natsume says as she steps in smoothly. When he looks up at her, he can see that all movement behind her has stopped; people hurriedly start trying to look like they were doing anything else as they notice him looking. He nods in agreement with Natsume as Daichi looks at him and can only muster the ghost of a smile.

“Thank you.” He repeats quietly. Daichi’s answering smile looks just as wobbly as he feels. He takes two steps back to Natsume’s side and distracts himself by trying to match her pace again as she walks forward without a care in the world. She doesn’t try to comfort him, offer platitudes or even mention the interaction at all, and he’s not sure if he feels resentful or grateful to her for that.

He feels like his dog, despondent air and wet nose and all. He needs to get some tissues or his sleeve is going to be absolutely grotty by the end of the day. He needs to stop getting worked up over apples and the mention of dead relatives, since that’s what he’s going to be dealing with moving forward. Yes, he knows logically that he can’t help but get triggered over every little thing after having hundreds of people’s deaths burned into his brain, but logic doesn’t mesh well with emotion and emotion demands that he get his fucking act together because the amount of fits he’s had is getting ridiculous. He can’t even enjoy being in Konoha, a Naruto fan’s dream, he thinks morosely as he looks past Natsume’s blonde head up at the Hokage Face Rock, because he keeps getting whacked in the face with flashbacks and every unpleasant little thing that sets him off. For goodness sake, apples used to be the one fruit he could count on to be satisfying to eat every time, and now he can’t even think of them without remembering spinning red eyes and the way his teeth had sunk into The Boy’s skin.

His mouth tastes like stomach acid; his mouth tastes like skin and sweat and blood. He tries to swallow with what little saliva he can gather in his mouth. He’s not going to lose control of his emotions again.

The top of the Hokage Tower finally comes into the reach of his much lower field of view. He’d thought curved metal bars on top were part of the roof of some other appropriately threatening building, like the T&I department or something. They look far too foreboding to be on top of the Hokage tower like the teeth of some underground eel; its eye is a round sign with the kanji for fire on it and the body of the eel gradually fattens in three stories as they get closer until it disappears into the ground below. He catches a glimpse of another round structure nestled against the Tower and changes his mental comparison to a hydra instead.

The outer walls of the tower are bright, skin-crawling red. That alone sours his opinion of it greatly.

“Would you like a moment to compose yourself, Sasuke-san? There are a few cafes around the Tower we can stop in to take a break. Again, you don’t need to do everything today. It’s fine if you want to stop now.” Natsume tells him. He thinks he feels better and is going to say so when he sniffles. God, he sounds pathetic. A wet rat could exude more confidence than him right now.

“I don’t think I’ll look any better unless we take a break for, like, an entire day.” He tells her. His voice sounds nasally. He clears his throat to see if that will help as Natsume chuckles softly. “Let’s just get something over with. I don’t expect to stop finding things to cry about anytime soon, so it’s pointless to stop just to calm down otherwise we’ll never get anything done.”

“It’s okay to take a break, Sasuke-san. It’s practically expected of you, given what you’ve been through. You don’t need to force yourself through your discomfort if it’s affecting you this much.” She replies mildly.

“The work’s not going to go away if I just lay in bed and cry.” He answers stubbornly. He doesn’t want to go back to the compound anyway, especially not after his newest reminder of what transpired there a few nights ago. “And I can’t avoid my triggers forever. I don’t even know what all of them are. Besides, I’d rather have something to do than just mope around all day making myself feel worse. I only have two weeks before I have to go back to school anyway, so I can’t afford to sit around.”

“I’m sure the Hokage can be convinced to delay your return to the Academy if you can’t complete your duties within the two weeks he’s given you.” The easy certainty and the smile on Natsume’s face as she says it is chilling. No wonder such a nice-looking woman ended up in T&I, he thinks to himself nervously. “You can’t help your emotions, after all, and it’s worse for you if you repress them rather than express them freely. Trust me; I’ve seen many prime candidates for emotional repression pass through T&I, and all of them have cracked in the worst ways. So don’t be afraid to feel your feelings, Sasuke-san.”

He immediately thinks of Kakashi, tries to imagine how an interaction between him and this terrifying woman would go, and winces. There is no universe where that wouldn’t end with Kakashi fleeing the scene like hell itself were after him, unless it was the universe where Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts. He wishes he were in that universe right now…but he’d prefer his own even more.

“...I’ll keep that in mind.” He tells her, like a liar. He's not sure if it’s her or his own guilt for lying that makes her smile look a touch more foreboding.

But she does nothing but hum thoughtfully. “As long as you keep that in mind.” Is all she says as she leads the way towards the Hokage Tower.

The number of civilians lessens the closer they get to the entrance of the Tower. Through the gate set within the walls that encircle the tower, he squints as he gets his first real look at the shinobi of Konoha appearing out of thin air before the main doors and hurrying inside without looking back. Most have scrolls in their hands. He itches to activate his Sharingan and observe - god, what he wouldn’t give to be able to disappear and reappear at will like that - but restrains himself with the knowledge that startling any shinobi is bound to have much deadlier consequences than scaring a non-combative medic. His ANBU protectors would probably get him out of the line of fire should anything happen, but he doesn’t want to risk it. And there’s Natsume to think about as well. For all that she’s mildly terrifying and a T&I agent to boot, he doesn’t want to get her killed by accident because he startled the wrong person and didn’t realise that she’s actually a genin or something until it’s too late. She’s a decent enough person who doesn’t deserve that (and he doesn’t want to have any more deaths burned into his memory).

But Natsume doesn’t lead him to the main tower and instead veers off to the right, to one of the smaller hydra-heads. It looks a lot less nerve-wracking than the belly of the beast, and for that he’s grateful. He’ll probably have to enter the main tower at some point for something or other eventually, but the later he can put it off, the less he’ll worry about it until the day finally comes.

The tower they’re heading towards has trees growing out of its roof. He has no idea how such big trees are surviving on a roof when he imagines their root systems must be at least the same size as the trees themselves with nowhere to go. They must have big-ass pots, or there’s some mokuton tomfoolery going on. Maybe the roots are just dangling into the floor below them and making everyone uncomfortable. He hopes not. That can’t be a good working environment; though if the hospital is any indication, Konoha doesn’t have a good track record with good work environments. Then again, anywhere with no existing child labour laws would be. Kishimoto is decidedly not an OSHA agent, he thinks to himself as Natsume reaches forward to open the door for them both. Lord protect us from a society without the Geneva Convention. Does the concept of war crimes even exist here?

They probably exist as a hazard of the job, he thinks unkindly as he enters the building before Natsume with a nod. Any self-respecting UN peacekeeper would froth at the mouth at the concept of the T&I department alone. Bloodline purges? Literal genocide. The Uchiha Massacre is literally a genocide in the very dictionary definition of the word.

…Does that mean Itachi is comparable to a certain disgraced Austrian painter turned dictator?

His brain stutters over the implications as his eyes take in the reception of what must be the general administration building. There’s a man at the reception desk with tired eyes and auburn hair who glances up once, looks down at his desk again, and then does a double-take. He cringes at first, thinking it’s because of him, but the man nearly knocks over his chair in his haste to receive them. “Ah - Hoshino-san! And-” The receptionist’s eyes dart to him and away just as quickly. “Uchiha-kun. Please, this way.”

Natsume’s smile widens and he watches the man’s face drain of colour in real-time. He gains greater respect and a healthy amount of fear of the woman the Hokage assigned to mind him. Where was Natsume in canon? Natsume should’ve been Fifth Hokage. Granted, being a better Hokage candidate than Hiruzen (both times) isn’t a very high bar to clear.

Realistically, she probably got picked off by Danzo for breathing the same air as an impressionable young Uchiha. Or she never got assigned to look after Sasuke in the first place. Hiruzen isn’t exactly known for his good decisions, so perhaps this was just a fluke.

The receptionist leads them past two rows of desks manned by a mix of bored chunin and bored civilians. He watches them all instinctively lean away from the sight of Natsume as she follows the receptionist with the same casual, even pace and the same bland smile pasted on her face. Objectively, it looks like the poor man is prey before a larger predator, leading them both towards something Natsume wants in the hopes it will distract her from ripping his head off or something equally as unpleasant as whatever she did to strike terror into the hearts of the administrative staff in the first place. It would be funnier if he wasn’t currently three paces behind said predator and getting mildly concerned for his own well-being. He hopes to God that he never does anything to incur the wrath of one Hoshino Natsume.

Their surroundings darken as the receptionist takes them deeper into the building, down a hallway lit only by yellow lights overhead. The hallway is laid out similarly to the corridors he’d seen in the hospital, with plain walls and nondescript doors that have no indication as to what or where they lead. Finally, the receptionist stops in front of a door that looks the same as all the others and shrinks into himself as Natsume stops right at his shoulder.

“Clan records and associated documentation are h-here.” The man’s breath stutters in his throat as Natsume leans forward to inspect the door for…something. “Um. But you knew that already. If you need anything…you know what to do as well, I guess…um. I’ll uh. Leave you to it?”

The receptionist sounds more like he’s asking permission to leave than outright stating he’s going to. Natsume ignores him and opens the door, only reregistering his existence when she looks back to beckon him to follow her.

“Hm? Ah yes. No need to worry, Asuka-kun. We’ll be fine here; you can go.” And just as the man’s shoulders slump in relief, she meets his gaze directly and her eyes curve up. “Tell Amai-chan I say hello, will you?”

He hurriedly ducks inside the room under Natsume’s arm as the man behind him lets out a breathless whimper. Poor, poor Asuka, he thinks to himself as he watches Natsume ghost through the room full of old boxes and a single dusty wooden desk. And poor, poor me. If I get killed here, no one will find my body. The administration department would take any secret of Natsume’s to their graves if only to save their own skins.

…I wonder how well Natsume would match up against Itachi.

Chapter Text

He finds out that the room is a death trap for asthmatics because the clans of Konoha are so secretive that they only dump the bare minimum of information on their clans in it every year just to avoid the administrative hassle it would be if they didn’t. Changes in headships are usually filed as afterthoughts. The record for the longest time it had taken for a change of headship form to come through was held by the current Hatake Clan Head, Natsume told him, who still hasn’t filed his paperwork to date. Kakashi hasn’t attended any Clan Councils or fulfilled any of his duties as befitting a Clan Head either, so it’s not like it really matters - but the look on Natsume’s face implies that it does to her.

He sends a mental prayer to whatever god exists in the Narutoverse for Kakashi’s safety. While Kakashi may be an S-ranked Hokage candidate with infamy behind both of the masks he wears, he’s pretty sure the man’s never tried going up against someone so pants-shittingly terrifying as Hoshino Natsume. Forget Chidori or his alleged collection of thousands of copied jutsu, Natsume would ruin his life to the point where Sakumo’s death would look like an underreaction.

Then again…Kakashi doesn’t have much of a life to ruin. Does he even have friends? Natsume could probably just scare him by having general knowledge of the topic of mental health and enough of a grudge to weaponize it against him.

“Do you know who the Hatake Clan Head is, Sasuke-san?” Natsume asks, deceptively mild, as she flicks through a cardboard box containing something only she knows. Probably something relating to the Uchiha, but she hasn’t said so if it is; he’s keeping himself busy by trying to wipe down the desk with his shirt without killing them both via dust inhalation. That would be a very anticlimactic way to die. Itachi might actually pop a blood vessel. What’s he going to do if that happens, fight the dust?

…He should probably stop making jokes at Itachi’s expense when the boy isn’t even here to defend himself. But that’s Itachi’s own fault; if he didn’t want to be made fun of then maybe he shouldn’t’ve killed the Uchiha clan. Besides, fear of the name increases the fear of the thing itself, and all that. He’s desensitising himself. Go team.

“I heard my dad say something about a Hatake Kakashi once?” He offers. Fugaku had probably mentioned Kakashi in passing at least once. He doubts someone walking around with one of your family member’s eyes in his head is something you just forget.

Then again, that sounds like something he would do. He doubts Fugaku was the same, though. He’s a special kind of absent-minded.

“That’s him. He’s also the last of a great clan who lost his family very young, just like you.” Natsume closes the box with a thump and places two pieces of paper on the desk in front of him with deliberate care. The cheer in her voice is light and carries the distant promise of violence. He hopes it isn’t directed towards him as he pretends the bead of sweat trickling down the back of his neck is from poor ventilation. “But that doesn’t mean you have to emulate him. In fact, I’d rather you took him as an example of what not to do. He’s caused many headaches for us paper-nin across multiple departments, you see, and I’d rather you didn’t become like him if only to save us the trouble. Okay?”

She isn’t using killing intent, and for that he’s intensely grateful, but the impression of promised violence comes out just as clearly as her deliberately mild tone. If the threat of Natsume’s wrath isn’t enough to discourage him from adopting any more of Kakashi’s bad habits, he doesn’t know what is. He swallows and keeps his gaze on the change of headship forms on the desk so he won’t have to look at whatever expression is on Natsume’s face.

“I wasn’t planning to take after him in any way, but now I’ll definitely keep that in mind.” He mutters, half to himself. Kakashi is like the opposite of a role model. A role warning? A bad model? Natsume’s amused huff of breath ghosts by his ear, and he shivers.

“Good. I’ll take care of any supporting documentation requested in the forms, so don’t worry about that. Feel free to look through the forms to your heart’s content before you sign them. You’ve got all the time in the world.”

She pats his shoulder once, ignores the way he flinches at the touch, and drifts back over to the shelves to look at something else or give him the illusion of privacy. He’s not sure what he’d rather believe.

He walks around the desk to take a seat in the equally dusty chair and finds to his great displeasure that his stubby little legs can’t even scuff the floor when he’s sitting down. Natsume doesn’t make a comment about him needing a booster seat, but he’s imagining it, and that’s as good as reality. He pulls his pen out of his pocket and attempts to twirl it around his fingers before he grips it properly. His only success is that he doesn’t drop it.

It’s only two pages; surely it can't be that hard, right? He expects the bank to be much harder, so this will be like an appetiser before the main course. He can do this. He can do this.

…He jinxed himself.

What should arguably be the easiest part of the forms makes him pause, squint, and hunch his shoulders further in defeat. It is way more embarrassing than it should be to not know the date. He’s never had much need for it before beyond remembering friends’ birthdays and the occurrence of specific events, and he’s had to take out his phone in high school to remember what it was more than once - he even has an excuse! He’s fresh out of the hospital after waking up from a coma, of course he shouldn’t know the date!

It’s embarrassing all the same. His eyes are drawn back to the empty box repeatedly as he fills in the name of the current Hokage. Sarutobi Hiruzen; arguably the worst Hokage of all…and Kakashi had allegedly tried to blow up the moon.

Sasuke’s name is easy. He’s pretty sure ‘Uchiha’ is written in hiragana, and he writes Sasuke’s first name in hiragana as well because he can’t remember the katakana. Though having a cool, meaningful name would be neat, he’s eternally grateful that he doesn’t have to write any kanji. His handwriting is atrocious enough as it is.

Title?

…Do the members of the main family of the Uchiha Clan have titles? They were a noble clan, so maybe…what does their being a noble clan even mean, anyway? How did Kishimoto explain that - if at all?

He probably didn’t, and just said it because it sounded cool. Fucking Kishimoto. That man was the bane of his existence when he was a fanfiction writer - creation of the Naruto series notwithstanding - and he’s a bane on his actual existence now. As a fan of the series, he should be omniscient now that he’s actually in the universe; but the more he goes through what should be routine administrative tasks and thinks about the world as it now affects him, he realises he has more new questions than answers.

“...Do members of the Uchiha clan have titles?” He hedges. Natsume has a lot of administrative knowledge, but maybe titles would be something the clan would keep closer to their chests since nobility means nothing in a shinobi village-

“You would be Uchiha Sasuke, son of Uchiha Fugaku and Uchiha Mikoto, of the line of…”

“Madara.” He says the name without consciously thinking of doing so. He’s not sure if it’s him who says it or what remains of Sasuke. Or maybe it’s the memory of a lingering headcanon. He feels vaguely cold.

Natsume is silent for a moment. “Of the line of Madara, the first of your name. You could probably get away with tacking on some ostentatious and unnecessary titles at the end if you want to. I know the Hyuuga do.” Her dry tone at the mention tells him exactly how she feels about that.

“Like what?” He’s curious despite himself. Let it be known that it’s a rare occasion for him to pass on adding dramatic flair to any situation. He’s also a sucker for pretentiousness in writing as long as it isn’t directed towards him personally. He’d loved The Horse and His Boy from the Chronicles of Narnia purely for the florid language, so sue him.

Natsume snorts in amusement. “I think the last lengthy set of titles I remember was something like… Hyuuga Hitoshi, et cetera, the breaking dawn, the halo of the morning sun, he who rises first amongst his peers, the light of the stars, he who illuminates the moon…I can’t remember the full thing, but I do remember that his final title was ‘the concept of that which banishes the darkness itself’ purely because I’d never seen someone write something so pretentious and genuinely find no issue with it.”

Yeah; that takes a special kind of delusional. Or maybe narcissism. He should’ve known it would’ve been a Hyuuga. Who’s Hyuuga Hitoshi, though? He's never heard of them before, but they must be from the main branch if they’re allowed to get away with calling themselves ‘the concept of that which banishes the darkness itself’.

“...I’ll tack on something reasonable, then.”

Natsume turns to look at him pityingly. “Any extra titles are already pushing the boundaries of reason, Sasuke-san.”

He smiles crookedly at her. “Sasuke-dono?” He asks in a joking tone. He doesn’t expect her to actually use the method of address; he just wants to hear how it sounds. It tastes strange, like a pebble lodged awkwardly in his mouth.

Natsume snorts.

“Don’t you start.” She mutters, a grin in her voice, as she turns back to her self-appointed task of seemingly pulling boxes out from their spots on the shelves lining the walls at random. He’s smiling as well as he puts pen to paper again.

Title: Uchiha Sasuke, son of Uchiha Fugaku and Uchiha Mikoto, of the line of Madara, the first of his name; descendant of the sun, former brother to the moon - fuck you, Itachi - the supernova, the last of Amaterasu’s sons.

Clan?

In case it isn’t obvious enough already, Uchiha.

Relation to former clan head: son. At least, that’s who the body he’s wearing was.

He has no idea where the real Sasuke went - if they’ve swapped bodies then good fucking luck - or if he’s ever going to come back. He’s trying not to think about it, otherwise he’s going to spiral into nihilistic existentialism. And while that would be very Uchiha of him, that’s not the point.

Birth date? It’s sometime in July; the twenty-something-th? Twenty-first? Twenty-third? He doesn’t even want to try figuring out what year Sasuke was born; he doesn’t even know today’s date. He moves on to something hopefully more simple. Birthplace he can make an educated guess about. He writes down Konoha, because unless Sasuke’s parents knew something they didn’t admit to even in death, he’s probably right.

Current place of residence? Uh, Konoha again; he clarifies by adding Uchiha Compound.

Name of previous clan head? Uchiha Fugaku. He doesn’t know if Fugaku’s name is spelt with katakana or kanji, so he just writes it with hiragana. He writes Mikoto’s name under Previous Clan Head’s Spouse the same way.

Previous Heirs?

He pauses, pen hovering above the form. “Does Itachi still count as an heir? If our father made him heir, does that mean that he assumes headship and not me because our father presumably didn’t change the line of succession before he d- passed?”

“Uchiha Itachi legally ceased to be a Konoha citizen the moment he left the village.” Natsume tells him evenly. “So any legal document involving him is null and void. Usually, the clan or family of a missing-nin would handle their removal from service and clan records…”

She looks back at him from the circle of boxes she’s made on the floor. “But in your case, administration staff will handle his public and shinobi records. Any clan records will unfortunately be handled by you. You can destroy any evidence of his existence if you want; it’s your clan now. You could even revoke his status as an Uchiha if you so choose.”

That would be the funniest fucking thing ever and he definitely wants to do that now. Imagine that; Itachi, no longer able to use the name Uchiha. Would that mean that his eyes would be considered an act of bloodline theft?

Then again, he’s a criminal, so he could just…keep using the name - if he can’t get arrested for the murders of an entire clan then adding another admittedly minor crime isn’t going to do much - but it’s the principle of the matter. The best ‘fuck you’ he can give Itachi without the possibility of saying it to his face.

If worst comes to worst and he somehow convinces himself to let Itachi back into the clan, he could just adopt him, and that would be ten times funnier than even gyaru Itachi. Itachi as his younger brother’s adopted son! Unreal!

“How do I do that?” He asks eagerly. Natsume’s answering smile is sharp enough to cut metal. He’s glad her humour is shared with him and not directed at him, or he might cry. Again.

“Technically, Itachi has already been disowned when his legal status as a citizen of Konoha was revoked. Clan members and headship successions are clan matters, and since you are now the clan in its entirety - at least legally - you can remove him from your clan’s records and bypass his claim on Headship without worrying about the normal legalities.”

It’s probably very mean of him to feel such joy at the confirmation, but Itachi totally deserves it. He's definitely disowning him the first chance he gets - oooh, what if he sends out an amendment to the bounty offices to get them to remove his last name?

“Can you amend Bingo Book pages?” He asks far too gleefully. “Oh - does he have one yet?”

“I’m sure it can be delayed until you strike his name from your clan records.” Natsume says in a mild tone as she turns to face him fully. “But not for longer than a week. As I’m sure you can tell, late paperwork bothers me.”

He’s already shaking his head. “I’ll file for the change now just to get it through as soon as possible. Is there a form I have to fill out, or do I just drop by and say he’s been disowned?”

“We’ll drop by and let the branch staff know during lunch. How does that sound?” Natsume’s expression brightens with amusement now that she knows he isn’t going to doom himself by telling her to her face that he’s going to hand in paperwork late. He likes to think he wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that. He’s dumb, not suicidal. Though now he knows what sets her off, maybe he can use that to point and aim her anger at anyone who tries to obstruct him…

He nods vigorously and uses the confidence high he gets off bullying Itachi to ask “By the way, do you know what today’s date is?” He can probably speculate backwards to find Sasuke’s year of birth from there.

Damn, but assuming the headship of the Uchiha Clan is so much more fun than he originally anticipated. He’s going to be the best damn Uchiha Clan Head Konoha has ever seen - even though he’s soon to be a clan of one - just to spite Itachi. On what authority is Itachi going to tell him how to restore the Uchiha Clan’s honour now? He won’t be an Uchiha any more, and the only one who can dictate what the Uchiha clan is will be him!

That…

He slumps in his seat as his cheer drains from him. That’s a much graver thought than he’d intended. He’s not even Sasuke; who is he to dictate what the Uchiha Clan is, was, or will be now? Itachi’s the real heir for a reason - he probably has a much better grasp on Uchiha history and culture and everything else than a guy who read a series with an Uchiha deuteragonist. For all that he was fascinated by the clan when he was an outsider looking in, there’s very little he does know about the Uchiha Clan because it had never been the main focus of Naruto. They had been dead before the series even began, chronologically. For all the memories he has of the Uchiha Clan now that their deaths are burned into his brain, he still only knows them as corpses. The impressions of greater lives beyond what little Kishimoto’s supplementary material for the series did show aren’t his and will likely never feel like his, because he isn’t Sasuke.

Itachi may no longer hold any authority in the village of Konoha, but he has even less. It’s only the body he’s wearing that’s letting him get away with what he has.
Natsume plucks his pen from his grip and writes the date in the associated box for him, then kindly goes ahead and writes his date of birth for him as well. He watches her place the pen down again and half-heartedly tries to muster his previous motivation, but even his jokes at Itachi’s expense feel hollow now.

He needs to do this. He can’t afford to be petulant now; he asked for work to get it over with and that’s what he’s gotten. He can’t just give up now because he feels bad about something he doesn’t currently know how to change. With much greater effort than is outwardly visible, he sits up straight again and picks up his pen again.

Natsume is humming as she starts pulling files out of the boxes she’s gathered. He wonders if he should memorise the change of headship form and knows he’s only distracting himself.

Is the chosen successor to the ______ clan’s headship the current heir? Yes. Reason for change of headship?

He shouldn’t be surprised that ‘death of previous clan head’ is an option as common as marriage or abdication. It is a normal reason; he’s just seeing it through the lens of his current circumstances. The deaths that other clans usually tick the box for are probably natural. He hasn’t read about any Konoha clan other than the Uchiha and the Hatake who lost their clan head/s and clan members to foul play. He would add the Senju to the list, as it was never explicitly mentioned how Senju ‘the God of Shinobi’ Hashirama died, but apparently they’re still alive so they don’t qualify for membership in the decimated clans club.

He ticks that box off.

Date of former clan head’s passing: four days ago. How ironic.

Witnesses (if applicable): Uchiha Mikoto, Itachi of Konoha - not Uchiha anymore, you prick - and Uchiha Sasuke.

Successor’s appointed heir/s?

He wrinkles his nose. “Can I just write N/A for the successor’s heir section?” He asks. Surely they’ll overlook it given his extenuating circumstances. Or is he going to have to adopt someone at random to fill in the blank?

“Leave it blank.” Natsume tells him. She doesn’t look up from her task of pulling out random files and placing them on the floor. He isn’t going to ask. “You’ll need to update it once you grow up.”

As in, when he reaches the legal age of consent, or when he becomes an adult in the eyes of the law once he graduates? What is the legal age of consent here, anyway? He thinks in Japan it was sixteen, and in his own country it had been eighteen; would Kishimoto’s perception of laws bleed over into his work, or is it something completely different because it was never explored by the author and thus developed on its own? Do shinobi and civilians have different ages of consent, since shinobi are legally adults once they become genin? For shinobi, does the age of consent even matter? What are the laws that police underage sex and what happens if a shinobi - a legal adult - has a relationship with a civilian? Whose age of consent laws would the court adhere to and how would they interact?

…Are there separate shinobi and civilian courts? Surely there would be - but then whose authority do they defer to if the case involves contradictory laws for shinobi and civilians?

He shakes his head. He’s getting off-topic again. “Will that be once I make genin?”

Natsume pauses. “Probably.” She says after a moment of contemplation. “I doubt the council will expect you to have a biological heir by then, because that’s just ridiculous. But they will want you to have someone in mind to take care of the clan or dissolve it in the event of your death, and an attempt at reviving the clan will be expected of you when you’re of age. But that’s not something you have to worry about right now. Just leave the section about heirs blank for now.”

With that said, Natsume crouches among the files on the floor and begins sorting them into groups. He unsuccessfully tries to unstick his face from the grimace he had made at the mention of ‘clan revival’.

Ew. Kids. Sex. Revolting. Surely he could just adopt. Or maybe he could adopt Itachi, leave him with the responsibility of rebuilding the Uchiha clan - see how much he likes that, being obsessed with Uchiha honour and all - and disown himself so he can go off and scam some old rich guy out of his money to live in comfort for the rest of his life. Or he could take the Uchiha fortune with him as well because Itachi is a bitch and he doesn’t need money to repopulate the clan. He’s certainly got the looks to attract any woman he wants - though he might end up attracting more men than women with his feminine features. Hm.

Ah well. That’s Itachi’s problem.

So no heirs for now, and hopefully never. Finding a caretaker for the clan’s business can wait until he’s graduated. Current successor’s spouse? Same as his non-existent heir/s. Abhorring sex doesn’t mean he’s also disgusted with the idea of romantic love, but he has a lot more pressing matters to deal with than who he’d want to date. Not to mention that he’s far more mentally mature than his current physical age and he has no intention of dating anyone that he’s watched grow from a child into an adult. Even thinking about it makes him feel like a cradle robber. Dating anyone that matches his mental age is also out of the question because then they’re the cradle-robber, and if his hypothetical partner is fine with dating someone who is supposedly far younger than them, then that’s a pretty good indicator that he should stay far, far away from them. He’s not interested in going out to look for any of the very few people who match his very exacting criteria - especially not since the only person he can think of who meets them is Orochimaru, to whom gender and age mean nothing - so a spouse is moot. He shakes his head to clear the positively foul thought.

“Is the inherited title the same as the title you told me earlier?” He asks to distract himself. Surely the Uchiha clan have an inherited title if he has one.

“Hakushaku-dono.” Natsume tells him as she starts gathering the files on the floor into one large stack. He writes it down and hopes it isn’t in kanji.

In the section dedicated to Documentation Supporting Claim for Headship, he fiddles with his pen for a moment before he scrawls a note; In the absence of the rest of the clan, and my brother the abdication of the former heir as decided by the crime of kinslaying, I, Uchiha Sasuke, claim headship of the Uchiha Clan by the blood that runs through my veins and by birthright.

He leans back to admire his work. He didn’t take Advanced English classes for nothing, it seems. He can write pretentiously if that’s what the situation calls for, and especially so if he’s mocking someone.

Plans for any changes under the new headship?

Uh, dissolution? He probably can’t say that. Danzo would probably be happy, but the other two elders and Hiruzen might have fits. Instead, he writes ‘to restore the Uchiha clan to its former authority.’

He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to - the Uchiha Clan’s current sociopolitical status is the result of years' worth of isolation, both literally and politically, and he doubts one little six-year-old - doing his very best! - is going to change that to the extent that he manages to drag the Uchiha name out of the mud. Even if he becomes Hokage or the most respectable man in all the Five Nations, people will respect him for who he is first and foremost rather than for being an Uchiha. His being an Uchiha will simply be a part of who he is, because there’s no clan to compare him to anymore.

Itachi should’ve thought of that, he thinks to himself mockingly as he turns over the page. But no. Because he’s the type of person who’s so smart he’s dumb and he’s so self-righteous that he wouldn’t dare second-guess himself because he is obviously never wrong. (Sarcasm)

The second page is dedicated to any comments or remarks that could not be mentioned on the form itself. He doesn’t hesitate to add a henohenomoheji in the corner and nothing else.

…Bad habit copied from Kakashi number two. Dear God. Is there anything that he does that he hasn’t absorbed from the man?

He slumps back in his chair again, this time in relief, and breathes a sigh of satisfaction. One thing down, god knows what else to go.

He nearly jumps out of his skin as Natsume lets the veritable tower of files smack down with a heavy thump onto the desk before him with a smirk. He yelps - but will never admit to doing so - and covers his heart with his hand uselessly as he tries to wrangle his breathing under control. Jesus fucking skateboarded off a cliff and turned into a pterodactyl Christ, woman-

“What the hell, man?!” His body is still young enough that his pitch rises adequately to match his sudden fear. Natsume just continues smiling, because she’s secretly a sadist. He hopes her hair tangles - and then hopes she can’t read minds.

“These are your clan’s files that we have on public record.” She tells him sweetly. Her next words thankfully release him from his anticipatory despair. “I’ll leave them with the admin staff to sort through and deal with by relevance. Any current trade agreements and business deals will be assigned to you to deal with as you see fit. Let’s get your change of headship form processed, and then we can go to the bank, alright?”

“...So I don’t have to do anything with any of these until they’re organised?” He asks nervously. Natsume’s smile widens; his eyes snap to the slow movement of her braid as it slips over her shoulder. Instincts that aren’t his direct his focus to even the slightest movement of the woman before him as if she’s a threat. He wonders, maybe stupidly, what she would do if he activated his Sharingan. Probably laugh. What could scare a woman like Natsume?

“Not in the slightest.” She tells him with no small amount of cheer. It doesn’t even sound faked, but that’s probably because she’s enjoying herself at his expense. “I just wanted to scare you. Now let’s go before we catch something. I don’t think this room has been maintained properly - something I’ll have to speak to the staff about before we leave. Hm…”

He gladly slides off his seat and mourns the short disconnect between his feet and the floor. “I think if you stay in the building any longer, the staff are gonna develop conniptions. You’re scary as hell, Natsume-san.” He tells her matter-of-factly, because it’s the truth. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, Itachi is a bitch, and Natsume is bloody terrifying. Her laughter as he slides his paperwork off the table into his waiting hands and puts his pen in his pocket sounds anything but. Truly gap moe, he thinks to himself petulantly as he looks up at the gentle beauty of a woman snickering into her hand before him. The T&I department suits her well.

“Thank you, Sasuke-san. That’s the nicest compliment you could give me.” She tells him with the most genuine smile he's seen from her all morning. He can’t help but smile back. What a pretty, terrible woman. Like a siren.

“Flattery does a lot more than most people give it credit for, Natsume-san. Doesn’t help that I’m not lying either. You’re terrifying all by yourself.”

Natsume is still giggling as she picks up the stack of files again in one hand and steps forward to open the door for him with the other. He eyes what little he can see of her arm as he steps past her into the terribly plain, aggravatingly featureless hall outside. Are those files lighter than they look, or is Natsume freakishly strong as well as psychologically distressing? Lord knows she doesn't need to be more scary than she already is, but he supposes a high standard of physical fitness is just part and parcel of being a shinobi in any aspect. As a self-proclaimed proud couch potato, he’s not looking forward to that.

Her amusement probably sounds like a portent of doom to any admin staff listening, he muses thoughtlessly as he follows her back through the featureless halls, forms clutched as tightly in his hand as he dares. If high school is any indication, the staff have probably thrown themselves back into their desks and are trying their best to look busy. He is suddenly struck with an intense feeling of gratefulness for the fact that he wasn’t reincarnated as an admin staff member. He would probably develop the same amount of trauma just by becoming aware of Natsume’s existence.

True to thought, all the admin staff have their heads bent over their desks and the weight of Natsume’s presence bows all their shoulders in submission until their noses are nearly touching the papers on their desks. Or they could be; he can’t see as well from this distance. Asuka-kun - Asuka-san to him, probably, but it’s hard to take someone so weak-willed seriously, and the papers in his hands mean that he technically outranks the man now - the receptionist is sitting ramrod straight at his desk and is the only one who doesn’t appear to be doing anything. His eyes flicker from Natsume to the middle distance and back again like a rabbit weighing its odds before the approach of a wolf.

“Asuka-kun.” Natsume practically purrs, her good humour immediately latching on to the next promising target. He’s pretty sure she’s unsettling him on purpose. The pile of paperwork cradled in her arm doesn’t so much as lean as she quickens her pace, and Asuka turns to look at them so fast he’s surprised the man doesn’t pull a muscle.

“Hoshino-san!” Asuka’s chair falls over again. At this point, he should just remain standing. He thinks it’s also more ergonomic; but then again, he hadn’t been paying much attention to his workplace induction tasks the first time around and he certainly isn’t going to bother trying to remember them now. As pre-established, Konoha’s work and safety laws are pretty shit anyway. “Yes-! Um? How can I help you?”

Natsume holds out her other hand and he passes her the forms without a word. He’s not needed here. In fact, no one needs to use a scrawny six-year-old as a prop to scare their subordinates no matter how unnerving his spinning eyes are, Natsume least of all.

“I’d like this processed as soon as possible, Asuka-kun.” The sharp-toothed thing wearing a woman’s skin says, light as a feather, the flex of her hands as she slides the papers over the desk, a deliberate act to emphasise not only the apparent delicacy of her hands but the impeccable sheen of her nails, which gleam under the slightly healthier-looking light. At least the reception area has windows. He wonders why she’s showing off what is an incredible manicure and decides it must be because her hands are poisoned somehow. Or maybe she’s reminding Asuka-kun about some incredibly violent act that she did with her bare hands. Whatever it is, he wants to know it as well. It would take more than killing intent to curb his curiosity.

Here’s a real shinobi, he thinks to himself as Asuka falls over himself to comply with Natsume’s simple request, stopping and starting pointless sentences with a nervous stutter as Natsume continues to revel in his fear with nothing but a smile to show for it. None of that flashy ninjutsu here, just pure blackmail and implied threats. That’s what ninja were historically - at least in his universe - and that’s what they should’ve been before Kishimoto pulled aliens out of his ass. He doesn’t consider b*ruto canon and if he has his way, it won’t be, no matter how wonderful the concept of Sarada is. She’s become decidedly less cool now that he’s one of the people responsible for creating her.

Fuck dem aliens, he thinks to himself as Natsume dumps the tower of files on Asuka-kun’s desk with a hefty thump and gives everyone a cheery goodbye as Asuka visibly crumbles in despair. His mind wanders to pointless reminiscences of the Area 51 raid that had been all the rage several years ago as he follows Natsume out of the building and into the bright morning sunshine. The whole ‘no windows’ shtick is probably murder on the eyes of whoever works as a paper-nin - another point against Konoha’s shitty work environments besides, you know, the murders. Maybe that’s part of the reason why Konoha is so fucked up.

Fuck, but it’s still morning? The passage of time was pretty much non-existent in the administration building. He’d thought they’d been there for much longer - though maybe it’s because he wants to get everything over with and have a good long sleep as soon as possible. A man can dream. He wishes he was a Nara instead. Lucky ducks get to claim sleeping as their culture.

The reappearance of shinobi sightings sufficiently distracts him from his wallowing. He’s not sure if open-mouthed awe is the appropriate reaction for a boy who’s supposedly seen shinobi all his life, so he keeps his mouth shut and watches the appearances and disappearances with wide eyes.

Surely no one will attack him if he watches the Shunshin jutsu with his Sharingan. Surely.

“Natsume-san.”

She turns back to look at him. Her good humour has mostly faded, but her smile remains. He fiddles with his hands.

“Do you think I’d be able to watch the shinobi with my Sharingan? I want to copy the jutsu they’re using.”

Natsume shakes her head. Her braid swings with the movement. He knows what that feels like; like a dead rat stapled to the back of your head. “Best not to. Most people are wary of the Sharingan on principle, especially after recent events…and shinobi don’t take kindly to people copying their jutsu. Besides, the Shunshin is taught at the Academy. You’ll learn eventually, so there’s no need to copy it now.”

That’s true, he supposes…still, the urge to get ahead is tempting. Most of the fights he’ll be involved with after he makes genin are going to be way out of his league, so he wants to know something that makes him feel, at least, like he’s ahead of the curve. Even if that just makes him a big fish in a small pond. He’s wary of the clan-trained children in his class - especially since he’s supposed to be one of the best, and he knows literally nothing of fighting beyond how to sit on his brothers - but he’s mostly confident that they won’t be much of an issue. It’s the literal S-ranked adults who have a bone to pick with him later in life that he’s worried about, but no one’s going to support another supposed hidden genius (crouching idiot)’s advancement since Itachi proved without a shadow of a doubt how bad that idea was. Thanks again, Itachi, he frowns as Natsume leads him out of the administration complex. He should be awarded an honorary PhD for fucking up Sasuke’s life. Maybe even a medal.

“Nana-chan!”

He nearly walks into her as Natsume pauses and stops walking entirely. He steps around her, head on a swivel, looking for whoever called out to her. Natsume knows people who don’t sound terrified to see her? His eyes land on a pair of men walking towards them from the main street. The older-looking one in the T&I uniform is waving excitedly.

She has friends??

It shouldn’t be as much of a surprise as it is - he’d thought Natsume was a perfectly fine if unsettling individual when they’d met earlier this morning, so it stands to reason that she can fake some semblance of normalcy - but it’s not hard to find out how much of a terror she is to know. Then again, maybe he’s wrong and he just met her in the wrong circumstances. Or maybe he’s wrong again and he’s going to become a witness to workplace harassment. Would the ANBU agents step in to interfere if he asks? How is he supposed to ask? He should’ve learnt military hand gestures instead of swear words in Auslan. How does one say ‘get his ass’ in ANBU sign?

The man with the beard trots over to them eagerly as his companion follows at a more sedate pace. His gaze is immediately drawn to the younger man’s eyes, because they’re practically non-existent.

He has no visible pupils and his iris is only distinguishable from the whites of his eyes by being the lightest shade of purple he’s ever seen. At a glance, it looks like he doesn’t have any irises at all and it is fucking creepy. He’s seen possession victims from horror movies with the same eyes. The comparison doesn’t help when the man looks down at him and he only knows the irises have moved because his vision has always been good and is probably even better now that he’s an Uchiha. Something the Hyuuga - because it has to be - finds fault with, if the downwards crease of his brow is anything to go off. He’s wearing his headband across his forehead - a real Konoha headband! Holy shit! How does it not slip over his eyes - so he must be a member of a branch family. That explains the attitude. The man would probably blow a gasket if he compared his attitude to Hiashi’s. Hizashi? Whoever Hinata’s father is. It’s one of them.

But he’s got brown hair, not indigo like Hinata’s had been in the show, and he’s interacting with people outside of his family so that’s another point in the ‘probably a branch family member’ column. The man is also looking at him like he’s a piece of gum stuck on the bottom of his shoe. Sandal. Whatever.

“Nana-chan!” The other man chirps again. Natsume’s smile looks vaguely murderous; or maybe that’s just her face. “Good to see you! Are you on the job? Archives miss you, you know!”

The older man grasps her shoulder cheerfully once he’s in range and gives it a hearty shake. He fears for the man’s safety in the same way a bystander watches a car crash in motion. He steadily ignores the Hyuuga’s empty gaze boring into the side of his head and instead watches Natsume’s face for any immediate aggression.

“Shiroyama-san.” Natsume replies blandly. She isn’t grinning or actively disconcerting anyone with her smile, so he assumes Shiroyama-san is okay, if maybe annoying. His good cheer so early in the morning certainly would be. “Hyuuga-san. What a coincidence.”

“A happy coincidence, that’s for sure!” Shiroyama agrees as his companion stops glaring daggers at him to offer Natsume a shallow bow. “And who’s this? Another cousin?”

Shiroyama’s face falls a little when he finally gets a good look at his face. He decides to take a leaf out of the Hyuuga’s book and bow. What are the standards for respect here? Is it still alright to greet someone with a hearty handshake? Somehow, he doesn’t think that ‘sup, mate’ is an acceptable greeting no matter his current status.

“Hyuuga-san, Shiroyama-san, how do you do.”

“How do you do, kiddo?” Shiroyama’s voice mellows into something gentler and more sombre. “Nice to meet you. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about what happened. Nana - Natsume’s a good egg, don’t worry. You’re in good hands with her.”

In stark contrast to his companion, the Hyuuga merely states “How do you do.” The disapproving gaze returns.

Man, no sympathy even for an orphan, he thinks to himself as he straightens. What a prick. Hopefully he gets a terrible head injury that recalibrates his personality.

Shiroyama looks like someone’s kindly, if jovial uncle and the Hyuuga looks like someone rammed a ruler up his ass at birth and it assimilated to his spine. He wonders how on earth they became friends. Maybe they were genin teammates, and Natsume was their third?

He inclines his head. “Natsume-san is very nice. I’m learning a lot.” He says diplomatically. If they were her genin teammates, they would already know how terrible she can be.

“First name basis already? Nana-chan, you flatterer.” Shiroyama coos.

He’s starting to feel more kindly towards the Hyuuga. Dislike is preferable to babying, and it’s a fight to keep himself from grimacing. Natsume’s face becomes impossibly blander.

“It’s better to maintain a more impersonal relationship when dealing with personal affairs, especially with a child, Shiroyama-san.” Natsume tells Shiroyama tonelessly.

Good for her! - Though her calling him a child finally brings a grimace to his face. Ah, he knew he wasn’t going to like being talked down to or talked around, even if he knows logically that he would do the same. He hates kids. Nasty little grubbers - but just because he looks like one, doesn’t mean he is one too!

Wait, that sounds redundant.

Shiroyama blinks. “Ah - yes, well - I didn’t mean-”

His Hyuuga companion scoffs. “What use would Hoshino-san get out of pandering to a child?”

He thinks the same, but the Hyuuga didn’t need to take that tone.

Shiroyama stutters through a sheepish laugh. Definitely like someone’s uncle, with what looks to be an incurable case of foot-in-mouth disease. Poor guy. He doesn’t feel sorry for him at all.

“Ah…Nana-chan, you know what I mean.” Shiroyama’s eyes flicker to him briefly. “We’ve all been wondering why you aren’t in Seduction, with your talents and all…”

Okay, even he understands what Shiroyama’s trying to get at; and what the fuck?!

“Are you trying to say that Natsume’s trying to sleep with me?” He asks, part incredulous, part horrified. “I’m six. That’s fucked up, man, what the hell?”

“No!” Shiroyama nearly shrieks. The volume draws a few curious eyes, and the Hyuuga’s disapproving glare switches from him to Shiroyama. Natsume takes a step back and holds a hand in front of him to keep him away from Shiroyama, who looks even more panicked at the gesture.

“My intentions towards Uchiha-sama are entirely professional, Shiroyama-san.” For once, Natsume sounds genuinely serious instead of blandly genial. He can't see her face and he’s not sure if he wants to. “You would do best not to insult either of us by keeping your thoughts to yourself or sharing them with the Hokage if you are genuinely concerned. If you are merely speaking for the sake of speaking, please keep your pointless insinuations to yourself.”

“I apologise for my empty-headed teammate.” The Hyuuga grouches as he grabs Shiroyama by the neck and forces him down into a bow. “He very rarely knows what he’s saying. His intention was not to offend, so please overlook this transgression just once.”

Natsume and the Hyuuga both then look to him. He startles; yeah, he’d been included in the incendiary statement, but it had been an insult to Natsume’s honour, not his. Is it because he's supposedly of a higher rank? God, he hopes not - people should be able to brawl out their differences without him needing to mediate, thank you very much.

“Um. Just don’t insult Natsume-san again, alright? She’s nasty. The whole admin building is afraid of her. And maybe don’t mention seduction in the same breath as you’re complimenting Natsume-san for flattering a minor.”

“I meant she’s good at getting people to trust her, not that…” Shiroyama cuts himself off miserably as the Hyuuga gives him a shake.

“That’s enough out of you.”

“Yeah nah. Maybe don’t speak any more.” He winces. He should’ve realised that Seduction isn’t all about sex, since there are many ways of interacting with someone to get information out of them without resulting to sexy times - but come on, man. Bad timing, horrible context, extremely poor choice of words. All the classic symptoms of foot-in-mouth disease. He hopes that Shiroyama either gets better or they never speak again.

Natsume inclines her head. “Uchiha-sama and I have matters to attend to, so we’ll be leaving first. Good day, Hyuuga-san, Shiroyama-san.”

“Well met, Uchiha-sama,” The Hyuuga sounds like the phrase physically pains him to say it. “Hoshino-san. May the sun smile down on you both.” He bows again, holding Shiroyama in place.

Ooh, sun reference. That was probably another point of contention between the Uchiha and the Hyuuga, since the Uchiha claimed the goddess of the sun as their ancestor/patron god and the Hyuuga had their whole ‘Hi’ naming convention going. He wishes he knew an Uchiha sun-related blessing to answer the Hyuuga’s with. Acknowledging someone’s religious blessing with one of your own always makes him feel warm and fuzzy inside. He and his brother had both shared interests in theology - his brother more than him - and it’s always cool to learn something new about someone else’s religion. He wonders what the Hyuuga religion is based on.

As it is, the only religious blessing he can answer with is “Peace be with you,” which is probably nonstandard, especially coming from the scion of a previously warlike clan.

“Have a good day, Hyuuga-san, Shiroyama-san.” He adds over his shoulder as he hurries to catch up to Natsume’s quick pace. If he had longer legs, he would be walking away at a speed as well.

So he’s Christian. Well - formerly Christian. The Narutoverse definitively confirms the nonexistence of god except the Shinigami. And even if it didn’t, he has no intention of going around spreading the word like some sort of monk, because that’s a) embarrassing, b) out of character, and c) a bit pointless considering he’s had his differences with the church and only counts as a churchgoer because his whole family goes - went - to church and he joined them on major holidays. The Catholic guilt for not evangelising is real, but he’s lived with it all his life and he thinks he can be forgiven since God literally doesn’t exist in this universe.

“I don’t think you’re a cradle robber, Natsume-san.” He says after a moment of hesitation. At the very least, he wants to make that clear. Natsume may be terrifying and makes a good case for a diagnosis of sadism, but he’d like to think she isn’t the type to be attracted to kids. She’s nice enough and he doesn’t want her to turn out to be just like the rest of the loons that run this terrible concept of a village.

Natsume looks back at him and smiles bitterly. “Sasuke-san, if I were a paedophile, that’s what I’d want you to think.”

He looks at her flatly and falls back a pace. “Please give yourself some sort of credit, Natsume-san. I’d like to think you’re a nice person and you’re not helping.”

Natsume chuckles a little and looks forward again. “That’s very naive of you, Sasuke-san.”

Inoichi said the same thing. He supposes coming from a society with a slightly more tranquil state of peace than Konoha’s current ceasefire, which encourages the notion of trusting authority figures unquestioningly, his worldview does look naive to a born and bred shinobi.

But he also has no other choice. He’s six. He has no support system. The village literally won’t leave him alone and he has no choice but to trust them because he literally doesn’t know a fucking thing other than the story Kishimoto wrote, and that won’t help him now. Itachi already demonstrated what would happen if he so much as breathed Danzo’s name and Natsume is a prime example of why ending up in T&I as an interrogatee would be an absolute horror show of an experience that he’s not sure his teeny-weeny prepubescent mind would be able to survive. He still hasn’t recovered from the double whammy of two hits of Tsukuyomi. So what if Natsume does turn out to be a kiddie fiddler? What can he do, huh? He’ll just get assigned a new minder and have to go about his merry day because god knows no one in this village seems to understand the gravity of how trauma affects the mind and the idea that maybe children shouldn’t be dealing with adult responsibilities is apparently laughable. He’s certainly doing nothing to dissuade them of the idea. If anything, his acting like the adult he is in his head is further cementing the idea that kids can be just as responsible as adults.

A rock and a hard place, he thinks to himself moodily as he lifts his gaze from the ground before him. A man leading a donkey cart on the opposite side of the road frowns at him as they pass each other by. His mouth twists.

Chin up, Sasuke-san, he thinks to himself mockingly. You’re the representative of the Uchiha clan now. All eyes are on you.

Natsume’s braid bounces as she walks. The sun tries its level best to stab through the gaps between buildings and washes the colour out of the drab stone road. The snot on his sleeve has dried into white patches stark against the dark green fabric. A breeze pushes his bangs behind his ears and he pulls himself out of his thoughts to take in the sights and sounds of the street they’re on.

The buildings are painted in sun-bleached terracotta colours. The storefronts aren’t covered with the metal awnings he’s used to, but instead the entryways are covered by cloth banners that advertise the type or name of the shop. Restaurants and takeaway shops take precedence over the few souvenir shops he can see. He supposes the tourism industry must have a hard time making headway in a village where secrecy is paramount. If he squints, sometimes he can catch the after-images of people blurring across the rooftops. He can’t hear them, and the only reason he knows they’re there is because of his foreknowledge. He can’t even see the glint of their metal headbands.

He can smell roasting meat from a burly woman’s street stall further down the road, and it makes him feel vaguely ill. If any Uchiha died by fire, then his brain isn’t letting him remember. It’ll probably come back to bite him later, but he’ll stick to being grateful that he isn’t having another panic attack now. Two a day is more than enough.

People part before Natsume like schools of fish in the face of a shark. He is the pilot fish swimming a pace behind her, his head angled down to make himself seem less interesting. It feels like it’s going to be a warm day, and there’s a distinct lack of humidity in the air. Maybe it’s summer, maybe it’s spring. He doesn’t know the difference. There’s a baby crying, somewhere. He’s walking past a pottery shop. The interior looks dark and cool, and the wares in the shop window are painted with patterns of plants. He looks away before he can fully register his reflection.

Konoha would be a beautiful place to live, he thinks to himself, if he was fully ignorant of all that went on behind the scenes. It has a temperate climate, half the population are shinobi dedicated to defending the place, chakra is a thing, and while there isn’t peace, there is a ceasefire. If you stayed within the village your whole life, you could live comfortably and know only mundane discomforts. Sure, the shinobi are probably eerie enigmas to the average civilian, but he doubts the average civilian interacts with shinobi for an extended period of time, if at all. It’s only when Naruto the series starts, plus the Kyuubi attack - which was an isolated incident and shouldn’t count - that your average Konoha Joe is in any real danger.

Not that he’ll get the luxury of any sort of shinobi protection besides Kakashi once he graduates. Not only is it in character for Sasuke to want to become a shinobi, but even if he reasonably argued that Itachi scarred him for life and he wants to retire to grow koi in the Naka River or something, Hiruzen’s council and the man himself would never let him. The last Uchiha is too big of a political icon for him not to become a shinobi. And unfortunately, while it looks good for Konoha to have him in their ranks, it also leaves him hella open to literally everything. Orochimaru is both an example and the standard. Kakashi is about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike in the ‘protecting his team’ department, which is exactly what he’s afraid of, the poor dear. The Wave mission was probably a fluke.

Not much he can do about the distant future now, though, except get his affairs in order and try to create a sustainable lifestyle.

…

Hoshino Natsume glances back at the boy walking a step behind her, his gaze flickering over his surroundings unseeingly and his eyes unfocused in thought. She wonders if he’s actually registering what he’s looking at.

Calling him naive is hardly fair; all children are. It was her fault for assuming before she had all the facts - but she thought she’d had them.

Uchiha Sasuke, second son of Uchiha Fugaku. A prideful young boy whose admiration is firmly fixed on his older brother. A diligent student unafraid of play and a hairline crack of insecurity in his shield of boundless confidence. Smart, but only as smart as can be expected from a six-year-old. Everyone had been keenly watching for a second Itachi when he first stepped into the Academy and had lost interest when he only appeared smart when compared to children his age. Genii are distinguished from their peers for a reason, after all.

She had read his file cover to cover when she was first assigned to assist him in administrative matters and had been confident in her assumptions. That had been her mistake.

This version of Uchiha Sasuke is quiet and tries too hard to be mature when he’s already facing his subpar circumstances with an understanding that is too mature for his age in the first place. This Sasuke is not angry or despairing or anything she’d expected a prideful but insecure boy to act when betrayed by the person he’d once looked up to. This Sasuke insults his brother like breathing and jumps at the chance to disown him with glee. This Sasuke works because he knows it’ll distract him from his reality, knows breathing techniques and verbally claims an authority they both know he doesn’t have but is surprised when it is respected, however begrudgingly.

This Sasuke joins his characters together when he writes like he’s used to writing them connected, and speaks in a manner where his words sometimes don’t match his intent.

This Sasuke doesn’t know his own birthday and writes with his right hand.

She’s not going to jump to conclusions like she did the first time; she knows that trauma can affect the brain in a multitude of ways and that everyone deals with stress differently. No one knows how victims of an advanced Sharingan are affected because none have lived to be studied, so for all they know, personality changes and gaps in memory are just the unfortunate result of an advanced technique on a child’s malleable mind.

But it’s still a cause for concern. Perhaps not a concern of security, but a concern all the same. She will dutifully report her observations as well as the appearance of the Sharingan if the ANBU haven’t mentioned it already. After all, her pedantry is what she’s known for. It’s what she’s mildly infamous for, too.

Nara Kazunori was not the first person to notice the inconsistencies in personnel lists, missing children reports and reported deaths in the field; he was simply the one who first mentioned it aloud. The Hoshino are not so great a clan that they can speak without fear of being disappeared themselves. After all, the only clan who were trying to do something about it are now dead, and their sole survivor is the child following her around like a lost duckling. Yamanaka Yushi now refuses to even hear mention of the Uchiha, so there is no help from that angle, and the defection of Itachi - no longer Uchiha - has kept Kazunori busy enough as Head of the Archives that there is nothing he can do either. It’s just her and her pedantry and the child she’s been assigned to who may not even be the same person anymore.

She can keep her head down. She has to. It can’t be any coincidence that the Uchiha massacred only a few weeks after Yushi and his coworker, police officer, and secret crush Uchiha Satomi began making moves to involve the rest of the force in investigating the disappearances. It can’t be any coincidence that Satomi’s tongue was found missing during her autopsy. Maybe it’s not just grief that keeps Yushi locked in his house with naught but his brother and their garden for company.

The Hokage can assign someone else to investigate Sasuke’s apparent mental restructuring. She’ll do only what was asked of her and nothing more, as a favour to the boy with Satomi’s face and the dead woman herself. She has bigger concerns to address. And if Yushi wants to wallow and Kazunori thinks it’s too troublesome, then she will dig the secrets out of the roots of Konoha herself.

The kanji for money is emblazoned proudly above the grand entrance to the Konoha Central Bank, writ in what looks like gold but likely isn’t. She can see chips in the paint at the edges of the kanji. When she looks back at her charge again, he’s frowning up at the sign with as much disdain as she feels.

He meets her eyes and half smiles, half grimaces. “That’s…certainly something. No one’s going to think it’s anything else, at least.”

Most children would be awed by the simple facade. She’d expected him to be dismissive of it entirely, focused only on getting what he wanted and moving on to his next task, but Uchiha Sasuke is proving to be an exercise in subverting expectations.

She smiles at the boy with Satomi’s face. “Sometimes the best answer is the most obvious one.”

“Yeah, but surely they don’t need to go so far…”

“Of course not. I suppose it’s a matter of pride.”

Sasuke scoffs and eyes the sign judgmentally. “It’s a matter of compensating for something.” He mutters to himself. “You’d think that as a bank, they wouldn’t need to, but no…”

She shakes her head, chuckling. Satomi’s humour had never been so dry, but Sasuke is not Satomi. She can remember that. “Come on. Let’s see if we can get you compensated, hm?”

“Ew, Natsume-san.”

Chapter Text

Konoha Central Bank is an exercise in opulence and just genuine pompousness. He hadn’t even known they could get marble in Konoha. Is that the reason why they excavate the Hokage Face Rock?

At least Natsume looks put together as she strides across the marbled floors in her T&I uniform and her impeccable braid. He feels like some sort of gutter rat hurrying after in his snot-stained shirt and dollar-store clothing. Nothing like the clan head he’s supposed to be at all. He wonders if the change has gone through yet, because this can’t be anything other than an establishment catering only to the best - and curse the Uchiha who was pretentious enough to bank here - though the other patrons he can see make him feel a little bit better about himself. Most are shinobi in the standard uniform, though despite not knowing any of them personally or through the series, he can recognise the features indicative of a relation to Konoha’s many clans. Some don’t even bother to hide it and proudly announce their relationship to a clan as a symbol on the back of their flak jacket where the Uzumaki swirl should be. He supposes hopes that this is indicative of this place being an actually good business, even if the marble columns and the stone carvings on the roof above him are more than enough to encourage his doubt. Maybe it’s a shinobi thing, and it’s supposed to look unassuming?

…Then again, with the conspicuous lack of any civilians or non-clan shinobi that he can see, it could be that the clans of Konoha wanted the bank to look opulent just to stoke their own egos. He wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. He’s just mad that he’s now one of those pretentious clan members.

Natsume stops before the teller’s desk. “Uchiha-sama.” She says with a nod, and steps aside to let him take the lead. He freezes.

No no no no, this is not how it’s supposed to go - you’re supposed to be socialisation shield, Natsume, don’t throw me under the bus like this-

He can’t exactly step behind her again since she’s trapped him by implying with his title that he has the authority and therefore the responsibility to take the lead, and so it is with great reluctance that he steps up to the teller’s desk and flashes her his best customer service smile. Internally, he’s gnashing his teeth and crying over not only the fact that he has to speak to a member of the general public, but the desk comes up to his stomach. He hopes to god that he inherited tall genes and that his body has a growth spurt soon.

“Hi. I’d like to,” He wracks his brains for a moment. “-transfer the funds from the preexisting accounts of newly deceased family members into one, set up an allowance, and set up an account to use for both those actions.”

The woman who smiles back at him has a motherly face and an effortlessly good-looking messy bun. Her expression is tinged with pity. It makes him feel slightly worse about this interaction, but it’s better than outright hatred and disgust. He may as well take the win while he can get it. “Of course, sweetheart. And is this lady helping you?”

He glances back at Natsume for support and finds none. Asshole. “...Natsu - Hoshino-san is my assistant for the next two weeks; however, I’ll be the one handling my business. She’s just here to advise me if there’s anything I should know.”

“I see.” The vaguely condescending undertone in the bank teller’s voice indicates that she either doesn’t or is choosing not to. Her decision to turn to address Natsume instead of him immediately cements the fact. “What would you like to proceed with first, Hoshino-san?”

Natsume smiles evenly back. “I believe you should be asking Uchiha-sama that, not me.”

Without missing a beat, the teller turns back to him. “What would you like to proceed with first, Uchiha-kun?”

“-Sama.” He corrects her. He’s getting the sinking feeling that this is going to be a trend. “I’d like to open a bank account and review all of my deceased family members’ accounts, please.”

“Of course. And who gave the authority to make such a decision…?” As the teller looks down to rummage through some papers, her gaze flickers to Natsume again. He’s starting to feel vaguely irritated despite his underlying fear of social interactions.

Okay, yes, he’s a child. But Natsume has referred to him as ‘Uchiha-sama’ at least twice now, and child clan heads - while they aren’t the standard - aren't exactly abnormal either. Exhibit A: Kakashi. And everyone and their dog knows the Uchiha were massacred with him as the sole survivor. At least, he hopes so - and he’s not sure how he would bring it up if it turns out this woman is just plain ignorant.

“I did.” His smile remains in place but his tone gets just a little sharper. “Hoshino-san witnessed my becoming the head of my clan this morning, since there’s no one else left to take the title. So it’s me who has the authority to ask for my clan’s financial records. Will this be a problem?”

“Not at all.” The woman slides a piece of paper across her desk to him. “It’s just…unusual, it all.”

He pulls his pen out of his pocket and rolls his eyes as he lowers his head to look at the form. Unusual my fat arse, Konoha has more clans that Kumo has snow or Suna has grains of sand - he doesn’t think that clans being reduced to one are a rarity. His age might be, but once again, Kakashi has done this before.

Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have a history of hyper-intelligence? If so, that’s insane. He knows the Nara are literally genetically predisposed to greater intelligence - or something - but genii can’t be common enough that normal people are literally looked down upon for not meeting the standards of what should be rare occurrences. What is Konoha’s average intelligence score, anyway? Is higher intelligence a side-effect of having chakra?

He breezes through his personal information now that he’s seen it written once. For address, he looks to Natsume for help, and she kindly fills it in over his shoulder - good, since he didn’t think ‘the Uchiha Compound’ was going to cut it. He blocks his eyes from the teller’s view with his hand and feeds chakra up the thread to his eyes so he can memorise his details just in case he needs them again. He deactivates his Sharingan knowing far more about the texture of the paper and the desk than he wants to. And the ink. Urgh. He didn’t need to watch it sink into the paper in real-time, thank you. Why is it goopy like that?

The education/shinobi level is more complicated than he expected. Who knew that a shinobi village would have so many definitions of mental competence when it came to just opening a bank account. There’s even an option for children below the age of majority for both shinobi and civilians, probably for the orphans. He ticks that and the option for clan members. Surely it still counts even if there’s only one of him.

“What’s the difference between a clan and an individual account?” He asks at large.

The teller answers him. “A clan account is the option for members of a clan who contribute to their clan’s finances with a percentage of their income, however I don’t think it will apply to you.”

“Which account did the Uchiha clan’s accounts contribute to?”

The teller glances at Natsume again but answers him. “The clan head’s. Or, your father’s.”

Makes sense. Should he tell Natsume to stand outside or something, if she’s going to be so distracting? But what if he doesn’t know something and he needs to ask her? “Can I get ownership of that account transferred to me? If not, can I change it to a savings account instead of a personal one and merge all other accounts associated with the Uchiha clan into that one?”

“The clan head’s account and any other associated accounts are part of the will, so you’ll have to wait for the change of headship to come through in order to access or change anything about them. You can start by creating a personal bank account and we can go over the details of merging once the form comes through.”

The teller sounds more respectful now that he’s talking like he’s got more than cobwebs inside his skull, unlike your average snot-nosed brat. He’s not sure whether to feel flattered or annoyed.

“The form’s been expedited.” Natsume interjects with a smile that looks cheerful enough for him to safely assume she’s thinking about the state of terror she’d left the administration department in. Even the teller recognises the inherent threat in her smile and leans back a little.

“Well then. I suppose we can start now.”

Those words herald the start of more paperwork than he’s ever seen or wanted to see in his entire life. Both lives, even. There’s a lot of nullification of previous accounts, a promised trip to a lawyer’s office, a long-ass discussion about business partnerships and supplier agreements that he wishes he’d had a chair for, so many merging forms that it makes him tear up just thinking about them - he’s eternally grateful that they left the process to receive a weekly allowance for the end. That, at least, was easy enough. He leaves the bank with wobbly legs and two lists shoved in his pocket: one of businesses to contact regarding the termination of partnerships and the other of the legal processes he has to go through to get full access to the Uchiha clan’s bank accounts. When Natsume suggests taking a break for lunch, he can’t agree fast enough.

“Was it that bad?” Natsume hums with her familiar brand of sadistic amusement. He looks at her - she’d been next to him; she knows how many goddamned forms he had to sign. He thinks he’s now at risk of prepubescent carpal tunnel, for god’s sake. Whatever expression is on his face makes her laugh.

“Alright then. What do you feel like eating? I’ll pay.”

He grimaces. His knowledge of Japanese food is unfortunately limited to anime and his Japanese teacher’s cooking. His Japanese teacher had been a wonderful person and is the reason why his response is ‘okonomiyaki’.

Okonomiyaki is god’s gift on this earth and anyone who says otherwise is a bitch and a Fed also. He has never been able to find one that tastes as good as his Japanese teacher’s, but the concept tastes good regardless, so he’s willing to forgive the non-resemblance to eat more of it. Speaking of food…

It is his moral obligation as a weeb and a Naruto fan at that to try Ichiraku ramen. Forget Naruto (the person) and how annoying he’d be in real life, if he doesn’t try it at least once then he is contractually obliged to commit seppuku, and then Itachi will lose his goddamned mind. He would love to explain to Itachi in the afterlife why he killed himself over a bowl of ramen but that would probably make the poor dear’s head explode. Maybe he can get ramen for dinner or something.

Natsume leads him down a busier street that makes him instinctively shrink closer to her so as to not get lost and attract less attention. He doesn’t think the latter effect is achieved, but through wilful ignorance, anything is possible. Take Hiruzen, for example. Did he care when Danzo ordered a hit on him using one of Konoha’s most loyal shinobi? Of course not! Friends let assassination attempts slide between them, because what’s a little death threat in the face of friendship?

Every Hokage this village has had has been a fucking lunatic and also a nepo baby, and he stands by that, he thinks to himself moodily. A child nearly runs into him and he momentarily despairs over the fact that they’re of similar height. They don’t look like anyone from the main cast, so he ignores them and keeps tip-toeing on Natsume’s heels. If he comes face-to-face with any of the Konoha Twelve he may do something drastic.

“Sorry, Uchiha-san.” Who must be the child’s mother brushes by with an embarrassed smile and continues past him quickly as her expression hardens into something severe. He is quietly glad he doesn’t have to deal with Sasuke’s parents, even though the memory of why makes him shudder - if Inoichi and Natsume think he’s suspicious, which they most definitely do but can’t prove why, then Fugaku and Mikoto would’ve caught on right away.

He’s surprised Itachi hasn’t, he thinks to himself as he follows Natsume out of the path of a donkey cart and down a side street shadowed by colourful banners draped between buildings.

…But then again, he must’ve been babbling gibberish to Itachi and the boy probably brushed it off as a result of the Tsukuyomi. But that would require Itachi to realise that maybe his idea to use Tsukuyomi on a six-year-old twice was fucking stupid, and the boy is too holier-than-thou to even consider the notion. Itachi probably thought he was blabbering because he’s six and stupid. Which - if he did - fuck you, Itachi, for everything else as well but this in particular. If he weren’t so terrified of the boy and also a child, he would track him down to wring his skinny little goose neck, Bart and Homer style.

The restaurant Natsume leads him into is right next to the alleyway they’ve just come out of and probably Akimichi-owned, judging by its popularity and the red hair of the proprietor. He flinches at the loud tone the man greets them with.

“Welcome, welcome! How can I serve you two?”

“Table for two, Kyoya-san.” Natsume’s expression is unruffled in the face of such exuberance. Her smile doesn’t become any more plasticky, so he figures Akimichi Kyoya is of sound moral character enough to be in Natsume’s good books, even if he is terrifyingly loud. Though in a restaurant so noisy that his brain automatically acknowledges the consistent chatter as white noise, he supposes it’s warranted.

The interior is dimly lit and composed of multiple booths to give the illusion of privacy even though everyone is talking so loudly you could probably hear their conversation if you could stand to parse through all the talking to focus on specific voices. The Akimichi proprietor waves at them from a combination front desk/bar, behind which sits an exposed kitchen staffed by an effortless well-oiled machine of kitchen staff.

A good looking young man - well hello, sailor - slips past the booths with a grace that he envies and smiles at them both winningly. His only deductible point in the looks margin is that he’s blond. Every girl knows to never waste your time on a blond man. Naruto especially.

“This way, please.” The man gestures with his arm and heads further into the restaurant. A few of the other patrons look up as they pass and he keeps his eyes steadfastly forward to avoid making awkward eye contact. It doesn’t hurt that their server is easy on the eyes.

…Does that make him a pervert? Probably, but if he says nothing aloud then no one’s gonna know. Natsume might, because she’s a demon and probably related to the Yamanaka if he’s assuming purely off her hair colour and general knowledge of the mind/mind reading, but if she says anything (and he hopes she doesn’t) he will simply make like the Uchiha clan and pass away.

…Too dark?

Whatever. It’s his family now; he can say that sort of stuff.

The good-looking server leads them to a booth in the back of the restaurant suitably far away from the other patrons (of a much finer establishment than the Konoha Central Bank, though that’s not a high bar to clear) that the urge to curl up into a ball with his hands over his ears has lessened enough for him to feel gleeful about getting the corner seat with the view of the entire restaurant. He kicks his stubby little legs in the air with a pleased hum, feeling every inch the six-year-old he’s supposed to be, and reads over the menu when the server passes over it greedily. There’s his beloved okonomiyaki - he flips it over to look at the drinks menu and gives the cocktails a long, mournful look before reading through the more kid-appropriate drinks. He’d only just entered the first years of his life where he could legally drink, and now he’s back at square one…alas.

If he becomes a genin - which means that he’s legally an adult in the eyes of the village - does that mean he can also drink alcohol? What happens if he tries to order a drink at a civilian establishment? Are there specific shinobi-only bars? Probably; shinobi can’t make for the best customers. Yet another strange legal conflict between civilian and shinobi laws. He probably can’t ask Natsume, because not only would it be weird as hell for a six-year-old to say but it might lead her to think he’s going to become some sort of degenerate.

Which he’s not! He’s half Italian, goddamnit; let him drink! It’s his culture!

Natsume orders an unagi don (bowl of eel, it translates to in his head) and water. He smiles as nicely as a six-year-old can at the server when he turns to him.

“A plate of okonomiyaki and a chocolate spider, please.” He chirps, and doesn’t feel embarrassed at all. It’s not cringe to have good taste, and he can get away with it without looking like a weirdo now.

Here’s a tip that the Feds don’t want you to know about: kids meals have the best content to value ratio and you can still order them as a grown-ass adult as long as you’re willing to commit to the bit to save some money. Catch him eating McHappy meals at the grand old age of 80, bitch, with his bank account all the more fuller for it.

Ah, he misses Maccas, he thinks mournfully as he watches the server leave. The food he could live without - except maybe the fries, when they’re hot and fresh out of the fryer - especially in the face of Japanese cuisine, but Maccas is more about the experience than the subpar food. It’s ice cream with your friends after a hot school day. It’s getting breakfast with your family after going camping because it’s New Year's and you all forgot everything else was closed. It’s adding a burger to your order for your brother because sometimes you’re struck with the weird urge to be…kind to your siblings.

Not that Itachi ever had such an urge, he thinks unkindly. Itachi is probably the direct opposite. He wedges himself further into the corner of the booth and taps his fingers on the closest part of the table he can reach. Too nice, interspersed with moments of unkindness. Though he supposes the unkindness is all that Itachi is now. He wishes Itachi would at least balance it out with random acts of kindness. Maybe his mystery illness is just an overflow of bad karma.

Lil’ old Itachi, who would’ve been the height of his hip if he weren’t Sasuke, his hair hanging in greasy strings about his face. If he pushes past the inherent horror of the Boy, he can’t see him as anything more than that - a boy. The series and the lines on his face had always made him look so much older than he was.

In reality - if his life now can even be called that - Itachi is only tall in comparison to a six-year-old. Itachi has the same round, sunken eyes as his previous brother and his cheeks were still round with baby fat. His long hair had been tangled and looked like it hadn’t been washed properly for a while. On the sides of his face where it brushed against his skin, it had been smeared with dirt. His side and up to his elbows had been slick with blood so dark the colour had only been discernible when it met his skin. Or maybe it had been the red lighting. He’s not sure.

Itachi is the spitting of a generic Japanese ghost girl, sallow skin and bony hands and all, and he’s never liked horror movies. What a joy to have such an existence as a brother. An older brother, too. He can’t claim superiority by birth order anymore. All he has is his current not-a-criminal status and what limited power that gives him when Itachi is literally operating outside the law.

The tapping stops.

If he concentrates, sinks deep enough into himself that he can almost feel his chakra again and his eyes feel like they’re sinking into his head (just like Itachi’s), he can almost feel the puff of hot breath against his face, the flecks of spittle on his cheeks from The Boy’s desperation, and the spin of red, red eyes.

God, he hates the colour red.

His scalp aches with phantom pains. His limbs feel jerky and foreign as he threads his hands into his hair and kneads his fingers against his scalp like it will ease the sharp, painless-painful prickling sensation that has no reason to exist. Maybe his nerves are acting up. Maybe it’s his eyes. His vision is blurred and he can’t seem to make out what he’s looking at; it’s too dark.

Is he under the house again? God, he hopes not. That had been far too much for him to even conceptualise going through again. Why? Because-

It’s too red to think about. Natsume, where’s Natsume? Where did she go? It’s too dark. Is it night time again? He has to clean up after dinner (he has to get out of this house), he has to feed the dog (he needs to find somewhere to hide), he has an assignment due tomorrow that he hasn’t done and that’s why he’s panicking, not because-
Why?
He stares at the dark, blurred shape before him. It’s indistinct enough that he can’t make out any identifying features. That’s good - why is it good? - because he doesn’t want to recognise anything now. Why? Because familiarity is death, now. Familiarity is non-existent.

Death?

Why is he comparing it to death?

He draws his knees up to his chin and presses his eyes into his skin until his vision fills with red and the squirming of so many stars. White blood cells, he acknowledges distantly. If he doesn’t want to remember, then he isn’t going to remember. Think of nicer things. What was he thinking about, initially? He can’t recall anything before The Boy.

The Boy.

He presses his lips together. He doesn’t know if it’s out of anger or fear. Fuck, fuck, fuck, but that kid ruined his fucking life - fucking damn him and damn his bleeding heart for balking at the thought of cursing out a child, but he’s a child too (is he?) and that’s not fair. He didn’t have anything to do with him! He didn’t do anything to deserve whatever happened to him that makes him afraid to even think it! And the little fucking - piece of shit, arsehole, unworthy of even the worst insults he can think of, he fucking-

He clenches his fists in his hair and grinds his teeth together. He’s rocking back and forth - a self-soothing technique, his mother had called it, with that look in her eyes like she blamed herself for it like she always did - and damnit fine, he needs to soothe himself now because that bitch of a kid is still out there experiencing no repercussions whatsoever for his actions while he’s here fucking - what? Is he having another episode again? What is he, a Victorian woman? Is he going to faint next? This is getting fucking ridiculous. Can he not fucking exist without bursting into hysterics over every little thing?!

He breathes out a harsh breath and startles himself when the inhale becomes a sob. He grits his teeth and tries to swallow back the lump in his throat; he is not going to fucking cry again. He keeps his traitorous sobs squashed within his throat and chest and does his level best to keep the sniffling to a minimum because he isn’t crying.

He wipes his nose against his knees. His eyes are watery, but no tears have fallen yet. He feels like his dog.

Morals dictate that he shouldn’t feel so angry at a child. His sense of personal justice reminds him that Itachi was only forced to kill the Uchiha clan - the double Tsukuyomi was completely unnecessary.

While he cannot forgive Itachi for the murders of an entire clan - family, clan makes it sound like they were all some…unit, they were all a family - he can understand his reasoning, even if he disagrees with the conclusion Itachi came to.

But no matter how many allowances he makes for Itachi’s mental state and his age, he can never justify the double Tsukuyomi and the subsequent manipulation because the end result is entirely selfish. Itachi’s death at Sasuke’s hands is what Itachi wanted, first and foremost; Sasuke was simply led to that conclusion by Itachi so the man could justify his choices to himself. When had it stopped being about protecting Sasuke and started being about facilitating Itachi’s suicide?

And why the fuck does he have to deal with Itachi’s self-serving martyr bullshit now? He’s not fucking Sasuke! He’s a grown-ass woman with a job and a uni degree! He’s not the snot-nosed kid that he’s been parading around as - clan business? Uchiha? Konoha?? It’s not fucking real! How the fuck has he been so stupid as to go along with everything that has happened to him up ‘til now?

Naruto doesn’t exist! He’s not in some alternate universe - he’s probably in some fucking psych ward somewhere because what he’s thinking is fucking crazy! He’s crazy!

He violently directs his focus inwards, drowning in the sensations of his trembling body until he can see past them to the spool in his stomach. He stares at it until the memory of red is bleached from his eyes and the calm procession of chakra being fed into his many pathways slows the racing of his heart into something more manageable.

Is he crazy? Maybe. But the pain he feels when he pulls at his hair is real, and according to Descartes, that’s more than enough proof for what he’s experiencing to be considered reality. This is his reality now, bloodied corpses and redred eyes and fucking paperwork and all; but he’s not going to dance to Itachi’s fucking tune.

Itachi’s not his brother; and once he gets the ‘Uchiha’ removed from Itachi’s bingo book page, that will be made as clear as he can make it.

He’s Uchiha Sasuke now. If Itachi can’t handle that - if anyone can’t handle that - then they can suck his dick.

He unclenches his hands from his hair and lowers his knees to take a proper look at his surroundings. Natsume looks unruffled in the face of what is his third fucking breakdown of the morning - is it even twelve o’clock yet?! - and a glance at her bowl reveals she’d been fucking eating her lunch while he was going through an existential crisis.

The…Natsume-ness of the action - of course she fucking would - startles him into laughter. As he bends over the table to clutch at his aching stomach, he realises his food had arrived as well and is sitting untouched on the tabletop. The condensation from the chocolate spider now sits in a ring of water around the base of the glass. He distantly wishes he had a stubby cooler to put it in.

“Is there anything that phases you, Natsume-san?” He manages to choke out past his helpless laughter. Good god in heaven, she’s either a sociopath or the poster child for emotional repression. Neither option says anything good about Konoha’s mental healthcare system.

Natsume looks like she’s genuinely considering the question, and that makes it all the funnier. He slaps the table repeatedly as he wheezes and hopes to god that he doesn’t suddenly suffer from an asthma relapse. Surely his hereditary afflictions won’t affect him as Sasuke, would they? Did Sasuke have asthma? Nah - if he did, any fire jutsu would’ve taken him out immediately.

“Nothing comes to mind.” Natsume tells him with surprising honesty. He scoffs - but honestly? He could believe it. Pun intended.

“Insane.” He mutters, and reaches for his chocolate spider. The ice cream has melted into more of a mostly-solid soup, so he stirs it into the drink and takes a sip. It’s like drinking cake batter. Just how he likes it.

He digs into his okonomiyaki with renewed vigour. What was the saying? Something something…if you hate the world, take a bath, if you hate yourself, eat a cracker? Something like that. He can’t take a bath right now, but food will do; especially good food. In his opinion, no okonomiyaki will ever compare to his Japanese teacher’s recipe, but it’s still pretty damn good. He’s doing his best to pick up the last few bonito flakes with his piss-poor chopstick skills - just because he can use them doesn’t mean he’s using them right - when the owner of the restaurant hurries over to them. The tall man’s shoulders visibly sag in relief when he comes to a stop a respectful distance away.

“Are you alright, Uchiha-kun?” The Akimichi - his name had something to do with Ouran High School Host Club. Haruhi? Tamaki? Honey? Kyoya! - asks gently, his tone at odds with the volume at which he’d greeted them initially. “Haruto-kun told me you were rather distressed. If there’s anything I can do to make you more comfortable, please let me know.”

He clears his throat in anticipation of the mess his crying would’ve made of his voice. It still comes out scratchy despite his efforts, but at least he’s anticipating it.

“I’m fine now, thank you, Akimichi-san. My distress was not a result of this environment - it’s lovely, and I sincerely enjoyed the food. I just have some personal matters I have yet to address.” And now he’s overcompensating for his earlier childishness by trying to seem mature with his words. Is there - there is a jutsu that lets you sink into the ground. He needs to learn that immediately. “Ah…and as of this morning, it’s Uchiha-sama now.”

Natsume radiates smugness at him from across the table. He can’t match her energy because he’s too busy trying not to dissolve into mortified atoms at the presumption. As it is, Akimichi Kyoya doesn’t visibly take offence.

“My apologies and my congratulations, Uchiha-sama. I’m glad to hear you enjoyed my food.” Akimichi Kyoya smiles bright and wide. Damn, are all the Akimichi this nice? He wonders. Why was everyone clowning on Choji if he and his family are this nice and make such good food? If anything, he should’ve had an overabundance of people trying to be his friend to try and take advantage of his probably god-tier lunchboxes.

Maybe Shikamaru scared them all off. Hm.

The thought makes him shudder and he tunes back into whatever Kyoya’s saying to avoid thinking about what would happen if the Nara catch wind of his un-Uchiha-ness. Nothing good, that’s for sure.

He smiles and pretends like he didn’t space out for five seconds. The part of his brain that was helpfully still paying attention to the conversation tells him that Kyoya had declared the need to pay void out of the kindness of his own heart. That’s so nice I might cry, he thinks to himself, then follows that up hastily with ‘nevermind, I’ve done way more than enough crying today.’ Happy thoughts only in this house.

“Your generosity is appreciated.” He says, because he currently doesn’t have any money with which to insist that he pay, and the only alternative is that Natsume pays - and he’d rather disembowel himself with a rusty machete than owe Natsume anything. Any favour she’d call in would probably be just as painful anyway, even though she looks content to let him take the conversational lead right now. “And the food was really good. I enjoyed it a lot. I’ll definitely come back here one day.”

Kyoya beams. “I’m glad you’ve taken a liking to my humble establishment, Uchiha-sama.” He says jovially. “Please feel free to come by whenever you want. Perhaps I’ll even see you come by after you graduate, hm?”

Kyoya’s good mood is infectious enough that the thought of going back to the ninja Academy and graduating as a trained killer at the ripe old age of twelve almost sounds like an event worthy of celebration rather than the extreme moral concern and cause for anxiety that it is. But for now, he can pretend that genin graduation is just about graduating school and going out for dinner with friends, and he’s not going to think about his future teammates or life at all. Nope. He’s not going to have a fourth breakdown. Four is an unlucky number in Japan anyways; if he has a fourth breakdown, he might get struck by a meteorite…or worse, he won’t. A man can dream.

“That would be nice, Akimichi-san. If I make friends at the Academy, I think I’d like to take them here to eat.” He’s not even lying, but the linchpin of the truth is the ‘if’ at the start of his second sentence. Friendships require effort both ways, after all…and he’s not too sure if he can stand being near a six-year-old of average intelligence without needing to bash his head against the nearest wall until his brain cell count is reduced enough to match his classmates’. He could barely stand his own brothers on a normal day.

“That would be wonderful to see, Uchiha-sama.” Kyoya agrees brightly. Natsume nods and he is immediately suspicious.

“I feel the same. However, Uchiha-sama, I believe we still have things to do. If you’re finished here, shall we go?” Natsume comments demurely as she gets up from her seat. He hurries to copy her, dropping the short distance from his chair to the floor and dipping into a hasty bow that may or may not be overkill before he can forget.

“Thanks again, Akimichi-san. I hope to see you again soon.”

“I should be saying that to you, Uchiha-sama. Please come again.”

He offers one final wave over his shoulder before he hurries after Natsume as she strides through the restaurant at what is probably her normal walking pace but is to him something between a run and a really fast walk. Even calling it a jog probably doesn’t do it justice because he’s spending like half a second airborne with how fast he’s walking. Please, dear god, let him have a growth spurt soon. He can’t remain this short forever. He might actually go insane.

You know what? In fact, he thinks to himself as he steps out into the street after Natsume and squints at the bright contrast in lighting, he’ll settle for any reasonable height as long as he ends up taller than Itachi. He wants that to be his one win. He’ll take all the other annoying symptoms of puberty - it’s not like he hasn’t dealt with them before - but he wants his height to be the one thing he lucks out in. He’s not asking to rival Lebron James or anything; he just wants to be taller than Itachi. That’s it.

How tall is Itachi, anyway? 5”8? Surely. Japanese people are usually pretty short, and Itachi hadn’t been particularly physically intimidating other than the spinning red eyes and the Trauma, in his particular case. Maybe even in Deidara’s. Itachi was literally a skincare routine away from being genuinely mistaken for a girl, for goodness’ sake. He’s surprised Kishimoto never used it as a gag. Maybe he couldn’t since Itachi was a fan favourite?

And it’s his fucking fault for being one of Itachi’s fans, he thinks to himself moodily as he practically bounces across the road. An innocent rock in his path is mercilessly knocked out of his way. Sue him - who doesn’t like good-looking, tragic antiheroes? He tended to find the more you love something, especially with pieces of media, the more you find fault with it; and Itachi had been no exception. Sure, he’d never stopped being a fan of Itachi and reblogging art of him being cute and brotherly with Sasuke on Tumblr Dot Com, but his angst-loving self had always been interested in picking out the details of his actions and justifications that didn’t make sense or contradicted each other.

The conclusion he had come to is that Itachi is the walking definition of cognitive dissonance. He dodges a man with a child on one hip and a paper bag tucked in his other arm and tries not to lose sight of Natsume in the crowd, most of which seems to be civilians out shopping. The shinobi on the rooftops are just as hard to see as ever, and if there are any among the crowd, he doesn’t notice them.

Itachi had probably achieved a level of delusionality so convoluted that not only did he develop the philosophy that everyone lived within their own perception of reality while he was practically the poster child of Doing That, but somehow he managed to justify to himself that he alone was the paragon of truth - in direct contradiction to his philosophy, which dictated that reality is subjective with few objective truths. He can’t comprehend how insane you have to be to survive a cognitive dissonance that long without your mind or behaviour trying to violently align itself one way or another. Maybe it’s the Uchiha genes. He hopes he never ends up so insane that he becomes a wonder of modern psychology.

Or maybe he already is, and this is just the world’s most intricate hallucination - nope, he’s already decided that this is his reality and he’s not going to question his sanity again. Denial is bliss.

He wonders; if he’s speaking in his coma, are the words he’s saying in English or Japanese?

Probably English. He doesn’t know enough Japanese to string together an appropriately comprehensible sentence. Natsume cuts sharply across the road and he mutters a curse under his breath as he dives into the crowd after her. She’s not particularly tall, but blonde hair is enough of a rarity that it makes for a good landmark. He’s tempted to just hang onto the end of her braid like a dog on a leash. He curses again when she ducks into an alley titled The Place Most Likely to Increase The Chances of You Getting Mugged to a Worrying Percentage; and like an idiot, he follows her.

It strikes him in that moment that someone could be impersonating Natsume right now and he wouldn’t know. He trusts Natsume enough to lead him into a sketchy back alley without question - wouldn’t it be fucking hilarious if this was all a trap and he just…walked into it, stupidly, like a lamb to the slaughter? He wracks his brain for anyone who knows where he’s going outside of him and Natsume and comes up worryingly blank.

Okay, so he’s following a woman he barely knows into a less trafficked area to an unspecified location, and no one else knows where he is. He slows up when he sees Natsume turn another corner that takes her out of view of the street and begins backing up, closer to where he can hear the drone of voices in the main street.

It’s probably overkill, he thinks to himself, but he activates his Sharingan anyway.

Since he’s currently working himself into a fit of paranoia, he’s hesitant to close his eyes in order to properly focus on the chakra within him. But what the hell - he’s been wanting a chance to practise activating his Sharingan without closing his eyes anyway, right? Specifically to avoid situations like this. He has to unfocus his eyes even though he doesn’t close them completely, and after a worrying moment, he manages it. He breathes a sigh of relief. It’s getting easier now.

He doesn’t like the idea of having his back to the street - too open, too exposed - but he also doesn’t want to look away from the corner where Natsume disappeared, so he compromises by stepping back and half turning to keep his back to the wall of the building next to him - some sort of clothes shop, he thinks - and promptly jumps out of his skin.

Natsume is standing with her back to the street and an eerie smile on her face, looking as if she hadn’t moved at all. He hadn’t even heard her move or come back or anything-

He has to squint to observe her properly because the glare of the crowd of civilians on the main road is brighter than the midday sun and they keep moving. His Sharingan keeps wanting to focus on the constantly shifting sea of people because prey that moves will always be noticed before the predator that stays still and waits patiently even though one is objectively more concerning, c’mon eyes, get your act together-

When he finally drags his eyes over to Natsume, she hasn’t moved, and he’s not sure if that’s better or worse for his paranoia. What is definitely bad for his paranoia is the fact that her chakra, in comparison to the civilians behind her, is wrong. He can’t even justify it as shinobi bullshit because from what he’s seen from his own chakra and the brief glimpses of the civilians he’s seen, chakra shouldn’t look like that. It’s a whole system, like someone’s veins or nerves - it doesn’t just sit there stagnantly. It moves; and Natsume’s isn’t moving at all, just…existing unblinkingly like pictures he’s seen of the venous system as it is, completely removed from someone’s body. Dead. Natsume can’t be dead, because her chakra’s still there and she’s looking at him, she’s blinking; but her chakra system is stagnant like something dead. What in the Schrödinger’s cat is this?

“...Natsume?” He asks tentatively, clenching and unclenching his hands as if that will rid them of their clamminess. She tilts her head. The action should be familiar - he’s seen her do it before - but it seems so out of place that all he feels is vaguely horrified.

“Is something wrong, Uchiha-sama?”

Even her voice sounds the same. He is feeling very, very unnerved right now, and he’d like things to start making sense, please. Is that Natsume or not? If it isn’t, then who or what is that?

He’s reminded of skinwalkers. His breath catches in his throat and he quickly redirects his train of thought.

He smiles. It stretches oddly on his skin, and he pretends the sweat gathering under his shirt is from the heat of the day and not directionless fear. “Ah…I think I left my pen at the restaurant. Do you mind if I go back for it real quick?”

“I’m sure they’ll have some at the bounty office.” What looks like Natsume answers with a shrug. It’s a very human-like action. Hopefully not an it, then, but a someone. Someone with a strangely frozen chakra system, which is not something he thinks is sustainable or normal to have. He’s not reassured in the least.

“Yeah, but…I don’t think they’ll let me take one with me. And there’s no point taking one from them if I already have one. I can just go back for it. It’s not like the restaurant’s far. I’ll be in and out in a minute, and then I’ll come right back. Please?”

Like hell he is. He’s going to find Akimichi Kyoya and get the man to call whoever he possibly can to let them know that there’s a fake Natsume on the loose, and then he’s going to curl into a ball and cry for the fourth time today. This level of stress is only matched by last-minute assignment crunches; he fears if his heart keeps having reasons to reach record-breaking heights of beats per minute, he’s going to go into cardiac arrest. He fucking feels like he is right now. He’s surprised his heartbeat isn’t audible through his shirt.

Speaking of calling people, where the fuck are his ANBU? Shouldn’t this be a cause for concern? Why aren’t they doing anything? Are they in on it? Is this a ROOT operation? His quick glance at the rest of his surroundings can’t be anything but glaringly obvious to any ROOT agent, and once again he is seized with helpless terror because there’s another Natsume at the other end of the alley.

Natsume 2: electric boogaloo shakes her head and sighs as he tries and fails to keep both Natsumes in his line of sight and also not hyperventilate. “Your attempt at curtailing your blind trust is commendable, but you lost when you tried to bargain with an unknown entity. Please keep in mind for any future situations that anyone who approaches you with unknown intentions is not someone who can be reasoned with, and your first instinct should always be to remove yourself from that situation as quickly and as quietly as possible.”

All that escapes his mouth is a funny sort of half-assed scream not unlike a broken kettle. He shrinks back against the wall and hunches in on himself - it’s only because he’s still looking that he sees the fake Natsume vanish in real-time and promptly has another crisis.

Okay so that wasn’t real. She wasn’t real. What was she then? Some sort of construct that the real Natsume created? What Naruto jutsu matches that description? Henge? The transformation jutsu? Genjutsu? A clone? What the fuck? Why the fuck did she do that? Is that why my ANBU didn’t react? Why wouldn’t they react when someone’s using a jutsu on me, even if Natsume is a Konoha shinobi - Itachi was as loyal as they come and even he didn’t hesitate to turn his sword against Konoha citizens, so what makes Natsume any different? Oh my god, am I going to have another breakdown?

It certainly feels like it. He slides down the probably unsanitary wall and struggles to get his breathing under control again. Inhale for five counts, hold the breath for three, exhale for five, repeat; he hadn’t seen the fake Natsume leave so much as a trace of her existence, even with the Sharingan. Holy fucking shit. But there’s a barrier of cobwebby chakra draped across the entrance to the main street now, likely to disguise them both from any passers-by, and to his fear-addled brain that’s as good as an attempt on his life.

“That was unnecessary.” Is the most he can choke out, and it’s a fucking understatement. It’s been made pretty damn abundantly clear that his naive trust in authority figures is at odds with the way this world works, but that doesn’t excuse scaring the absolute shit out of him to what - teach him a lesson? Natsume had criticised his naivety and while that’s well-founded it doesn’t give her the right to try and scare him into a new way of thinking. Because it worked! He’s fucking scared! He’s definitely going to rethink his way of perceiving the world, but most of all, he’s fucking scared! He’s going to cry now and he’s not even going to be embarrassed about it because that wasn’t fucking fair! There was no reason to do that; at least, not now!

He’s learnt his goddamned lesson about letting people out of his sight, now, so he stares at the wall across from him as tears blur the posters peeling off it into indistinct, pale and aged blobs on a dark brick background. He doesn’t wail like a little kid - he’s taught himself better than that - and keeps his little gasping sobs as quiet as he can make them. He’s not sure if he even remembers how to cry properly. Natsume merely stands and watches as he wipes his nose on his increasingly grotty sleeve and tries to calm his fast-paced, hiccupping breathing.

Is this how he’s going to have to live, at the mercy of whoever happens to be in his vicinity in this stupid fucking overpowered village, constantly having to check if the person he’s talking to is real or fake and whether or not they have some sort of hidden agenda they want to impart on him in the stupidest, most bull-headed way possible? He’ll go blind ten years earlier at that rate; for fuck’s sake, isn’t Konoha supposed to be about fostering loyalty? Why is everyone he meets telling him that trusting authority figures is the stupidest thing he can possibly do? Even Itachi was more direct than this - violence, lies, the establishment of himself as someone he should avoid at all costs - and he set himself up as the paragon of all vices!

Perhaps he’s glorifying the experience now that he’s no longer living it, but he almost misses the straightforwardness of having his brain raked over broken glass because at least then he couldn’t think through all the pain. The implications now are a much harsher reality than simple, uncomplicated violence.

In a moment of weakness, he hates Natsume for it.

...

Hoshino Natsume watches Sasuke cry with a detached sort of apathy. She’s seen children cry before for a multitude of reasons, and she’s seen grown adults cry for much of the same.

It’s an involuntary stress response. He can’t help it, and she hasn’t done much to assuage his distress. It’s not her place to. She’s just his minder. It’s her job to teach him what he needs to know; and she’s doing that. He has to learn that he cannot afford to trust so easily in this den of vipers that calls itself a village, because no one else will teach him when they’re too busy trying to drag him down themselves.

Besides, no one in the Records and Archives Division would consider themselves the consoling type. She would call it a running joke if she thought her coworkers were the type to laugh at those sorts of things. At best, she might get a few chuckles if she recounted this situation in the break room at lunch. The staff of the Records and Archives Division aren’t exactly the most sociable of people, but they’re good people.

All except for the mole amongst them.

Sasuke pulls up the edge of his shirt to dry his tears as his breathing begins to slow. His eyes are still red and spinning lazily, never quite staying in the same place for longer than half a second but glancing back at her the most frequently.

She can play the bad guy if it means he’ll be more wary going forward. The Uchiha Clan Head, as she’s teaching him to set himself up as, can’t afford to be tricked by trusting the untrustworthy like she has been. And perhaps it’s unfair to expect him to develop an adult’s suspicion of the world at large so quickly and so young, but an adult is what he’s trying to set himself up as, so an adult is what he’ll have to become. May as well encourage the unnatural maturity he’s suddenly developed. As she’s come to discover, not all in the village are to be trusted.

“You’ll understand-” Sasuke’s voice is thick and choked with strangled sobs. He tries again. “You’ll understand if I don’t want to go anywhere secluded with you now.”

“I would hope you wouldn’t.” She replies mildly. If he had gotten nothing from that encounter, then there would’ve been nothing more she could do for him other than the bare minimum before she left him for the wolves. “We can still get to the bounty office the civilian way. I’ll lead the way properly this time.”

Sasuke’s answering laugh is a mockery of its descriptor. Natsume’s heard more mirthful laughs from Yoshiyama Gogo, the newest Archives Division intern, and she forgets to move her face to express the emotions she says she’s feeling half the time.

“It’s not like I can do anything but trust you, right?” He says bitterly. His expression is a mixture of anger, disgust, and residual fear. “At least I know you’re the real one, for all the good that does me.”

She hums. “At least now you know how to discern a clone from a real person. That knowledge will serve you well in the future.”

If looks could kill, Sasuke would be making a pretty spirited attempt. As it is, all he says is “Let’s just go.” Before he turns his back and begins walking towards the main street.

He pauses before the genjutsu disguising them from view and she waits for him to shake it off instead of breaking it herself. He does so quicker than she expected, with a strange spasm in his chakra system as he did; when he looks back at her before he steps out onto the street, his eyes are still Sharingan-red. His mouth twists. Behind his teeth are likely a multitude of unsaid words, none of them kind. The child he should be would tell her in no implicit detail what he thinks of her right now, but the adult she’s teaching him to be keeps his mouth frustratingly closed. She wonders, not for the first time and likely not the last, what connection in his brain was wrenched into place to cause such a big difference between the child he was and the boy he is now.

She takes the hint and strides towards him leisurely. He shrinks out of arms’ reach as she gets closer and occupies a space in her rear peripherals, keeping his right side closest to her as she passes him and rejoins the crowd of shoppers on the street. Despite the congested space, people instinctively move out of her way; the T&I uniform is distinctive and seldom heralds anything good, and the headband hanging from her belt is practically a warding talisman in of itself. The civilians she’s met who don’t possess the same instinctual wariness of shinobi like most others can be counted on one hand.

People begin to move out of Sasuke’s way as well as he follows in her wake, doing double takes as they notice his red, spinning gaze and hastily flinching out of the way. She notices that he can’t seem to help following the aborted movements even before they happen; he’d struggled to focus on her clone as well and had kept looking at the street despite his best efforts. The Sharingan must instinctively want to track abnormal movement. Since her clone had been mostly stationary, it hadn’t registered as something worth noticing even if he knew it had been.

It’s not good practice for an aspiring shinobi to be so obviously distracted by every little thing. Hopefully he takes this as an opportunity to train himself out of the habit, because any attempt at her brand of teaching would be unwelcome now and he will have no one else to teach him until he graduates or seeks out a teacher himself. Unlikely, considering the fact that he oscillates between letting her do his work for him or stubbornly doing it all himself. Sasuke seems like the type to drive himself into ruin rather than ask for help.

…Which sounds like another clan head of one she knows of - if only peripherally - and who is the reason why she will do everything in her power to make sure Sasuke does not end up like him.

She has never personally met Hatake Kakashi, only heard of him in rumours and second-hand accounts of sightings around the village. She listens for those sightings to avoid even the smallest possibility of bumping into him. It’s a large village; and as she’s come to find out, Hatake Kakashi tends to favour more secluded, less trafficked areas - the type of places she’s just instilled a wariness of in Sasuke. Hatake Kakashi would never dare set foot on the main roads unless accompanied by his more extroverted companions, and even then they tended to defer to his preferences more often than not.

Out here, in the shopping district before the Hokage Tower, with the last member of a clan Hatake Kakashi has been known to avoid like the plague, the chances of meeting the man are lower than all her previous efforts combined. The thought brings a touch of genuineness to her smile, which causes a young lady who had been looking in her general direction to trip over air. Sasuke makes a noise of amusement despite himself, and when she looks back, he’s smiling even as his attention is immediately arrested by the waving of scarves tied around a pole holding up the roof of a store selling assorted accessories.

Natsume looks forward again so she doesn’t miss the entrance to the bounty office as they keep walking. The official bounty office is a room full of constantly fluctuating paperwork and dead-eyed, manic staff who know more about the missing-nin that they study than they do about normal human interactions. She once had a bounty office staff member grab her and ask her if she’d seriously consider sharpening her teeth like they do in Kiri, and then leave without a word when she politely declined. She’s never found out why they asked her or how they came to that conclusion and she’s not sure she wants to know.

The unofficial bounty office, which only the very brave or the very stupid dare visit, is a one-person operation that doubles as an eccentric shinobi merchandise shop. Most of Takuma’s customers are children sent in on a dare, morbidly curious civilians, or shinobi with the same type of appreciation for items scavenged from the dead. None of which make for good company. But they do their job well precisely because of their obsession with death and its remnants, and is a perfectly amiable businessman if you’re willing to overlook their quirks and general demeanour. Hatake Kakashi would never be caught dead in such a person's presence, because anyone who enjoys and actively seeks out social encounters is to him what shinobi are to civilians; someone to tolerate but mainly avoid at all cost. Takuma especially after a purported incident when she heard they’d apparently accosted Hatake-san for details about the acquisition of his new eye. That had been the first and only incident she’d ever heard of a medic punching someone.

Even without the knowledge of Takuma’s second, more lucrative business, people actively avoid their shopfront like a bad smell. It does nothing to make itself look less confronting, proudly displaying the curios that Takuma was most interested by when they set up the shop this morning as well as the proud assurance that all the previous owners of the items he sells are dead or presumed as such. Sasuke looks apprehensive, but less so than when she had led him off the main road; she anticipates a request or two regarding Takuma’s wares either during or after they complete their work.

There are rumours that Takuma’s door knocker is made out of human bone. The old woman who looks at her sidelong as she descends the stairs of the apartment building unfortunate enough to be next door certainly looks like she believes it. Even the apartment building and the fishmonger’s shop on the other side of Takuma’s shop seem to lean away from the jarringly traditional building like they can’t bear to touch the deep sea green walls. Natsume still uses the door knocker to announce their entrance and beckons Sasuke to follow with a pointed look backwards as he hesitates on the low deck.

“It’s not like last time. I promise.”

He eyes her sceptically. She wonders if he’ll run.

“I’m not supposed to believe a shinobi, am I.” He phrases it as a statement, but he still dutifully steps after her despite his reluctance.

“Not at all, Uchiha-sama. Not at all.”

Chapter Text

He knows shinobi are supposed to be super-secret (not that most shinobi seem to remember that) caricatures of boogeymen and things that go bump in the night, but this seems like overkill.

It is also absolutely awesome.

He spares only a moment to wonder why Natsume knows so many sketchy places before he happily lets himself get distracted by the absolute wealth of strange shit on display and the bright glow of chakra that is imbued in some of the items and even parts of the building itself. He is not so distracted that he forgets to keep an eye on Natsume, of course, but it’s hard not to openly boggle at the shelves and tables placed haphazardly throughout the store. It doesn’t help that his Sharingan has the attention span of a hyperactive toddler with ADHD.

Are those human bones? Why is there a shelf entirely dedicated to severed limbs? Who the fuck would want to buy a severed and mummified limb? Why is the jewellery here kind of nice? And very shiny. Would it be immoral to buy jewellery that was most likely stolen from a corpse? How has this shop not gone out of business? What kind of fucked-up customer base is the owner catering to? Is there really such a demand for missing-nins’ possessions? Ooh, slashed headbands! Is the owner even allowed to sell those, or are they just for display? What if he got one to give Itachi a heart attack? There aren’t any Konoha ones, though, and if he slashes his own, he would probably be promptly arrested for mutiny. Are those weapons? He wants one immediately. Would he be able to wield any? No. Would they be cool to have regardless? Absolutely. Is that a morning star? Why are there clothes? Who’s out in Konoha wearing a dead missing-nin’s clothes? Who would shop for clothes in this place, anyway? Would they have clan crests on them - would there be Uchiha clothes in here? Ooh, strange octopus light fixture lit with candles and more bright lights and a person on the ceiling-!

Black teeth! How are their glasses still on their nose?! Why are their glasses and feet glowing as well?? Why the fuck are they grinning like that?! How long have they been up there?! Is - is that the proprietor?!

“Natsume-chan!” The person chirps brightly. The sleeves of their kimono shirt hang down like banners, a rich dark green patterned with black waves the same dark shade as their hair. He does his best to avoid looking at the moving parts of their outfit, but it’s hard when his eyes are instinctively drawn to any moving thing. He gets it, eyes, it’s interesting. Give it half a second of attention because we have bigger things to worry about, like Natsume and the person on the roof. “And a new customer! What joy! What can I do for you both? Got anything interesting to pawn off?”

“Nothing new, unfortunately, Takuma-san. We’re here on other business.” Natsume replies. Takuma pouts - and falls headfirst from the roof.

He watches the fall with the perspective of a horrified bystander watching a car crash, unwilling to look away and unable to help; it is only because of his active Sharingan that he can see the tensing of muscles and the clumsy redirection of some chakra from the person’s main chakra pool into their arms and the quicksilver grin that Takuma gives him as they bring their arms closer together to land perfectly on their hands for a brief moment…until their arms give way and they collapse to the ground with a loud bang.

For a moment, he and Natsume just stare at them. Even his Sharingan doesn’t try to redirect his attention elsewhere, seemingly content to watch as Takuma’s chakra resettles into its normal circulation.

Takuma groans.

Natsume nudges them with her foot. “That’s what happens when you try to use chakra without a permit or a teacher. I should report you.”

“But you won’t because you love me?” Takuma asks the floorboards hopefully. Natsume’s answering silence is incredibly judgmental. He trusts the people Natsume knows less and less. The only good people were Akimichi Kyoya and the good-looking waiter whose name had something to do with Spring, and they’re probably the exceptions that prove the rule.

Takuma gets to their feet with a pout when neither of them bothers to offer them a hand up. They rub their head exaggeratedly and brush what little flecks of dirt he can see off their robes - his eyes fixate on the flick of their wrists and the pathways of chakra under their skin - while Natsume cruelly leaves him behind to walk up to the cluttered desk partially hidden at the back of the store by more randomly placed shelves and peers over it.

Takuma has bright yellow eyes that catch the light from the chandelier above them through the lens of their glasses as they look down at him. Their chakra swims under their skin like salmon through a stream, more of a sickly yellow tinge than the colourless mass that is his own. His next breath stutters on the way out.

…Is this Orochimaru?

“Hey, that’s private!” Possibly-Orochimaru whines once they turn around and notice Natsume looking over their desk - but he has no luck in escaping notice, because the universe hates him; their attention snaps back to him just as quickly. He shrinks in on himself and hopes his spinning eyes will be enough to scare them off…though his eyes seem to be more concerned with the soothingly repetitive pattern of chakra within the body of the person before him. Who the fuck said that the Sharingan was overpowered? He’s more confused about how any Uchiha managed to concentrate with them on long enough to actually be of use in a fight.

Takuma/maybe-Orochimaru crouches down before him and stares with those bright, acidic eyes. Even the light that glints off their glasses and the glowing outline of their body under their skin has a warmer glow than the gleam of their eyes. His mouth twists. Surely ANBU or Natsume will step in if they try anything, right?

“Hey. You wanna sell me those eyes?”

He blinks at them. They tilt their head and grin, revealing blackened teeth even darker than the sort that mothers threaten their children about. Are they - were they a woman? Didn’t Japanese women blacken their teeth in the past? Why would Orochimaru blacken his - their? - teeth? That doesn’t seem to fit with his image, especially with his goal of achieving an unchanged immortality. Orochimaru also wasn’t born as a woman (as far as he knows), and Takuma’s chakra network looks as normal as he’s seen. Hadn’t Orochimaru’s chakra been described as off-putting? Surely being a different colour isn’t enough to put people off someone - most people can’t even see chakra on principle. Is discriminating against someone because of the colour of their chakra racist? Colourist??

Natsume looks over at him, her chakra as plainly coloured as his own, and he remembers he’s been asked a question and should probably answer. “Uh. No? No, thank you? They’re mine?”

“You don’t sound very sure about that.” Probably-not-Orochimaru muses, their expression sliding into something more thoughtful. Chakra is drawn up from their main pool to their mouth in a way that looks unconscious. Ew. Why? He stays as still as he dares and tries not to outwardly react. In the silence, he can hear a clock ticking.

No, literally. He can hear a clock somewhere in the building. He can’t see it, though, so it must not be within his or the Sharingan’s line of sight. How big is this building? Does the glow of chakra on the walls mean that it’s also sealed? What kind of godforsaken seal would be on this place?

“Um. No, my eyes stay with me, thank you.” Not that he has any more claim to his - Sasuke’s - eyes than whoever this maybe-relative-of-Orochimaru’s is, but at the very least, he knows not to give out eyes willy-nilly.

…How much would a pair of Uchiha eyes go for on the black market?

Damn, now he’s curious. He doubts Danzo would sell them, not only because he wants to put them into his arm like a lunatic, but because that would be a dead ringer for a betrayal within Konoha itself should Konoha (or anyone really) catch wind of the sale. Would Orochimaru sell them? Also unlikely…god knows what for, but he would use them.

Takuma sighs mournfully and hunches further over themselves.

“Are you sure?” They drawl - and actually bat their eyes at him. He shudders despite his resolve to appear unaffected and takes an involuntary step back.

His back hits a shelf - he feels it move, and spins to grab it in case it falls. He watches it wobble for a moment with his heart in his throat and his hands held out uselessly, but nothing happens other than the swaying of the jewellery hanging from the shelves like the beads of a fortune-teller’s curtain. He exhales and lets his shoulders slump, letting his eyes trace the shelf’s form longer than necessary to avoid turning back to look at Takuma.

Natsume rejoins them to rescue him by grabbing Takuma by their collar and yanking them into the air. He watches in apathetic fascination as the Sharingan focuses on the thicker feed of chakra that moves through Natsume’s pathways as opposed to Takuma’s as the woman shakes the shop owner seemingly just to hear them squeal. Is it chakra strengthening? His pigeon of a brain asks. Like Tsunade? Is it really that common? Can he learn to use it?

“Not only did you use chakra without a permit or a teacher in front of a shinobi who is bound by law to report you, but you’re so brazen as to threaten the last Uchiha to his face? Are you so unafraid of death?”

“I didn’t threaten him,” Takuma protests. Natsume gives them another shake. “I asked! Politely!”

“Clearly, you don’t remember what happened the last time you asked someone to sell you their eyes. Or rather, eye.”

His own eyes widen. Ain’t no way this person asked Kakashi to sell them his Sharingan. Surely not. Are they stupid? They may as well ask a Hyuuga - have they asked a Hyuuga for their eyes? At this point, he wouldn’t be surprised. If this is the kind of company Natsume keeps, then maybe Shiroyama-san had been horribly misled about the type of person Natsume actually is. Maybe the Hyuuga with him had been the guy Takuma had asked for his eyes, and that’s why he looked like a dog shit on his upper lip.

“How was I supposed to know that his pet medic had anger issues?” Takuma whines. “Medics are supposed to be gentle and good-mannered. Have you ever heard of a medic punching someone’s lights out? They said she nearly broke my jaw!”

Natsume stops dragging Takuma to stare off into the middle distance as if there’s an invisible camera at the end of her line of sight. He distinctly hears her sigh.

He’d’ve thought that everyone in Konoha would’ve heard of Tsunade? Isn’t violence, like…what she’s famous for? Maybe Takuma is a pervert and so only knows Tsunade by her chest size? If so, that’s insane. You can’t have a passing resemblance to Orochimaru and be a misogynist. Pick a struggle.

Then again, he didn’t think that Tsunade knew Kakashi well enough to punch someone in his defence, however - at least, not before Naruto canon. But if Takuma isn’t talking about her, then who else would he be talking about? The only medic he knows of that had been close enough to Kakashi to be considered a “pet” would be-

“I didn’t think I’d have to remind someone of the existence of Tsunade-hime, considering her contributions to the village. Please pick up a book on recent history before asking stupid questions.” Natsume tells Takuma mildly as she continues to drag them across the shop floor to their desk. He follows at a more sedate pace, content to oogle at the curiosities now that Natsume has Takuma in a vice-grip, and painfully mindful of his clumsy presence among them. They pass a disorganised spread of coins laid out across a table, covered with a glass casing, above which a katana and its accompanying wakizashi - both of which look to be inlaid with gold leaf or something equally as golden and shiny - rest ornately on a wall-mounted stand. His hands itch, but he isn’t his brother - his past brother, that is, not Itachi - and he keeps his hands in his pockets. The idea of Itachi as a petty thief entertains him until he tunes back into Natsume and Takuma’s conversation.

“Tsunade-hime is a special case, and you know it.” He hears Takuma complain as they rummage through their desk drawers. Natsume leans her hip against their desk and watches them search, her plastic smile now only faintly present in the curve of her mouth. “Not every medic can collapse mountains with a sneeze or have enough core strength to support a chest of that size. Certainly not Hatake’s medic. Sage above, thank god she died, or we might’ve had another Tsunade on our hands. That’s something only the higher-ups want. I’m surprised the Senju haven’t been breeding like rabbits.”

“Would you want another defector in your family-?” Natsume cuts herself off before she finishes her question, and so it comes out as more of a sentence. Takuma freezes, a drawer half-closed and papers in their hands. A small, dark photograph slips from its containing paperclip and floats onto the floor without interference.

He looks between them as their chakra blurs across his vision like car headlights in rain, wanting to ask but unwilling to risk conflict if he does. Had that been an Orochimaru reference?

Takuma shakes their head as if to banish the thought. 

“No. I wouldn’t.” They reply evenly, and bend down to retrieve the photo that had fallen. The Sharingan traces the spools of hair that curl on the desk’s surface and then rise as they do; between blinks, that same dark hair is hanging over the edge of a wooden wraparound deck, framing two red eyes that bug out like a car’s rear lights in the pitch black of midnight. He blinks again, and it’s just Takuma again. He distracts himself by straining his eyes to catch a glimpse of the photograph.

Natsume doesn’t apologise to them - he doesn’t think she’s the type of person who would - and they all stand in silence as Takuma reorganises their papers before they place the thin stack on their desk.

He reaches inside himself to switch off the Sharingan as Itachi’s face stares up at them dispassionately, held with a paperclip alongside a piece of paper covered in scribbled, illegible notes and another piece of paper that he can’t quite see the contents of without the clarity and brightness that comes with the Sharingan. He lets out a small breath of disappointment as the friendly distraction that is the veritable ecosystem of bright points of chakra which exists under the Sharingan disappears between one blink and the next.

Itachi looks far more put-together in his official photo than he had the night he’d met him. Which he supposes is fair enough, considering the difference in situations. He can’t exactly expect one to dress up for their family’s murder. He steps forward and internally sighs as he has to stand on tip-toes to see the whole desk.

…Itachi looks unreasonably pretty as well.

If you ignore the way his eyes don’t reflect the light and his face shows no emotional inflections at all, he’s pretty, in the way little girls are. All long hair and delicate features.

The memory of someone else’s features, lax in death, flashes across the forefront of his mind; he blinks, and doesn’t try to recall the memory when it goes.

Itachi’s eyes are a lot like his previous brother’s, he realises. His brother’s eyes had been sunken in and shadowed like Itachi’s are, giving them both the illusion of permanent sickness. His eyes had been half-lidded with dark smears like bruises underneath each, something that Itachi also has. He recognises the seemingly tired stare from photos of his previous self.

His mouth contorts into a grimace. He reaches out with a stubby arm and slips Itachi’s photo out from under its paperclip; big dark eyes bore into his own as he turns the photo around and slides it back under the paperclip face-down. No one comments on the action, but the tightness in his stomach remains.

“I’d like you to remove the ‘Uchiha’ from Itachi’s name.” He says quietly. His mouth tastes dry and gross like he’s just woken up from a twelve-hour sleep. He keeps his eyes on the three pieces of paper on the desk before him. Even the curious paperweights of glass, amber and bone don’t interest him more than keeping his thoughts non-existent if not quiet.

“From the bounty poster?” Takuma replies in the same tone, if a little more sure of themself. He nods.

It takes him a moment to organise his thoughts into something comprehensible. “I don’t want him associated with the Uchiha clan. With me. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.” Words fail him, then, but he thinks Takuma understands. The glimpse he catches of Takuma’s blackened teeth as their mouth stretches into a grim smile is viciously vindictive.

Their hand hovers indecisively over the desk for a moment as they search for a pen to scribble a note in such terrible handwriting that he doesn’t even bother to guess at its meaning, even with Sasuke’s understanding of Japanese.

“I’ll be sure to notify the official bounty office of the change.” They tell him, shooting a Look sideways at Natsume where she is leaning against the desk with an expression like nothing they’re saying matters. “Which, for the record, is what you should’ve done in the first place.”

“You notify the bounty office of any changes you make regardless.” She shrugs. Takuma groans theatrically. He takes a step back, out of arm’s reach, as they flop over their desk to further emphasise their despair. Their pen clatters onto the floor and rolls out of sight.

All the people Natsume knows are insane, he thinks to himself in apathetic fascination. Naruto - the person - practically looks normal by comparison.

“Why is there an official bounty office if all you do is come to me? And yet when I propose that I become the sole bounty office for efficiency, oh, fire and brimstone, how dare I even suggest such a thing…”

“The reason you have half the freedoms you have now is because you aren’t Konoha’s official bounty office.” Natsume replies in a tone that tells him this is an argument that they’ve had before.

“You wouldn’t think so, with the number of people that come to me…” Takuma sulks as they straighten just enough so as not to squash Itachi’s file as they slide it off their desk into their waiting hand.

“They come to you because your client base can’t be accessed through the official channels. You’re a necessary evil.” Natsume continues patiently. Takuma mutters something that sounds vile under their breath as they yank open a drawer and toss Itachi’s file into it, but doesn’t say anything out loud. Unfortunately. He’d like to know how shinobi curse, like any self-respecting person with the sense of humour of a high school boy. Natsume’s face does something funny for the briefest of moments, so she definitely heard it - would she tell him what they said if he asks? In any case, the force with which Takuma closes the drawer speaks volumes.

“Besides. Civilians don’t interfere with shinobi business, just like we don’t interfere with theirs. The fact that you still operate as a business at all is because the Sandaime doesn’t see fit to bother merging your secondary business with the official bounty office.”

“And he never will.” Takuma mutters more audibly this time. Natsume inclines her head in agreement, but she doesn’t look happy about it. It probably annoys her that the Hokage is allowed to just ignore the rules that he’s supposed to enforce, but unless you happen to be someone whom he particularly cares about, every man and his dog probably knows that it would take a Kyuubi-level catastrophe to get the Hokage to act outside of the norm.

“...Where is the line drawn between shinobi and civilian…operations, for want of a better word?” He asks, partly for the change of subject away from a topic that is obviously irritating Takuma, and partly because he’s genuinely curious. Surely a village made up of both civilians and shinobi would have some way of dealing with conflicts of interest in business and other sectors. He’s half expecting it to be something stupid and prejudiced because that’s what Konoha tends to lean towards in complicated situations.

He shrinks a little under the combined weight of Natsume and Takuma’s gazes. Natsume nods to herself.

“Good question.”

“The shinobi take all.” Takuma mutters darkly as they fold their arms. Natsume, tellingly, doesn’t challenge them.

“That changes on a case-by-case basis. Not every situation is the same.” She tells him. He furrows his brow at that.

“Well, yeah, I understand that. Um…then, for example, why can’t Takuma-san merge with or work in the official bounty office? Is it because they’re a civilian and therefore can’t work with sensitive information, or something?”

“No.” Takuma answers immediately. “Well - partly. Of course I deal with sensitive information; generating and handling the personal details of missing-nin, especially Konoha’s, is a balancing act of offering as much as can be said of an individual without compromising the village. The Sandaime clearly does not see me as potentially compromised, since I am still able to operate and speak with my business contacts, as long as I have a shinobi escort,” They roll their eyes to express just how they feel about that. “But there you go. I can operate as a singular, mostly impartial entity only up to a point before shinobi insert themselves in my business. In short, civilians only have as enough freedoms as the shinobi are willing to allow. When conflicts arise, the shinobi take precedence. That’s how it always is.”

“Konoha is a shinobi village.” Natsume points out. Takuma mutters a second unkind comment under their breath with another roll of their eyes. Natsume looks vaguely long-suffering. “We do rely on civilians to keep the village running, it’s true; but above all, we must always act in defence of the village regardless of any gains or losses suffered by civilian businesses. We are not a civilian establishment, we are a military conglomerate. Above all, we act in the Hokage’s interests, not in the interest of business.”

“The Hokage’s interests are all well and good until he has no resources with which to act. If you shinobi didn’t have farmers, didn’t have shopkeepers and tailors and builders and plumbers, you would be too busy trying to keep yourselves alive to worry about whatever the Hokage wants.” Takuma snarks. Their head jerks in an almost biting motion; a snap of the teeth, a sharp movement of the neck. He instinctively leans away from the desk.

“Wouldn’t involving civilians in shinobi business in some capacity be more effective for village operations as well?” He adds quickly, before Takuma can wind themselves up into a tirade. If he redirects them, then maybe they won’t yell. “And chakra can be used to optimise processes that don’t currently use chakra, though I can’t think of any off the top of my head right now. Maybe blacksmithing? I agree that chakra shouldn’t be used willy-nilly, but I do think that civilians should receive some sort of training with it as well.”

Natsume shrugs. “Unfortunately, my say weighs little against the Hokage and his advisory council. Like I’ve said before to Takuma, you can complain to me all you want, but in the end, nothing changes if the Hokage decides not to act. If it has been decided that civilians cannot deal with shinobi operations, then there is little I can do against it.”

He notes that Natsume didn’t mention the clan council when she spoke of who cockblocks civilians from being involved in shinobi business. Is it that noticeable that the so-called advisory council holds the most sway when deciding how to run the village? It could just be a matter of Natsume’s pedantry, but the fact that she’s noticed it at all means that the idea must be at least somewhat obvious to outsiders.

“If I said something, would it matter?” He asks. He has no idea how he would be able to shoehorn the matter into Konoha’s preexisting politics, especially as a newcomer and a child to boot, but he could at least try-

“No.” Natsume doesn’t even take a moment to think about it.

Or not.

“No one is going to take you seriously.” Takuma agrees with a snort. “They don’t take any suggestions of that nature seriously regardless. Even if you do present a good case, the advisory council will just call it further confirmation that the very idea is naive.”

“That’s cooked.” He replies, purely out of habit. “At the very least, wouldn’t they listen to me? What’s the point of having a council if there is no equal respect?”

He doesn’t even realise how strange the phrase sounds when translated into Japanese until both Takuma and Natsume look at him as if he’s just put a live bug in his mouth. He blinks, and scrambles for something to say - but comes up with nothing and sticks to his guns by keeping his mouth shut. Denial will go a long way if questioned.

“...Regardless of your position, you’re still a child, Uchiha-sama. It would take a generous shift of perspective for the other clan heads to consider your words.” Natsume tells him after a long, uncomfortable silence. Takuma mouths the word ‘cooked’ to themselves.

“Cooked. Does that mean something? To say that something is ‘cooked’...” Takuma needlessly ponders the thought. He feels his face begin to burn.

“Don’t worry about it.” He says with what he feels is too much haste to satisfy their curiosity. Dear god, he never wants to open his mouth again. How are his other colloquialisms going to translate to Japanese? Is he going to accidentally introduce the brainrot he learnt from his younger brothers to the people of Konoha? Are people going to get weird if he refers to them as ‘mate’? Probably, especially considering the dearth of animal-associated clans in Konoha…

“What do you mean by your perceived lack of intelligence being ‘cooked’?” Takuma muses with a tilt to their head. He lowers his gaze so he doesn't have to meet their eyes - he’s seen someone look at him like that before, and it hadn’t been for anything good. “As in, cooked wrong? Cooked badly? Cooked, as in a transformation from raw ingredients into a combination of something other? What kind of connotation does something have if it is ‘cooked’?”

“Don’t worry about it.” He repeats, feeling utterly humiliated despite the lack of understanding from his audience. “It’s nothing. Just…yeah. It sucks that they won’t take me seriously.”

Takuma nods to themselves. “So it’s a negative phrase.” They mutter under their breath as they unfold their arms and scrabble for a writing utensil amongst the mess on their desk. He watches in abject horror as they take notes as if his turn of phrase is something to be noted. It’s not that deep, he wants to cry, but then Takuma might question him about that phrase as well…

“So anyways,” He says desperately, before Takuma gets any more ideas about interrogating him over his choice of words. What were they originally here for, again? “Um. Can you change it? His last name, I mean.”

“Done and done.” Takuma tells him cheerfully. Natsume nods in agreement. “I’ll run the redaction over to the official bounty office once I get the chance. I can’t account for the other villages’ bounty posters - I can try and sway some decisions, but ultimately I can’t influence too much - but at the very least, Konoha’s announcement of his defection and any further publications will not include Itachi’s former last name. You can count on me.”

He gives them a hesitant smile. “Thanks.” Hopefully their generally off-putting demeanour won’t affect their interactions with the official bounty office - though if Natsume is to be believed, they’d fit right in. Anyone who thinks that Natsume should become scarier in any way, shape or form is not right in the head, and it seems anyone who willingly associates with Natsume in general is either much the same or suspiciously normal. Takuma is most definitely Not Normal.

“We’ll get going then.” Natsume says as she straightens and takes a step in the direction of the door. Both he and Takuma blink at her uncomprehendingly, taken off guard by the immediate decision - he recovers first and hurries after her, his shoulder hitching up to his ears in direct response to Takuma’s dramatic wail from behind him.

“Already?! Natsume-chan, you’re so cruel to me - hey! Don’t walk away while I’m talking to you!!”

He hears a great clattering followed by a loud bang that makes him flinch. He turns back to make sure he isn’t in any danger of being grabbed by an emotionally unstable Orochimaru-adjacent person and abruptly changes his footing to dodge a scrabbling mess of fine kimono and long, dark hair, sequestering himself between the shelf of jewellery he’d previously almost knocked over and another draped in a mixture of fabrics so tangled they look like one cloth. His fingers find the differences in texture as he holds onto the shelf to brace himself as he stands on his tippy-toes to watch Takuma attempt to cling onto Natsume’s legs. Admirably, Natsume dodges them without so much as a glance backwards, finally kicking them away as she comes to a stop beside the door to wait for him.

He lets go of the fabrics with no small amount of regret and hurries past a grimy-looking, empty fish tank holding several shrivelled reptile husks and three equally shrivelled-looking tree roots. Natsume is steadily applying pressure to Takuma’s neck with her foot when he joins her; a muscle jumps under her eye as she smiles at him vacantly. He wonders at the fact that some people would probably find that attractive; he catches a glimpse of Takuma’s tear-streaked expression and is relieved to confirm to himself that Takuma is not one of those weirdos.

“We’re going, Takuma.” Natsume announces with all the brevity of a coroner. “If you don’t get off me in the next five minutes, I will make your life very, very hard for you.”

“But you’ll come back, right?” Takuma asks pitifully. The batting of their watery eyes is not as effective on Natsume as they must imagine they are, because only in one’s imagination would a disconcertingly petulant childlike expression on an adult’s face affect anyone in a way other than mild horror and disgust. He certainly feels disgusted.

“The longer you bother me, the less I want to return.”

With a final dramatic - and entirely theatrical - sob, Takuma lets go and proceeds to make a nuisance of themselves by sprawling on the floor. He feels like he’s playing the Floor is Lava as he anxiously picks out the placement of his feet so he doesn’t step on any of Takuma’s stray appendages as he crosses the floor to get closer to Natsume.

Natsume has no such qualms and opens the door with enough force that he hears a bang as it smacks into the side of Takuma’s head. Takuma yelps and curls into a ball, clutching their head - he has to leap over them to reach Natsume’s side, and even then, he narrowly avoids getting smacked in the thigh. He unashamedly hides behind Natsume’s back as she leads the way out the door into the blessed sunshine. He’s never been so relieved to see the world outside of a building. His fondness for being a homebody may not be completely cured - hanging out in Takuma’s shop would be so cool if Takuma themselves weren’t there - but his whole experience within the shop and his joy at escaping the very awkward conversations that had been had within its ominously dark green, glowing walls had certainly disabused him of the notion that all indoor locations were superior to the bug-ridden, hot and humid outdoors. At least Konoha doesn’t seem to be as oppressively humid as his hometown was.

A slight breeze stirs his hair as he bounces outside after Natsume, ducking around her to stay out of her way and keep Takuma in his line of sight as they uncurl and tip their head back to watch them go with a pout.

“See you soon?” They ask hopefully. Natsume doesn’t even look back at them and crosses the engawa to step down onto the street as her placid smile returns to her face.

Because he’s an idiot with a bleeding heart and more useless knowledge in his head than sense, he casts one last look over his shoulder before he hurries after Natsume. “I’ll see if I can drop by someday to take a proper look around.” He says in a low, almost reluctant tone - he isn’t exactly lying about his longing to stay and look a little longer - it’s just that Takuma scares him. The noise they make, which he hopes is out of excitement, certainly does; he trips over the edge of the engawa and stumbles on the landing but doesn’t fall. Small mercies.

Natsume is waiting for him further out in the street. His eyes skip over the stall behind her advertising religious artefacts before focusing on the woman before him.

“...What?” With her full attention on him and the knowledge that her smile is about as real as Danzo’s perceived harmlessness, the way she’s looking at him now is unsettling. A thoughtful Natsume can’t be a good Natsume.

Her eyes curve up to match her mouth. “You have strange tastes, Uchiha-sama.” Is all she says.

His jaw drops. He furrows his brow into an expression of utter confoundment before he can look like an idiot.

He’s the one with strange tastes? As if she hadn’t been the one to lead him to that godforsaken place in the first place? It’s one thing for him to be interested in the place despite his healthy, suspicious regard for it, but it’s another to be a frequent visitor on speaking terms with the proprietor - someone who is visibly and audibly the type of person mothers warn their children about encountering in dark alleys! They have some sort of connection to Orochimaru, for goodness’s sake - if not in looks then by association, somehow - who is like, the most suspicious person to ever suspicious! He’s practically the poster child for the type of people who drive white vans!

Takuma’s cheerful parting comment that he is ignoring for the sake of his own sanity can be heard from across the street! They’re getting stares! It’s Natsume’s fault they’re here in the first place, and yet he’s the one with strange tastes?!

He doesn’t bother to grace that comment with an answer.

“Anyway.” He grits out with heavy emphasis. “Where are we going next?”

Natsume tilts her head. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that, Uchiha-sama?”

He’s going to have a conniption, die of asphyxiation, and hope she gets blamed for his death. May the almighty avenging blade of Itachi, brother-complex extraordinaire - when it suits him - make her death slow and painful. Amen.

He raises his eyes to heaven for patience or strength, whichever takes effect quicker. “Um. Okay. We can go visit the merchants affected by the loss of the Uchiha clan’s exports and or imports - might have to make a list ordered by priority - until dinner, I guess? Unless there’s anything I need to do to further cement my authority?” He lets his gaze fall back onto Natsume to silently beseech her for help. Because despite the irritation she causes, and probably will continue to cause him, she’s currently his only lifeline.

Well. Besides Inoichi, he supposes, but he has his own problems and his own clan, so he doesn’t really count. The Hokage isn’t even worth considering.

“I have no issue with that, Uchiha-sama. If I may, I believe your offhanded suggestion about a list ordered by priority may be a more effective use of our time.” She offers him a shallow bow that practically reeks of mockery. It makes him want to do something destructive with his hands. “I am at your disposal, so feel free to direct me however you wish.”
Her last comment feels pointed. He turns the thought over in his head as she straightens - she’s his aide, essentially, no matter how non-traditional the arrangement may be, which means she’ll do whatever he asks. Within reason, of course. Right?

All her bowing and scraping now reminds him of her behaviour at the bank - she’s trying to get him to take the lead. Be the clan head he says he’s going to become. His people-pleasing tendencies roil at the very idea, but he understands that logically, that is what he’s decided he’s going to do, and he’d better stick to his guns if he wants even a chance of being taken seriously.

Doesn’t mean he has to like it. His nose wrinkles in a way that does not go unnoticed by Natsume, whose reaction is thankfully an amused twitch of her lips and nothing more.

“Okay. We will reorder the list of traders affected by the Uchiha clan’s death and visit as many as we can until dinner. You will find out for me whether there is anything more I need to do in order to establish myself as the Uchiha clan head, and advise me if there is when we meet again tomorrow. Alright?” Authority does not come naturally to him, and arrogance to him is a tool of comedy because of the juxtaposition between his words and his true feelings about himself. He feels his tone is far too questioning despite the statements that he speaks; his mouth stretches into a grimace, but he refuses to verbally contradict himself.

Natsume inclines her head. “Of course.” Which is neither here nor there. Damn T&I agent.

He distracts himself from his rising annoyance by pulling his notepad of scribbles out of his pocket to refresh his memory on who he has to visit. The small moment before Sasuke’s understanding of Japanese kicks in reveals a mess of hiragana so carelessly written it looks to be its own language. The fact that he accidentally wrote his notes in the traditionally English format of horizontal right-to-left and his poor habit of senselessly conjoining his letters doesn’t help. How much will being a newly traumatised six-year-old excuse his poor handwriting? He thinks to himself as the characters finally translate to something coherent in his brain. Iruka will probably have a fit.

He flips through a few pages, the spread of which details his handwriting’s descent into illegibility as he’d struggled to keep up with the bank teller’s rambling list of people affected by the Uchiha clan’s deaths. Even he has to squint a little to try and make sense of what he’d written.

“Who…?” He mutters to himself, though only to verbalise his confusion. He screws his eyes shut and rubs them with his thumb and index finger as if that will magically make his writing make sense. Instead, it makes his vision swim for a moment. He waits for his eyes to settle and tries again.

Okay. Okay, he thinks to himself as his eyes rove over the list. If anyone doesn’t know that their trade agreements or whatever they are have been affected by the Uchiha Massacre, then they’re either stupid or so out of the loop that they shouldn’t be running a business. If only he knew the locations of these businesses, he could organise them by closest to furthest to save himself the hassle of running around Konoha like a headless chicken.

To organise them in generalised groups, the people he needs to politely remind that his family is dead and therefore won’t be producing any more exportable materials are smiths, a few grocers, one or two pottery shops - which surprised him, but not so much once he considered the similarities between pottery and smithing - and the clothing shop that the Uchiha commissioned their branded clothing from. He would’ve thought the latter would be done by people - probably women - within the clan, but he supposes the scions of a noble clan might be averse to doing peasant work.

One of the names he recognises is Akamatsu Daichi. It’s unsurprising that a man who owns a grocery store, whose daughter married and divorced an Uchiha, would be supported by or would support the Uchiha in some way. Shame he’s lost a supplier as well as his grandchildren. All in one night, too. He hopes Daichi doesn’t lose his job on top of everything.

He distracts himself by marking each name with a small icon representative of their categorisation. The smiths get the crossed hammer and sickle because he has the humour of a high school boy, the grocers get an apple (ironically), and the potters get his best approximation of a graceful vase. The tailor gets a t-shirt.

“Based on their locations relative to each other and us currently, would it be easier to visit the blacksmiths, grocers, potters or the tailor first?” He asks Natsume, and offers up his notebook without thinking. The long, slow blink that she gives the paper probably means she’s as confused by his handwriting as he was, so he takes it back without giving her proper time to look it over. It wouldn’t matter anyway. His horrific amalgamation of English and Japanese writing mannerisms and his own poor presentation confuse even him if he isn’t given a second to process what he’s written.

He’ll just read the names out. “The smiths are Shinozaki Ryuki, Kaizu Ryosei, Katsu Kazuaki, et cetera…” Natsume blinks at the phrase, neither English nor Japanese; he feels acutely mortified but soldiers on before she has the chance to ask. “The grocers are Akamatsu Daichi, who we passed today, and others. The potters are Yasue Reiji, Inaba Ryo, and Inohara Ruan, and the tailor is Nakamori Ritsu.”

Natsume taps her fingers on her hip. The sound of her fingernails tapping a rhythm against the metal of her headband as it hangs from her belt rings out clear and bright. He eyes it enviously. What he wouldn’t do for an authentic Konoha headband…

Wait, no, that’s a redundant question. There’s a lot he wouldn’t do for a Konoha headband, starting with signing up to the Academy in the first place; alas, however, that decision has already been made for him. Woe is he.

“I believe Akamatsu-san and any other grocers you may have written down,” She shoots a pointed look down at his book of affronts to two different types of literature. “Would be the closest. Then the smiths and potters in the artisan district, with the tailor in between.”

He nods to himself. “Alright then. Since we’ve seen Daichi-san already, perhaps we’ll go see him first.” He turns and points left down the street. “That way. Right?”

“Correct. Lead the way, Uchiha-sama.”

He’s going to associate the title with mockery, he just knows it; whether or not Natsume is doing it on purpose will decide just how annoyed he feels at her about it. He would mock her back if he didn’t find her so terrifying.

“Let’s go, then.”

…

“What a curse is the circumstances of one’s birth, hm?” Takuma muses to themselves as they straighten from their spot at the window and bounce on light feet back to their desk. The air tastes of a young child’s worry - nothing new - and Natsume’s special flavour of indulgent irritation. It tastes of apricots and yellow chalk.

Uchiha Sasuke: fan, brilliant helper. His worry tastes of petrichor and storm-drains, cold pebbles on the bank of the Naka River during an earthquake. His scarlet eyes are twin jewels set in the alabaster cast of his face, as bright and alive as ripened fruit. They wiggle their fingers at their sides to satisfy the urge to scoop them tenderly out of his skull.

They’re not insane. They just happen to have unique tastes and responses to situations, that’s all. It’s not like they’ve stolen children and experimented on them within their clan grounds, or single-handedly massacred their own family. That’s a special kind of deranged, and a thought they comfort themselves with.

Their glasses have accumulated dust during their time spent on the floor. The dried-out eyes of reptile corpses bore into them as they stand over their desk, shaking out one of their sleeves to relieve it of dust so they can use it to wipe their glasses.

Natsume probably brought the newly orphaned Uchiha boy to them because she knew they would be sympathetic to the story of a relative gone mad who dishonours their family by simply continuing to live, they think to themselves moodily. Their finger slips - they click their tongue irritably and scrub at the smudge with more force than necessary.

The removal of a surname. The symbolic cut of contact. Yes, they can do that. They’ve done it before, and they will do it again. Anything to spite one who you cannot directly affect. You cannot change what has been done, but there is vindictive satisfaction in striking out in ways your target cannot counter. After all, when people mention Orochimaru now, they don’t mention a surname, do they?

They do wish they had changed his entire name, however. It’s not like the traitor would care to correct it. It’s not fair that they had to change theirs and give up any connection to their family just to avoid the witch hunt against the Yashagoro clan in the wake of Orochimaru’s…departure. To be known as a Yashagoro wasn’t exactly a point of pride even before Orochimaru did what he did, but it meant something to them. Connection, familiarity, the knowledge that there were people who wouldn’t look at them with disgust when they professed the idea of selling the cast-offs of the dead; would encourage it, even, as Otoha-oba had done.

And yet, despite Otoha-oba’s generosity and their own father’s reputation as a skilled herbalist - one so skilled that even the famed Tsunade-hime had sought his counsel! - Orochimaru had looked at their family and decided it wasn’t worth his research or his pride. Far be it for them to accuse him of the same lack of human faculties that the rest of the village did, for that would be the pot calling the kettle black…

But there were a hundred paths that Orochimaru could’ve taken, and he chose the only one that damned them all just to save his own skin from the pyre he lit for himself.
They’d told him not to trust the Shimura - did he really think that Oya-oba’s death had been an accident?! - and yet where had that gotten them all-!

Their teeth grind against each other in an almost metallic shriek of bone against bone. Their eyes catch on the silver gleam of their favourite pastime where it sits innocently on their desk; they reach for it, forcibly relaxing the muscles in their hand as they do.

They encase one of the small metal balls with their fingers and pull it back so when they release it, it knocks against the others and begins a pattern of quiet impact that the ball at each end of the collection restarts each time it is hit. They place their hands on their desk and stay still for a moment to listen to the repetitive noise of contact.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

A lock of their hair slips over their left shoulder and hangs about their face. It brings to mind the expression on Sasuke’s face as he had avoided looking at them for too long. Though anyone would be hard-pressed to find any similarities between them and Itachi besides their hair, it’s understandable for a child who has just witnessed the massacre of their entire family for him to jump at shadows.

Hair holds memories, they muse as they wind it around their finger. Their other hand creeps across their desk to locate the papers they’d promised to take to the official bounty office - but they’d replaced them in the drawers. They sigh, long and overdramatic for the sake of dramatics, and trudge back around their desk to retrieve them.

The clacking of metal against metal begins to slow. They hum senselessly as they flip through the few pages to make sure they’ve gotten every necessary detail outlined, including the latest detail added by the last Uchiha. It wouldn’t do to offer their word and immediately forget it, after all. And if the Uchiha wouldn’t do anything, should they forget, then Nana-chan certainly will - and that’s not a risk they’re willing to take. Anyone with sense and a passing relationship with the woman wouldn’t dare. They’ve certainly learnt their lesson.

They hurry back to the door and quickly slap a cutesy ‘closed’ sign on the outside before they go. The majority of their customer base usually creep in at night regardless, so it’s not like they’ll lose revenue if they close up early. They squeeze out a wink between the door and its frame before they close and lock it at the clothes shop across the street from them and are gratified by the responding dead-eyed stare. One day, they’ll have acclimatised Kirie-chan enough to their presence that they’ll be able to cross the road and chat with her. It would help to have someone other than T&I’s own Noppera-bō on their side, after all, and the fact that Kirie-chan’s imported kimono are pleasing to the eye doesn’t hurt either.

All around the cobbler's bench, the monkey chased the weasel, they hum to themselves as they swing their hands by their sides to test the air resistance of the papers in their hands. They’re not as young as they used to be when they first had their secret exit installed as a practical joke to themselves, but they’re not any less limber as they crawl through the narrow space previously hidden within a storage cabinet and emerge from a fake shrine built into their shop’s outer wall. They take the fox statue guarding the exit by the neck without much reverence - it’s not like anyone respects the effigies of the Kyuubi nowadays so much as fears or despises them, other than perhaps the ever-isolationist Kurama clan - and hold it and their papers aloft as they shimmy out. They take a moment to replace the fox statue and the wooden sliding door hiding their secret exit from view, making a note to clean the dirt off the despondent-looking statue when they return, and continue humming to themselves as they set off through the back streets of Konoha down a well-worn path to the bounty offices.

The monkey thought 'twas all in fun. Pop! Goes the weasel.

I've no time to wait and sigh, no patience to wait 'til by and by.

Kiss me quick, I'm off, goodbye!

Pop! Goes the weasel.

“Who’s on me duty today?” They call up at the rooftops above them in a sing-song tone. Predictably, no one answers. They continue to swing their arms by their sides; Itachi’s face takes its turn looking at the wall in a repetitive wide arc. The afternoon sun has finally begun its descent in the sky, the walls they walk between casting cool shadows that their skin doesn’t quite appreciate. They wish Nana-chan had decided to bring her new charge to their shop sometime in the morning, preferably so that their walk to the bounty offices could’ve been done in the full sunlight of the middle of the day. How ironic it is that such a purportedly sinister character should prefer sunlight instead of the concealing atmosphere of the night; they cannot and will not be faulted for their preferences. If anything, it should serve as further proof that they’re just like any other legal citizen of Konoha, right?

“You shouldn’t wave confidential information around willy-nilly.” A voice tells them flatly from right beside their ear. Their mouth widens into a grin that they’re told makes them look as if they’re preparing to eat a baby.

Their companion is not one of the people with that opinion, however.

“Goose!” They greet cheerily; but when they turn to face the direction the agent’s voice had come from, all they see is peeling advertisements for low-budget theatre productions and a face drawn in orange paint with whiskers and slits for eyes.

They can taste Goose’s presence, however. Not with enough accuracy to tell the agent’s location, but enough to tell that Goose is feeling mildly annoyed, and that they’ve been working at their second job today.

Goose tastes of sandalwood and dates and the freshness of burnt flesh. Their annoyance means the flesh errs more on the side of burnt as opposed to a fresh blister, but any sort of reaction from a normally impassive ANBU agent is a win by Takuma’s standards.

“How was work today?” Takuma chirps in the hopes that Goose will continue to react. Sadly, Goose doesn’t respond, but they can taste their annoyance fester more as their partner’s taste - grass wet with morning dew and freshly hatched caterpillars - dampens into a muddier reproachfulness. They reward themselves with a skip in their step.

Half a pound of tupenny rice, half a pound of treacle.

That's the way the money goes; pop! Goes the weasel.

“What I’m holding isn’t anything that wasn’t already public knowledge.” They say aloud for Goose’s benefit. “So no need to worry. Oh - other than Uchiha-kun’s desire to disown him on all public records, but I suppose that will be made clear enough once Itachi-chan’s bounty poster gets released to the public anyway.”

Goose’s burnt flesh sparks to life with surprise and intrigue. A breeze blows past the hand they’re holding Itachi’s files with, and blows past them again as Goose or their partner replaces the paper again. Whether they discern anything from his notes, Takuma doesn’t know, and the ANBU agents don’t say.

They emerge from an alley into the warm sunshine of a Konoha summer afternoon and exhale in relief; a little boy stares at them open-mouthed from a yakitori stall at the edge of the street and smooshes himself into his mother’s skirt trying to hide from them when they look at him.

I've no time to wait and sigh, no patience to wait 'til by and by…

The sun hovers over the Hokage face rock like an observant eye as they stroll leisurely towards the Hokage Tower. Goose and their partner’s tastes have dispersed among the smells of Konoha’s civilians as they go about their afternoon shopping and give them a wide berth. They surreptitiously look down at their shirt; if they’re going to be stared at, let it be for their unique colouring and not the state of their clothes. They’re satisfied to find nothing horribly amiss, but make a note to look themselves over in better detail in one of the Hokage Tower’s bathrooms after they’ve concluded their business.

When they look up again, they find that everyone has shrunk to the right side of the street, leaving them the sole person walking in the middle of the road. A glance backwards reveals nothing - and no dust on their back either - but an explosion of noise and a look before them draws their attention to a hardware store with its cloth signs flapping because of something more dramatic than a breeze.

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

Goose knows me too well, they think to themselves fondly as they quicken their pace to insert their nose in a situation that is decidedly not their business nor would be made better by their presence. Goose’s taste of dates sour and their flesh rots with despair or annoyance; probably both. They can’t taste Goose’s partner, so they must be somewhere in the crush of bodies huddled against the right side of the road like mould between tiles.

A young blond child scrambles backwards out of the store, his expression both teary and defiant. He tastes of spices and seawater. The man chasing him out of his store tastes decidedly less pleasant and his expression is positively pungent with negativity.

“I told you I don’t want you here no more!”

The man’s gaze meets theirs and holds after a brief moment of denial; the boy-child takes his instinctual freeze response as an opportunity to argue his case.

“And why’s that, huh? You ain’t told me why! I wanna know, Bunta-san! What’ve I ever done to you, huh?!”

“What’s going on?” They ask with far too much delight, if the spasms in expression of both involved parties are any indication. The boy-child looks at them with wet blue eyes and they’re sharply reminded of the Yondaime before his untimely death - but then their gaze drops to the whiskers on the boy’s cheeks and their association is replaced by something more recent. “Ah, the vandal.”

“The hell’s that?!” The boy-child recovers from his shock first, jabbing a rude finger at them that shakes but remains upright by sheer audacity. “Who’re you? When was the last time you went in the sun, huh?!”

They look at the sky and back down at the boy pointedly. “Now, I suppose. Will anyone tell me what’s going on? I’m curious.”

The baby-eating smile makes a reappearance. Bunta-san stumbles back into the safety of his shop, but the boy-child, either uncaring or ignorant, latches onto the interest of an unrelated bystander.

“Bunta-san is tossing me out of his shop and not telling me why, ya know?! I didn’t even do anything! I was always super quiet and ‘spectful and now he’s saying I can’t come ‘round here anymore!”

“Respectful.” Takuma corrects idly. “Now now, Bunta-san. Could you contribute your side of the story, please?”

Bunta-san’s eyes roll between them both as if deciding who the bigger threat is. “Both of you better get away from my shop. I ain’t serving either of the likes of you. Where the hell are the police-?” He fervently mutters the last part under his breath.

“Dead, most likely.” Takuma tells him cheerfully. “If the force has been replaced since then, then they clearly aren’t very good at their job. “If you can’t come up with a reasonable answer for why you’re capering about like a madman, I may have to ask my good friend Goose to step in and assist you to get your head checked in T&I. I’m sure Nana-chan would love to hear about how a silly civilian took time out of her coworkers’ busy day to make sure he wasn’t about to start thinking up is down and vice versa. Is that okay with you?”

They bat their eyes at Bunta-san to drive the point home. They’re rewarded with a full-body shudder and a hasty retreat. The other civilians watching don’t quite relax now that the situation has been diffused; instead, their attention switches to the slightly less volatile air between Takuma and the Yondaime’s boy.

The boy-child watches Bunta’s retreating back with an open-mouthed awe that transfers itself to them as they move to step past him towards the Hokage Tower.

“Wait - hey!”

Takuma begins humming to themselves again as they continue to walk. Their notes on Itachi are slightly more crumpled than they had been initially, but still legible. A little creasing has never hindered the bounty office from extracting information; if anything, it might give them a good exercise to work on after lunch when paired with their choice of handwriting today. Goose’s despondency tastes of slowly cooking flesh and browning sugar.

Kiss me quick, I'm off... Goodbye! Pop! Goes the weasel.

“Don’t ignore me, ya know!”

Chapter Text

They meet with Daichi first, because at least he somewhat remembers where the old man’s shop is. It takes him a hot minute to remember its location in relation to Takuma’s shop; his initial decision to go left turned out to be horribly wrong, and they had spent five minutes walking until he came to that realisation without even a whisper of challenge from Natsume. She’d probably agreed with him just to further her own amusement because she’s a sick, sick woman.

He keeps his hands in his pockets and his mouth pressed in a grim line as he stalks back up the street that they’d come from, feeling acutely mortified. Some neon signage flickers and buzzes to life despite the remaining daylight - a sure sign that his first fully conscious day in the Narutoverse is coming to an end. He feels like he’s done too much and nothing at all. Part of him balks at the idea of returning to the house where he first got into this whole mess, and he searches for something to redirect his thoughts in his surroundings. No sense in returning to the same gibbering state he’d been reduced to maybe six times since gaining consciousness. Plus, it’s embarrassing.

There’s the stall with the scarves that had distracted him earlier, still just as eye-catching and out of reach. The three storefronts with their roofs in descending rainbow order are now reversed - he and Natsume pass by them in the correct order of yellow, orange and red - the perfume shop that comes after them has a round sign outlined in pink neon tubing. The harmony of colours soothes the prickles of his embarrassment a little.

The turnoff for Akimichi Kyoya’s store is a little further ahead, past the sea of congested crowds all treading their separate paths towards home or wherever else they happen to be going on whatever afternoon this is. He hears a jingle from somewhere outside of his peripheral vision and turns in time to watch a young man pass him with a bag printed with the perfume shop’s logo swinging from his fingers. The last few sunrays that manage to surmount the Hokage Face Mountain bathe the boy’s visibly nervous face in a warm glow as he practically bounces down the street and is swallowed by the crowd until he is only visible in the short instances when his gait carries him above the average height of the people around him.

How cute, he croons exaggeratedly in the privacy of his own mind. He’s not sure if he’s being sarcastic or patronising; and honestly? It’s probably both. Just the lingering, contradictory vestiges of the emotions an older sibling feels towards the younger.

He judges that he’s seen enough of the left side of the street and turns to look at the right. More shops, and, further ahead, there’s another sketchy alleyway. He looks into it out of morbid curiosity and maybe the intent to pick at the barely-healed scab of denial over the terror of betrayal that happened in a similar place as the one they’re passing, and he stutters to a halt as he recognises a crudely decorated sandwich board.

“In here, Natsume-san.”

He turns around to check if she’s following and finds her a step behind, not quite as amused as she had been but still smiling genially. He feels stupid for saying anything. His stomach clenches with nerves.

Does he wish he had gotten anyone else other than Natsume as his minder? Yes and no. Does he wish she had been a Naruto character that he could recognise? To some degree. Familiarity is comfort, and all that - and perhaps it’s a good thing, not to recognise her. Because if it had been someone he knew (through reading Naruto at least), he may’ve dissolved into a blubbering mess that would’ve never wished nor attempted to compose himself again. And after that, he might just die from humiliation. Take that, Itachi.

It’s not like Natsume’s particularly bad at her job…in fact, he’d say his gripe with her is that she’s too good. He wants her to be less competent at her job so he can get away with more, but also to be even more of a hardass than she occasionally is so that he doesn’t have to think or act beyond what she tells him to do. Obedience is comforting in its numbness, and not thinking means not feeling, which to him currently seems so much better than his snot-stained state.

He squints as the sun angles itself into his left field of vision. Holding up his hand to block it would mean he would tire out his arm, judging by the length of the street that he can see as he tries to catch a glimpse of the end past the awning of another store. Daichi’s store was on this street, right? So he doesn’t have to go all the way back to the hospital to get his bearings?

What was he thinking about again?

He senses more than hears Natsume’s approach, and his mood sours. Right. The irritant is in the room with us.

Natsume is irritatingly perfect in every way that he needs in the moment. Is that the power of T&I? If so, maybe taking a stint in that department as an employee rather than an inmate could be beneficial…might keep him out of Itachi and Orochimaru’s sight for longer as well.

…Then again, maybe hanging around a bunch of people who make it their business to know everything might compromise any attempts by him - however poor those attempts may be - to act like the Sasuke that people might’ve known. He’s not even sure if he passes for a normal child as is.

There are a lot more people on the street than previously. A lot more children too, judging by the rise in volume and the appearances of snotty little kids running through people’s legs. His nose crinkles at the very thought. And he’s going to have to go to school with those things…

He lightly slaps his face to reorient himself. Adult problems first. Where is Daichi’s store?

It must be further up the street, right, because they walked further down the other street to Takuma’s shop? No point asking Natsume, because she’ll watch him be wrong for her own sick amusement. Was she assigned to him just to piss him off? Trigger his Sharingan through sheer irritation?

He frowns through the sun’s glare further up the street and tries to find a landmark he recognises. There - he’s seen that souvenir shop before. He recognises the mini replicas of the Hokage Face Rock.

Left, then. He doesn’t bother to tell Natsume this time; if it turns out he’s wrong again, then he’ll happily gut himself and/or pretend like he totally meant to do that and just happens to need to go the other way for some mysterious and totally legit reason. Maybe he can subdue Itachi by repeatedly threatening suicide over minor matters? He’ll probably end up doing it out of habit anyway. Maybe he should get Kakashi in on the habit…

He glances back at Natsume. Her eyes crease in amusement, and he looks away just as quickly. The press of bodies that he has to duck through and curses in his head is arresting enough that he can use it to excuse his inattention. She probably wouldn’t appreciate him looking out for her as if she were an easily distractible toddler, either.

Natsume hadn’t seemed like she was particularly fond of Kakashi’s existence - maybe she had been one of those people who called him Friend-Killer Kakashi? - so maybe he shouldn’t encourage Kakashi to verbalise his suicidal thoughts. Giving her any more ammunition against the man might actually lead to his death.

“Oh, sorry, didn’t see you there-” A man hastily readjusts his footing so they don’t collide, and they both awkwardly shrink away from the small gap in the crowd that they create by their avoidance. He looks up at the man out of habit, to scrutinise his face for any signs of familiarity or negative reaction. Not a known character, at least… Their eyes meet in mutual confusion.

“Uchiha!”

He shrinks back against the crowd as far as he dares and braces for horror, for wide green eyes and badly bleached hair, the sound of a body falling to the floor and muttered curses that he’d pretended not to hear. Despite his reservations, his first thought is to look for Natsume, who approaches with a genial smile as she glances sidelong at the man with a particularly droll look of assessment. Her grey uniform stands out against the sea of muted earthy tones that make up the majority of the clothes worn by Konoha’s civilian population like a shark within mangroves.

“Ah - sorry, didn’t see you there.” The man’s awkward smile doesn’t match the nervous twitching of his eyes.

Natsume takes a step forward to stand at his shoulder, radiating an unsettling aura and seemingly unaware of her general impression. Everyone around them seems to be the same as they brush past her with little regard for the danger that she could pose. He shudders a little. Who knows how much her unassuming appearance is cultivated? Part of him is jealous of the ease with which she can present herself as someone cool and collected.

The man’s gaze darts to Natsume, then back to him, and seems to come to some conclusion. He gets to see the man’s ash blond hair from a different angle as he inclines his head towards them both, mutters a slurred “haveagoodday” and hurries past them to be swallowed up by the crowd. He doesn’t realise how tense he had been until he lets his shoulders drop.

“All right, Uchiha-sama?” Natsume asks as she watches the man go. He shrugs.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He mumbles, more to himself, and keeps walking forward. Well, that could’ve gone worse. He unclenches his hands in his pockets and fiddles with his fingers to release the nervous energy buzzing through his limbs.

Daichi’s store isn’t far now. He can make it without having an aneurysm.

He accidentally catches the eye of a woman with a face lined with age and weather, whom he would’ve had a better impression of if she hadn’t been in the middle of turning to her friend as her hand comes up to hide her mouth from view. His stomach churns, and he looks away to spare himself the nerves.

Is this place a fucking zoo? He thinks unkindly. Am I like that one zoo exhibit - the one that claimed man was the most dangerous animal of all? Am I a fucking circus exhibit?

His foul mood follows them to the doorstep of Daichi’s shop. The old man isn’t outside but rather further in the building itself, and the embarrassment of returning to a place where he had made an utter fool out of himself over the poor man’s grandchildren changes his intolerant air to one of quiet cringing.

Daichi looks appropriately startled to see them, and their reintroduction is as awkward as he expects. He is no longer the snivelling idiot he was a few hours ago, but he still has dried snot-stains on his sleeve and his gaze skips over the boxes of apples that sit innocently against a wall inside the store for no reason whatsoever.

“Uchiha-san? And Hoshino-san. You’re back.” Daichi wipes his hands on his apron and hurriedly steps forward to greet them. “What can I help you with?”

He instinctively looks to Natsume for help before he's reminded of her resolute hands-off stance on what is essentially his business now, and he looks away again. His hands go clammy in his pockets; he doesn't look the old man in the eye, and instead fixes his gaze on the wall behind him. What free space is not taken up by shelves holding smaller assorted goods, such as snacks and books, is covered by a corkboard, on which is a well-worn calendar that he can't quite make out the writing of, and pieces of paper with colours so faded he can only guess they're posters of some kind.

“I just wanted to say…” He swallows. The saliva in his mouth recedes out of nerves, leaving his mouth tasting like spoiled animal fat and his tongue thick and clumsy as it stumbles over words. He's eternally grateful that there is no one else in the store to bear witness to his poor attempt at sounding authoritative; indeed, even the afternoon light seems to be steadily receding so as not to be involved in the situation.

“Um. I wanted to formally inform you that due to the death of the Uchiha clan - which you know of already,” He pretends for both their sakes that he doesn't see Daichi’s eyes go misty with the reminder. “We will no longer be able to act as one of your suppliers. The proper notification of termination will be delivered to you as soon as I can gather the necessary documentation, but I figured as a show of faith, and out of respect for your continued patronage, that I would tell you personally.”

He falls awkwardly silent as further words fail him. He still can't quite look at Daichi's face, but through the hazy view of his peripherals, the old man has a complicated expression on his face that he knows would bring a lump to his throat if he were looking at the man directly. As it is, the shadows within the store - there are lights set into the ceiling, but they aren't on for some reason - help obscure the store owner’s face. He hopes the shadows do the same for him. Natsume is so still and silent he almost forgets she's there.

“I appreciate it, Uchiha-san.” Daichi tells him in a wavering voice.

His skin crawls with the discomfort of having upset someone. He nods tightly and tries to muster an unaffected and reassuring smile, partly for Daichi but mostly for himself. He shifts from foot to foot to soothe himself. “Um…yeah. That’s all I had to say. Sorry that I can’t do anything more at the moment. I just thought I would let you know.”

“That’s okay.” Daichi wipes his eyes with the end of his branded apron and sniffles wetly. He does his best not to wrinkle his nose at the sound, and his mind kindly redirects his attention to the tree-shaped logo on Daichi’s apron. Could he get a shirt with the store’s logo on it? Does merch exist in the Narutoverse?

“I appreciate you coming out to talk to an old man, Uchiha-san. Have you eaten today? It isn’t healthy to work without rest, especially not at your age - have you had lunch?”

“I’ve had lunch.” He repeats the question in affirmative form, a little off kilter and a little dumbly, cringing at himself for the dead-end answer. “It was pretty good. Natsu - Hoshino-san took me to a restaurant run by an Akimichi.” He pointedly leaves out the existential crisis he’d had at the lunch table. That is not an event in his life that he’d like to revisit, nor does he want to even think of it again. He’s had enough of being as emotionally stable as a mad horse. How the real Sasuke dealt with it at six years old, he doesn’t know.

Well…he does know. Every man and his dog knows that anything the real Sasuke did is not exactly something to aspire to imitate. He certainly knows that - he’d become somewhat of a Sasuke apologist through his love of Itachi when he hadn’t been Sasuke, with his logic being if Itachi could love Sasuke unconditionally, then surely there must be something to it, right? (Which is a bit of a stretch…they are - or rather were - fictional characters after all, and whether or not they make sense is solely dependent on the author…and if his lack of regard for a proper timeline or foreshadowing is anything to go by, for Kishimoto, common sense is optional).

Regardless, part of the original Sasuke’s coping mechanisms can be understood in the context of his shitty childhood, which is something he’s coming to understand quickly and harshly. That doesn’t mean that he feels any more inclined to throw himself into Orochimaru’s waiting arms or wish death upon everyone who pisses him off, but rather he can understand why Sasuke would. After all, when faced with great adversity, it is easier to be cruel than to be kind, especially if you have a strong sense of retributive justice.

Daichi smiles shakily, and he refocuses his mind on the present with a short-lived, panicked urgency. Has anything important been said in the undefined moment he spaced out for? Was he unresponsive for long enough for Natsume to get suspicious?

“Of course, that’s only if you’d like to.” Daichi finishes with a quick, uncertain glance at what he assumes is Natsume slightly behind him. Damn - the old man had been saying something, and he’d missed the first part. Where is Orochimaru at this point in time?

…Just kidding.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He answers vaguely, and smiles, hoping he hasn’t just signed away everything he owns plus his non-existent firstborn. Surely Natsume would’ve stepped in to shut him up if he had, right?

Daichi chuckles, and the sound grates as it catches on the lump in the old man’s throat. “That’s a no if I’ve ever heard one. I get it. Can’t be seen consorting with a civilian as a ninja-in-training, right?” Another glance at Natsume. He wonders if Daichi realises he’s doing it, or if his line of sight betrays him unconsciously.

“I thought I would offer anyway. It’s not right that a child should have to take care of himself, by himself, after something like what happened to you, Uchiha-san. Do you know where you’re staying tonight?”

He shrugs. Talking around the subject of the Massacre by fixating on his living arrangements - no matter that he assumes he’ll be staying in a house on the very site of the Massacre - is a far safer topic to discuss than the effects of the Massacre on the man before him. And him by association, he guesses.

“I just assumed I’d be going back home.” He says blandly, and conveniently doesn’t think about the dissonance between the house Sasuke grew up in and what he’s referring to as home. This time it’s his turn to look back at Natsume pointedly.

She leans forward a little to align their gazes better. “Do you plan to go home tonight, Uchiha-sama?” She asks without inflection, but with a pleasant tone. An open question with no wrong answer. God, he hates decisions. Does he really have to say he wants to go back to that place? Because he doesn’t, but there’s literally no other place that he or Sasuke know and can go to.

But with the power of vague answers and returning the conversational ball to the other person’s court, he doesn’t have to make that decision himself!

“No other place has been suggested to me since I’ve woken up. Unless you were planning to tell me once our business today is finished?”

Boom! The responsibility for answering that question is no longer on him. The ball is now in Natsume’s court, and now he has maybe five seconds to try and formulate an answer to anything he assumes she may say after-

“I am at your disposal, Uchiha-sama.” Natsume’s smile is just as captivating as an animal’s maw filled with sharpened teeth, and he is the insect before it, hoping to be entertaining enough not to be killed immediately. Vague answers, the one weakness of evasive questions! He needs to learn the jutsu that allows him to sink into the floor immediately. Daichi shifts uncomfortably before them. “If I may, Hoshino-san…” He starts, faltering slightly as the wolf’s gaze lands on him, but continues despite the scrutiny. A braver man than me, he thinks commiseratingly as he gingerly unbows his shoulders now that he is no longer the centre of attention. “This is just the humble opinion of an old man, but I don’t think Uchiha-san - I mean, Uchiha-sama, my apologies - should stay in that house. It’s not right.”

Natsume tilts her head. “It’s his house. His clan grounds.”

Daichi swallows and glances over to him. He barely shrugs and sighs in the privacy of his own mind at the thought of returning to the conversation. Already, he feels his shoulders shrink again to make himself a smaller target. The slowly encroaching darkness does little to hide him from the scrutiny he’s drawn upon himself, and he wishes he could just melt into the shadows cast by the shelves to the right and pretend that none of this is his responsibility. Alas, being who he is now attracts as much attention as if he had become Naruto himself. Narrative foils indeed.

“Has it been cleaned, at least?” He asks Natsume as a compromise. He tries to convince himself that maybe it wouldn’t be so confronting to stay in that house if he can’t see any evidence that his experience within it wasn’t just a dream. After all, if it’s been decided that he will stay there, he can’t exactly refuse. He certainly doesn’t have the mental fortitude nor the street smarts to be homeless. It would probably look bad for the village to cast him out on the streets as well.

And if he doesn’t have to stay there…well, at least he’ll know that the house has been taken care of. One more thing he doesn’t have to (doesn’t want to) deal with. Will he be made to take care of his family’s cemetery? What the hell is he going to do with a cemetery? Will the Hokage and his councils actually assign the care of a whole-ass cemetery to a newly orphaned six-year-old? He wouldn’t put it past them, honestly.

Natsume nods. “All of the houses have. The furniture and other decorations have been left untouched unless they were unsalvageable.”

What an ominous word. Unsalvageable? He tries not to let his internal grimace show on his face and isn’t sure if he succeeds. What the hell’s that supposed to mean? Covered in blood and viscera, most likely. He pictures a cradle stained in blood, and his breathing stutters as a memory rather than a vague objective impression plasters itself like a splatter of brains from a gunshot to the head across his mind. Bile gathers at the back of his throat; his gaze falls to the floor as he tries to swallow it down and desperately thinks of something else.

He’s okay. He’s okay. He’s not going to fucking do this again. What’s the practice? Five things he can see, four things he can hear, or something like that; which order are they supposed to be in, again? What is he supposed to do? What’s he supposed to do? What’s he s’pposed to do?

Tears spring to his eyes. He inhales shakily. Snot rasps at the back of his throat, and he sniffles.

Get yourself together, you fucking idiot. Name five things you can see.

He can see the floor. It’s made of wooden floorboards and looks unrefined; there aren’t any visible splinters or breaks in the wood, but it looks dull, and he can see more whorls in each cut than he expects. The wood is lightly coloured with stripes of a darker brown, doesn’t seem to have a smell, and is not one he recognises.

To be fair, he doesn’t exactly make a hobby of studying wood.

He can see his toes poking out of his dark blue, nondescript sandals. He wiggles them a little. They’re a lot shorter and stubbier than he’s used to. The nails are smaller as well. He’s not sure if that would make them easier or harder to paint.

Would it be out of character for Sasuke to paint his nails? What are Japan - or rather, Konoha’s - gender perceptions of what he thinks to be traditionally feminine activities? Can he get poisoned nail polish, or is its existence just his wishful fantasy? …Even if it did exist, whoever’s in charge of him - who is probably Natsume - probably won’t let him get it on principle. Can six-year-olds have suicidal thoughts?

His shoes are new. He can tell by the vibrancy of the blue colour and the creak of the material when he walks. He wonders where Sasuke’s old shoes have gone. Did they get burnt? His clothes hadn’t been that dirty, right? They only do that sort of thing at hospitals when the patient’s clothes are too covered in contaminants to feasibly salvage, right?

He blinks at the floor. His view of it had been unfocused as his mind ran away from him earlier, but it’s clearer now. He notices his elevated breathing as he fades back to reality and manually wrangles it back into a regular rhythm.

Could he potentially use the hospital’s crematorium to cremate the bodies within the Uchiha cemetery?

He could, right? It would take a damn long time, but it would be less than if he tried to do it all himself. More orderly, as well. Why didn’t he think of that instead of jumping immediately to arson? Must be the Uchiha mindset of the body he’s in. Surely Natsume would know someone at the hospital, or at least terrorise her way into getting access. Then he could maybe lodge a mission to get all the bodies dug up, cross-reference them with the Uchiha records of the formerly living if he can stand it, and put the ashes somewhere appropriately solemn and sacred and out of his reach, because if not, then he just knows he’ll knock them over. And then all three or more of the Uchiha patron deities will strike him down, and Itachi will go to war with the gods for the transgression, and it’ll be a whole thing.

That’ll do. Problem solved. One more item ticked off the list, woohoo. Refocus on the situation, please, you’ve spaced out again.

Daichi’s hands twitch in midair uselessly, frozen in indecision that stems from the presence of the woman who stands next to him like a sentinel, watching his return to the present with more patience than he’s used to. She straightens as his gaze meets hers.

“You cannot afford to keep doing this, Uchiha-sama.” She says, not judgingly, but as a statement of fact. The corners of his mouth turn down despite his own cynical commiseration.

“If I could control it, I would.” He retorts, a little more bitingly than he intends. He can acknowledge where she’s coming from logically, but contextualising it and perceiving it with his high school knowledge of psychology makes him want to throw a chair out of a window. How the fuck is a grown-ass woman who should know better going to tell her six-year-old charge that he should “get over” his acute trauma responses?? He would fight her on it if he wasn’t scared of conflict and definitely convinced he would lose before the fight even started. Natsume probably wouldn’t even need to hit him to render him unable to fight.

Natsume tilts her chin up as if to challenge him. “Learn to control it, then.” She tells him. He blows her up in his mind.

“If I may…” Daichi seems to regain enough confidence to come to his defence. “Is that really something you can say so easily? Uchiha-sama has suffered a great loss. Surely he is allowed to mourn. That’s not something you can easily forget, or choose to do.”

He shoves his hands into his pockets so he can fiddle with them without looking like a twitchy six-year-old. “I will have to learn to. Eventually.” He tells Daichi firmly but apologetically. He knows he will. He’s made a note of it in his mind and promptly shoved it into a corner for later, because he doesn’t want to confront such a difficult matter when he has so much more to deal with at the moment.

He certainly doesn’t want to deal with it now, so he changes the subject as smoothly as gravel. “But that’s not important right now. What were we talking about? The houses. The houses I will have to…” He rubs his face. “...deal with. I’ll…any house other than the main house, I will deal with later. They’ll keep. What has the Hokage said about where I’ll be living?” He asks Natsume.

“Nothing concrete. When I spoke to him, he gave the impression that the choice would be left up to you.” She tells him. She sounds a little less irritating now that she’s been given an order. Which, contradictorily, irritates him more. He tries not to let it show in his voice.

“Okay.” Find a compromise. Common ground. He pinches the bridge of his nose to maintain his composure and his concentration. “I will sleep in my house tonight. If I cannot handle it, I will tell you tomorrow, and we will organise a separate place for me to stay until I regain my peace of mind. Okay?”

Natsume inclines her head. “It shall be done.”

He’ll take it, annoying though her words are. He pities the noble whose advisor she probably was in a past life as he sullenly tucks his hand back into his pocket.

How bad can revisiting the site of one’s trauma possibly be? It’s not like he’s been discovering triggers he didn’t even know could be triggers just by living his life reasonably unbothered (Natsume being Natsume aside). Pshht. She’ll be ‘right. He’ll be fine. He has been all his life, so why wouldn’t he be now?

He pretends he doesn’t sound as stupid as he thinks he does in his head. If he can’t believe in himself, who will?

“Thank you for your time, Daichi-san.” He says with a short dip of his head. His smile isn’t entirely empathetic, but it’s not like he hates the man, so there is some genuine emotion in the gesture. He’s just a nice old man. He would’ve been a great grandfather.

Something in his neck twitches. Broken fingernails splayed across a wooden floor, a child’s head rolling in the dirt as her body collapses separately. He forces himself to focus on their bracelets and uses it to drag himself back to reality as he lowers his gaze to the matching pair on Daichi’s wrist.

It takes longer for the sound of his heartbeat in his ears to die down again. Daichi looks mournful but hasn’t moved to touch him again, so he supposes the man must be getting used to his dissociations. Probably not a good thing to be used to. Then again, he should be saying that to himself.

He continues. “Again, I will formally notify you of our withdrawal from your pool of suppliers once I have the time to file the paperwork.” And Natsume will skin him alive if he doesn’t, so there’s no fear it won’t be filed. But Daichi doesn’t know that.

Daichi smiles mournfully at him. “Take your time, Uchiha-sama. I won’t forget anytime soon.”

He winces at that. Were there people like Daichi in canon who were also affected by the Massacre to some degree? If there were, it’s telling that they were never mentioned.

…He probably can’t criticise little Sasuke for not knowing. After all, he had his own grief to deal with without going looking for the similarly bereaved.

Plus, he was six. All six-year-olds (besides him, of course, but he’s a special case) aren’t exactly known for their intelligence.

“You can send the papers over whenever you have a spare moment.” Natsume’s gaze bores into the side of his face. “And please, feel free to stop by whenever you like, even if you don’t have a reason to. I wouldn’t mind. If you ever need anyone to talk to,” Daichi’s smile wobbles precariously. He swallows, and moves his gaze to somewhere in the vicinity of Daichi’s face rather than looking at him directly.

“I’ll be here.”

Daichi can’t really promise that, can he?

He pushes aside his immediate denial to form a response. “I’ll try when I can.” It comes out lower and rougher than he expects. He winces at himself.

But Daichi nods as if satisfied, so he lessens the self-recrimination a little.

“Is our business concluded here, Uchiha-sama?” Natsume asks him evenly. All the social awareness of someone who is above that sort of thing - or perhaps too well-versed in it. He can’t stand people who act as bluntly as she does.

He uses the excuse of responding to Natsume to look at her instead of the old man. “I suppose.” He answers with mixed reluctance and relief. He’s eager to escape into the waning sunshine, but not desperate enough to forgo social niceties like Natsume does with ease. He envies her position of being off-putting (and beautiful) enough to get away with it.

He turns his head back to direct his gaze and then unfocuses his eyes as he stares in Daichi’s general direction. “See you around.” He says with the best reassuring smile he can muster and a voice that’s still too low to be considered confident.

Daichi raises his hand in a motion that looks like muscle memory more than anything. He goes still, braced to dodge or move or simply take the strike, but Daichi only realises what he’s doing the moment his wrinkled fingers graze the top of his head - and go no further, because Natsume’s hand is clenched, deceptively firm, around his knobbly wrist.

His shoulders slump unconsciously at the gentle touch. He leans into it before he can stop himself, as if he’s an abandoned dog. Shameful. He shrinks the short distance back to his previous position and feels his face burn.

“Uchiha-sama?” Natsume asks lightly, disregarding Daichi’s existence even as his hand jerks in her grip. The old man tries to pull his hand back and stumbles as Natsume suddenly lets go. His expression as he looks up at her is a betrayed child’s, a little six-year-old gazing uncomprehendingly up at the eerie mirror image of his guardian, searching desperately for a reason in her smiling face.

“I didn’t mean anything by it-” Daichi stammers. A visible tremor runs through his body.

He reaches out to touch the old man’s arm. Daichi’s skin is soft like his grandparents’ had been, wiry muscle and solid bone beneath the flesh from years of physical exercise, soft hairs that are thin enough to be indistinguishable from the tan of his skin despite being white with age. He expects the flinch, but it still hurts; he’s conveyed his point anyway.

“I don’t mind.” He still takes a step back so Daichi isn’t tempted to touch him again. He’s not sure his repressed emotional outbursts could stand up against an act of genuine care for his well-being. Is he touch-starved? Probably, but that’s not an issue he will ever address because just the thought of asking for shows of physical affection makes his skin shrivel with severe cringe. At the moment, however, it does provide the perfect excuse to escape from a conversation that has gone on for far longer than he can stand. No hate to Daichi, but there’s only so much awkward dialogue he can handle before his skin attempts to tear itself away from the situation.

“Thanks again, Daichi-san. Bye.”

He flashes a slowly crumbling smile over his shoulder as he turns and does Not flee the store. He leaves. Calmy and collectedly. Channelling his inner Natsume and everything.

Golden-red light explodes across the backs of his eyelids as he blinks right as he steps out from under the small wooden awning into the dying daylight. He immediately scrunches his face into a squint and tries to unclench his jaw despite his tensed facial muscles. His face warms, and he lets out a breath of relief as unobtrusively as he can.

“What’s going on?”

His heart leaps before he does. He staggers into a display of fruit - fruit, his mortal enemy! - and clings to its wooden exterior to steady himself as he stares at the originator of the voice with his heart in his throat and a steadily growing feeling of horror as the details of the world multiply before his eyes.

It’s an older woman, thick streaks of grey in her dark hair and filmy green eyes. She looks just as shocked as he feels, her traditional straw sandals shifting sharply in the dirt of the road, and her hand held up before her like a shield. The glowing lines that make up the secondary outline of her body recoil in response to her emotions - it moves, she made it move, how did she make it move? What is she doing-

He can see the chips in her nails, the wetness of saliva on her lips, the gleam of the aqueous humour that covers her eyes and the small fold of skin where her eyelids meet it. He can see the veins in her eyes that crackle out from each corner like localised lightning strikes.

He swallows.

The many interwoven stitches of some grey, thick fabric obscure his vision, and suddenly he can breathe a little easier. He loses himself in the matrices that unfold between stitches, between stitches, between stitches - the whole is made of a thousand, a million interlocked threads; those threads are made of a billion tiny, smaller hairs that can be divided into gradually smaller and smaller individual strands upon strands upon strands upon strands upon strands-

He’s looking down the barrel of a greyscale kaleidoscope. But it’s not entirely grey, is it? There’s a halo of yellow as if reality is glitching. It burns a sulphuric gold alongside the maddening lengths of fibre, tracing them like he used to outline pencil drawings with texta markers when he was a child. It writhes like a living thing. He watches it with the same apathetic fascination that a child watches a lizard’s separated tail wriggle on its own.

Like a child, he reaches out to touch. The ghostly skin of his hand - itshouldn’tbethatcolour - is sectioned by the lines that criss-cross over his skin and the prominent wrinkles on his finger joints. The only spot of colour on his arm is the pink of his fingernails.

The tips of his fingernails are cracked. He remembers them digging into dark floorboards, and he lets his concentration get swallowed up by the brightness before him so he doesn’t drown in his own thoughts again.

His fingertips touch ordinary fabric. He feels vaguely disappointed. Considering the dizzying world of detail that has opened up before him, he’d expected something far more fantastical than just fabric. Clearly, his sense of touch hasn’t intensified to match his sense of sight. He’s not sure whether he feels relieved or annoyed.

Something falls before him and hangs in the air like a stopped corpse, swaying slightly from side to side before it reaches equilibrium and stills. He drags his gaze away from the bright twisting paths to look at the thing blocking them from sight.

It’s a braid of human hair. Blonde. Neatly kept, but his eyes see every flyaway and split end that exists within the gathered mass; he gets lost again identifying them one by one until the braid shifts and he loses track of the count. Miffed, he follows the length of hair up to its source, a blonde crown atop a grey-clothed figure that looms above him like a craggy cliffside.

The braid swings to the left and is carried over one shoulder by its momentum. He follows the motion with his gaze and squints against the brightness that everything he sees is imbued with. A small flock of birds he’s never seen before but commits to memory regardless glide through the air with the grace of flying fish, gleaming like the sun is held within their bellies against a stained-orange sky with the same appearance as satin. It unnerves him, so he drags his gaze back down past the wooden buildings whose own bright circulatory systems move sluggishly throughout their foundations. Their colouring reminds him of freshly cut grass and what he imagines ‘forest green’ to look like.

“Uchiha-sama.”

He catches a glimpse of his capillaries when he blinks. The red instance burns itself into his memory. That voice sounded near, and somewhat familiar. Are they - is she - talking to him? He should at least respond, right?

He swings his head around, slowly, like a dumb buffalo raising its head from a creek. His eyes skip over the flesh-cloth body bags that he distantly recognises as people who amble past them, eyes lingering but never stopping. Their individual glowing and goopy secondary sets of veins shiver with emotion like whatever liquid is in mood rings. He feels like his brain is going to pour out of his ears.

His eyes itch. He blinks again and decides he doesn’t like doing it.

The eye he focuses on with both of his own is grey.

Perhaps more a muted silver than grey, he muses - and there is a difference. It’s not dull, gunmetal grey, flat and lifeless despite the streaks of something that make up the iris.

It gleams. It’s alive. Liquid, fluid, so precisely trained on him, it’s like a laser without the intent to kill. Yet. He watches lids of skin close over it and then open again like the world’s most fucked up flower.

“Uchiha-sama.”

That name again. Below the eye, down the curve of the nose, he watches pink lips part and move and folds form in the rouged skin as the words are formed; he imagines he can even see the breath being expelled from the mouth.

Uchiha-sama. Uchiha, sama. Uchiha.

That’s supposed to be him now, right? Should he respond? How is he supposed to respond? Why is he being called by title, again? What is he doing here?

Where is he? Who is he?

“Are you with me?”

“I’m here.” He responds without thinking. His lips have to peel themselves apart to move. He feels the skin split as they do and is suddenly acutely aware that he can’t remember the last time he had a drink of water. As if on cue, the saliva recedes from his mouth. He swallows to try and regain it.

He hears a hum.

“Not entirely what I’m asking, but it’ll do. Can you focus on me, please? What’s my name?”

What’s her name? He knows this. He should know this. The wolf, the serpent, the lances of sunlight that peek over clouds that cover the rising sun. The eye, the mouth, the face of betrayal, a long, long braid.

“Natsume. Hoshino Natsume.” Summer’s eye, of the stars. …At least, he thinks. The mouth curves into a smile, and suddenly it’s easier to see the face as a whole rather than parts. Ah, that’s right. This is Natsume before him now.

She’s twisted around to look back at him, a granite pillar blocking whatever is in front of him from view. He tries to match her smile and is unsure if he does.

“Are you present?” She asks him. He considers the question and finds that looking at other things helps with grounding himself.

A woman passing by is wearing a pretty green dress patterned with small white flowers. It doesn’t quite match the firelight’s halo of her chakra - that’s what it is; not some alien adornment only he can see, it’s chakra that he’s looking at - but it’s a pretty contrast. He wonders where she got the dress from.

But he wouldn’t be able to wear it, would he? He’s a guy now; he forgets that too often. What a loss. He can’t make himself pretty anymore.

His hands curl into fists by his sides until they shake with restrained tension and the sting of his fingernails digging into the soft flesh of his palms brings a tear to his eye.

“Don’t hurt yourself.” Natsume chides lightly. She turns around fully to kneel before him and pulls his fingers from their vicelike grip until they lie, limp and useless, in her palms. It’s uncomfortable to meet the silver wetness of her eyes, but he does it anyway.

“My name is Natsume.” She confirms for him. “What’s yours? Do you remember?” She asks, and tilts her head as she smiles.

He does, or he should. Over Natsume’s shoulder now that she’s reduced himself to a height comparable to his, he sees an older woman whose hair is streaked with grey - which is what he thinks of the description “salt and pepper hair”, grey at the temples and the rest is dark - slip past them both into Daichi’s shop. Her watery green eyes linger on him for longer than he’s comfortable with before she disappears into the darkened interior with a swish of blue fabric. His eyes pick out each item he can see in her handheld basket and each item he reasonably shouldn’t.

Soy sauce, or some other dark liquid. Packets of noodles, two bags of rice. Three onions. A bunch of spring onions. A small carton of eggs.

An apple.

He looks back at Natsume.

“I’m Sasuke.” He (lies) replies. “Uchiha Sasuke. My family is gone.”

He thinks he’s mostly present now. He can feel the steadily receding warmth of the afternoon at his back, the slide of his clothes across his skin and his hair as it is tugged along by the slight breeze. Lights of varying brightness continue to dance before his eyes, so he keeps them squinted as closed as possible. It’s getting cooler, and he shivers a little.

“Good.” Natsume nods in satisfaction and rises to her full height again. He twitches at the blasé response - she’s not saying his family dying is good…or is she? - but doesn’t comment on it. It’s not worth it, and he doesn’t have the energy to get into an argument right now. “Shall we go, then, Uchiha-sama?”

He nods. “Do you think we have enough time to speak to one more person, or should I just head home?” He only asks on principle, since that’s what he said he’d do…but he really doesn’t want to have to talk to anyone else for the rest of the day. He is currently an emotional dishcloth, and an especially wrung-out one at that. He wants to take a nap and preferably never wake up again.

He’ll settle for having something good to eat before he sleeps, though.

He unconsciously follows the way Natsume’s eyes flick up to note the position of the sun and then move back down to look at him. “We have maybe an hour before nightfall, Uchiha-sama.” She tells him.

He folds his arms as he mulls over the thought. How badly does he want to get things done? His attention is momentarily arrested by the fine hairs on his arms - dark, like the hair on his head, so they stand out against the brightness that swims under his skin - but it’s easier to recenter his thoughts when he’s not stuck in loopy goopy la-la land.

He knows he should probably continue while he can or he’ll lose his motivation to do so, but he’s also feeling shaken up by the events of the day and, childishly, would rather avoid anything that might stress him out again. Call him avoidant; he calls himself the same thing.

…Because he’s weak, he gives in.

“We can continue tomorrow, then. No sense in staying out after dark. Do you think it’s too early for dinner?” He answers his own question because he knows by now that Natsume won’t. “Never mind. I’m feeling ramen. Ichiraku ramen. Do you know where that is?”

Natsume nods slowly. “I would be happy to show you, Uchiha-sama, but it’s a bit of a walk. Would you mind if I carried you?”

He drags his hands down his face on principle. He’s never going to get away from being treated like a child, is he. How many years until he can command earned respect, again? Ten? A whole decade?? Sweet baby Jesus, how is he going to survive?

“...I don’t mind.” He says resignedly. He may as well take his situation as it is and deal with it. It’s going to be his reality until at least sixteen, after all - if the real Sasuke doesn’t come back by then. Hopefully, he finds some serendipitous advantages to looking like a six-year-old and being treated like it; otherwise, he’s going to live in a constant state of depression. More than he already will be, anyway.

At least Natsume doesn’t verbally make fun of him, but he thinks she’s laughing at him in her head as she scoops him up princess style and suddenly glows brighter-

The world blurs before his eyes.

The sharpness of his sight picks out frames of reference as Natsume moves faster than he can comprehend. The force of wind presses his side against her chest and throws his hair in disarray; he splutters, squinting against the rush of air as he pulls his hair out of his mouth. Natsume is lit up beside him like a miniature sun, which is hell on his eyes to look at - his vision is swallowed up by his skin and its patterns and the red glow of his hands as they come up to cover his eyes and give him some respite.

Snug and safe in Natsume’s arms, he lets himself forget about the outside world for the moment and directs his focus inwards. He finds to his dismay that unsurprisingly, his Sharingan is on - what he’s more worried about is the fact that he doesn’t remember turning them on. Like a broken fog light, he muses sullenly as he retraces the pathways up to his eyes and cuts off the extra supply of chakra. He really needs to learn how to do it on command, preferably instantaneously.

His visual sensory input stops jabbering for his attention to be directed to every minuscule detail it manages to find, and calms down to a much less saturated worldview. Everything looks so much duller, slower and faster at the same time as he lets his hands fall into his lap and tries to make sense of literally anything they pass. He can only tell that they’re moving over structures because of the way Natsume’s muscles tense and relax with each leap or landing - but that’s about it, because for some reason she manages to keep an even speed throughout regardless of the terrain. Which is insane to even think about. Can people do that in real life, or is this some shinobi bullshit?

Good grief, how fast are they moving? He would never consider himself ‘in shape’ enough to move with any degree of urgency, and he was never a fan of sports, but he’s pretty sure no human should be able to move at such speeds. It’s gotta be some shinobi bullshit; he doesn’t know what else could explain it. He is so insanely jealous right now. Why couldn’t he have become Sasuke after he learnt how to do shit like summon lightning and walk up walls? That would save him a lot of grief.

They come to an abrupt stop, but it’s as if inertia doesn’t exist at all. One minute they’re moving, and the next Natsume is letting him down as if they were standing still the whole time, not a hair out of place. He’s sorely tempted to turn on his Sharingan again just to check he’s not in a genjutsu or something similar.

He stumbles a little as his shoes meet sweet, sweet terra firma again, more relieved to be standing than mortified at his method of transport. Probably for the best.

Natsume tilts her head in silent question. He nods back at her distractedly, too busy drinking in the sights of this part of Konoha to reply properly. He wishes for the immortalising gaze of the Sharingan again so he can commit it all to memory - the stalls, the lantern-like lightposts, the people milling about under a golden glow - and has just enough brainpower to spare to realise he sounds like an addict. Which probably isn’t that far from the truth. No wonder everyone in Naruto spams their dojutsu like it’s an infinite resource.

Where’s Itachi right now? If they swap eyes, neither of them will have to worry about going blind, and he can stare at a plank of wood or something for time eternal. Not a bad trade-off, right?

“This way, Uchiha-sama.”

He jumps.

It’s like he hasn’t learnt anything about maintaining good spatial awareness, he thinks to himself moodily as the realisation that it’s Natsume talking to him trickles into his brain a moment too slow. There’s a steely look in her eyes that he knows spells nothing good for him, but for the moment, she merely turns and begins walking in what he hopes is the direction of the famous Ichiraku ramen stall. Either that, or he’s going to find another reason to never follow someone into a sketchy alleyway again. You’d think common sense would be enough to warn him away from them, and yet…

…

Moriko hurries into their store and drapes her shawl over her basket as she goes to kneel before him. “Are you alright? What happened? That woman didn’t do anything to you, did she?” She asks worriedly, her hands touching his face and shoulders like butterfly kisses as she looks him up and down for any sign of injury.

Daichi looks up at his darling wife and smiles weakly. “She did nothing, dearest. Nothing that I didn’t deserve.” He tells her, and presses a kiss to her soft cheek. Predictably, it does little to soothe her nerves, but at least it grounds her a little. She sighs.

“And the Uchiha boy?” She asks in a low voice. He’s glad there isn’t any vitriol in her tone as she says the name. “What was he doing here?”

“Just doing his father’s job.” He tells her as he gets to his feet and ignores the twinge of pain in his knees as he helps her up with him. “I won’t fault him for that. He’s a nice boy, Mori-chan.”

Moriko’s mouth twists. He knows how she feels about Uchiha fathers - how both of them did, back when their Toka had been married to that beast of a man - but there is no point in dwelling on the sins of the dead. After all, it was not Toka’s ex-husband who killed their grandchildren and the previous Uchiha Clan Head.

He changes track. “What have you bought, my love? What shall we have for dinner?”

The look on her face tells him he hasn’t succeeded in distracting her, but he never has before and doubts he ever will, and she goes along with him anyway.

“Some sort of soup, darling, because it’s my turn to cook tonight. So don’t get too excited.”

“How could I not, when I love everything you make?” He tells her as she brushes past him to head upstairs to their little flat. He catches a glimpse of a smile on her face before all he can see is her back, and he feels his chest grow warm.

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Dai-darling.” She tells him in a sing-song voice before the edge of her kimono disappears upstairs. He retakes his seat at the counter, feeling pleasantly smug and knowing that his victory will only last so long. Moriko had always been the competitive sort, which is what had drawn him to her in the first place. He liked being the person that his smart, vicious and calculating wife could come back to after fighting the world and fall asleep in his arms. He liked being on the receiving end of her idea of ‘getting even’ because in his eyes, anything that sparked that mischievous gleam in his wife’s eyes was just as much a win for him as it was for her.

His smile dims as he rearranges the mess he’d made on his desk of his assorted suppliers’ contracts when Uchiha-kun - now Uchiha-sama, though the title sounded far too weighty for a boy of his size - and his minder had walked in for the second time that day. One of the pages is from the Uchiha, outlined in Tekka’s stilted handwriting, its end date still somewhere in the near future and blissfully unaware that it - like the Uchiha - has come to an unfortunate, premature end.

He has to squint to make out any of the finer print, and it's only then that he realises how dark it's gotten. The ghost of Moriko’s footsteps echo gently through the ceiling above him as he reaches back to turn the lights on. The old bulbs sputter to life. He tells himself this time he'll remember to replace them when he has the opportunity.

“Akamatsu-san.”

He looks up. Two regulars skulk through the aisles; as usual, he hadn’t even heard them come in, nor did the banners at the front of the store move with their entrance. One barely inclines her head in his direction, and the other gives him a cheery wave as a greeting. The shock of blond from the latter sharply reminds him of the Uchiha’s guardian, and his wrist aches at the reminder.

“Is there anything you need, Isshō-san, Yushi-kun?” He asks on principle. If it were just Isshō, he wouldn’t bother asking, as he’s learnt she isn’t the type for casual conversation, but Yushi has previously engaged him in idle chatter for long enough that Moriko took over the position of cashier for the day. Several days, actually, and she never forgets to remind him whenever she sees Yushi approach.

True to spirit, he hears Yushi chirp “No, we’re good, thank you, Akamatsu-san!” before Isshō mutters something and the head of blond disappears from above the shelves. Daichi smiles and turns back to his work; the children can entertain themselves.

Footsteps pitter-patter back across the ceiling over his head to the stairs. “If you miss dinner because you’re talking to Yushi-kun again, I swear by all of the Shodaime’s trees that I will find a way to keep that boy out of this store.” His wonderful wife calls warningly as she comes down to join them. “I’ll put up a bounty or something. Isshō-san, would you collect for me? You’d be appropriately compensated, of course.”

The pair drift towards the back of the store to join him and his wife, who takes the chair he gives up for her with only token protests. He knows her arthritis won’t be kind to her once autumn finally decides to settle amidst Konoha’s streets, and he’d rather ease any burgeoning pain before it starts than spend another winter at her bedside in the hospital. His heart has already suffered enough this year.

But when his wife spots Isshō, she immediately vacates her chair and rushes forward to take the younger woman’s hands in hers. Daichi sucks in a breath through his teeth as he moves to help his wife coax the Nara into the chair behind the counter, and hovers around them anxiously as Moriko searches for any injury with a light touch and a steely gaze.

“What happened?” His wife asks gently. Yushi leans his hip against the counter and doesn’t move to help, so perhaps that means nothing’s wrong - but if nothing was wrong, why would Isshō look so…dead?

Isshō slowly raises her unfocused gaze from her hands to his wife’s face. Her skin is sallow, dark circles carved out under her eyes so deeply that her haunted eyes bug out of her skull. Her hair hangs limp and lank around her shoulders, tangled and unwashed. Some unkind part of him wonders why Yushi didn’t see the issue with letting his clearly grieving girlfriend walk outside without a care in the world.

Isshō’s admittance is forced out past dry lips.

“I lost the child.”