32: The Clan Meeting
The black-uniformed ROOT weren't rushing him anymore. They'd learned what his speed cost—had been the demonstration—and without the Sharingan, he was reading angles the slow way. By eye. By instinct and guesswork, the way any ordinary jonin navigated a fight. The gaps between his movements were slightly wider now. And in those gaps, the ROOT were finding room.
The sealing barrier was at his back. The formation curved in front of him, a half-moon with Danzō at its center point.
Getting through them means going through Danzō. The only other option is the barrier.
He reached into the equipment pouch at his lower back. Three kunai, wire wrapped, already prepared. He flung them behind him toward the sealing net in one motion.
The black-uniformed fighters moved immediately—all of them, rushing from every angle.
The kunai hit the net and stopped.
Not caught in it. Not embedded. Frozen, suspended in place as if something invisible had reached out and simply held them there. He pulled at the wire. Nothing gave. He pulled harder.
The kunai didn't move.
Interesting. He filed it and turned.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
His palm came up in front of his mouth. The fire arrived as a detonation, a sphere of orange expanding outward faster than the nearest ROOT could clear the blast radius—
Three shapes moved through the heat. White coats, hands already moving.
"Water Release: Water Encampment Wall!"
The jutsu met his fire head-on. Steam. The crash and scatter of contact, and the fog rolling in to swallow the visibility, and the smell of scorched air replacing oxygen.
They're prepared for fire. They'll trade water for it all day until I run out.
He checked the wire. Still taut between his fingers and the stuck kunai.
He raised it to his mouth and bit down on the end.
Fire started from his lips and traveled the wire's length—thin, fast, a moving line of heat almost too quick to track—toward the sealing net.
Fire Release: Dragon Fire Jutsu.
The fire reached the barrier.
It caught.
He felt something shift in his chest that wasn't hope but was adjacent to it.
Then three chakra signatures moved in his peripheral awareness—close, coordinated, precise. Not the black-uniformed fighters, who moved in mass and counted on numbers. Something more deliberate.
Sensor-type.
They'd been in here the whole time. That was how the water squad had been targeting him through zero visibility—not guessing, not using the Sharingan, just reading his chakra through the mist like a signature in water.
Moving blindly against a sensor is a fast way to die.
He had approximately two seconds before the water squad hit him again.
He went back into the black-uniformed ROOT because moving was better than standing still and being a target.
The formation buckled. He moved through it, the second kodachi in his hand, no fire this time—chakra conserved, just steel and angles and his own velocity. Without the Sharingan he was fighting in the dark compared to what he'd had, and he knew it, and he kept moving anyway because the alternative was worse.
Cuts found him. His arm. His shoulder. A line across his ribs that burned.
He'd had worse. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that the water squad was about to—
"Water Release: Great Waterfall Jutsu!"
He heard the seals break and felt the chakra mass before the sound reached him: a roar from inside the fog, building fast, too wide to dodge laterally, too much water to push through.
He bent his knees and leapt.
The wall of water passed beneath his feet, taking the ground with it—churning the earth, spreading in every direction, turning the battlefield into a shallow lake that reflected the orange of the still-burning sealing net.
The ROOT locked onto him.
Chakra moved in the air above him. Wind-attribute, concentrated, punching upward.
No footing up here. No angles.
He bit down on the loose wire—the one running back to the stuck kunai at the net—and shifted his weight in midair, using the taut line to redirect his trajectory toward the barrier.
A gust caught him anyway. He formed a single seal.
"Wind Release: Vacuum Sphere!"
The compressed air punched out of his mouth in a focused stream, not wide but direct, intercepting the wind jutsu mid-path. The collision scattered both. The Vacuum Sphere kept going, carrying the remainder of its force into the formation below.
He hit the flooded ground ankle-deep with a splash.
Chakra moved in the water immediately—along it, branching—lightning, following the water's conductive path toward the nearest living thing.
He jumped sideways. The lightning passed through the place he'd been and dissipated.
The fog held. The ROOT refused to let it clear. From somewhere inside it the sensor was still tracking, still feeding coordinates to the water and lightning squads.
He checked the wire. The net was still burning at the far edge of his perception. Still burning. If he could reach it—
The mist thinned slightly. Just enough.
Three white-coated operatives had formed a line in the clearing ahead, hands held in the Tiger sign. Three of them, combined chakra rising.
"Fire Style: Flame Bullet!"
Three enormous fireballs. Moving close together, edges nearly overlapping, the combined heat of three chakra reserves turning the air in front of them into a wall of distortion. They hit the mist and the mist ended—the fire burning through water vapor, the visibility dying all at once—
And in the sudden brilliant orange light, in the moment before everything became too bright to parse—
Shisui's entire world turned red.
Shin had one arm around Sasuke's shoulders, half-supporting his weight, as they reached the entrance to the Uchiha compound.
Kiba had gone with Naruto. Shino had managed on his own—the substitute instructor had calibrated things precisely, leaving his students just enough to limp home unassisted. Except for Shin's group, who had earned the extra punishment.
"How are you doing?" Shin asked once they stopped, still holding Sasuke by the arm.
Sasuke didn't answer right away. He straightened, trying to stand on his own.
Shin let go.
Sasuke nearly went down. Shin caught him again.
"..."
He let out a slow breath. "Is there anyone here you know? Someone who can take you in?"
Sasuke turned his head to the side and said nothing.
Shin looked at him for a moment. "All right. Tell me which way to go. I'll walk you home."
He was mostly hoping Tsume never found out about this.
......
The Uchiha compound was larger than it looked from outside. The streets between its buildings were nearly empty—but not unobserved. Every person they passed had the same eyes, the same careful, cold attention fixed on Shin.
"Your clan doesn't seem very welcoming to outsiders," Shin said quietly.
Sasuke glanced at him. "We don't get many."
Shin thought of what he knew about the Uchiha. That made a certain kind of sense.
"Here."
A small, unpretentious courtyard. Nothing like what Shin had imagined.
"Your father is the clan head," he said, looking at it. "I thought your house would be bigger."
Sasuke gave him a sideways look and said nothing.
Shin started toward the front gate, but felt a tug on his sleeve.
"Not that way."
Sasuke shook his head. "There should still be a clan meeting going on. We can't use the front entrance. And you're not Uchiha."
"Understood. Where do we go?"
"Around back. Side entrance through the training grounds."
"Your family has its own training ground," Shin said. "You really are rich."
"..."
......
The side door was unlocked. They stepped in without knocking.
"I'm home," Sasuke called, voice low.
A wooden panel slid back. A woman stood in the opening—black hair, dark home clothes, an apron still tied at her waist. She had that unhurried kind of beauty that didn't ask for anything.
"Sasuke, welcome back—" Her eyes landed on Shin. Her expression shifted, some internal clarity flickering just out of reach.
"My name is Shin Takami," Shin said quickly, since both hands were occupied. He managed a small incline of his head instead of a bow. "I'm in the same class as Sasuke."
"Takami..." She was barely whispering. Her gaze stayed on him.
Both boys had gone still. Neither of them understood what they were seeing.
"Mom?" Sasuke said.
Mikoto stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Shin.
She held on.
Shin: ???
Sasuke, now on the floor because Shin had been the only thing holding him up: !!!
Mom. Your actual son is right here.
Inside, Itachi stood at Fugaku's side and faced the assembled clan.
No one had answered him yet. Fugaku sat with his eyes closed.
"I'm young, and there's much I don't understand," Itachi said, his voice even. "But I know our clan's enterprises have been developing steadily. What change in direction would require a clan meeting to address?"
Silence. Fugaku remained still.
"In the meetings I was permitted to attend, the matters discussed were always rites, alliances, matters of family tradition." His gaze moved across the gathered faces and stopped on one man. "Kaoma-sama."
"This is..." Kaoma glanced toward Fugaku, who gave no indication of involvement. "Well—"
"Munakata-sama." Itachi turned to an older man with white hair.
Silence.
He named several more. Each one watched him the same way—attentive, serious, all of them oriented toward Fugaku as though waiting for a signal that never came.
Itachi let out a slow breath.
He lowered himself to the floor and bowed—a full formal bow, forehead toward the ground.
"I have no intention of challenging anyone here." He straightened, gaze still downcast. "But I was raised to believe the old laws of this clan matter. The Uchiha's strength has never been found in commerce. To speak of such things in the space reserved for our most important deliberations seems—" He paused. "Unbecoming."
He bowed again.
"Please forgive me. I cannot stay for this."
He began to rise.
"Itachi."
The word landed quietly. Fugaku had opened his eyes. He looked up at the sky.
"The sun is almost gone."
Itachi looked. Over the rooftops, the last of the light was sinking—orange and red pressed flat against the horizon, announcing the night.
Something tightened in his chest.
"Times change, Itachi." Fugaku's voice carried no hurry, and yet each word had weight. "The old things will be cleared away. A new order will come—one better suited to who we are."
There might have been a smile in it. Itachi couldn't be certain.
"And these aren't only elders. They're your family. Your uncles. Your grandfathers. Walking out without a word would be inappropriate, don't you think?"
Itachi looked out once more at the gathered faces—every one of them turned toward Fugaku now, every one of them wearing the same expression.
Standing here, the feeling was unmistakable.
Every person in this courtyard is a true believer.
Kotoamatsukami—
Can it really change the Uchiha?
He turned. He walked toward the inner house, hands balled loosely at his sides.
"I'm sorry, Father."
Behind him, Fugaku sat where he was and listened to the apology.
The corner of his mouth moved, almost nothing.
Too late for that now.
Itachi.
Three people sat on the floor inside.
Mikoto knelt at Shin's side, carefully cleaning the cuts on his calves with medicated ointment. Sasuke sat a short distance away, treating his own wounds without ceremony.
"Does it hurt?" Mikoto asked, studying the swelling.
"I'm fine, Auntie." Shin managed a strained smile.
Hss— Sasuke drew a sharp breath and winced dramatically.
Mikoto didn't look up.
"..."
Shin glanced at Sasuke. Sasuke looked back, expression blank.
"You can let me do this myself," Shin said, drawing his leg back slightly. "Sasuke's injuries are worse than mine—he was the one who couldn't stand. You should help him."
"That's very thoughtful of you, Shin." Mikoto smiled without lifting her head. "And thank you for walking him home."
You know that's not what I meant, Shin thought.
Sasuke maintained his neutral expression.
She kept working. Then she paused, studying Shin's face—he'd been pulling back just slightly, and she seemed to understand something.
"You might not know this," she said softly. "But your family and ours—there's a connection."
Shin went still.
So did Sasuke. He'd never heard this.
"Your father, Tsukasa—and Fugaku. They were very close friends. Your mother Yuki and I were too." Her hands moved with the same careful steadiness. "Your name, actually—Fugaku was the one who chose it."
"—What?" Sasuke's voice came out louder than intended.
He hadn't expected that. Not at all. And it explained, at least, why his father had sent him to visit Shin when he'd been sick.
But if they'd been that close, why had neither family—
He stopped himself.
Shin hadn't moved. The words felt like something he'd almost heard before, somewhere he couldn't quite place.
"Your parents died not long after you were born." Mikoto's voice went quiet. Her eyes stayed on Shin's face, and there was something bright in them. "It was very sudden."
Neither boy spoke.
"You look so much like Yuki," she whispered. Slowly, one hand lifted and touched the side of his face. Shin didn't pull away.
The room went still.
"Shin."
It was Sasuke who broke it, eventually. The flatness in his expression had shifted—something more uncertain underneath it. His voice came out careful.
"Have you always been..." He stopped. Started again. "Were you an orphan. From the start."
"...Yeah." Shin glanced at him, turning it over for a moment. Then he smiled—easy, weightless. "Pretty much."
Sasuke pressed his mouth shut. Itachi's face moved through his mind. His father's. His mother's.
How.
How can you just smile like that.
Shin's eyes were the same dark color as his, but the quality in them was different. There was something patient there. Steady. And Sasuke understood, looking at it, why Shin had still been standing at the end of today's training when Sasuke himself hadn't been.
What Shin carried was something Sasuke had never had to learn to hold.
......
The inner door slid open.
Itachi walked in—black kimono, no weapons—and let it fall shut behind him. He stopped when he saw the three of them. His gaze moved from Mikoto to Sasuke, and then rested on Shin.
"Itachi," Mikoto said, rising, "what are you doing in here? Is the meeting over?"
Itachi shook his head, offering nothing else.
"Sasuke, you're home early." His tone softened, though his eyes stayed on Shin. "How was today?"
"Substitute pushed us too hard. They let us out early."
"Hm." A beat. "And you are?"
"Shin Takami." A small nod, no attempt to stand.
"My brother," Sasuke said flatly. "Itachi Uchiha."
"Hello." Itachi's smile was quiet and genuine. "Thank you for bringing him home."
He glanced toward the back hallway. "Mom—the clothes I changed out of this afternoon. Where are they?"
"In the washroom. I was about to wash them." She blinked. "Are you going out? What about the clan meeting—"
He was already moving.
"Itachi?"
A pause. Then he came back down the hall.
He was no longer in the kimono.
Full ANBU kit. Dark clothes. The sword across his back.
"Itachi." Mikoto moved toward him. "Do you have a mission? Why are you dressed like—"
"I need to go out for a while." He stepped past her, heading for the training ground exit.
"That's not mission gear if you don't have a mission. Why are you armed? What is—"
His footsteps stopped.
By the time Mikoto reached the corridor, the space where he'd been standing was empty.
She stood looking at it.
Sasuke stared at the same place. He'd never seen his brother move like that—no warning, no explanation. The measured calm was still there, but something underneath it hadn't been.
What happened?
Shin was quiet. Watching where the door had been.
Itachi's ANBU too, he thought. He and Shisui are from the same clan. They must know each other.
He looked at the empty doorway.
Something's coming.