[Konoha — Uchiha Sasuke's apartment, east district, rain on the roof, lanterns unlit, half past nine]
The knock at the door was Itachi's. Sasuke knew it was Itachi's because Itachi knocked the same way he did everything — twice, even, neither too hard nor too soft, the second knock following the first at a precise interval that suggested a man who had once been ANBU and would, in some buried part of himself, always be ANBU.
Sasuke didn't get up.
"It's open."
The door slid open. Itachi stepped in, shook the rain off his coat at the threshold the way their mother had taught them both, and slid the door closed behind him. He did not take off his shoes — he was not staying long enough to take off his shoes — and that small detail told Sasuke everything he needed to know about the next ten minutes.
"It's me," Sasuke said.
"It's you."
"Fourth."
"Fourth."
Itachi crossed the room and sat down across from him at the kitchen table, slow, the way a man sits when his back has been broken and reset more than once. He put his hands flat on the table between them. They were a medic's hands and a killer's hands and an older brother's hands and Sasuke had spent the better part of a decade trying to decide which set of hands he hated most, and was, lately, beginning to suspect the answer was none of them.
"The Hokage gave me the reasoning before they announced," Itachi said. "I asked. He let me."
"Tell me."
"You sure."
"Tell me."
Itachi exhaled. He did not look at the table. He looked at Sasuke's face, and he kept looking, the whole time he spoke, which was the part Sasuke hated and the part Sasuke needed.
"Reasoning, abridged: subject has experienced trauma sufficient to fracture identity formation. Subject's primary attachment figure was lost to circumstances subject was made to believe were the fault of the attachment figure. Subject's secondary attachment — village, peer group, sensei — is intact but insufficient. Subject possesses a kekkei genkai whose mature form is triggered by grief and sustained by hatred. Probability of villain trajectory: sixty-three percent."
Sasuke didn't move for a long time.
Then he said, quietly, "Sixty-three."
"Sixty-three."
"That's lower than I thought."
"Yeah." Itachi's voice was soft. "Me too."
Sasuke looked down at the tea cup. The tea had gone cold a long time ago. There was a little ring of darker brown around the inside of the cup at the waterline, the way old tea makes when it sits, and he stared at that ring for what felt like a year.
"The attachment figure," Sasuke said. "That's you."
"Yes."
"You're not lost."
"No."
"So sixty-three is wrong."
"Sixty-three was as of three years ago, Sasuke. The Card has been updating its files. I asked. It said the number, today, is twenty-nine."
Sasuke looked up. His eyes were wet, which was annoying, because he had not given them permission to be wet, and he had a long history of his eyes ignoring his permissions.
"Twenty-nine."
"Twenty-nine."
"Still on the list, though."
"Still on the list." Itachi's mouth did something that on another man would have been a smile. "Anija, you're a teenager with a sword. You'd be on a list somewhere no matter what we did."
Sasuke laughed. It came out wrong — sharp, half a sob, the kind of laugh that surprises the person making it — and he pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes and laughed again, and Itachi reached across the table and put one hand on the back of his neck the way their mother used to, firm and warm and exactly heavy enough.
He thought: don't take your hand away. Not yet. Aniki. Aniki you absolute idiot. You let me hate you for seven years and now you put your hand on my neck and I'm a kid again. I hate this. I love this. I hate that I love this.
The Sealing Card, somewhere above the village, pulsed.
[Konoha — village square, rain heavier now]
"Fourth place — Uchiha Sasuke."
The square reacted. Not loudly. Sasuke had been a known quantity in Konoha for a long time — the rookie of the year, the survivor, the brother of the boy who'd done the thing. The civilians had been bracing for this name without knowing they were bracing. The reaction was a long, slow exhale that moved through the crowd like a wave moves through a wheatfield.
"Reasoning summary: trauma-based identity instability, kekkei genkai sensitivity to grief, presence of recruiting actors actively monitoring subject. Current probability — twenty-nine percent. Trajectory: declining."
[Group Chat]
UzumakiNaruto: TWENTY NINE
UzumakiNaruto: DECLINING
UzumakiNaruto: YOU HEAR THAT TEME DECLINING
HarunoSakura: naruto shut up for one second
UzumakiNaruto: NO SAKURA-CHAN HE NEEDS TO HEAR IT
UzumakiNaruto: SASUKE YOU'RE DECLINING
UzumakiNaruto: IN THE VILLAIN SENSE
UzumakiNaruto: IN THE GOOD WAY
UchihaSasuke: dobe
UzumakiNaruto: TEME
UchihaSasuke: ...
UchihaSasuke: thanks.
UzumakiNaruto: WHAT
HarunoSakura: WHAT
KakashiSilverFang: ...
KakashiSilverFang: I'm going to need everyone to log a copy of that message, please.
UchihaItachi: Already saved.
UchihaSasuke: aniki
UchihaItachi: foolish little brother
UchihaSasuke: shut up
UchihaItachi: ok
[Konoha — village square, the rain easing]
The Card pulsed amber, then gold, then a deeper gold that was almost orange — a color it had not used before, a color the watching crowd would, in years to come, learn to dread.
"Third place — Shimura Danzo."
The square did not react.
The square had been waiting.
Somewhere on the west side of the village, in a sealed ROOT bunker behind a door inscribed with golden script that had not stopped glowing in three days, an old man with a bandaged arm and one bandaged eye finally stopped pacing, sat down behind his desk, and laced his fingers together.
He thought: so. We are here at last. Sarutobi, you sentimental old fool. You let it come to this.
The lock on the door clicked, very softly, one full turn.
Hiruzen Sarutobi, standing on the other side of the door in the rain with two ANBU at his shoulders and his pipe finally lit, exhaled smoke into the wet air and said, in a voice that had not been used in thirty years, "Open it."
◇ BONUS & SUPPORT ◇
◇ 1 bonus chapter for every 10 reviews — drop a comment!
◇ 1 bonus chapter for every 100 Power Stones.
◇ Read 70 chapters ahead on P@treon → patreon.com/Sagamaster789