"Her mother's dead. Landslide."
"I can't let you go." Kakashi says solemnly. He's looking at Sasuke trying to convey some deeper meaning, unfortunately for him Sasuke isn't interested in anything but getting this baby somewhere warm and safe. Whatever bone Kakashi has to pick with him can wait.
"Then don't," Sasuke snaps, the baby is getting really wriggly, small hands grasping and grabbing at his shirt. How do women stand this? "Just don't blame me if someone tries to stab you for being an asshole."
"That's mean," Kakashi comments, stashing away the pardon, "but, I suppose, fair enough."
Travelling with a baby is insane. She gets tired, she cries, she's hungry. It takes a day and a half to get to the nearest Giri outpost and by the time he does he's ready to let the clan die out. Who knew they were so much work. He dumps the baby with Kakashi while he tries to find someone he can leave her with more permanently.
"Seriously?" The man keeping guard at the Giri owned spa squints at him. "A baby? "
"An orphanage." Sasuke asks completely harried at this point. "Anything."
"Well, you could just give it to the boss. She's got like a thing about babies." The man replies helplessly.
He'll take it. "Is she here?"
The man nods. "Little commune at the top of the hill, can't miss it."
When he gets back to Kakashi and the baby his former sensei takes one look at him and dumps the squalling mass on Sasuke. For some unknowable reason the baby has taken a firm liking to him, calming every time he holds her. Still, it takes him a whole half hour to calm her down again. By the time they reach the commune the baby is peacefully asleep. Sasuke knocks on the door and waits anxiously for someone on the other side to open it. He thanks any gods still talking to him when it swings open.
Fuyuki is holding a baby bottle with a cigarette in her mouth. Sasuke is too glad to see her and confirm that she might know what to do with a baby to comment. She looks at him as if she's never seen him before then slowly takes the cigarette from her mouth and crushes it underfoot. "You're fucking kidding me, Uchiha. Am I the only person you know with a baby? "
"Take her from me Fuyuki or so fucking help me-"
"That is a baby watch your language."
Kakashi laughs. Fuyuki gives him a look acknowledging his existence but not his right to talk to her. She takes the baby from him and coos at her. The baby waves her little fist. Sasuke had liked her for not making much noise on the road, he might love her a little for reaching out now. Fuyuki's cool gaze levels on Kakashi and takes a slow meandering assessment. Since Kakashi isn't a baby killer and Konoha has no actual beef with Giri, Sasuke isn't foreseeing much trouble.
"Well, Hatake," she says at length. "You look better not dying in a river."
"Hashira Fuyuki." Kakashi smiles and turns to Sasuke. "Is it her baby?"
Sasuke recoils. "No."
Fuyuki gives him a sly glance. "Is it his baby?"
Both Sasuke and Kakashi pale and shout, "No!"
"Would someone, other than the baby, like to come inside and explain their actions?"
Sasuke grumbles but steps past her The house is halfway between an actual home and a boarding house. There are paintings on the wall, sweeping black lines and red prints. Mismatched rugs and far too much of the wrong furniture. The house itself is shaped oddly, sweeping far too low at the back and warping awkwardly into an open kitchen. He finds the main room with little trouble and stands listening to Kakashi and Fuyuki awkwardly try and give each other enough space. He doesn't quite turn when they enter just allows his body to drift towards the biggest threat. She places a warning hand on Kakashi's arm and after a few terse words he follows Sasuke into the living room. He thinks he hears less than five minutes but he wouldn't put money on it. Kakashi takes up an odd space of wall, crossing his arms and leaning back so he can see the whole room. Sasuke throws himself into a mismatched blue and brown chair, crossing his ankles on a low wooden table.
Fuyuki follows after him, stopping to grab a bottle from a cabinet and pouring herself a glass. She doesn't offer to share. "He took a contract."
"Working for you?" Kakashi asks. "Why?"
"That's his story to tell, I think."
"Shouldn't we talk about the baby?" Sasuke interjects.
Kakashi and Fuyuki hit him with identical dismissive expressions. Sasuke huffs and tucks the baby closer to his chest. Oblivious, the child brings a chubby little hand to its mouth.
Kakashi looks back at Fuyuki. "And you have no responsibility for him at all?"
She scoffs. "No more than any of his other commanding officers."
"Is that what you are?" Kakashi says softly.
There's no air in the room. The baby in Sasuke's arms quiets down, hunkering down into the folds of his loose shirt. He knows how the baby feels.
"You know," she says voice sly, "he's house broken now."
A glimmer of amusement flickers across Kakashi's face. "Oh?"
"Works well in a team, bathes regularly, pisses where and when you tell him too..."
"Oh my," Kakashi says faux-breathless, " my cute little delinquent?"
"Mmhmm." Fuyuki looks smug. "You should go."
Kakashi nods already beginning to stand. "That's all we needed. Come along."
Fuyuki is still radiating smugness as she lets them out. She plucks the baby from his arms, tucking it into hers. Sasuke almost groans, Kakashi is approaching a sulk at break neck speed. As he crosses the threshold of her home Fuyuki grabs him by the end of his hair and yanks, "Oh, Uchiha?"
Sasuke scowls as he pulls out of her hold. "Fucking what Hashira?"
She smiles, baby stuffing the length of her hair in it's mouth. Sasuke looks at them both and feels an odd sense of accomplishment. Fuyuki mimes a scissoring action. "Cut your hair."
Both Kakashi and Sasuke have lived with the knowledge that should Sasuke come home it would be Kakashi's duty to kill him. Naruto might nominally be his closest bond but Sasuke is Kakashi's responsibility. This is the Will of Fire. This is the spirit in which Hashirama killed Madara at the Valley of the End. Some days Sasuke would even be willing to admit that it played a role in why he stayed away.
On the 5th night as they sneak past the border patrols on the border of Sky, Sasuke makes a remarkable discovery: Kakashi is old. He is old and he is tired of Sasuke's shit.
Sasuke already knows he's not going to be what Kakashi imagined mostly because Kakashi is dead wrong about what happened to him while he was gone.
Sasuke dealt with Orochimaru by accepting him for exactly what he was, moving all of his morals to the right and settling into a twilight existence. When he finally got to Oto a lot of what made that power hungry boy had to go away. He had to go from being an eagle to being a snake and to do that Sasuke had to accept a kind of blindness. Where Orochimaru opened up the world in a way Konoha couldn't the cost was every last thing Konoha might have tried to protect him from. Power has a cost and with Orochimaru it was every last thing he wanted and then some.
That was never Kakashi's style.
"It would have sucked." Sasuke remarks as they're lying down for the night. Kakashi has decided to stay on watch all night. Sasuke doesn't really care. If he wants to be miserable with paranoia so be it.
"What?" Kakashi says suspiciously.
"If you had to kill me." Sasuke clarifies. "That would have been bad."
"Yes." Kakashi agrees. "It would have been."
--
"Who the fuck are you?" Hiki says instead of hello.
Sasuke flashes one of his passes. "Two rooms."
Hiki carries on as if nothing had happened at all. "See, I know a pretty fucking princess by the name of Uchiha Sasuke but I don't know any men with actual fucking jawlines."
"Fuck. You." Sasuke snarls. "Two rooms."
"You gonna tell me where to go nadeshiko? Where's all your pretty hair anyway? That was some beauty catalogue bullshit."
"The actual princess told me to cut it."
"Huh," he scratches his chin thoughtfully, "you ain't with us anymore?"
"I'm doing what she told me to."
"Well, your pretty boy companion is going to run into Suigetsu's phallic metaphor if you're not careful."
"Oh fuck," Sasuke turns and dashes for the galley where, yes, that is Suigetsu
He stops with his sword an inch from Kakashi's throat. For his part Kakashi is nonplussed, hands up, comfortable with being threatened. Sasuke did not miss this about him. "Who is this prick?!"
"Really?" Kakashi pouts. He sounds almost wounded.
"Suigetsu." Sasuke tries.
Suigetsu waves his huge ass sword around. "Shut up. Here I am thinking your pretty boy ass is going to be wrapping flowers around flag poles or whatever shit-"
"I don't think I've ever gotten to do that." Kakashi pouts even more. Somehow.
"-and I find out that you're, what, taking a fucking vacation? Akatsuki is still hunting your dumb fuck ass-"
Kakashi's eyebrows bolt up. "What."
"Yeah! Because they think he killed Itachi and stole their magic fucking lighter! Any fucking way-"
"Shut up." Sasuke snarls.
Suigetsu snarls right back. "Fuck you! Karin's worried, Juugo's worried, and I was closest so-"
Sasuke draws his sword and runs Suigetsu through the shoulder with it. He obligingly turns into a puddle. In the two seconds it takes Suigetsu to figure out what to do next Sasuke flares his chakra and glares at the other occupants of the room. They flee.
"We're not going to come back here." Kakashi sounds mournful.
"Suigetsu," Sasuke sheathes his sword, "on the off chance that Akatsuki for some reason decides to prioritise bothering me over hunting the bijuu I think between myself and Hatake Kakashi we will be able to evade them long enough to get to one of the Giri settlements. Not to mention that until you started screaming everyone thought I was still with Giri. Akatsuki does not want to fight the only other rebel organisation on the continent with multiple S-Rank shinobi. They certainly don't want to do it for something I don't even have."
"I'm not sorry."
"Never said you were." Sasuke rolls his eyes. "Whatever. You're paying for the first two rounds."
Because Suigetsu has never learnt to stop arguing, he folds his arms and mutters, "You don't know they wouldn't torture you."
That's a laughable statement for so many reasons. As if Sasuke has no resistance to torture. As if he wouldn't cheerful tell the first black cloaked figure he saw to have fun fighting across the continent just to get the opportunity to fight Giri's elite. Sasuke shakes his head and heads for the bar. "They've got umeshu."
"Neat." Suigetsu drops his arms and follows after him. Kakashi disappears upstairs, possibly to write this new and fascinating development down in his diary.
He and Suigetsu talk shit for a little bit. Who went where, what did they eat, what did they say, has anyone heard from so and so recently. Suigetsu and Karin are playing a long game of mutual aggravation that will end in marriage or death; either way it will take up a significant portion of their lives. Juugo has possibly found a something-friend. He's been tight lipped as regards to gender and orientation. It doesn't seem serious but Suigetsu is watching it keenly, still unwilling to admit that Juugo is a close friend and not a timebomb.
"You went to Kiri." Sasuke says, drinking his beer. The umeshu is better but too sweet for his tastes. The beer is okay and it has never been beers job to be more than that.
Suigetsu grimaces. "It's different. Terumii was a rebel, right? But she likes the system. She just likes it best not run by a bunch of crazy murderous fucks." He downs his drink and pours another. "I don't get that. It's literally exactly the same but we don't kill everyone, which, frankly, was the best bit."
"Giri rubbed off on you." Sasuke muses. The Suigetsu he knows would never have been for peace and amity. No one lets you cut people up with a giant sword.
"Nah," Suigetsu shakes his head. "That shit was- It's all ideas and ideals. It just doesn't make sense."
"I suppose not." Sasuke comments.
"But here we fucking are," Suigetsu mutters, "drinking in a new age."
Sasuke snorts. "Not quite."
"Yeah?" Suigetsu drains his cup and points one long pale finger straight up. "Who's taking you home right now? The last sharingan on the continent, once a traitor now a hero to the downtrodden. Ain't that a new age?"
"Fuck off," Sasuke replies. He's not a hero to anybody. "Besides I thought you believed that bullshit about Akatsuki."
"Not quite." Suigetsu shrugs. "But there's something funky going on there you gotta admit. How long were we with that weirdo? And how terrified was he of attracting their attention? I mean, I'd be afraid of the big bad Uchiha Madara too."
"He wasn't afraid." Sasuke muses, although it isn't quite right. For a man made of so much hubris he was diligent about not aggravating Ame.
"Right." Suigetsu says, clearly not buying it. "I'm just saying secret Uchiha isn't bad odds."
"It's not amazing ," he mutters to his cup, but grimly manages the rest of Suigetsu's mocking anyway.
Suigetsu leaves with his current team. By his own accounting they're a 'bunch of lily livered assholes with no respect for swordsmanship' but otherwise not too bad. Kakashi finds Sasuke while he's changing into a new shirt; at some point Suigetsu got umeshu on his.
He leans on the door finding no problem with watching Sasuke change. "You explained yourself."
Sasuke has his arms in the air, his head stuck in the hole, and of course Kakashi would choose this small indignity. He refuses to answer until they're both wearing shirts. "What?"
"To the boy. You explained yourself."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I was..." What would Kakashi actually understand? He can't really think of an analogous grouping in Konoha. "He was part of my team. In Oto."
"I see," Kakashi murmurs. He rubs at his nose as if he does.
...ANBU, maybe. Maybe that's the closest thing to what his team was. He picked them for a suicide mission he didn't get to run but the thought remains the same. He thought they were good enough to die with.
"...good." Sasuke nods tersely to him and then exits the room.
"Oh my god." Kakashi mutters.
Sasuke ignores him. Downstairs he finds tension in one of the larger sitting rooms. Doing his best not to upset whatever balance has been established, he takes a seat with his back to the wall. He pulls out a flask and pours out the last of his drink. Fuck. There's no chance Kakashi will let him restock. He was bad enough about the smokes.
Next to him is a group of five shinobi all clearly from the same village. Four of them wear chunnin vests, one man the leader, wears a jounin uniform and a stark orange and red bandana. On the other side of the room is an assortment of Giri. Some are fighters, although not many, a few look like trained up civilians -always hell in a fight with shinobi, dubious competency makes for a lot of wild cards- and a few others are skilled enough that Sasuke has worked with them. One of them, a woman from Suna, inclines her head at him. The shinobi are outclassed and it looks like only some have the sense to know it.
Sasuke makes the mistake of catching the eye of one of the Giri contingent. He snarls, but the woman from Suna drops a word in his ear. In a flash his snarl turns to a smirk. "Don't mind them, " the man says with a sneer in the direction of the shinobi, "they're still pissed we took their terribly run medical facility and turned it into a neutral settlement."
One of the shinobi snaps up. "You're fucking stealing money from us."
"We are a benevolent organisation, here to bring a better world," the man replies nastily, "maybe you should look a little closer to home, huh?"
"Maybe not now," the woman from Suna says, flexing her thin tanned fingers. She meets Sasuke's eyes with a nod. "Uchiha, good to see you."
Sasuke nods back settling further back against the wall. The Giri contingent pours out in fits and starts. He really wishes he remembered the Suna woman's name because she's a hell of a manager.
Sasuke manages to stretch out his last drink until the room is clear. He turns to the shinobi table and without ado pours himself a drink from their pitcher. It's shit. "What's the real problem?" Blame curiosity, but that was weird, and if he's going to be trapped here it would be better to know what he's in for.
The jounin spits, literally, on the ground. "The fuck do you think you are? You're the fucking Uchiha that's flying the flag."
Sasuke cocks an eyebrow. Now that doesn't sound like him at all.
The jounin sneers revealing a badly healed split lip. "Like you don't know," he says disparagingly, "you took important historical artifacts from Frost that lead to the rebels overthrowing the fucking Daimyo. Water no longer has control of the cloth and jewel trade after what you did in Wave. All that shit has your name on it boy."
Sasuke snorts. "I'm not hearing a problem. Corruption is bad, trade is good."
"Yeah, pretty boy? You think that was the good of the fucking people? Frost was holding out against Giri until you did that, now with the rebels in power they have almost all the border countries between the major nations. Water relies on cloth and pearl trade to make up a significant portion of their capital. If they can't maintain self sufficiency they'll have to reopen negotiations with other nations. They're fucking banned from trading with Fire and Lightning for another six years. It would have to be with the minor nations. You've handed Giri fucking hostages."
"Again," he drawls, "your problem is?"
The other man deflates. "I don't want someone who spent her time in the war running black ops against civilian settlements with that much fucking leverage," he replies wearily. "The same way I was fucking terrified when a man who could kill a thousand people in one afternoon got a Kage hat."
It takes a moment to make the connection, ironically the Fourth Hokage's war record is a closely held secret in Konoha. "Namikaze?" Fastest man alive, deadliest man in the 3rd war. Rumors that Konoha still has his signature jutsu make a significant bulk of why they haven't had a serious takeover attempt.
"Yeah, fuck you Konoha for that one. Can you kill a thousand people before lunch? Can you kill all the wives, husbands and children of your enemies in the middle of the night without a single soul hearing it? 'Cause they fucking can." He shakes his head sadly. "Then we put them in charge of shit."
"You're not the only person who thinks that's a bad thing."
He snorts. "I got my men to look out for. This is a shitty fucking world but if you know what you're doing you can get through it all right." He glares accusingly. "Stop fucking with that."
Sasuke refills his glass. "I'm no longer a part of Giri."
"Yeah? How'd that happen?"
After a moment, he says, "there are some things you didn't know you had a problem with until you had the option to have a problem with it." He drains his beer with a grimace. It's basically pig swill.
The man stares at him for a long time before he tips his glass. "I'll drink to that."
--
Kakashi ditches him for whatever it is Sasuke assumes he was originally sent here to do around noon. After a brief flirtation with the thought of running away he instead chooses to dedicate himself to washing, brushing and maintaining his hair. He has dinner with the Giri contingent trading hair care products for bits and bobs that he misses from Otogakure. Someone has charms from the old shrine. Another has little red bean rolls that keep for months in the right conditions. He collects as many little things as he can and stores them away for later. He gleams a few things: a partisan mission, accompanying a diplomat, stronger ties with Frost and Water, but leaves it all alone. No business of his.
He finds Hiki sitting by himself on the porch overlooking the gardens. "Hey pretty princess," Hiki grins over his bowl. "Have I got something to tell you."
"Do you?" Sasuke flops onto the ground next to him. The sun is setting on a beautiful day. Through the trees the last rays of light are flickered onto the ground, the buds of flowers are curling up to sleep. There's a strong dirt and water smell. Like new growth, like overturned earth.
"There was a woman once who gave birth to two sons, who both also had two sons-"
"So help me, Hiki, if you tell me that demon princess story-"
"You enjoyed the Tale of Sakane how am I meant to know where your taste levels even start. " Hiki says snottily. "Do you know who Tatewaki Kazue was?"
"Warring States Era cartographer and poet. Her most famous work is A Thousand Knives, A Thousand Leaves from which the Land of Honey takes its personal motto. Her best work is widely considered to be In the Electric Marshes but most people find it too sinister. That, and it borrowed techniques from foreign works when a minimalist style was prefered at court." Sasuke answers without missing a beat.
Hiki stares at him, dumbfounded, "...could you recite it?"
"In the west of ways, I found my passage. Light falls from our three shadows: the here, the now, the future past, that immovable pine that makes the cradle dance-"
"That was a joke!" Hiki holds up his hands, "Woah, slow down. Do you know what her name was before it was Tatewaki?"
Sasuke shakes his head.
"Uchiha." Hiki crosses his arms triumphantly. "What do you think about that!"
His first thought is that the great crow monster described in the Electric Marshes must have been a cousin she hated. His second thought is that Hiki is never this free with information. "Was there something else?"
"No fucking fun at all, " Hiki scowls. "Someone found a cache of her work and is auctioning it off. And before you get snippy," he says just as Sasuke is opening his mouth to blow him off, "you should know that among the manuscripts of poems you have apparently memorised there are four sealed scrolls with your clan crest on them. They were presented and checked for authenticity by our Kabuto. That is not, of course, a perfect measure, but it's better than we would get from anyone who isn't you. The auction will be in Tawatsukawa in five days."
"That's a resort town." Sasuke balks. Full of casinos and bars and brothels. Everyone knows what goes on in that town. Sasuke can't imagine a worse place to try and hold a secret auction.
Hiki grunts in agreement, "I don't tell the black market what to do."
Sasuke nods, already figuring out how he's going to manipulate Kakashi into this. After a few moments Sasuke realises he hasn't actually ended the conversation. He looks at Hiki who is calmly looking out into the gardens eating his half melted ice cream. He must sense Sasuke's contemplation because he turns. With a smile and a wave he acquits Sasuke of social responsibility, "no thanks necessary, kid. Just a small kindness."
Sasuke considers this, and leans back to watch the gardens as well.
--
In the end Sasuke just goes to Tawatsukawa, Kakashi be damned.
It's as easy as walking out in the middle of the morning, hopping onto a cart and keeping to himself. There's a strong chance Kakashi would have understood why Sasuke has to follow this. He's the last Hatake after all. But Kakashi is also a proven asshole and fucking difficult on top of that. Arguing would have sparked Sasuke's minimal fuse.
Tawatsukawa is as gaudy as he recalls. The buildings are all level and made of the same shape and material. To distinguish themselves each proprietor has painted their building a different colour. The one closest to him is pale pink with bright orange birds on it. Compared to the lime green and shit purple brown atrocity across from it, it's a blessing. Blue, red, orange and yellow, teal and neon. The silver lining is that Sasuke knows exactly what building he's looking for. Down past the gold gilded casino and its pink marble doors, past the taupe brothels and yellow restaurants. All the way to a seedy little alcove that houses three things: accomodation, information brokers and the informal hit list that the Bingo Book occasionally draws from.
Sasuke heads straight for the one grey building in this colourful hellscape pausing only to admire the bulletin board that houses all the wanted posters.
The Giri announcement covers a wall by itself, pages and pages overlapping. Some have been torn away and replaced, others have been pasted over as their bounties have been collected. At the tip is Fuyuki, an old rendering of her in her jounin uniform and an expensive scarf printed with dragons wrapped around her neck. She's been graffitied to hell and back but her eyes remain untouched. Too full of power, of potential. Around her are legacies. Some Sasuke knows from before: the Mountain Boar, the Blue Viper, the Travellers, all of them a little closer to folklore. What was it she said to him, all that time ago? You'd be surprised by what people made up about you.
Sasuke falls somewhere in the bottom half of the middle.
It's a strange picture. His hair is tied wrong, for starters. They have it in a low ponytail spiking up and about. Instead of his carefully slicked and braided sides they've drawn conclusions based on older photos, spiking it down one half of his face. He's frowning openly, an approximation of his sharingan spinning in the uncovered eye. Under his eyes is shaded in exhaustion, bruised and purple. His skin is perfectly pale. Sasuke has a thin scar that stretches from the corner of his lip to his ear. It's obvious when he moves his mouth. It pulls.
This Sasuke has no such mark. Under his picture it has bare details: sharingan, fire aligned, kenjutsu specialist. Killed Orochimaru. Considered a medium-high risk. No preference for dead or alive.
Exactly the same as it was when he left Otogakure the first time.
He'd understood intellectually that Giri held him in stasis, like an insect in amber, but he hadn't realised what it would be like to see the difference. Yumi's name is up the wall three rows and six places over. It's been changed recently; a new picture of her filed down teeth. Haru is a row down and nine places back: newer still, barely dry, he's got a new nickname. Hiki is highest up the wall, below Dosa by two rows. Sasuke had guessed he'd been somewhat fearsome but he'd never checked the reality. Capturing and returning him to Suna is enough to retire on.
When no one was looking he was forgotten about. Like choosing to go, like being let go, he has no real reference for it. He's always been Uchiha, and that has always been enough to keep him at the front of everyone's minds. No new heads on his wall, no new victories, and he's been shunted down to the same level as a high-level chunnin. With a gut full of misery he realises that some of his cocky bullshit was in fact just bullshit.
He turns his eyes to Akatsuki.
Far fewer of them have survived then he first thought. Their notices have been left up. Half out of infamy, their killers names sprayed across their posters. Half out of respect for what Akatsuki used to be: a hope for peace. Sasori is dead and it's Haruno Sakura's name sprayed over his face. They used pink paint, too; the curves of her name covering the young, sad looking boys features. Kisame was collected by Kirigakure, in conjunction with Konohagakure. The personal symbol of the Mizukage wipes him out. Kakuzu was killed, Sasuke presumes, by a fistful of lightning. The silver paint of Kakashi's name is shared here and there in places. Deidara and Konan have defector and traitor written across their foreheads.
Itachi's face is clear. All it says is deceased, uncollected.
The rest are still alive doing whatever it is Akatsuki is doing.
"Oi," a man calls out, "if you're done gawking everyone else is here."
Sasuke raises an eyebrow. As he approaches the man grabs him by the arm. "Your way's been bought boy." He slides a small bundle into Sasuke's shirt. "With regards from that silverfish of Giri's. That'll get you into the bidding." Then he pushes Sasuke towards a door.
Sasuke cocks an eyebrow, nothing about Hiki suggests he has problems following through but he can't exactly think of another meaning. Maybe a sex joke at his expense.
He enters into a cliche bar all low ceilings, smoke and the ground in smell of too many sweaty, bloody shinobi. There's an empty stage. He isn't the only one in the room. He spots two woman and a man lounging at small tables equidistant from each other. One of the men is wearing a strange mask, Sasuke glances him over, catching a strange red glint in his glass, but nothing more suspicious. Sasuke seats himself in a booth, back right to the corner, and takes out the bundle. Two bidding cards: one for the initial auction and the other for the secret one. Winning the first bid is only half the battle whatever you win isn't considered yours until it crosses out of Tawatsukawa. The second auction is for the information of the guy who wins the first. A head start.
There's a second bundle inside the first. Three red cards one with Hashira's name on it, two with the regular Giri stamp. The two stamped one's are safe passage through Giri territory. The one with Hashira's name on it is a one use direct contact.
"This seat taken?" The orange masked man slides into the booth in front of him. Sasuke makes brief eye contact, noticing his one eye, before sweeping down.
Sasuke pockets his spoils. "Does it matter?"
"Nope." The man grins. "I'm Tobi."
"Sasuke." He does not grin back. "Do we have some sort of business?"
"Nah, but those guys coming in the door are a little freaked out by you, so I thought I'd keep you company." There's something off in the way he says it, all come hither and playful.
"I'm not looking for company." Sasuke hedges. The room begins to fill with people, if Tobi doesn't leave soon Sasuke will be stuck with him.
"I'm not offering it." Tobi continues to give off waves off friendliness. "But I'll buy you a drink anyway."
Whatever. Sasuke jerks his head in a not un-positive way.
Tobi rocks from side to side as the auction gets underway. A pair of beautiful swan necked vases go up. They go high. A pair of books bound in red silk go too low for their value, but by the looks, the second auction for those will be fierce. Six tokens that Sasuke belatedly realizes represent three pairs of kids goes on and on and on. Judging by the symbols on the small pieces of porcelain the children are up for breeding rights. That sickens him, but he's glad to see one of the women bidding furiously, and when she's outdone, there is pure murder in her eyes. He notices a small symbol on her neck, a brand, the same as the one on the tokens.
"The entire collected works of Tatewaki Kazue," the announcer pronounces boredly, "first bids?"
Sasuke raises his hand, showing the first of the free passes.
No one else bids.
Sasuke lowers his hand, feeling like an asshole, and lays it palm flat. Final offer.
Still no one bids.
"Oooo," Tobi mock-whispers, "not that pop-u-lar."
The announcer clears his throat, with a pointed glance at Tobi, he announces, "If there's nothing else, sold. Collect your winnings."
Sasuke rises, moving slowly he takes in the rest of the room, appearing for all the world as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. He passes the woman from earlier, the one who was trying to save the children, and slips all his passes and a hastily written note directing her to the closest Giri hideaway into her pocket. If she notices she doesn't give it away.
Tatewaki Kazue's entire lifes work, incomplete works and personal diaries included, fits into a medium sized box of dark stained wood. The sides of the box are panelled with beautiful, expensive renditions of the Water Wife's Dance, an extremely famous passage from her work The Crane's Falling. That alone would fetch someone a pretty penny. He glances around the room. No one is even slightly interested.
He sits down with the box in his lap. In a slippery motion Tobi flinches the box from his hands. "Eh?" Tobi turns the box around and around as if it will summon more interesting. "It's just poetry."
"Not to me." Stiffly he replies, "Thank you for your help."
Tobi frowns, "Did you arrange rooms?"
Sasuke sighs. "No."
"Well I have a place." Tobi holds his hands up, all good will. "I don't want your boring box just a bit of company."
"I'm not going to sleep with you."
"Ew, you're not my type. I like you know," he gestures at his chest, " you know."
"Yes." With another great sigh he repeats, "yes. I'll take it. Let's go."
Tobi leads him to a standalone inn on the edge of town. He dodges and darts through alleyways, into and out of shadows, if he was less of a bumbling idiot Sasuke would be a little wary of him. He adjusts his internal threat assessment accordingly.
No other rooms are being rented. The owners -two idiots who can't seem to agree on anything and crack one too many poop jokes to make Sasuke think well of them- hand them a key to a single room. Sasuke almost protests, then he remembers the poop jokes. After a quick light dinner from individual ration sacks -Tobi smiles and chatters while Sasuke eats- Sasuke turns in. Tobi, either unfamiliar with the delicate dance that allows two shinobi sleep in the same room, does not strip down to his basic weapons, leaving Sasuke with no other option but to wear his full kit. Despite that he is tired enough to relax his shoulders perhaps a touch too much and let his thoughts wander. He and Tobi sit across from each other pretending comfort, watching for sudden moves.
Why did no one else bid? It's not a huge catch of an item outside of academic circles, but it's not as if scholars don't also use the hidden markets. Sasuke was provided with more to bargain with than an academic could muster but far less than a minor lord who wished to add to his collection. Maybe they knew who he was, and in a moment of kindness decided to let him have it.
He snorts internally. Yeah, not that.
Watchers? Someone else keeping eyes on what product moves where? Intelligence is not his strong suit but from what he knows of those who excel at it -Kabuto, Hiki- this is well within some sort of tactical play. A little bird with a little rumor is sometimes one of the strongest defences. Is there an advantage to someone having Kazue's work? And is that advantage less than simply knowing who does? If the scrolls require the use of the sharingan, an understanding of it, what do those who know he has it stand to gain?
Giri is using him. The obvious advantage to them is if these scrolls have some weapon, some technique, he is more likely to be disposed to use it for them. What sinks under his skin and itches is the idea that they used the turn of his face, his name and his legacy, and he never really noticed. Did it matter that he was the one to steal from Frost? It did matter that he as the one to symbolically give Otogakure to Fuyuki. Symbols matter.
The question becomes: now what?
"What if the sharingan didn't exist?" Tobi asks.
Sasuke had almost forgotten about him. "Excuse me?"
"You know," he twirls his hand expressively, "all these fancy jutsu and abilities. What if we all woke up tomorrow as architects or chefs?"
"You want that many shitty ramen stands?"
"Don't mock me," Tobi pouts, "but you get it, right?"
He does. But there's an obvious question- "Who would lead?"
"The strongest." Tobi huffs, as if the answer is obvious. His voice wobbles dangerously in the air. Something pops near Sasuke's ear. He reaches up to rub at it.
Since he won't let Sasuke sleep, he begrudgingly humors him. "How do we know who that is?"
"He'll make himself known."
"And what about those who had power and now don't?" He muses somewhat rhetorically.
Tobi looks at his own hand contemplatively. "True leaders stand at the top of the world and speak of how things must be. The losers have to live with the consequences."
"I suppose."
True night falls between them. Through the window the moon stretches a long slice of light. It's almost too full. Without thinking about Sasuke takes a snap with his sharingan, the long haunting stretch of white caught in dirty glass.
He falls asleep, he wouldn't be able to say when, but one moment he's thinking about the moon and the next he's standing in the Uchiha stronghold barefoot.
Without thinking he walks down the wisteria strewn path, down paths that slick with more and more blood the closer he gets to his home, and enters his childhood home. His mother is in the kitchen singing along to the rainbow. A wound cuts her back. His father sings with her, sitting at the table drinking coffee. His chest gurgles blood as he slurps his coffee. His mother admonishes him, as he laughs his reply his face pales from bloodloss. Sasuke looks on sadly for a moment, then turns to complete the mangled memory. Itachi will appear, catch him in the entrance to the hallway, he'll ask him what he's doing home so early and sasuke will say working on his fireball technique, just you wait brother, I'll surpass you soon! He can already feel the impact of the finger on his forehead.
Itachi deviates from the plan, stepping around Sasuke, not touching. His movements are liquid, his clothes bloodless, and some screaming instinct has Sasuke paying attention.
"Silly boy," Itachi mutters.
Itachi has never spoken in his dreams.
Behind him, from the edge of his eye, he sees his parents jerk to a stop. Orange covers their faces, except for one madly spinning red eye. "This isn't a dream." Sasuke announces, too loud. With jittering certainty he adds. "This is a genjutsu."
Itachi sits down carefully crossing his legs. He always did have a strange grace. "I don't think this is having the effect he intended."
"Really." Sasuke jams as much sarcasm in as he can.
Itachi nods. "The sharingan can reach across time and bend space."
"So then-" He can't finish it. Is he real? Is he here? Hope and rage well inside-
"No." Itachi shakes his head. "I am still dead." He gestures graciously towards Sasuke. "You want to ask why I'm here."
"Stop assuming," Sasuke snaps.
Itachi's lips twitch. "I can only assume, little brother."
"Don't." Sasuke snaps again, at once tired and enraged. He hadn't forgotten what it felt like, this twinning emotion he has for his brother, but he'd forgotten the edges of it. "Fine. How can you be here?"
Itachi purses his lips, another thing Sasuke had forgotten. The only bit of Itachi you can read are the corners and the tucks. His mouth, the corner of his eye, the twitch of his pinky that always betrays him. Sasuke learnt those tells out of love. He's forgotten them every time they fought.
The floor shakes and shivers. The walls bleed colour and fall down. They're flashing through the house, the yard. The front step, where Sasuke waited for his traitor of a brother with baited breath.
"Tsukuyomi," Itachi breathes out, "I broke you."
"Yes," Sasuke breathes out just the same. He did, he did.
"Tobi has made a mistake," Itachi smirks, "he underestimated the strength of your mind. It knows, even if you don't, what is happening right now. Your mind is trying to protect you."
"Ironic that you're here then."
Itachi inclines his head agreeably, sending Sasuke into seething. "When did you get caught?"
With more effort than he cares to expend Sasuke eats his temper. He'd just be giving Itachi what he wants. "When we were in the inn."
"Really?" Itachi's mouth twitches down. Disbelief. "You followed a strange man you met in a bar?"
Scowling, Sasuke spits, "I-" a glint of red in his glass, the orange masked man sits down across from him making eye contact , "-son of a bitch."
"Now don't say that." Itachi gently admonishes. "She could have been a very nice woman."
The sound turns off in his ears, pitching low and then spiking up, it feels like having your eardrums burst but in reverse. Sasuke drops to a knee. Itachi, who is completely unaffected, kneels beside him. With his arms resting comfortably on his bent knees, he asks. "You remember genjutsu theory, yes?" Gingerly he reaches out and covers Sasuke's ears with his hands. "There are three parts-"
"Active, illusionary and passive." Sasuke murmurs. His ears stopped ringing the second Itachi covered them. "Active is the intended reality altering effect. Illusionary is the method by which you achieve the active state. Passive is the connecting factor. To break a genjutsu we're taught to cycle opposing chakra out in pulses to disrupt the illusionary factor."
"How do you reject a genjutsu with a hereditary factor?"
"No idea."
Itachi clicks his tongue. "You do know."
Sasuke shrugs. "...passive. Members of the same family have a susceptibility to certain kinds of genjutsu. The illusionary factor becomes harder to dislodge and cycling is less effective because chakra of similar types tend to merge, particularly when they're related, it's too hard for the victim to differentiate between their own and their attackers. There are two genjutsu that the Uchiha are especially susceptible to when cast by another Uchiha: Izuna's Shadows which works best with direct eye contact and The Crone's Laugh which directly affects the first stage of the sharingan, disrupting the ability to correctly identify chakra, and, if used for too long, causes hallucinations of grief and despair." He can't manage to look at his brother near the end.
Itachi drops his hands from Sasuke's ears and out his hands. "Good." He loosens his shoulders the way Sasuke does, the way he was taught, and it looks odd. Sasuke has more muscles through the shoulders, more their father than their mother. " Crone's Laugh works best through eyesight too, that first glimpse was what caught you, but hearing is hyper-connected to the way shinobi interpret their surroundings. It takes a master to bespell someone through hearing but here we are. Likely at some point you relaxed too much and he snuck in that way too." As if commenting on an ant or the weather, he adds, "you need to work on that."
Sasuke ignores that. "I have to figure out what the passive factor is and break it."
From underneath their feet a harrowing noise swells. A dozen women chanting, then a dozen men. They wail together and from underneath a joyful swell of sound cuts across, it reaches higher and higher until, at the highest point, it's cut by a laughing crow. It rattles in his brain, loosening a memory from childhood. The whole family was by the river and his mother was leading the dancers. Fire swam in the air, and they danced.
The Weeping Song. "Do you remember this?" Itachi hums along, fingers tick tick ticking away on his knee.
Fire Country has never had a strong musical tradition. That, like many things, has been deposited at the feet of the Uchiha. Bird songs are death songs in his homeland, and none are more so than the Weepings; lengthy, intricate musings on transience, on dying. Sasuke has never heard a full one because, like always, those that would teach him are dead.
He does remember one thing: the Weeping Song is also the Warning Song.
Sasuke turns and as he turns the room moves with him. He moves the other way. Same thing. The room reacts as an opponent would.
"You just keep reacting," Itachi muses. "You see something and then you do something. Reflect."
"What?"
"Anything." He pokes Sasuke in the chest. "Stop reacting."
Sasuke bats his hand away, glaring. "Fuck you."
"Sasuke," Itachi urges, "be smart." Blood bubbles from underneath the floorboards. "Run."
He does. Out the door he finds the swingset he used to see Naruto on, except Naruto is dead in Wave and Naruto is dead from his Lightning and dead from his betrayal. Sasuke turns but all he sees is family and kin and Konoha hanging from dead trees. Old pains he'd set aside in order to move forward but still rooted in him: impossible to excise fully. And then the trees are full of dead Kimura and live children who will hunt him then dead children with sealed tongues. Things he despairs of. Things it hurts to think of. Things he grieves, when he lets himself.
Tobi slings an arm companionably over his shoulders. This close he smells of sword oil and the good kind of bloodletting, shallow cuts that show prowess. "You went to a few of our bases," he jeers, "did you like what you found?"
"Shut up."
"The kids weren't mine." Tobi leans closer. "There's so much you don't know..."
Itachi moves between them.
Sasuke falters. His sword falls to the ground. Itachi steps between him and Tobi, hands already moving. The dark space breaks at the top, light falling through the cracks, and Sasuke is reminded of his dream. Just like that his hands grow warm, he remembers his brother holding his hand and meaning it.
"Itachi," Tobi says warmly, friendly, "still such a brat."
Itachi inclines his head. Then he moves.
Sasuke has every moment of fighting his brother etched into his brain. It's like the whole thing is glossed over with fluidity. The blurry edges of a memory that let one sequence fold into another no matter how impossible.
Oh. That's the passive effect.
"First mistake," Tobi murmurs, "now let's see if we can't correct some mistakes."
Itachi jerks. Slowly he turns, eyes downcast, hands apologetic. He pulls his hands up and fires a wave of ever burning flames at him. Sasuke flips back, narrowly avoiding him, what crosses his face is nigh unbearable. Itachi sets himself up to attack, telegraphing his intent, but all Sasuke remembers for a moment is being thirteen.
But Sasuke is stronger now. Sasuke can beat him.
Parry first. Fire, hit, hit, block. Itachi steps back to prepare a bigger attack. Sasuke takes the opportunity and changes the playing field. Water jutsu Itachi is forced to parry. Itachi halts, arms hanging by his sides. Like a shout from above Sasuke remembers that this is controlled by him. No matter what Tobi's sharingan digs up ultimately Sasuke has control. He could crush him, he could destroy him like he deserves-
Sasuke pulls out wires and flings them up. With his mind he sees them immobilising his brother, he sees them holding him like a bird in amber. Itachi rolls, dashes, tries to avoid it but this isn't his playing field. It's Sasuke's. As they pierce his brothers body there is no blood but light. Sasuke brings his sword up, imagines it clean again, and pushes between the ribs like he was taught. The noise of splitting flesh is familiar, as is the twitch and gasp. He's cheek to cheek with his brother, light spilling out from Itachi's body and down Sasuke's hands.
It's done. It's over. He thinks, breathing hard. His body feels heavy, so do his eyes, he's not relieved- He's not-
"You didn't break, did you?" Itachi whispers against his cheek, and that is his voice, as Sasuke best remembers: cool, calculating, but warmed by good humor. "This isn't real and I didn't break you."
It falls apart: Itachi is twenty three and his hands are on Sasuke's ears, he's thirteen and ANBU, he's twenty one and dead, he's eight and Sasuke's first real memory, he's eleven and tired, he's years and years away, doing things Sasuke can't account for. These ages are connected by him, by what Sasuke can thread together. The last memory comes: Itachi's head in a bag, Sasuke's chest filled with clear air for the first time in years. The illusion breaks.
Itachi hits the ground and Sasuke remembers that a body is just a body. Even when it's dead it remains the same. This body, the brother he killed, fades at the edges and bleeds light.
There is another sequence, flashes as clear as any burned into his memory by the sharingan: his eyes hurting, feeling like fire. His brother is covered in blood, he says his name - Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke- tremulous and grieving, then his voice - god I hope you'll survive this- and then-
Mercifully the memory ends.
"You're not going to do it, are you?" The masked man murmurs. In his pounding head Sasuke feels the lurch of something overcoming him. Tobi looks like himself and someone so much more. "Wouldn't it be so much easier to just take my hand?"
"No," he says, half to his brothers dying fingers, half to the man pulling his strings.
"Wouldn't it be easier to give in? You have it in you. You have it in your heart. You're my blood, boy. I know it burns within you. Just let go." Sasuke can feel frustration bleeding off of him. "All you have to do is feel it. Stop fighting and feel. "
Red bleeds around his eyes. Little vines of blood and rage clouding his vision, getting choked and twisted. Rage, rage, rage. Endless black rage. Compared to the monster Sasuke has nurtured this is a typhoon: uncontrollable, devastating.
Sasuke beats it back as best he can. Tobi doesn't get it. He doesn't understand. He can't stop fighting. There is no stop. He's like a shark, if he stops he dies. He won't survive it.
Tobi advances black and red rage whipping around him. "Did you even love him?" He asks. "Did you love any of them? Where is your hate? " He sounds baffled. As if he was assured of something.
Idiot. No one is assured of anything. "Don't worry about that," Sasuke replies dryly, "worry about these." He flicks his hand and more wires appear. There is just enough left in the jutsu to cause some trouble.
Tobi miscalculated. Sasuke needed to survive long enough to see his brother dead. He needed the determination to do that even more than the hate to drive it. And if Sasuke can count on anything it's his own determination.
The game has changed.
Sasuke imagines himself healed of his injuries, and then he imagines them inflicted on his enemy. "You want to be the man on the empty throne." He turns and crouches, launches, all while imagining Tobi wriggling and writhing with pain. It catches, Tobi goes up in flames, but he keeps attacking as if he can't feel it.
That red sharingan flexes, disappearing it's master out and back again at Sasuke's flank. "Not quite." Tobi dances into his reach. "Close but no cigar."
Sasuke meets the kunai in his hand with his sword. "No?"
"Well kid," the masked man drops all joviality, his movements smooth out. In a moment it's a monster and not a trickster coming at him, red eye blazing, "no one likes a man on a throne."
Sasuke meets him with his own monster, letting the curse seal uncurl over him. The genjutsu is falling apart now, all surface and no depth. The corners flicker with darkness. The corners flicker with pain. "I'm not interested."
Tobi folds himself into the dark. His voice is still jovial and pleasant. "Aren't you? You're here for Kazue's work, right? Why would a nice boy like you read an old shrew like that?"
Sasuke lances a chidori onto a wire and throws it. "I'm a revivalist." Sasuke throws back. Tobi backflips and lands lightly, head tilted as if he can't quite believe that Sasuke would sass him. "Now shut up and fight me."
Tobi obliges. They dance across the floor backdropped by Sasuke's memories, by his feelings, the scenes broken up by descending reality; the patches of the forest Tobi transported him to cutting it apart. Tobi cuts him across the nose. Sasuke slices a leg. Tobi folds into a little ball and appears somewhere else completely healed. Sasuke is suffering from a collapsing lung. He pulls it altogether and concentrates on forming a dragon of fire and lightning, one of his strongest attacks, when he's cut down from behind. His knees hit the ground. His hands are moments behind. He manages to turn onto his front so he's at least looking Tobi in the eyes. He has a moment to feel regretful. He never got to see his parents graves again. He never got to tell them the truth. Above him night is falling and he has a brief blissful moment to feel grateful that his last memory will be of stars in the sky-
And then Kakashi is there.
Fist full of lightning, he positions himself between Sasuke and Tobi. He scratches his nose with a finger. "Mah, the things you get into on your own."
Tobi flinches. No witty response.
"Who are you then?" Kakashi asks. Tobi jerks, all contained anger. More anger than he's shown Sasuke. Interesting.
"No one to you." Tobi growls. Sasuke waits for the attack but strangely there is none. Tobi's menace, his trickster spirit disappears. He turns to Sasuke. "Last chance boy."
"Fuck you." Sasuke spits.
"You heard the lady," Kakashi moves his fingers lazily, forcing everyone's attention to him, "why don't we have a chat?"
Tobi flinches again. His chakra rises menacingly before blowing out. Sasuke can feel himself disappear from Tobi's attention all of it concentrated on Kakashi instead. In response Kakashi tightens up. After a long taunt moment Tobi laughs hollowly. "One day soon you will pay for what you've done."
And then Tobi is gone.
--
He cracks the seal on the first scroll while lounging in a hot bath a few towns north of Tawatsukawa. His feet are beaten to hell and stinging in the hot water but other than that it might be the smartest thing he's done in years. Kakashi is AWOL, probably at a bar. Sasuke has no intention of leaving without him again, it's not worth it.
The remnants of Tobi's jutsu are still rattling out of him. He'd chosen not to tell Kakashi out of a need to keep both secrets and dignity. He's not sure it'll be accepted long term but there's a strange reluctance to talk about what happened to his family.
Kazue's writing is neat, archaic and sparse. She's flowery in her descriptions but sharp in her insights.
She writes: Today I found new berries and a stream. I had thought luck was with me this time. The last time those damn Akimichi were already at the head of the stream diverting it to flood the down hill Hyuuga settlement, and I had to stop them, really, it would be ridiculous for them to die when we've just reached an understanding about what happened with cousin Michiko. Haruto thinks I'm crazy for believing we can have an alliance but I think he's just jealous. She didn't want to marry him. I heard the men talking about how they were going to keep her. Four of her brothers have the sharingan. They'll cut her ankles if they have to. I wish the stream had worked instead it was bloated with dead bodies. I went nearly a half day downstream but there was shit in the water as far as the eye can see.
I've thought of new poems lately. I think I'll ask Michiko for her thoughts.
Haruto is right. The alliance with the Hyuuga ends barely two years in, when a group of Hyuuga string up a Uchiha family, cut them up for spare parts and sell them. In the historical record that Konoha keeps this was in retaliation for a destroyed statue that was considered a great treasure by the main branch. If there's one trait that has not been bred out of that family in some thousand years its sheer ruthlessness. The head of the Hyuuga family decided that an equivalent measure should be taken and with the Uchiha lacking in wealth they demanded a woman or an infant, something precious, to be defiled and destroyed. The Uchiha reject this and instead of allowing the two clans to come to blows the Uchiha leader talked them down to a higher ration share. The Uchiha were never so far from starving as to forget it.
This was accepted until it was not and the current era of Hyuuga-Uchiha enmity lives on today. Almost lives on, he amends. Sasuke would have to have an opinion on the Hyuuga first.
The next few entries are dull slice of life type things. He skims it until he comes across something interesting. A new technique, a family secret, a new way to harness the sharingan. Kazue was a woman in a time when they didn't know much but she has little moments, little insights that tell him more than lectures from his father ever did. Eventually he see's fireball and weapon and finds the top of the entry.
I drank fire today! It was like dirt to ash at first, since I was the 1 in 100 to get a non-fire affinity. But I did it! A fireball right across the edges of the trees, kissed the sky, fell to embers on the leaves. Father was proud, I'm the fourth girl to do so since they decided the women needed to fight. He doesn't think I'll need to. My cunt is my weapon, he says, and I will wear my blade well. If I didn't have three siblings I'd think he had no idea how fucking works. Shinobi rules say the stabbing partner wins. We travel all the time, anyhow, how is my cunt meant to use its magical stabbing powers here? It's misty and by the pallor of the men's skin they prefer fish fucking to woman fucking.
Sasuke frowns. The Uchiha have no record of ever settling in Kiri. Abruptly Sasuke recalls the twin swords hanging above Uncle Kagami's office at the KHPD. Sasuke always wanted a story from the man; Shisui's father and a man renowned around the world for his actions. Kagami was old when he was young, old enough that Shisui lived with his death for years before he died. Sasuke remembers him as kind, as never having enough time, as one of the few men his father spoke proudly of. They met twice, only one of which Sasuke can recall. Kagami was born at the beginning of Konoha's history, Kazue would never have known him. It's funny sometimes how other people tell your stories.
Kazue never gets into the details of what they do in the mist. Just that they didn't enjoy it and it will live in their souls forever. He wonders what happened to those swords.
The Land of Fire is our forever home now. Fire, fire, fire. The daimyo wants to talk to the Clan Head. His newborn son is called Kazuo, he has a younger twin called Tajima. Both are sick at the moment which is why the leader will not go. His wife is already dead. They call us blood eyes for this, because we won't put aside our babies to meet the whims of fat lords. All we see is our kin. There will be no demon blessed babies to kill their concubines if they get rid of us. No raven cursed devil men to rip out their hearts. They call us blood eyes because we kill too easily. They call us blood eyes because we won't let our kin die when they don't have to. Are we so awful?
Kazue argues with herself here. Are we awful? Are we awful? Are we awful? Somedays she agrees -when her cousin Haruto cuts Michiko to hobble her, to capture her- and other days she couldn't think higher of her clan. When they kill the Senju, when there's enough food for a feast, when a tiny baby comes into the world whole and healthy. Sometimes she speaks on the epics her elders kept, the stories of battles long past, and he feels it too. There's so much in his history that makes him proud, so much more he doesn't know. It does something to him to read these thoughts had over a century ago.
--
It takes nearly a week of Kakashi's tactical evasion travelling methods before the blood settles between them. Sasuke doesn't want to rush it, he can recognise when he fucks up and that was a fuck up by anyone's standard. He spends the week quiet and almost deferential. He suspects Kakashi knows that this is his way of apologising. The fight with Tobi set them back a fair way on their journey to understanding each other but of this is how things are going to be, Sasuke wants to at least try for neutral. They're travelling very slowly right now, taking the backways around a bunch of near city-states, laws unto themselves, that Sasuke hadn't frequented all that much as a missing-nin. Orochimaru prefered his own bolt holes and Giri maintains a pointed disinterest in civilian crime. The first not-city the stop in they stay right up against the edge of the shipping district. They find the first decent inn and book one room. On the way in Sasuke clocks enforcers, slavers, buyers. Their room overlooks a quiet bay filled with boats and murky water. Sasuke could probably pinpoint the exact nature of each evil, some he recognises from his days in Oto, but others are new. Kakashi dumps himself onto the bed and Sasuke unseals his sleeping bag. It won't be long in this place. Soon Konoha will send word and Kakashi will know how much longer they have to stay on the run.
Sasuke kicks open the roll of his sleeping bag. "Shisui liked that town."
"Hmm," Kakashi says absentmindedly. "I remember."
Kakashi is not absent minded. Sasuke narrows his eyes. "How did you know him?"
"Classified." Kakashi replies.
ANBU. Huh.There were a lot of Uchiha in ANBU.
Sasuke narrows his eyes more. "He liked their festivals."
"And their girls."
There's a fire-fast response to that. Something sarcastic. It falls apart in his throat. "Hn."
"There was also a boy in my team." Kakashi says uncomfortably. "He died in the war."
"...which one?"
"Obito."
"Obito, huh?" It has honestly never occurred to him that Kakashi knew fuck all about the Uchiha's. "That was the Senju kid."
"Excuse me?"
"Before all the Senju died off one of their half cousins or something had an affair with a Uchiha girl and she got pregnant. The mother and the kid were shunned by the clan, the mother died when the kid was four. Someone was meant to take him in but it never happened." Sasuke recalls. "Aunt Tomiko raged about it for years. Came up at every party."
"Why?"
"The girl was her sister. They never let her adopt the kid."
Aunt Tomiko was a small woman and she breathed enough fire to put all the dragons in the world to shame. Obito died long before Sasuke's father made his ascension but Aunt Tomiko's grief was a spectre among them until she passed a year before the massacre. He can't recall the features of her face just the stories that made up dinner table conversation between his parents. Most of his memories of his family are like that, anecdotal and barely there. Aunt Tomiko was wrong, his father said, because the ritual of the clan said so. Tomiko's own sister Noriko managed the archives and called their late sister's child an abomination. The third sister's name was struck from the records but with the childish determination that defined his childhood Sasuke found her and every struck down or missing Uchiha for ten years before the massacre. Hoshiko, mother of Obito, who died from a hereditary disease.
"The Senju and the Uchiha were never meant to mix." Sasuke muses. That's a refrain from his childhood. The Uchiha set their boundaries early.
"That's dangerous thinking." Kakashi says sharply.
"No, it's women's magic." Sasuke shrugs. "The women of the clan kept the archives and the medical work. We don't marry Hyuuga, Yamanaka, Karasu, Omori or Akimichi because the sharingan is less likely to be expressed. With the Nara, Kitabiyashi and Hatake it's dominant. In all families without an expressible ability it's neutral unless there's a catalyst." He can hear the Elders voice clear as day in his ear, he can hear too his mother's exasperation with it all. "You never mix with a Senju because the genetic quirk that allowed the expression of the Mokuton is something like a million to one, but within the Senju clan is one in fifty, and it always trumps the sharingan. Pretty much all elemental bloodlines do. Once a different bloodline gets into the clan it's pretty hard to get out."
"He had it though."
"Then he was exceptional."
Sasuke lets that lie, mostly because he doesn't care, but when he casts a glance over Kakashi's eyes are solemn and something close to desperate.
Kakashi covers his sharingan eye with his left hand. "Yes. He was."